(MENAFN) Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, stated that the West has started to recognize that attempting to defeat Russia by leveraging Ukraine as a pawn is “impossible.”

In an interview with a news agency, Nebenzia remarked that the current hostilities “isn’t so much with Ukraine as with the West itself,” emphasizing that, for Western nations, Kiev functions merely as “a tool with which they are trying to defeat Russia.”

Moscow has consistently portrayed the conflict in Ukraine as effectively a NATO-backed proxy war aimed at undermining Russia’s security, particularly after years of the alliance’s eastward enlargement.

In recent times, multiple Western supporters of Kiev have openly advocated for a “strategic defeat” to be imposed on Moscow.

Nebenzia, however, observed that such declarations have become less common in Western political centers, which he suggested signals an emerging awareness that defeating Russia is “impossible.”

He further argued that Kiev’s and its allies’ appeals for a ceasefire reveal their “dire” circumstances on the battlefield, along with an escalating shortage of personnel.

The diplomat described these calls as a strategy to “take a breather,” supply Ukraine with weapons, and rebuild its forces before resuming the conflict “with renewed vigor.”

“A simple ceasefire and a freeze on the line of contact won’t resolve the very reason this conflict began,” Nebenzia concluded.

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