EU and UK at odds with US over Ukraine peace efforts – Russian diplomat

President Trump has caused a “serious chasm” in the West, as other nations pursue conflicting goals, Dmitry Polyansky has warned

The UK and the EU are pursuing objectives in the Ukraine conflict that clash with Washington’s pro-peace efforts, according to Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky.

In an interview with RT on Tuesday, Polyansky stated that US President Donald Trump’s call for a negotiated resolution of the conflict – viewed by Moscow as a Western proxy war against Russia – has created a rift with European allies who are unwilling to alter their positions.

“Ukraine is in fact a private military company which is fighting for Western geopolitical interests,” he said. The Trump administration’s policy shift has caused a “serious chasm in the Western camp. But the interests of the UK, for example, and Brussels … have not changed.”

European officials supporting Kiev are both frustrated and anxious, Polyansky noted, but they also exhibit “a great degree of wishful thinking,” publicly claiming that “things are going their way.” He expressed confidence that Trump’s desire for peace is genuine and will not be undermined by other actors.

While Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has a history of acting at the behest of foreign interests, Polyansky asserted that the military situation heavily favors Russia. He indicated that the Ukrainians “understand that they don’t have any cards” to play and their limited options include enlisting “some of the great powers to fight directly with Russia or to involve the United States to pressure Russia.” 

Kiev and its European allies are conveying to Trump that Moscow is not negotiating in good faith, Polyansky remarked. He pointed out that during the Tuesday UN Security Council session on Ukraine, European representatives were urging Washington to take decisive action against Russia.

Polyansky criticized Western officials for turning a blind eye to Ukrainian violations of a US-mediated moratorium on attacks against energy infrastructure, noting that Washington appears reluctant to address this issue publicly.

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The diplomat asserted that Trump is in a good position to resolve the crisis by confronting its root causes. The US leader “has all the means to do it, but he has to understand and to do something about the true colors of the Kiev regime, which is cheating, which is deceiving, and which is just fulfilling the geopolitical interests of the others,” he said.