““The fundamental question is whether Russia is ready to do it and whether it will do it in good faith””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“Ukrainians have to make fundamental decisions about continuing hostilities or finding ways to negotiate and try to achieve a ceasefire. The fundamental question is whether Russia is ready to do it and whether it will do it in good faith,” the state secretary said.
Blinken added that if Ukraine does go to negotiations, the Biden administration wants to make sure that the Ukrainians and the Trump administration have the “best trump cards” to make the strongest possible deal.
“This means trying to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, making sure that it has the money, that it has the ammunition and that it has the mobilized manpower to continue the fight. This means the continuation of maximum pressure on Russia, and Russia feels the burden of all this pressure, which we have exerted together with dozens of other countries over the past two and a half years,” the politician emphasized.
Read also: What might a peace plan for Ukraine look like?
Blinken assured that lasting peace requires guarantees that Russia is not going to simply “rest, rearm and attack again in a year, two years, five years.”
“If we get it, Ukraine will be on the way to success. This is a country that stands firmly on its feet as an independent country. She was not erased from the map. This is what Putin wanted to do. He did not succeed. It can stand firmly on its own feet in military, economic, and democratic terms. This is the best possible rebuke to Putin. And I know that President Trump will want to make a good deal in the future,” the US Secretary of State summed up.
The day before, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that next year Ukraine will do everything to “turn out to be strong and already move to diplomacy.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated during a press conference on December 19 that the Russian Federation is ready for “negotiations with Ukraine and compromises.”
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has repeatedly emphasized that Russia is not interested in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine and will sit down at the negotiating table only when it feels that it has achieved maximum concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty, “in particular, by removing the legitimate government of Ukraine and completely withdrawing from the conversation of Ukrainian representatives”.
Donald Trump’s inauguration will take place on January 20, 2025. Earlier, it was reported that representatives of the Biden administration fear that under the Trump administration, the supply of weapons to Ukraine will be significantly reduced or stopped, in order to push Kyiv into negotiations.