Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Russians not to get carried away with what US President Donald Trump's administration is doing regarding Ukraine, even though its actions may sometimes look promising for Moscow, and to always be prepared for the worst, Reuters reports.
Washington suspended military aid to Ukraine and put intelligence sharing on hold after Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met in the Oval Office last month, and Moscow's forces have since made significant progress in driving Ukrainian forces out of Russia's western Kursk region.
Senior Russian politicians reacted with glee to what they saw as Zelensky's humiliation at the White House, arguing that the Ukrainian leader got what he deserved in a meeting that was useful to Moscow at a time when it is trying to build relations with the new Trump administration while simultaneously trying to discredit Zelensky.
Trump adviser Elon Musk also caused a stir in Russia on Sunday when he said on the X network that the entire Ukrainian front would fall if he turned off his Starlink communications terminals, although he later said he would never do so.
“Don’t rush to put on rose-colored glasses,” Peskov told an audience at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, sending a warning to Russians who were excited by Trump’s apparently friendlier behavior toward them, which completely reversed the policies of the previous US administration.
"We must always hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. And we must always be ready to defend our interests," Peskov said.
His warning came as U.S. and Ukrainian officials held talks in Saudi Arabia, designed in part to determine whether Ukraine was willing to make material concessions to Russia to end the war. If the talks are successful, Kiev hopes Trump will restore military aid and full intelligence sharing.
Peskov said that Russia is achieving its goals on the battlefield in Ukraine, regardless of any past or future decisions made by the US administration.
"Many (Russians) are now... saying that the Americans will stop supplying weapons (to Ukraine) or have already stopped, and that Musk will now turn off his communication system and everything will work for us," Peskov said.
"(But) everything works for us without those things. And so much weaponry has been brought to Ukraine that the Ukrainians will have something to fight with and something to fight for for many, many months to come."
"If Musk shuts down his system, something else will immediately come on. But things are working for our people (fighting in Ukraine) without any shutdowns, without any disruptions (in deliveries), and they are making progress," he said.
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