Nine months after the start of the war in Ukraine, has the time for negotiations come? For several days many US officials have been pleading, sometimes off the microphone, for kyiv to start talks with Moscow. “Only President Zelensky can decide when and how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin,” John Kirby moderates this Wednesday on BFMTV.
In a duplex from the United States, on the sidelines of Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Washington, the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House insists that it is Volodymyr Zelensky “who must decide when, how and under what conditions they can be carried out carry out these negotiations”. carried out.
Joe Biden’s adviser stresses above all that Vladimir Putin “could stop this war right now.”
“If Mr. Putin decided to withdraw his troops, the war would be over and there would be no more Ukrainian deaths,” he says on our antenna.
In mid-November, kyiv listed its terms for negotiations with Moscow. Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration calls in particular for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the return of its territorial integrity.
US support “until the end”
On the sidelines of the G20 in Bali, the Russian foreign minister considered the Ukrainian conditions to start talks “unrealistic”.
At the same time, Mark Milley, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, clearly states that it will be “difficult” to expel Vladimir Putin’s army from the country. “The Russian army is really suffering,” he said.
“You have to negotiate when you are in a position of strength and your opponent is weak,” the general explains.
But Ukraine refusing to negotiate for the moment, the conflict should last for the next few months, despite the arrival of winter.
And “until the end” of the war, Washington’s support for kyiv will continue, says John Kirby. “What interests us is to ensure that [Volodymyr Zelensky] and his military have the necessary tools to win the battle on the ground,” said the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House.
Source: BFM TV
