Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that Russia has shown no serious desire to end the war in Ukraine , shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he wanted to end the conflict "as quickly as possible."
Blinken said that on Thursday he held video meetings with the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries to discuss ideas for a "just peace" proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his historic visit to Washington on Wednesday.
Blinken described the Ukrainian president's proposal as a "good start," and said that any peace must be "fair and sustainable," stressing that the United States will not impose solutions on Ukraine.
"Essentially today, Russia has shown no interest in (engaging) in serious diplomacy" to end the war, Blinken told a news conference.
He stressed that Russia could end the war immediately by withdrawing its forces, but "in the absence of that, we have to see actual evidence of Russia's willingness to negotiate in order to reach a just and sustainable peace."
Blinken said in his interpretation of a just peace that it is a peace that "does not simply endorse the forcible seizure by one country of the territory of another."
As for sustainable peace, Blinken explained it by "we are keen to be able to withstand and not put Ukraine in a position that enables Russia to repeat what it did after a month, six months or a year."
On Thursday, Putin, whose forces began invading Ukraine on February 24, told reporters he hoped the conflict would end "as soon as possible".
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Blinken: Russia has not shown any "serious" desire to end the war in Ukraine