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The Kremlin has said the extraordinary spat in the White House between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy proved Ukraine’s president is the chief obstacle to ending the war.
Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said on Monday Zelenskyy had shown he “doesn’t want peace [but] wants the war to continue”, according to Interfax.
Peskov accused Zelenskyy of having “no diplomatic abilities whatsoever” and “refusing to accept the realities on the ground”, where Russia has gained the upper hand against Ukraine’s outmanned, outgunned army. “Only a blind man could fail to see that,” he said.
The disastrous White House meeting last Friday has led the White House to threaten to withdraw US support for Ukraine at one of the most vulnerable moments for Kyiv during the war.
Even before Trump kicked the Ukrainian delegation out of the White House, the US had already moved to normalise relations with Putin, appeared to adopt many of Russia’s key positions on the war, and pushed for Zelenskyy to be removed from office.
Peskov said Putin “knew all the nuances” following the incident, which he said confirmed the Russian president’s insistence that “for all Russia’s openness to the negotiating process, these good intentions run into the Kyiv’s regime’s lack of desire to support it.”
Asked about Trump’s claim to have spoken with Putin multiple times, Peskov said the two leaders had not had “any contacts that needed to be made public”.
Peskov said Russia would continue to work on normalising diplomatic ties with the US while continuing fighting in Ukraine “to reach all the goals that were set at the very beginning”.
The UK and France led attempts to rally western support for Ukraine at a summit in London on Sunday. But cracks quickly appeared over French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal for an initial one-month ceasefire and Zelenskyy’s reluctance to stop fighting without security guarantees.
“The collective west has partially ceased to be collective, and the fragmentation of the collective west has begun,” Peskov said.
Asked if European countries could help mediate the conflict, Peskov said Russia would welcome “any constructive support”.
“Someone will clearly have to make considerable efforts at dialogue with Washington to smooth over the unpleasant fallout,” he said. “Obviously that won’t be easy [ . . . ] Someone has to make Zelenskyy want peace. If the Europeans can do that, then more power to them.”
Russia has ruled out any role for European peacekeepers in a post-conflict settlement and dismissed efforts to step up European military support for Ukraine.
“This clearly isn’t for the peace plan, but to keep fighting,” he said. “The rest will all depend on what peace plans will be put forward.”
Peskov said Russia would respond with “very serious lawsuits and legal consequences” if European countries took up Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s proposal to confiscate frozen Russian assets and give them to Ukraine.
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