The president of the United States, Joe Biden, questioned this Thursday the economic and military capacity of Russia to fight “for years” in Ukraine and expressed hope that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, realizes that continuing the conflict harms Russia.

The US president made these statements at a press conference in Helsinki with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinisto, and when asked about the possibility of the war in Ukraine dragging on for years.

“I don’t think the war will go on for years for two reasons. First, I don’t think the Russians can keep fighting forever, in terms of resources and capabilities. Second, I think there will come a time when the president Putin will eventually decide that it is not in Russia’s interest economically, politically or otherwise to go on with the war,” he replied.

Next, Biden expressed his wish that Ukraine make progress with the counteroffensive that began in June to recover parts of its territory occupied by Russia and that this will allow the government of Volodimir Zelensky to come to the negotiating table stronger.

The war has already dragged on for 18 months and Zelenski himself has acknowledged that the counteroffensive is advancing more slowly than expected.

However, the United States and other Western countries have promised that they will continue to support Ukraine by providing weapons and training for its armed forces.

This same Wednesday, the G7 countries (the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada) signed a declaration with Zelenski, in which they pledge to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the long term.

Biden was also convinced that Putin “already lost the war” and that Ukraine will belong to NATO: “It is not a question of knowing if [Ukraine] will join NATO, but of knowing when,” he said.

For his part, President Putin was convinced today, in statements to Russian public television, that joining NATO “will not increase the security of Ukraine itself, will make the world more vulnerable and will lead to additional tensions at the international level.” “.

“That’s why I don’t see anything good in this, the positions are well known and were expressed long ago,” he added. He noted that Moscow is not against discussing security guarantees for Ukraine, “but mandatory security guarantees for Russia.”

“Any country has the right to guarantee its security, and of course, it has the right to choose the way to achieve this objective that it considers most correct,” he said. However, he qualified that “there is only one limitation, which is related to the fact that guaranteeing the security of one country should not create threats for another country.”

According to the criteria of The Trust Project