Head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund casts Trump win as reset opportunity

The influential head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election opened up new opportunities to reset relations between Moscow and Washington.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the Soviet Union and the US came close to nuclear war.

Russian and US diplomats say relations between the world's two largest nuclear powers have only been worse during the depths of the Cold War.

Kirill Dmitriev, who is CEO of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and has had contacts with the Trump team in the past, said Trump's team had won the presidency and the Senate “despite a large-scale disinformation campaign directed against them”.

“Their convincing victory shows ordinary Americans are tired of the unprecedented lies, incompetence and malice of the Biden administration,” Dmitriev said.

“This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the US.”

Trump claimed victory in the 2024 presidential contest after Fox News projected he had defeated Kamala Harris, which would cap a stunning political comeback four years after he left the White House.

Before the election, Russian officials from President Vladimir Putin down said it made no difference to Moscow who won the White House, though Kremlin-guided state media coverage showed a preference for Trump.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Trump's win would probably be bad news for Ukraine, but it was unclear how far Trump would be able to cut US financing for the war.

“Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on and stupid hanger-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations,” Medvedev, a senior security official, posted on his official Telegram account.

He said the Ukrainian authorities fell into the category of people Trump was likely to not want to spend too much money on and suggested the Ukrainian leadership would be doing what it could to console itself if it was confirmed he had won.

“The question is how much Trump will be forced to give to the war. He's stubborn, but the system is stronger.”

Reuters