The outgoing US administration’s policies are “risky, even self-destructive,” according to Russian deputy FM Sergey Ryabkov

FILE PHOTO: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov delivers a speech. ©  Evgeny Biyatov

The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is doing everything to make sure that President-elect Donald Trump will not be able to facilitate peace in the Ukraine conflict once he returns to the White House in January, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said.

The policy currently pursued by the White House is “quite risky, even self-destructive,” Ryabkov told RT in an exclusive interview on Saturday. “We caution them against it,” the diplomat added.

He was referring to the permission given by Washington to Kiev to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory with American-made weapons, and an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, which happened after Biden’s loss to Trump in November’s election.

”The outgoing US administration demonstrates a unique capability of doubling down and destroying the chances of its successor,” Trump, of fulfilling his campaign promise of swiftly finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, the deputy FM stressed.

 

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 Putin challenges West to ‘technological duel’ with Oreshnik

There have been several strikes with US- and UK-supplied missiles on internationally recognized Russian territory in recent weeks, with the deadliest coming on Friday as five people were killed and twelve others wounded after the Kiev forces targeted the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk Region with an American HIMARS system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last month that Russia will respond to all such attacks and could go as far as using “weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”

Ryabkov also commented on various ideas voiced in the West about how peace between Russia and Ukraine could look, saying that Moscow is considering them, but views them as “informal.”

“They are a way to probe our position, but that is absolutely unnecessary as the President has repeatedly laid it out in full,” he explained.

READ MORE: Putin names conditions for talks with Zelensky

Speaking at his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin reiterated that Moscow remains open to negotiating with Kiev without any preconditions, except those that had already been agreed upon in Istanbul in 2022, which envisaged a neutral, non-aligned status for Ukraine, as well as certain restrictions on deploying foreign weaponry. He also noted that such talks would have to respect the realities on the ground that have developed since that time.