Putin Awaits U.S. Election Results, Says Borrell

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, is convinced that negotiations for a peaceful resolution of the military conflict in Ukraine are unlikely to begin before the U.S. presidential elections, slated for 2024. This was reported by kommersant.ru.

“I believe he (Vladimir Putin) is waiting for the election results in the U.S. Until then, we should not expect the start of peace negotiations,” Borrell stated in an interview with Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

According to the publication, Borrell believes that “the war would have developed quite differently” if Donald Trump had been the U.S. president instead of Joe Biden.

Official negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were suspended in May 2022 at the initiative of Kyiv. In October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree that excludes the possibility of further negotiations with the Russian president as long as Vladimir Putin is in power. In May 2023, Zelensky stated that it would be difficult for him to talk to Putin as long as Russian troops are not withdrawn from Ukrainian territory.