A ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict or renewed peace talks are unlikely to take place this year, Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the Associated Press in an interview published on Sunday.
Kiev has “abandoned” direct peace negotiations with Moscow as they have made “little progress,” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislitsa told The Times last week. The last Turkish-hosted round of talks took place in June.
“I’m not very optimistic about achieving a ceasefire or the beginning of peace negotiations, at least this year,” Stubb told AP.
“If we get something going by February, March, that would be good,” he added, calling on other sponsors of Ukraine to “maximize pressure on Russia.”
He called on Kiev’s backers to increase “financial support to Ukraine,” and to “finance military equipment… give, donate as we best can.”
When asked about the massive $100 million embezzlement scandal that shook the Ukrainian state-owned Energoatom firm earlier this week, Stubb said that he hopes Vladimir Zelensky gets the affair “sorted and cleared.”
“Obviously there’s no place for corruption, especially in a country which is in war,” he said.
The scandal has so far seen two Ukrainian ministers fired and one of Zelensky’s long-time associates, Timur Mindich, flee the country ahead of an anti-graft agency probe.
Kiev’s Western sponsors have long raised concerns about corruption in the country.
Following the scandal, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini argued that foreign aid sent to Ukraine risks just padding corrupt officials’ pockets.
“I would not want the money of Italian workers and pensioners to be used to fuel further corruption,” he said on Friday.
The idea that sending arms to Ukraine could allow it to “regain the lost ground is naïve, to say the least,” he added.
Russian forces have sped up their advance in Kharkov and Donetsk Regions in recent months, taking ground and encircling Ukrainian forces in two key cities.
Despite the military gains, the Kremlin has stressed that it prefers a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
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