(MENAFN- Live Mint) Former US President Donald trump frequently claimed that if he is elected president again, he could resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in just one day. However, Russia's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, asserted that the Ukrainian crisis cannot be settled in 24 hours.
“Russians and Ukrainians are dying. I want them to stop dying. And I'll have that done - I'll have that done in 24 hours,” Trump had said at a CNN town hall in May 2023. He kept repeating the claim on the US presidential campaign trail.
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During last week's debate with President Joe Biden , Trump claimed that Vladimir Putin would have never invaded Ukraine if the United States had a real President respected by the Russian counterpart.
“If we had a real president, a president that knew - that was respected by Putin ... he would have never invaded Ukraine,” Trump had claimed as quoted by AP.
Nebenzia mentioned that the war could have concluded in April 2022 during the Istanbul talks when Russia and Ukraine were "very close" to reaching an agreement.
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Moscow had invaded Ukraine two months earlier, on 24 February 2022, although Russia maintains that its "special military operation" started in 2014 following conflicts in eastern Ukraine that led to Moscow's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
The Russian ambassador accused Ukraine's Western allies of obstructing the April 2022 peace agreement and urging Kyiv to continue its fight against Russia.
He remarked that Zelenskyy is now "running around with his so-called peace plan, which is not a peace plan but a joke." At a meeting in Switzerland last month, nearly 80 countries supported the idea that Ukraine's "territorial integrity" should be the foundation for any peace agreement to end the war.
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However, some significant developing nations did not endorse this, and Russia did not attend the conference. Nebenzia highlighted Putin's June 14 offer to "immediately" order a cease-fire in Ukraine and commence negotiations if Kyiv withdraws its troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and abandons plans to join NATO .
After Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces managed to halt their advance towards the capital. The primary battles have been concentrated in Ukraine's south and east, where Moscow unlawfully annexed four regions, though it does not fully control any of them.
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Ukraine is still grappling to stabilize sections of its front line, largely due to the delayed arrival of critical military aid from the United States, which was only approved in April after several months. Russia exploited this shortage of Ukrainian weapons to launch an offensive, making significant gains.
Nebenzia dismissed Zelenskyy 's peace proposal as "a nonstarter," urging him to be "realistic" and consider the developments since April. He cautioned that as Ukraine's situation on the ground worsens, achieving a diplomatic resolution to end the war will become increasingly challenging.
(With AP inputs)
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