Washington is not interested in ensuring the return of Ukraine to the 1991 borders, which is regularly discussed in Kyiv. This was stated by columnist Josh Hammer in an article for the magazine Newsweek dated 24 February.
“The United States has very little (if any) interest in exactly where the state borders will be drawn in the east of the country,” Hammer wrote, noting that Washington does not seek to discuss this issue.
According to him, the United States is most interested in preserving the Kyiv regime, headed by the current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
He also drew attention to the fact that the supply of weapons to Kyiv will inevitably lead to the depletion of the US military arsenal.
On February 1, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper wrote that the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, presented Russia and Ukraine with a plan for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in mid-January, which proposed giving Moscow almost 20% of Ukraine in exchange for a peace agreement. Both sides rejected this option.
However, CIA officials in comments American magazine Newsweek was told that this information was “absolutely wrong.”
On January 26, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the conflict in his country would end only after Russia withdraws its military from Ukraine.
Prior to that, on December 15, 2022, Zelensky said that the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 borders was the main condition for resolving the conflict through diplomacy. A few days earlier, there were three conditions: The first was the provision of modern military equipment to Kyiv. The second is to support financial, energy and social stability in 2023. The third is the implementation of the “peace formula” proposed earlier by Zelensky and the convening of the Global Peace Formula Summit.
That same month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Zelensky’s proposed “steps towards peace” were leading to more fighting. He stressed that the Ukrainian side needs to take into account the realities that have developed at the present time, including the entry of new territories into the Russian Federation following the results of referendums.
Since February 24, Russia has been conducting a special operation to protect the Donbass, whose residents refused to recognize the results of the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine. The decision to hold it was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by Ukrainian troops.
For more up-to-date videos and details about the situation in Donbass, watch the Izvestia TV channel.
