Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the US to provide more funding to help his forces counter Russia, and invited former US president Donald Trump to fly in to see the scale of the conflict for himself.
Mr Zelenskiy said American soldiers could eventually be pulled into a greater European conflict with Russia if Washington did not step up support.
“If Russia will kill all of us, they will attack Nato countries and you will send your sons and daughters [to fight],” Mr Zelenskiy said according to a transcript of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press airing on Sunday.
Current US president Joe Biden, has pressed US congress to pass a $106 billion supplemental spending bill, with the bulk of the money going to bolster Ukraine’s defences and the remainder split among Israel, the Indo-Pacific and border enforcement.
The Republican-led US house of representatives has instead put forward its own funding plan. It passed a bill last week to provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel, but did not include any increase in aid for Ukraine.
Mr Zelenskiy invited Mr Trump to visit Ukraine and see the fallout of the conflict initiated by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in February 2022.
Mr Trump, who is seeking re-election in 2024 and is the leading candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, has been sharply critical of US support for Kyiv and has said he could end the war in 24 hours if re-elected.
“If he can come here, I will need ... 24 minutes to explain to president Trump that he can’t manage this war,” Mr Zelenskiy said. “He can’t bring peace because of Putin.”
Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskiy has denied a suggestion from the Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief that the war with Russia has reached a stalemate, and a senior spokesperson for his administration has rebuked the general in question and accused him of making “the aggressor’s job easier”.
Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi had offered his blunt assessment of the situation in an interview published last week. “Just like in the first World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he told the Economist, adding: “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
Mr Zaluzhnyi said the war had entered a phase of attritional fighting in which neither side would make much progress unless there was a technological breakthrough. He also suggested that Russia was slowly getting the upper hand thanks to its superior numbers.
The general said he had underestimated Mr Putin’s willingness to sacrifice his own soldiers, saying at least 150,000 had been killed so far.
Prolonged fighting had put Ukraine at a disadvantage, he admitted. “This will benefit Russia, allowing it to rebuild its military power, eventually threatening Ukraine’s armed forces and the state itself.”
On Saturday, Mr Zelenskiy denied the war was at a stalemate and said more work with allies was needed to strengthen air defences.
“Today time has passed and people are tired, but this is not a stalemate,” he said during a news conference with the visiting European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. “Russia controls the skies. We care about our military.”
Mr Zelenskiy acknowledged there had been difficulties in the war, which is in its 21st month, and he conceded that Kyiv had yet to achieve any major successes in its counteroffensive.
But he said Ukrainian troops had no alternative but to keep fighting and needed more support from western allies, especially with air defences.
Ukrainian forces have made slow progress through vast Russian minefields in a counteroffensive that began in the east and south in early June, but Russia has hit back hard in the east.
The Kremlin has also taken issue with Mr Zaluzhnyi’s assessment of the state of the conflict. Asked by reporters on Thursday whether Mr Zaluzhnyi was right that the conflict was moving towards an impasse, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “No, it has not reached a stalemate.”
He said it was “absurd” for Kyiv to talk about a possible Ukrainian victory on the battlefield. “The sooner the Kyiv regime understands this for itself, the sooner some prospects will open up,” Mr Peskov added. – Reuters/Guardian