Kremlin talks up US trade potentials after landmark UN vote in Russia’s favour

The Kremlin on Tuesday praised Washington's "balanced position" after the US voted with Russia at the United Nations to avoid condemnation of Moscow's campaign against Ukraine in a seismic policy shift.

In the wake of the vote, the Kremlin also sees potential for cooperation with Washington on developing Russia's large reserves of strategically important rare and rare earth minerals in areas including those forcibly taken from Ukraine during the three-year war.

The United States sided with Russia in two votes in New York on Monday as US president Donald Trump stakes out a drastically new position on Ukraine.

"The US is taking a much more balanced position which is really aimed at trying to resolve the Ukraine conflict. We welcome this," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said comments from European leaders "do not signal balance", adding: "But, perhaps, as a result of contacts between the Europeans and the Americans, somehow Europe will gravitate towards greater balance".

On the third anniversary of Russia's offensive in Ukraine, Washington and Moscow aligned first at a Monday morning vote at the General Assembly and again at an afternoon vote of the Security Council.

A European-backed text got 93 votes for at the General Assembly and 18 votes against, with 65 abstentions.

Washington sided with Moscow and Russian allies Belarus, North Korea and Sudan to vote against the text.

The resolution -- which won far less support compared to previous ones on the war -- strongly criticises Russia, and emphasises Ukraine's territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders.

Washington drafted a rival resolution amid an intensifying feud between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But Ukraine's European allies pushed to heavily reword the US text to say that the "full-scale invasion of Ukraine" had been carried out by Russia, meaning Washington ultimately did not vote in favour of its own text.

Undeterred, the United States brought the earlier, unchanged text to a vote at the Security Council in the afternoon, securing its passage with 10 votes for and none against -- alongside five abstentions.

The abstentions were France, Britain, Denmark, Greece, and Slovenia.

Mineral trade opportunities with US

The Kremlin said Tuesday that it sees potential for cooperation with the United States on developing Russia's large reserves of strategically important rare and rare earth minerals.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday evening in a televised interview said that Russia is a world leader in terms of reserves and "needs to do more" with them.

He said Russia is ready to work with "foreign partners including Americans" to develop such reserves in Russia and its "new territories", referring to areas it has occupied in Ukraine through its military offensive.

"Quite broad prospects are opening up here," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Tuesday, adding: "the Americans need rare earth minerals. We have a lot of them."

Critical minerals including rare earth elements are increasingly important given their use in clean energy technologies like batteries for electric cars.

US President Donald Trump is pushing for Ukraine to sign a deal giving it privileged access to its reserves of valuable minerals such as titanium and lithium.

But Russia has also seized on the topic with Putin holding a meeting with his cabinet Monday evening to discuss developing the sector.

Russia has occupied territory in east and south Ukraine with large deposits of lithium and other minerals.

The Kremlin spokesman said that Russia was ready for such deal "when the moment of political will comes for this".

But Peskov cautioned that Russia still needs time to rebuild its relations with the United States, which has imposed heavy sanctions on its economy over the Ukraine conflict.

"In order to say we trust the Americans, we will have to take a serious journey... we will have to take very many small steps towards each other, which will facilitate restoration of trust," he said.

"A lot was damaged. This cannot be restored overnight."