Blackwater founder Erik Prince: “This is not a game that needs to be played any longer”

Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Erik Prince (photo), the founder and former CEO of private military company Blackwater, warned on Sunday that Kyiv should give up on any hopes of reclaiming its annexed territories from Moscow if it wants an end to the conflict, Newsweek writes.

"There's no good outcome to this war," Prince said during an appearance on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. "It needs to deescalate and be done. There's no chance that Ukraine is going to retake its lands—the Donetsk, Luhansk, the areas in the east, certainly not Crimea."

He added: "It's been a fool's errand for the last year-and-a-half, and all we're doing is wiping out the next generations of Ukrainian men and Russian men. For that matter, imagine if there was this kind of border clash with Mexico and there were Russian provided weapons being fired inside the United States. There's no way we would tolerate that."

Prince said that he hopes "President-[elect] Trump can get on it, literally from day one" and that the war "needs to be brought to an end by adults."

The conflict has continued to escalate, however, as both sides ramped up their efforts in unexpected ways. Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia in early August, making significant headway into the Kursk region where its forces have remained.

U.S. authorized Ukraine to use American-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to strike into Russian territory. Zelensky had begged the U.S. for authorization to use such weapons in this way for at least the past year.

Russia retaliated with the launch of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at central Ukraine, which Moscow claimed was an experimental hypersonic weapon.

During his Sunday appearance on Fox News, Prince blamed President Joe Biden for exacerbating the situation, calling the decision "grossly irresponsible" as Biden is set to leave office in January.

"It's like a drowning man grabbing at any rope that might be available to him, thinking that it might somehow push the Russians to play nicer or something," he said.

Prince added: "The fact is, the Russians fired a ballistic missile. They carried nine warheads, going Mach 9, that there is no means to shoot down, and even with non-nuclear [weapons], the kinetic force is enormous, and those could have just as easily — it was a reminder by the Russians. We can smack you anywhere with nukes, and maybe that's what's coming next. So, this is not a game that needs to be played any longer."

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