'No pressure works on Russia,' Kremlin envoy says as he praises Trump’s role in peace talks
Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev said Russia is in talks with members of Donald Trump’s administration team and stressed that any diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine must address Moscow’s interests.
"We'll be meeting with some members of the Trump administration team. I think it's very important we have dialogue because President Trump already has done a lot to solve lots of the world conflicts,” Dmitriev told Fox News on Oct. 25.
Moscow's envoy, who heads of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and has been a key figure in the Kremlin’s backchannel outreach to Washington, also dismissed the impact of new U.S. sanctions, arguing that "no pressure works on Russia."
On Oct. 22, Trump announced his administration’s first sanctions against Moscow since taking office, targeting Russia’s two largest oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil, along with their subsidiaries.
The sanctions freeze all U.S.-based assets of the companies and open the door to secondary penalties on foreign institutions that conduct transactions with entities on the blacklist.
"Frankly, we do not believe that these sanctions will have significant impact on the Russian economy because oil prices in the world will rise and Russia will sell just fewer gallons of oil at a higher price," Dmitriev said.
"For sure, a conflict in Ukraine will have a diplomatic solution. So we'll have a discussion how to move forward, how to make sure that Russian interests are taken into account, because only by taking Russian interests into account can the solution be found."
He praised Trump for "avoiding escalation to World War III" and claimed that he "achieved the first ceasefire on heat and energy infrastructure that we've had." He also said Trump "really understood Russian position."
Dmitriev contrasted Trump’s approach with former President Joe Biden’s, saying, "Biden tried to unsuccessfully defeat Russia strategically. His approach of sanction didn’t work… Last year, Russian economy grew four percent, whereas European and U.K. economy grew less than one percent."
Dmitriev also repeated Kremlin talking points about Ukraine’s neutrality and said that control over what he described as "territories with Russian population" must be resolved: "So really not that many issues on the table. And basically, by understanding how they can be resolved in a diplomatic manner, the solution can be found pretty shortly."
Dmytro Basmat
