Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the war with Russia may end sooner than some people think.
“I think we are closer to peace than we think,” he told American broadcaster ABC News.
He added that Ukraine could push Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict, but only if Kyiv takes a “strong position” – and calls on its Western allies to strengthen Ukraine’s military.
The president of Ukraine is in the US this week to address the United Nations General Assembly and to present what he called a “victory plan” to his Western allies, including US President Joe Biden.
In a statement ahead of the trip, Zelensky said the plan included handing over weapons, efforts to force Russia to agree to peace, and holding Moscow accountable for a full-scale attack in 2022.
In his interview with ABC News, Zelensky said his victory plan was not to negotiate with Russia, but rather “a bridge to a way of communication, to stop the war”.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was monitoring media reports about the Ukrainian initiative and added that the conflict would end only when Russia’s goals were met.
Zelensky has been asking the West for some time to allow Ukraine to reduce restrictions on the use of long-range missiles that can be used to strike deep into Russia. He is expected to do this again this week as he is visiting America.
On Sunday, Biden said he had not yet decided whether to give the green light to Ukraine. Zelensky said the US would need to lead the decision: “Everyone is looking up.” [Biden]and we need this to protect ourselves,” he told ABC.
Zelensky will address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and is expected to meet with US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, told the New York Times that Ukraine will have to be “realistic” about its hopes to restore the eastern parts of the country that Russia was able to gain in the last 31 months. .
He added that the most likely outcome of the war is that part of Ukraine’s territory will remain under Russia for several years.
The defeat of Ukraine or Russia “will not happen”, Pavel told the Times, adding that the end of the conflict would be “somewhere in the middle”.
Zelensky’s trip to America comes as Ukraine continues to be attacked by Russia.
Ukraine’s military offensive in Russia’s Kursk region in August failed to ease Moscow’s pressure on eastern Ukraine.
Several regions continue to see daily casualties and widespread damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. There are concerns that Russia may seize many important cities in the east of the country.
In an attack on Tuesday afternoon, Russia attacked an apartment building in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
At least three people were killed and 15 injured in the attack, which local authorities said was carried out by aerial bombs.
On Monday night, an attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava destroyed infrastructure, while in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia one person was killed and six others were injured following “air strikes”.
Russian troops have made major advances in the east and are approaching Vuhledar – a town on the southern Donbas front line that the Russians have been trying to capture since the beginning of their full offensive.
Ukrainian military expert and retired colonel Kostyantyn Mashovets warned Ukrainians that they should be “mentally prepared” to lose Selydove, Toretsk and Vuhledar in the eastern Donbas region.
“I would like to make a mistake,” he wrote on Facebook.
“But from the information I have… this is a possible scenario of events in the near future.”
Source link
