Top US diplomat warns that if Ukraine gives up territory to Russia in …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shake hands during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine on April 25, 2022.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP

Blinken said a lasting peace deal in Ukraine can't occur if its territorial integrity is not respected.

The top US diplomat said that Ukraine giving up territory to Russia would "open a Pandora's box."

"Putin has to give up on his notion that Ukraine is not its own country," Blinken said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a new interview with NPR that there's a slim chance of Kyiv and Moscow reaching a peace deal as long as Russian President Vladimir Putin behaves as if Ukraine is not a real country.

"Vladimir Putin has to give up on his notion that Ukraine is not its own country, that it needs to be erased from the maps and subsumed into Russia. He's already failed at that. But he seems to continue to believe that that's what he's trying to achieve. And unless he's disabused of that notion, it's hard to see how peace can really move forward," Blinken said.

Putin in September illegally annexed four Ukrainian territories. But Russian forces do not fully occupy these regions, and in some places, they have even lost ground to Ukraine in the time since Putin announced the so-called annexations.

The Russian leader's decision to annex the Ukrainian territories made the possibility of negotiations to end the fighting extremely unlikely. Moscow now claims these regions as part of Russia while the Ukrainian government has been adamant it would not agree to any peace deal requiring it to cede territory to Russia.

Blinken also told NPR that any peace agreement would need to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, otherwise it would not be a "just peace and a durable peace."

"If we ratify the seizure of land by another country and say 'that's okay, you can go in and take it by force and keep it,' that will open a Pandora's box around the world for would be aggressors that will say, 'Well, we'll do the same thing and get away with it,'" Blinken added.

Western leaders and officials have repeatedly warned that if Russia wins in Ukraine it could inspire other world leaders with imperialistic ambitions to act on them.

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The top US diplomat's comments came as Russia continues to push for gains in eastern Ukraine as the war inches toward the one-year mark. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday Russia has already begun a highly-anticipated new offensive, warning that Putin is willing to endure high casualties in order to exhaust Ukrainian forces.

"We're seeing what Russia is just now, what President Putin do now, is sending thousands and thousands of more troops, accepting a very high rate of casualty, taking big losses, but putting pressure on the Ukrainians. And what Russia lacks in quality, they try to compensate in quantity," Stoltenberg said.

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