The Russian Foreign Ministry noted Trump’s comments about ending the war and Vance saying the US needs to focus on China
July 18, 2024
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said she noted comments from former President Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance about ending the war in Ukraine but said Moscow needed to be “realistic” about the prospect.
“We saw the statements — Trump said he would resolve the conflict within 24 hours, then Vance said that China is a bigger problem for the United States than the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” she said, according to Reuters.
“It’s necessary to separate pre-election rhetoric from statements by government officials vested with the appropriate powers. If we talk about whether it’s possible to resolve the conflict, let’s be realistic,” she added.
Zakharova pointed out that during the previous Trump administration, the president and some of his advisors made statements about bringing peace to the Middle East. “They prepared for the ‘deal of the century’ for quite a long time, but it did not end in anything, and under Biden, on the contrary, a colossal historical tragedy happened,” she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also noted Trump’s comments about ending the war in Ukraine and said he took them “seriously” but said he’s not familiar with any concrete proposals put forward by the former president.
In an interview with The New York Times last month, Vance outlined some ideas for a potential peace plan. “What I would like to do … is you freeze the territorial lines somewhere close to where they are right now. That’s number one. Number two is you guarantee both Kyiv’s independence but also its neutrality. It’s the fundamental thing the Russians have asked from the beginning,” he said. “And then three, there’s going to have to be some American security assistance over the long term. I think those three things are certainly achievable, yes.”
Vance wants the US to wind down its support for Ukraine so it could focus more on building up in the Asia Pacific and arming Taiwan. “The thing that we can control now is making it costly for [China] to invade Taiwan, and we’re not doing that because we’re sending all the damn weapons to Ukraine and not Taiwan,” he told the Times.
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