You can't end the Ukraine war in one day - Russia tells TRUMP

Tuesday, July 02, 2024 - Russia has told US presidential candidate, Donald Trump that he can't end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day.

Trump has said repeatedly he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day if he’s elected president again.

At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he keeps repeating the claim on the campaign trail.

During last week’s debate with President Joe Biden, Trump claimed, “If we had a real president, a president that knew — that was respected by Putin ... he would have never invaded Ukraine.”

But Russia’s United Nations ambassador says he can’t end the war in one day.

Vassily Nebenzia told reporters Monday that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”

Nebenzia said the war could have ended in April 2022 in Istanbul when Russia and Ukraine were “very close” to an agreement. Moscow invaded its neighbour two months earlier on Feb. 24, 2022, though Russia insists its “special military operation” began in 2014 after clashes in Ukraine’s east resulted in Moscow seizing the Crimea Peninsula.

The Russian ambassador blamed Ukraine’s Western backers for blocking the April 2022 peace deal and telling Kyiv to keep fighting Russia.

 "Zelenskyy is running around with his so-called peace plan which, of course, is not a peace plan but a joke.”

Nebenzia called Zelenskyy’s peace formula “a nonstarter” and said he needs to be “realistic” and take into account what’s happened since April.

The more difficult the situation becomes for Ukraine on the ground, he warned, the more difficult diplomacy will become to end the war.

While meeting in Switzerland last month, nearly 80 countries called for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end the war. But some key developing nations did not join in and Russia did not attend the conference.

Nebenzia pointed to Putin’s offer on June 14 to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv begins withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounces plans to join NATO.

Zelenskyy has vowed not to give up any territory, rejecting what he calls an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more land.