FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appears at a joint press conference with Ireland's Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Simon Harris (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 4, 2024. REUTERS/Alina Smutko/File Photo
(Reuters) -Decisive actions by the United States now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling the ABC News that his country was "closer to the end of the war."
"Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States," Zelenskiy said in a post on his Telegram messaging app after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Congress.
"Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year."
Zelenskiy is in the United States for the U.N. General Assembly. Later in the week he will travel to Washington to present his "victory plan" and influence White House policy on the war no matter who wins the U.S. election on Nov. 5.
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump - who says he will end the war within days if elected - claimed without evidence that Zelenskiy wanted the Democrats to win in November.
The presidential office in Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Zelenskiy has previously said he is willing to work with whoever occupies the White House.
In the interview with ABC News, Zelenskiy urged Washington and other partners to continue supporting Ukraine. Washington and its allies have provided a multi-billion dollar assistance program to Ukraine while also imposing several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.
"I think that we are closer to the peace than we think," he was quoted as saying. "We are closer to the end of the war."
PEACE PLAN
The full-scale Russia invasion of Ukraine, or "special military operation" as Moscow calls it, began in Feb 2022 and has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions more and turned Ukrainian towns and cities into rubble.
The Ukrainian leader said in the ABC interview that only from a "strong position" can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin "to stop the war."
Zelenskiy has said very little so far about his "victory plan," except that it would act as a "bridge" to a second Ukraine-led summit on peace that Kyiv wants to hold and invite Russia to later this year.
The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in New York on Monday that the plan included accelerated NATO membership for Ukraine, something Moscow says it will never tolerate.
Putin says peace talks can begin only if Kyiv abandons swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and drops its NATO membership ambitions. Zelenskiy has called repeatedly for a withdrawal of all Russian troops, and the restoration of Ukraine's post-Soviet borders.
Russia controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory and has been advancing in the east, taking control of a series of settlements in a push to seize the entire Donbas region.
In a bold move to grab back the initiative, Ukrainian troops attacked into Russia's western Kursk region on Aug. 6 and continue to occupy dozens of villages on Russian soil.
Zelenskiy told ABC News the Kursk operation exposed the weakness of Putin's position, even though the Russian military continues to advance on its objectives in Donbas.
"He's afraid very much," he said. "Why? Because his people saw that he can't defend - that he can't defend all his territory."
Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperial-style war. Putin cast the Ukraine invasion as a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Simon Lewis; Editing by Stephen Coates)
