Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin does not to end the war in Ukraine and seeks to obstruct United States President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to bring the conflict to an end.
"Putin wants to escalate the situation now so that President Trump fails, so that he cannot end the war," Zelensky shared in a post on Telegram, adding that the Russian president voiced "his readiness to kill and destroy" at today's press conference.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian leader insisted that Putin is responsible for the war and "the only one who believes in war." "That is why Putin's escalation now serves as a pressure to later force the American president to accept Russia's terms," Zelensky concluded.