Trump’s ‘unpredictability’ could help end Ukraine war with Russia, says Zelensky
But he said it would not be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Mr Trump claimed he could do during his election campaign.
US President-elect Donald Trump is “strong and unpredictable” and those qualities can be a decisive factor in his policy approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But Mr Zelensky said it would not be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Mr Trump claimed he could do during his election campaign.
“The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly, if Trump is strong in his position,” Mr Zelensky said in a Ukrainian television interview late on Thursday, referring to fighting on the battlefield.
Mr Trump, who takes office on January 20, has not publicly fleshed out his policy on Ukraine but his previous comments have put a question mark over whether the US will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest — and most important — military backer.
Mr Zelensky is eager to guarantee that Washington’s support keeps coming, and he met with Mr Trump in New York even before last November’s US presidential election.
With the war about to enter its fourth year next month, and with Mr Trump coming to power, the question of how and when Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War might end has come to the fore.
Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine and last year capitalised on weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences to slowly advance in eastern areas despite high losses of troops and equipment.
The war’s trajectory is not in Ukraine’s favour. The country is short-handed on the front line and needs continued support from its Western partners.
Mr Trump responded favourably to the possibility raised by French President Emmanuel Macron of Western peacekeepers being deployed in Ukraine to oversee an agreement that stops the fighting, Mr Zelensky said.
He met with Mr Trump and Mr Macron in Paris last month.
“But I raised an issue, saying we didn’t hear what specific countries will join this initiative, and whether the US will be there,” Mr Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian leader is determined for his country to become a Nato member.
The alliance’s 32-member countries say Ukraine will join one day, but not until the war ends.
“The deployment of European troops (to keep the peace in Ukraine) should not rule out Ukraine’s future in Nato,” Mr Zelensky said in the television interview.
Mr Zelensky described the incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region as a “very strong trump card” in any future peace negotiations.
In a bid to counter glum news from the front line, Ukraine seized part of Kursk last August in what was the first occupation of Russian territory since the Second World War.
But the incursion did not significantly change the dynamic of the war, and military analysts say Ukraine has lost some 40% of the land it initially captured.
Nevertheless, Mr Zelensky said the achievement impressed countries in Asia, South America and Africa and tarnished Russia’s military reputation.
