Putin congratulates Trump on US election win, says ready to talk to President-elect

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US presidential election, commended him for his courage during a previous assassination attempt, and expressed Moscow’s willingness to engage in talks with the incoming Republican president.

“I would like to congratulate him on his election as president,” Reuters quoted Putin as saying at the Valdai discussion club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Putin’s congratulatory message came later than expected, following a cautious statement from the Kremlin on Wednesday.

The Kremlin had expressed that it would take time to assess whether Trump’s “actions” in office would align with his campaign vow to end the Ukraine war.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had made some significant statements about the Ukraine war, however, only time will tell whether they result in actual action.

“We will draw conclusions based on concrete steps and concrete words,” Peskov said on Wednesday.

Peskov said that this was about an “unfriendly country” which was engaged both directly and indirectly in a “war against our state”.

During his campaign, Trump claimed he could bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, although he provided little detail on how he would end the ongoing conflict, the largest land war in Europe since World War II.

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Putin said that Trump’s statement about resolving the Ukraine crisis deserved attention and emphasised that Russia was open to resuming dialogue if Trump sought to initiate talks.

Earlier at the event, Putin criticised Nato as a "blatant anachronism" and accused the US of dominating the alliance for global influence.

In a speech to a conference of Russian experts, Putin argued that the alliance operates under “the diktat of the older brother,” referring to the US.

He contrasted this with the BRICS nations, which held a summit in Russia last month, and which Putin described as an example of constructive global cooperation.

Putin condemned the US for seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine and said a struggle was underway to shape a new world order as the Western-dominated post-Cold War era crumbled.

“We have come to a dangerous line,” Reuters quoted Putin as saying, a day after learning that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election.

“The calls of the West to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a country with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrates the exorbitant adventurism of Western politicians,” said Putin.

The West had arrogantly sought to cast Russia as a defeated power after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, he said, describing the US-led Nato military alliance as an anachronism.

Russia, he said, did not consider Western civilisation to be the enemy despite attempts by the United States and its allies to isolate Moscow.

The world was changing in any case, he said, and many powerful countries did not want to isolate Russia.

“The former structure of the world is irrevocably disappearing, we can say it has already gone, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one,” Putin said.

“The world needs Russia, and no decisions by supposed superiors in Washington or Brussels can change that.”

With inputs from agencies