“Trump ran on a promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine, raising concerns that he would force Kyiv to cede territory”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“Ukraine will not be able to return people to where they were before the invasion. Just because of the demographics,” Sen. Marco Rubio told lawmakers during a Jan. 15 Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination.
Trump ran on a promise to quickly end the nearly three-year-old war in Ukraine, raising concerns that he would force Kyiv to cede territory — at least temporarily — to Moscow. Currently, Russia controls about 20 percent of the territory of Ukraine.
According to American intelligence, since the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia has lost more than 700,000 soldiers wounded and killed. Ukraine also suffered losses, estimated at hundreds of thousands.
Rubio said Ukraine’s much smaller population compared to Russia meant it could not sustain such a loss in manpower.
“Ukraine is not running out of money, it is running out of people,” he said.
Read also: Callas: a solution to Ukraine cannot be reached without Ukraine
The senator from Florida also said that “concessions will have to be made both to the Russian Federation and to the Ukrainians.”
Rubio did not elaborate on potential concessions and said a peace deal would be difficult.
“This will not be an easy task … it will require bold diplomacy,” he said.
At the same time, as “Voice of America” writes, Jake Sullivan and Mike Waltz, the national security advisors of the current and next US presidents did not mention Russia’s war against Ukraine among the main challenges for US national security.
During a discussion in Washington on January 14, which symbolically marked the transfer of power from representatives of the Joe Biden administration, the president’s advisers outlined the main foreign policy challenges facing the United States in the transition phase.
Despite the friendly atmosphere, the discussion showed differences between the views of the main threats by representatives of different administrations. In particular, according to Sullivan, the main long-term security problem for the United States is China. Instead, National Security Advisor nominee Mike Waltz said that he sees the situation on the border with Mexico as the main challenge to national security.
During the election campaign, the newly elected president of the USA stated that he could end the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours after taking office. Now he says he will try to do it for six months.
Recently, the nominee of the future US President Donald Trump for the position of special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said that Trump “is not trying to give something to Putin or the Russians, he is actually trying to save the sovereignty of Ukraine.”
Ukrainian officials are concerned that any hastily arranged talks could allow Russia to hold on to territory it has captured in Ukraine and give Russian forces time to rebuild and reorganize.