The Ukrainian leader earlier suggested that Washington is under Moscow’s influence
US Vice President J.D. Vance has accused Vladimir Zelensky of making “absurd” statements, after the Ukrainian leader suggested that Washington is on Russia’s side in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Zelensky claimed that “Russian narratives are prevailing in the US” and that Moscow has “enormous influence” on the administration of US President Donald Trump and its policies.
Responding in a conversation with the UnHerd outlet published on Tuesday, Vance described Zelensky’s remarks as “certainly not productive.”
“I think it is sort of absurd for Zelensky to tell the [US] government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians,” he stressed.
“If you want to end the conflict, you have to try to understand where both the Russians and the Ukrainians see their strategic objectives,” Vance added.
“That does not mean you morally support the Russian cause, or that you support the full-scale invasion, but you do have to try to understand what are their strategic red lines, in the same way that you have to try to understand what the Ukrainians are trying to get out of the conflict,” he said.
Members of the Trump administration “are not on anybody’s side. We are on America’s side,” Vance insisted.
Trump and Vance publicly clashed with Zelensky during his visit to the White House in late February, accusing the Ukrainian leader of disrespect toward the US, failing to appreciate American aid, and not being interested in achieving peace with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Kommersant newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday that Moscow appreciates that “the Trump administration is trying to get to the bottom of the issue and, most importantly, understand the root cause” of the Ukraine conflict.
Lavrov also noted that Trump “has repeatedly said that the colossal mistake which led to the current events in Ukraine was the Biden administration’s decision to drag Ukraine into NATO.”
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Ukrainian neutrality remains one of Moscow’s key demands for a settlement of the conflict, along with the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and recognition by Kiev that Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions are part of Russia.
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