By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Despite speaking for nearly three hours, Russia’s foreign minister didn’t give too much away at his annual press conference.

Sergei Lavrov took questions from an audience of both Russian and foreign media, but gave answers that frequently meandered away from what was asked, and he rarely addressed matters head-on.

On the key issue of Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the prospect of a peace deal in Ukraine, he said Russia would study the president-elect’s proposals.

But there were no specifics, and he didn’t address my question on how far Russia would be willing to go to reach an agreement, and what compromises it would be willing to make.

I think that’s for two reasons.

Firstly, Russia is in a bit of a holding pattern right now ahead of Trump’s inauguration. Like everyone else, it knows things will change dramatically once he takes office, but it doesn’t know exactly how, so all it can do is wait and see.

And secondly, I think he doesn’t want to weaken Russia’s negotiating position. Moscow believes it will have the upper hand in any negotiations, because it has the upper hand on the battlefield. 

And it believes Team Trump is coming round to their point of view, with Lavrov welcoming the fact the incoming administration had “started to mention the realities on the ground” more often.

But I think there will be concessions on both sides in the event of a deal, with Moscow’s position probably not as strong as it claims.

Russia continues to suffer frequent drone attacks; it still hasn’t repelled Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, more than five months after it started; the US has just unloaded its toughest sanctions yet on the all-important energy sector; and according to the UK, Moscow is racking up daily casualties of more than 1,500.

Given all that, Donald Trump may prove to have the strongest hand, should he manage to bring the two sides together.

‘Listen to the Greenlanders’

I also asked Mr Lavrov about Trump’s recent refusal to rule out using military force to acquire Greenland. I wanted to know how Russia would react if that were to happen. Could Moscow rule out using military force in the Arctic?

You would think that Russia’s foreign minister would be alarmed at Trump’s comments, given his nation’s extensive Arctic border. But apparently not. Instead, he talked about self-determination.

“First of all, we need to listen to the Greenlanders,” he replied, before attempting to draw parallels with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four regions in eastern Ukraine.

He was essentially using Trump’s expansionist world view to justify Russia’s own land grab.

And to me, it was a telling example of how countries like Russia may attempt to use Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to their advantage.