Moscow, July 03, 2024, The Europe Today: Any Western talk of peace in the Ukraine conflict is merely a “decoy” as the US and its allies remain intent on inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated.
On Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Kiev, where he urged Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to seek a ceasefire with Russia to facilitate peace talks. The Ukrainian leader rejected the proposal, saying he has a different approach to ending the conflict.
“Whatever discussions Ukraine and Western nations have about peace are mere decoys, screens, tropes, and memes, said purely for their own sake,” Zakharova remarked on her weekly radio show on Wednesday.
Zakharova emphasized that the primary objective in the Ukraine conflict for the US and its allies is to strategically defeat Russia. “The West seeks to dismantle Russia and to end its existence,” she claimed, asserting that this intent has been declared “absolutely clearly and specifically.”
She also argued that perceptive politicians in the EU recognize their nations’ sacrificial role in the US’s grand strategy against Russia, a future evident in the current state of Europe’s economy. “What is happening to Europe is not just a crisis, or collapse, or loss of position. It truly is a disaster,” Zakharova stated.
Addressing Western officials like Hungary’s Orban, Zakharova suggested that their public objections to Washington’s course of action are efforts to set the record straight for future European generations, who may hold current leaders accountable for their inaction.
Orban has repeatedly argued that Western sanctions imposed on Russia for the Ukraine conflict have failed to end hostilities and have harmed EU members more than Russia. Hungary has used its veto power within the EU to block proposed restrictions that would undermine its national interests, including its cooperation with Russia on nuclear energy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to order a ceasefire with Ukraine, contingent upon Kiev renouncing its bid to join NATO and withdrawing its troops from territories Moscow claims under its sovereignty.