Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision

The Kremlin has heaped praise on Donald Trump’s latest national security strategy, calling it an encouraging change of policy that largely aligns with Russian thinking.

The remarks follow the publication of a White House document on Friday that criticises the EU and says Europe is at risk of “civilisational erasure”, while making clear the US is keen to establish better relations with Russia.

“The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Sunday. He welcomed signals that the Trump administration was “in favour of dialogue and building good relations”. He warned, however, that the supposed US “deep state” could try to sabotage Trump’s vision.

It came as the White House’s efforts to push through a peace deal in Ukraine enter a key phase. US officials claim they are in the final stage of reaching an agreement, but there is little sign that either Ukraine or Russia is willing to sign the framework deal drawn up by Trump’s negotiating team.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will visit Downing Street on Monday for a four-way meeting with with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

Zelenskyy has previously called on European allies for support at times when the White House has tried to push Ukraine towards agreeing to give up territory. A key issue for Kyiv is what security guarantees it would receive if it does agree to renounce control of some territory.

Zelenskyy has said he had a “substantive phone call” with US officials on Saturday evening after they finished three days of talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. Those meetings followed a visit to Moscow by Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, earlier in the week. A source told Axios the call had lasted two hours and was “difficult”.

“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. He said the two sides had discussed “key points that could ensure an end to the bloodshed and eliminate the threat of a new Russian full-scale invasion”.

It is not clear that either the US or Europe are willing to offer the kind of security guarantees that would genuinely deter Russia from invading again. Nor is it likely that Vladimir Putin would agree to a deal that involved any western troops stationed in Ukraine.

US officials have claimed to be close to a sustainable deal on numerous occasions since Trump began his second term in office, only for the claims to be exposed as wishful thinking.

Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said at a defence forum on Saturday that the administration’s efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 metres”. He said there were two outstanding issues: territory and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Kellogg is seen as among the US officials most sympathetic to Kyiv’s position, but is due to leave his role in January and was present at the Florida talks. Many others in Trump’s orbit, including Witkoff, have been much more open to adopting Russian positions. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, said at a forum in Doha on Sunday that Zelenskyy was deliberately continuing the conflict for fear of losing power if it ended. He said the US would not be “the idiot with the chequebook” any longer.

Analysts in Kyiv say the situation is not yet so bad that Ukraine would be forced to sign any deal whatsoever simply to prevent a continuation of the war, but they say a difficult and potentially bleak winter lies ahead as Russia continues to target energy infrastructure, disrupting power and heating supplies for millions of Ukrainians.

Exhaustion is setting in as Ukraine enters the fourth winter of full-scale war, and Zelenskyy has been weakened by a corruption scandal that has touched numerous associates and led to the resignation of his powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

One person was killed during a drone attack in the northern Chernihiv region late on Saturday, according to local officials, and a combined attack of drones and missiles targeted energy infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk. It left much of the city without power and water on Sunday. It was the second consecutive night of attacks targeting energy, after more than 600 drones and 50 missiles were used on Friday night.