By Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas
(Reuters) – Decisive action by the United States could hasten the end of the Russia-Ukraine war next year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News his country was “closer to the end of the war.”
“Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a message on his Telegram messaging app after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Congress.
“Decisive action now could hasten the end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year.”
Zelenskiy is in the United States for the UN General Assembly. Later this week, he will travel to Washington to present his “victory plan” and influence White House policy on war, regardless of who wins the November 5 US election.
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – who says he will end the war within days if elected – claimed without evidence that Zelenskiy wants Democrats to win in November.
The presidential office in kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Zelenskiy has previously said he is ready to work with whoever occupies the White House.
In an interview with ABC News, Zelenskiy urged Washington and other partners to continue supporting Ukraine. Washington and its allies have provided a multibillion-dollar aid package to Ukraine while imposing several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.
“I think we are closer to peace than we think,” he said. “We are closer to the end of the war.”
PEACE PLAN
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, or “special military operation” as Moscow calls it, began in February 2022 and has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions more, and turned Ukrainian cities and towns into rubble.
The Ukrainian leader said in an interview with ABC that only a “strong position” would allow Ukraine to push Russian President Vladimir Putin “to stop the war.”
Zelenskiy has so far said little about his “victory plan,” except that it would serve as a “bridge” to a second Ukrainian-led peace summit that kyiv wants to host and to which Russia is invited later this year.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in New York on Monday that the plan included Ukraine’s accelerated membership in NATO, something Moscow says it will never tolerate.
Putin has said peace talks can only begin if kyiv cedes swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and abandons its ambitions for NATO membership. Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of post-Soviet Ukraine’s borders.
Russia controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory and is advancing eastward, taking control of a series of settlements with the aim of seizing the entire Donbass region.
In a bold move to regain the initiative, Ukrainian troops attacked Russia’s western Kursk region on August 6 and continue to occupy dozens of villages on Russian soil.
Zelenskiy told ABC News that the Kursk operation exposed the weakness of Putin’s position, even as the Russian military continues to advance toward its objectives in Donbass.
“He is very afraid,” he said. “Why? Because his people have seen that he cannot defend all his territory.”
Ukraine and the West believe that Russia is waging an imperialist-type war. Putin presented the invasion of Ukraine as a defensive measure against a hostile and aggressive West.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas; additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Simon Lewis; editing by Stephen Coates)
