Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Sunday praised US President Donald Trump for his ‘common sense’ with regard to ending the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which completed its third year late last month.

According to Anadolu Agency, in an interview with the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, a transcript of which was published by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov argued that the US still seeks to be the ‘first country in the world,’ and that Washington tried to do this by ‘subordinating everything and everyone to themselves’ under former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Lavrov commended Trump as a pragmatist, highlighting his slogan of common sense as a shift towards a different approach in politics. “But the goal is still MAGA (Make America Great Again). Now he has a new cap: ‘Everything that Donald Trump promised, he did.’ This gives a lively, human character to politics. That’s why it is interesting (to work) with him,” Lavrov stated.

Discussing a high-level meeting between American and Russian officials in Riyadh on February 18, Lavrov noted that both sides recognized their differences in world politics but found common ground for mutually beneficial actions.

Lavrov emphasized the importance of responsible powers preventing mismatches of interest from escalating into confrontation, citing this approach as similar to US-China relations. He also critiqued European policies over the past 500 years, claiming they were the origin of “all the tragedies of the world.”

Furthermore, Lavrov criticized the idea of deploying European peacekeepers to Ukraine, arguing it would not address the conflict’s root causes and would continue to provoke Kyiv against Russia.