The Kremlin has confirmed it will continue its full-scale invasion of Ukraine throughout the fall, in a major blow to Donald Trump’s peace efforts.
The US president has repeatedly stated that Russia wants to end the war, even going so far as to tell Emmanuel Macron that Vladimir Putin “wants to make me a deal” in a strange hot mic moment.
While Trump met with Putin in person in Alaska this month, he has still failed to extract any significant concessions from the Russian leader.
On August 21, he said he would know “ within two weeks” if Putin was serious about starting talks.
And it seems that Russia offered an answer this weekend.
In comments reported by the Russian Defense Ministry, the chief of the Russian Army’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, confirmed that Putin’s offensive will not stop anytime soon.
According to the Kyiv Independent, he said: “The implementation of the tasks of the Joint Force Group (for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine) will continue by conducting offensive operations.”
Gerasimov mentioned : “Today we will clarify the tasks of the troop groups in the directions for the autumn period.”
He added that “targeted massive fire strikes” would also continue – days after Russia’s deadly attacks on Kiev left more than 20 dead and Europe outraged.
He claimed that they were “ launched only against military facilities and capabilities of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex”—even though Russian attacks often hit residential buildings.
The latest strike in the Ukrainian capital also affected the offices of the British Council and EU delegations.
The White House offered a lukewarm response to these strikes, saying the president was not “happy” but not surprised either.
The US has yet to respond to this latest note from the Russian Defense Ministry.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will actually follow through on his promise to “fight a different battle” with Putin, as he has yet to follow through on his threat to impose sanctions on the country.
Trump has also tried to get Putin to meet with the Ukrainian president to begin peace talks.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made it clear that he is ready to meet, but the Kremlin has not yet agreed.
Putin is also advancing on the front and – according to Kremenis – still capturing more Ukrainian land, although academics at the Institute for the Study of War believe he is “exaggerating” most of these claims.
Currently, Russia occupies about 20% of its European neighbor’s sovereign territory.
