The Ukrainian leader is “feeding his people into carnage,” MEP Mick Wallace said
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his Western supporters are not interested in seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict with Russia, Mick Wallace, a member of the European Parliament from Ireland, said on Wednesday.
“Zelensky has been making the rounds begging for more weapons, but not one word to say about peace. How many of his own people must he conscript and feed into the carnage before he sits down to negotiations?” Wallace said during a parliamentary debate.
The MEP described Russia’s military operation as illegal and “unforgivable,” and said that the conflict has devastated Ukraine. “Also unforgivable is how willing Western leaders are to ensure this becomes a war without end,” Wallace argued.
Wallace warned that calls for Ukraine to seize Crimea would “lead to a possible breakout of nuclear war” and would only galvanize the resolve of the Russian people to defend the peninsula. Crimea, which is predominantly populated by ethnic Russians, voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev.
Speaking to reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reiterated that Washington would support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”
Russia sent its troops to Ukraine nearly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a recent interview that the US and its allies had “blocked” negotiations between Moscow and Kiev when they broke down prior to April 2022.
Ukrainian officials have since said that peace can only be achieved if Moscow surrenders Crimea and other former Ukrainian territories. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, joined Russia after holding referendums in September. Moscow has maintained that Kiev’s demands to return the territories are a non-starter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in late December that the Ukrainian leadership was incapable of negotiating and was dominated by “rampant Russophobes.”
