South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds rejected calls for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, suggesting the Russian president Vladimir Putin he could not be trusted to honor such an agreement.

“As much as I would like to believe we can negotiate with a tyrant, I suspect we can fool ourselves,” Rounds said in reference to Putin at the Halifax Security Forum on Friday.

“Do you believe that this tyrant, if you offer him part of a free country, do you think he will stop?” Said the rounds.

“I wish I could say there was an easy way out, but there isn’t.”

THE RepublicanTrump’s sentiments contrast with those of President-elect Trump, who has previously said he could end the conflict in a day.

Rounds also lamented the restrictions imposed on kyiv in its response to Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“I feel so frustrated that we haven’t been able to provide them with all the equipment and weapons systems they need to respond to the absolute tyranny coming from Russia,” said Rounds, who reportedly stressed that his views were not those of the new administration.

“I wonder why we didn’t do more, faster.”

Contacted for comment, the Trump transition team stressed News week to the following statement from Communications Director Steven Cheung: “As President Trump said on the campaign trail, he is the only person who can bring the two sides together to negotiate peace and work to end war and put an end to the massacres. »

Round comments came in the middle escalation of Russian attacks against Ukraine this week.

On Thursday, Moscow carried out a hypersonic missile strike on the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine, targeting a military installation.

The strike involved the experimental Oreshnik hypersonic missile, an intermediate-range weapon that would be adaptable to nuclear and conventional warheads.

In a televised speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attack was in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of American and British long-range missiles, which can strike targets in Russia.

“No one in the world has such weapons,” he said.

President Joe Biden greenlight the use of U.S.-supplied Army tactical missile systems (ATACMS) for strikes on Russian territory as part of a marked policy change announced last weekend.

kyiv had long pushed for such a move, justified by Biden as a response to the involvement of North Korean troops in the war.

“ATACMS will significantly strengthen Ukraine’s ability to disrupt Russian operations deep behind the front lines,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister, said at the news conference. Financial Times. “These missiles allow us to hit high-value targets that other systems cannot reach.”

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Update, 11/23/24, 11:37 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a response from the Trump transition team.