MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday (Mar 31), after United States President Donald Trump said he was “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin, that the US and Russia were working on ideas around a possible peace settlement in Ukraine and on building bilateral ties.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday he was very angry after the Russian president last week criticised the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, the television network reported.
Trump said he would be forced to impose secondary tariffs of 25 per cent to 50 per cent on buyers of Russian oil if he felt Moscow was blocking his efforts to end the war in Ukraine. China and India are big buyers of Russian oil.
Asked about Trump’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was continuing to work with Washington and that Putin remained open to contacts with Trump.
A call between Trump and Putin could be set up at short notice if necessary, though no call was scheduled for this week, he said.
“We are continuing to work with the American side, first of all, to build our bilateral relations, which were badly damaged during the previous administration,” Peskov said.
“And we are also working on the implementation of some ideas related to the Ukrainian settlement. This work is underway, but so far there are no specifics that we could or should tell you about. This is a time-consuming process, probably due to its complexity.”
