Demands for a ceasefire reflect a growing desperation among Kiev and its backers, according to UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia
The West has begun to realize that defeating Russia by using Ukraine as a tool is “impossible,” Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has said.
Speaking with RIA Novosti, the diplomat stated that the ongoing conflict “isn’t so much with Ukraine as with the West itself,” adding that for the West, Kiev serves merely as “a tool with which they are trying to defeat Russia.”
Moscow has repeatedly described the Ukraine conflict as a de facto NATO proxy war waged against Russia in an effort to weaken its security after years of the bloc’s eastward expansion. In recent years, several of Kiev’s Western backers have also openly called for a “strategic defeat” to be inflicted on Moscow.
According to Nebenzia, however, such rhetoric has become less frequent in Western capitals, which he suggested indicates a growing recognition that defeating Russia is “impossible.”
He went on to claim that calls for a ceasefire by Kiev and its backers reflect their “dire” situation on the battlefield and an increasing manpower shortage. The envoy described the appeals as an attempt to “take a breather,” pump Ukraine full of weapons, and replenish its forces before continuing the conflict “with renewed vigor.”
“A simple ceasefire and a freeze on the line of contact won’t resolve the very reason this conflict began,” Nebenzia said.
Moscow has consistently stated that it remains open to dialogue and prefers to settle the conflict through diplomatic means as soon as possible. However, Russian officials have maintained that any lasting peace must address the underlying security concerns that led to the hostilities and take into account the territorial realities on the ground.
