Senior Russian Diplomat Says Biden's Withdrawal from US Presidential Race Will Impact Ukraine Crisis

JAKARTA - Senior Russian diplomat Boris Gryzlov said that incumbent Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from the 2024 US presidential election will have an impact on the Ukraine crisis.

"President Biden's statement will certainly have a serious impact on international politics, especially in the context of the crisis around Ukraine," said the Russian Ambassador to Belarus, as reported by TASS on July 24.

"Amid unresolved problems in the US economy, including inflation and rising unemployment, it will become increasingly difficult for politicians to explain to voters why their country is spending countless billions of dollars to support a military conflict in far-flung Eastern Europe," explained the Russian Representative to the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine.

"The last aid package for Kyiv was only approved and not on the first try, and doing so in the future will be much more difficult, if not impossible," continued the diplomat, who is under British sanctions over the 2014 Russia-Ukraine war.

Gryzlov said, "The populist and moralist slogans about 'fighting for justice and human rights around the world,' which sound so familiar to the Democrats, are simply not working at the moment."

"However, the main problem for the Democrats on the Ukraine track is not even their failed rhetoric. By giving up the fight for the White House, Joseph Biden has lost his influence over the elites and himself and his party, having been reduced from the leader of a superpower to an honorary pensioner, who will take the next Oval Office position," the former interior minister explained.

According to the diplomat, the outgoing president is a symbolic politician and a puppet who is not worth approaching for serious political bargaining.

"From now on, Biden's influence over politicians and institutions both inside the US and on the international stage will decline rapidly," Gryzlov said.

"For the Kyiv regime as a whole and for [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky in particular, this situation could be fatal," the former Russian lawmaker continued.

"In the coming months, its main sponsor, the United States, will focus only on domestic politics and elections. Ukraine will be off the agenda. No sane candidate will actively lobby for a multibillion-dollar aid package for Kiev from American taxpayers in the middle of a campaign," he said.

Gryzlov added that the United States as Ukraine's main sponsor will focus on domestic political issues and elections, while Kyiv is off the agenda. According to him, no sane candidate would actively lobby for a billion-dollar US taxpayer aid package for the war in Ukraine.

"The EU and NATO, for their part, will wait for the results of the US elections before taking any serious steps," he explained.

"Even in the best-case scenario for the Ukrainian regime, that is, if military supplies and cash injections continue, the most that the Ukrainian, US and NATO leadership can achieve is to postpone for some time the inevitable Russian success in achieving the goals of the special operation," he concluded.