Blinken Says No Ceasefire Until Ukraine Gains Upper Hand

KYIV (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday the United States won’t support peace talks in the war in Ukraine until Kyiv holds the upper hand, possibly after a Ukrainian counteroffensive that appears to be taking shape.

Blinken said heeding calls from Russia and others, including China, for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war now would result in a “Potemkin peace” that wouldn’t secure Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity or enhance European security.

“Potemkin Village” was a tactic Russia’s 18th century government minister Grigory Potemkin used to build brightly painted village fronts to create an illusion of prosperity for Russia’s empress.

In a speech in Finland, which recently joined NATO and shares a long border with Russia, Blinken repeated the U.S. view that “a ceasefire that simply freezes current lines in place” and allows Russian President Vladimir Putin “to consolidate control over the territory he has seized, and rest, rearm, and re-attack — that is not a just and lasting peace.” Allowing Moscow to keep the one-fifth of Ukrainian territory it’s occupied would send the wrong message to Russia and to “other would-be aggressors around the world,” according to Blinken.

Blinken’s position is similar to that of Ukrainian officials, including his statement that Russia must pay for a share of Ukraine’s reconstruction and be held accountable for the full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials have given confusing signals about whether a counteroffensive is coming or already underway. Some have suggested it will not be a barrage of simultaneous attacks across the entire front line, rather a series of more targeted, limited strikes, first to weaken Russia’s supply lines and infrastructure, then broaden and intensify.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky weighed in again on Friday.

“This is not a movie,” he told reporters in Kyiv. “It is hard to say how you’ll see the counteroffensive. The main point here is for Russia to see it. And not just see but feel it. Especially, we speak about the troops that have occupied our territories. De-occupation of our territories — this is the result of our counteroffensive. When you see this, you’ll understand that it has started.”

Zelensky has said his goal is to drive Russian troops out of the four territories it has partially occupied and illegally annexed last fall, as well as from the Crimean Peninsula the Kremlin illegally seized in 2014.

Putin has said two of his goals in invading Ukraine were to improve Russia’s security and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, but the Kyiv government has applied to join NATO, and Sweden is hoping to be accepted as a member in July. That would leave Russia surrounded by NATO countries in the Baltic Sea.

Blinken described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a catastrophic strategic failure for Moscow that had strengthened, not weakened, NATO, the European Union and Ukraine. Russia has become more isolated, he said, shackled to China as a junior partner in a relationship that Beijing has increasingly come to resent, and no longer able to use energy as a political tool in countries it once counted as its own or satellites.

For its part, Russia wants any talks to address Ukraine’s request to join NATO.

“Naturally, this (issue) will be one of the main irritants and potential problems for many, many years to come,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

Blinken said Washington was ready to support peace efforts by other countries, including those by China and Brazil, but that any peace agreement must uphold the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.

China, which says it is neutral and wants to serve as a mediator but has supported Moscow politically, on Friday urged countries to stop sending weapons to Ukraine. The United States is a leading Western ally and supplier of arms to Kyiv.