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GENEVA: Russia is open to negotiations on an end to the Ukraine war if initiated by US President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva told reporters on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the scale of Western aid to Kyiv and has promised to end the conflict swiftly, without explaining how. His victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election has spurred concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals about the degree of future US commitment to helping Ukraine.
“Trump promised to settle the Ukrainian crisis overnight. OK, let him try. But we are realistic people of course we understand that this will never happen,” said Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
“But if he starts or suggests something to start the political process, it’s welcome.”
He added that any such negotiations needed to be based on what he called the “realities on the ground,” describing Ukraine as being on the back foot in the more-than-two-year conflict. Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in at least a year in Ukraine and now control about one-fifth of the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned. The “victory plan” he outlined last month maintained that provision, as well as an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, long denounced by Russia.
Zelensky told European leaders in Budapest last week that concessions to Russia would be “unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War, with President Joe Biden driving efforts to isolate Russia.
Gatilov indicated Trump’s election represented a new possibility for dialogue with the United States, but was doubtful about a broader reset of relations, echoing earlier caution voiced by the Kremlin.
“The US political elite regardless of domestic political shifts, (Washington) consistently pursues a stance of containing Moscow and this orientation is deeply-rooted unfortunately and the change of administration does little to alter it,” he said.
“The only shift (that) might be possible is dialogue between our countries, something that has been lacking during the last several years,” he added.

MANILA: The fifth major storm to hit the Philippines in a month made landfall on Thursday as authorities warned that it could cause widespread flooding in a country already struggling to deal with the impact of previous disasters.

Four other storms — Trami, Kong-rey, Yinxing and Toraji — that had struck the Philippines since late October killed at least 159 people, displaced millions and caused widespread destruction mainly in the country’s north, having triggered landslides and inundated entire towns with severe flooding.

The government was “on red alert status due to the threats” of Typhoon Usagi — locally known as Ofel — that hit the country’s most populous island of Luzon at about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Philippine Office of Civil Defense said.

Authorities were also bracing for yet another severe tropical storm, Man-yi, that was brewing in the Pacific and expected to hit the northern Philippines this weekend.

“Preemptive evacuation will be conducted starting today until Friday night in the Bicol region,” Cesar Idio, officer-in-charge at the Office of Civil Defense, said in a press briefing.

Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in Bicol, southern Luzon, when Tropical Storm Trami swept the region last month.

Typhoon Toraji blew away from the country’s north only two days ago after unleashing floods, knocking down power lines and forcing more than 42,000 people to evacuate their homes.

“National and local governments are still actively responding to the residual needs brought about by Kristine, Leon, Marce and Nika, while response operations for Ofel and preparations for Pepito are ongoing,” Idio added, using the local names of the recent storms.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has spent more than 1 billion pesos ($17 million) to aid typhoon-hit communities, the Presidential Communications Office said. The government has prepared about 2.2 billion pesos in funds and supplies this week for expected disaster response efforts.

Usagi had weakened and was downgraded from a super typhoon after it made landfall on Thursday, the national weather agency, PAGASA, said.

However, the agency warned that the typhoon still carried a “high risk of life-threatening storm surge” up to three meters in the low-lying and coastal provinces of Batanes, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte and Cagayan.

The Philippines is the country most at risk from natural disasters, according to the 2024 World Risk Report.

Every year, the Southeast Asian nation sees about 20 tropical storms and typhoons affecting millions of people, as the weather becomes more unpredictable and extreme due to the changing climate.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded, displaced millions of people and left more than 6,000 people dead or missing in the central Philippines.