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US reaction to Putin's initiative means it doesn't need peace in Ukraine — ambassador

Anatoly Antonov stressed that the initiative outlined by the Russian president "will require colossal efforts and political determination"
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov Valery Sharifulin/TASS
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov
© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

NEW YORK, June 25. /TASS/. American politicians do not need peace in Ukraine, their goal is the strategic defeat of Moscow, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with the Newsweek magazine.

"Let me emphasize that on June 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a peaceful plan for ending the Ukrainian conflict. In response, we only saw new supplies of weapons to the Kiev regime," Antonov said.

"Thus, the reaction of Washington is obvious: local politicians do not need peace. They only focus on war with the objective of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia," the diplomat concluded.

Antonov stressed that the initiative outlined by the Russian president "will require colossal efforts and political determination."

"Its implementation will take years. Positions on many basic elements still need to be defined and synchronized. But work must begin immediately," the ambassador noted.

On June 14, at a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Putin spoke about the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system and proposed building a new architecture that would consider the interests of all states of the continent. He also made new peace proposals for resolving the conflict in Ukraine. These include the recognition of the status of Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as part of Russia, the consolidation of Ukraine's non-aligned and nuclear-free status, its demilitarization and denazification, and the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions.