Lavrov: The Trump team should take the first step to improve US-Russia relations

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country is willing to work with the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump if the United States really wants to improve relations with Russia, but stresses that it is up to Washington to make the first move.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Lavrov said: "If there are serious signals from the new team in Washington to resume the dialogue that was broken off after the start of special military operations (the war in Ukraine), we will of course respond to these signals."

"But it was the Americans who broke off the dialogue, so they should have acted first."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered the worst rupture in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Trump campaigned on a vow to quickly end the war in Ukraine, but has not laid out how to achieve that goal beyond getting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyk Zelensky to agree to end the fighting.

Last month it was reported that Putin was open to discussing a ceasefire deal in Ukraine with Trump, but ruled out any major territorial concessions and insisted Kiev must abandon its position on joining NATO.

Trump's designated special envoy for the conflict, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News on Dec. 18 that both sides were ready for peace talks and that Trump was in the strongest position to implement a deal to end the war.

Lavrov said Russia sees no point in a weak ceasefire to freeze the war and that Moscow wants a lasting, legally binding peace agreement to ensure the security of Russia and its neighbors.

"A truce is no way out... We need a fundamental legal agreement that sets out all the conditions to guarantee the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbors."

Putin has long accused the West, led by the United States, of arrogance and disregard for Russia's interests in the post-Soviet era. Moscow invaded the Crimean peninsula and eastern Ukraine in 2014 after mass protests toppled the Pro-Russian government and Kiev turned pro-Western. Russia launched an all-out offensive against Ukraine in 2022, and the war continues to this day.