Former US President Donald Trump said it is necessary for Russia and Ukraine to start immediate negotiations, otherwise the crisis may turn into World War III and cause global destruction.
“And now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying. We must [start] the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine or we will end up in World War III, and there will be nothing left of our planet,” Trump said on Saturday, delivering a speech during a rally in Minden, Nevada, as quoted by the C-SPAN broadcaster.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on the impossibility of holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow would wait for a change in the position on the negotiations of the country’s current president or his successor.
Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, after the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations. In response to Russia’s operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine.
On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, signed agreements on the accession of these territories to Russia, following referendums that showed that an overwhelming majority of the local population supported becoming part of Russia.
