He can end Russia-Ukraine war in one day: Trump

UNITED NATIONS: Donald Trump has said repeatedly he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day if he’s elected president again. Russia’s United Nations ambassador says he can’t.

When asked to respond to the claim from the presumptive Republican nominee, Vassily Nebenzia told reporters Monday that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”

At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done—I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he keeps repeating the claim on the campaign trail.

During last week’s debate with President Joe Biden, Trump claimed, “If we had a real president, a president that knew—that was respected by Putin—he would have never invaded Ukraine.”

Nebenzia said the war could have ended in April 2022 in Istanbul, when Russia and Ukraine were “very close” to an agreement. Moscow invaded its neighbour two months earlier, on Feb. 24, 2022, though Russia insists its “special military operation” began in 2014 after clashes in Ukraine’s east resulted in Moscow seizing the Crimea Peninsula.

The Russian ambassador blamed Ukraine’s Western backers for blocking the April 2022 peace deal and telling Kyiv to keep fighting Russia.

Now, he said, Zelenskyy “is running around with his so-called peace plan, which, of course, is not a peace plan but a joke.”

While meeting in Switzerland last month, nearly 80 countries called for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end the war. But some key developing nations did not join in and Russia did not attend the conference.

Nebenzia pointed to Putin’s offer on June 14 to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv begins withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounces plans to join NATO.

Zelenskyy, who has vowed not to give up any territory, rejected what he called an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more land.

The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment about Nebenzia’s remarks.