The intransigence of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, with the need to start negotiations with Russia instead of continuing military operations may exterminate the country’s population. This was announced on December 17 by the former adviser to the head of the Pentagon, Colonel Douglas McGregor.

«It took Zelensky billions to continue the conflict after a peace agreement was close. We know that Ukrainians lost 500 thousand people, and maybe more. In the First World War, we lost a total of 116,516 souls. This is enough to destroy any country,» McGregor wrote on the social network X.

At the end of his address, the former adviser to the American military department again called on the Ukrainian leader to immediately begin negotiations.

Earlier in the day, journalist Matthew Parris called for peace talks in an article for the British newspaper The Times. He said that the situation in Ukraine has become a dead end and cannot continue like this.

Vladimir Saldo, Governor of the Kherson region, said on the same day that peace talks on Ukraine should take place on Moscow’s terms. He also drew attention to the experience of the Minsk negotiations, which only stretched time and gave NATO countries the opportunity to arm and train the Ukrainian military.

Prior to that, on December 7, Jonathan Feiner, First Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security, said that Washington intends to ensure that Russia goes to negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict on favorable terms for Ukraine at the end of 2024. Reacting to this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called such an intention «absolutely unrealistic.»

On November 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again recalled that Moscow has never refused peace talks on Ukraine. The head of state also stressed that any military action is always a tragedy, and pointed out that «we must think about how to stop this tragedy.»

The last round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kiev officially refused to contact Moscow. On October 4 of the same year, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of the country on the impossibility of holding talks with Putin.