The Russian Foreign Minister: We are ready to engage in discussions with the Trump administration.

In a press conference on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that the Russian government is ready to communicate and engage in discussions to end the war with Ukraine with the elected U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, as soon as he is inaugurated on January 20.

Lavrov added that the ball is now in the other court, and the Russian Foreign Minister affirmed that his government will not make any guesses or predictions regarding the discussions with Trump or his potential decisions.

Lavrov stated that the Russian government will base its judgment on those issues on specific cases, and the minister reiterated that Russia has never refused to negotiate a peace agreement with Ukraine, expressing his country's readiness and desire to end the war.

The foreign minister also confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly invited his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to lift the ban on negotiations with Putin's regime in order to reach an agreement and put an end to the war between the two countries, but he noted that Zelensky has shown no willingness to do so.