Kremlin speaker Dmitriy Peskov has labelled as erroneous US President Donald Trump’s thesis that Ukraine can reclaim the territories occupied by Russia.
Peskov said, speaking to journalists on 24 September, that Ukraine’s position on the battlefield “will only deteriorate further”.
The Kremlin spokesman also said that the war against Ukraine is not aimless, as Trump says, but has arisen because of the “unwillingness” of the United States and the European Union to listen to Russia’s security concerns.
He also said that the discussion of “irritants” in relations between Russia and the US was slower than Moscow would like. Peskov blamed previous US administrations for the presence of “irritants” in relations.
Trump spoke with Zelensky for more than an hour on 23 September. After the meeting, the US president wrote on social media that, in his opinion, Ukraine can return all its lands occupied by Russia “and even go further”. Trump also said that Kiev should act now because Russia, which he called a “paper tiger”, is facing “big” economic problems. Such a statement was a sudden shift in Trump’s rhetoric in favour of Ukraine.
At the same time, there is no indication yet that the statement will be accompanied by a change in US policy towards Russia; in particular, the US president has not announced a decision to impose tough new sanctions against Moscow, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking during his trip to New York this week.
Earlier in an interview with Russia’s RBC, Peskov said that Russia is not a tiger, but a bear, and there are no “paper bears.”
Trump’s remarks were also commented on by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. He refrained from insulting the American leader, suggesting that he had “fallen into an alternative reality”, but would soon change his position.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the day before also commented on Trump’s post, noting in an interview with Fox News that he was “a little surprised” by the US president’s remarks about the possibility of returning all Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, and said that it was a positive signal.