The Russian leadership appreciates Donald Trump’s determination to settle the Ukrainian conflict by diplomatic means, Albert P. Khorev, the Russian ambassador to Pakistan said on Tuesday.

“We positively assess the recent contacts with representatives of the new U.S. administration: the telephone conversation between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump on February 12, the telephone conversation between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on February 15, and the Russia-U.S. talks in Riyadh on February 18,” Ambassador Khorev said while briefing journalists on prevailing situation with regard to the Ukraine conflict in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Trump Card

“Donald Trump was the first Western leader to publicly call pulling Ukraine into NATO “one of Biden’s biggest mistakes”. It seems that for the first time in a long time, the United States is willing to seriously consider Russian concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion.”

Also read: : https://apnews.com/article/trump-macron-ukraine-russia-starmer-8869d05f2cd8db5da277dd927cf959d4

Khorev said ‘we realize that now we are only talking about the beginning of the negotiation process, which promises to be difficult and lengthy.’

He elaborated the main results of the series of bilateral contacts between Russia and the United States so far are as follows:

              – an agreement was reached to establish a permanent communication mechanism on the resumption of normal functioning of diplomatic missions, the elimination of problems and obstacles to the development of mutually beneficial trade, economic and investment cooperation, including with a view to preparing a meeting of the Presidents of the two countries;

              – a decision was made to launch a separate negotiating track dedicated to the Ukrainian settlement;

              – as the above two tracks move forward successfully, there is an understanding to expand the bilateral agenda to include geopolitical issues and other regional conflicts, in particular in the Middle East.

West Vibes

At the same time, Ambassador Khorev said they saw that the opponents of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, mainly in Ukraine and Europe, were becoming more active – ‘these people are trying their best to derail the negotiation process.’

“Kiev and the West, especially the European countries, still think in terms of war,” he lamented.

He resented that the ‘Western countries also showed the same hypocrisy with regard to international law, which was selectively interpreted: the decision of the Kosovo parliament of February 2008 on independence from Serbia was recognized by the West, calling it a “fait accompli”, while the referendums on the incorporation of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into Russia are strongly condemned by the West, qualifying them as “annexation”.

Khorev reminded that the Ukrainian conflict was not a regional conflict, but an element of the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West.

“The Western countries deliberately ignored Russia’s security concerns, pursued a policy of continuous eastward expansion of NATO, and dragged Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic anti-Russian camp,” he added.

Khorev claimed that the military actions against Russia were carried out almost entirely at the expense of Western financial and military aid to Kiev.

“Since the beginning of the special military operation, its total amount has exceeded $350 billion.”

He said recently, the West has created new instruments of military support for Kiev: in December 2024, the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) was established in Germany. In February this year, the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC) began operations in Poland.

Mediation Initiatives

Russia, he eulogized, highly appreciated the efforts of the Global South to find a non-military solution to the conflict.

“China, Brazil and a number of African states have already demonstrated a deep understanding of the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, its geopolitical significance and the need to take Russia’s interests into account,” Khorev said, adding that their proposals contained many rational provisions that Moscow supports.

Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/china-wang-yi-backs-us-and-russias-new-consensus-on-ukraine-war/

“These include respect for international law, rejection of the Cold War mentality, the indivisibility of security, and the inadmissibility of unilateral sanctions.”

He recalled, “Last September, at the initiative of our Chinese and Brazilian partners, the inaugural meeting of the “Group of Friends of Peace in Ukraine” was held in New York.”

“We note the sincere desire of its founders to contribute constructively to a political and diplomatic settlement of the situation in Ukraine,” he maintained.

He suggested that it was important for the Group to consider the principles of the Charter of the United Nations in their completeness, totality and interrelationship.

“The territorial integrity of states should not be mentioned in isolation from the right of peoples to self-determination and the protection of human rights regardless of language and religion.”

Current situation

Current situation at the frontline

“It is safe to say that the initiative on the battlefield belongs entirely to the Russian military,” Ambassador Khorev claimed.

“Over the course of the special military operation, the Russian armed forces liberated 75% of the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and took control of 99% of the Luhansk People’s Republic.

The Russian military has liberated about 63% of the territory of the Kursk region, which was invaded by Ukraine last August. End