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Foreign minister Lavrov reveals what Donald Trump can do for Putin's Russia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during an interview with CBS News aired on January 23, 2024. — YouTube/CBS News

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that former US President Donald Trump would not help in improving bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow after he was elected to the White House in November 2024.

Speaking in an interview with CBS News aired Tuesday, Lavrov said that the US foreign policy and approach towards Russia did not change in the past decades and there is nothing Donald Trump can do about it even after his reelection as the President.

The election campaigns in the United States are in full swing with the Trump's Republican party holding primaries for finalising its presidential candidate. The 77-year-old former president has been the clear forerunner for his party's nomination.

During his campaign rallies, the business mogul has talked several times about his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The 73-year-old Lavrov claimed that Washington itself had "ruined its relations with Moscow by dismantling all the confidence-building mechanisms and eroding mutual trust."

Lavrov — who has been foreign minister of Russia since 2004 — pointed out a decision by former US President George W. Bush in which he pulled his country from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002.

The ABM was signed in 1972 by the then USSR and the US to limit the number of ballistic missile defense systems and ease the heated arms race between the two during the Cold War days.

"Washington has since shattered the foundations of bilateral relations with Russia by terminating all agreements on strategic stability, parity, mutual trust, inspections, and transparency," Lavrov added during the interview.

While highlighting a decision by Trump, he said the four-time-indicted former president was also the one who dismantled one of the few remaining arms control treaties — the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF), which was aimed to ban the two nations from having any ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

The US pulled out of INF unilaterally under the Donald Trump administration in 2019, with Russia retaliating with the same spirit.

The US is still too obsessed with its own perceived superiority and impunity to change its approach to relations with Moscow, claimed the Russian minister.

He added that the leaders in the US had ignored the huge amount of goodwill shown by Vladimir Putin during his first two terms while mentioning "American politicians apparently sought to keep the Russian president in their pocket."

The top Russian diplomat also noted that the US had miscalculated everything and the current generation of US politicians had not learned a “single lesson” from the mistakes of their predecessors.

On several occasions, including the election campaigns, the first-ever criminally-charged former president claimed that he could end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — that commenced in February 2022 — and Israel and Hamas — that started last year on October 7. 

Trump has also been claiming that he can convince both Putin and President Zelensky as he knows them both well.