Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is certain the war with Russia will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have once Donald Trump becomes US president.
But domestically, support for arming Ukraine appears to have waned somewhat since the war began – particularly among Republican voters, who Trump successfully courted.
During the US election campaign, the former president turned president-elect repeatedly pledged to end the war “in a day” – but has yet to divulge how he intends to do so.
“It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House.
Despite Scholz’s office saying he reiterated his call to end the war, Zelensky said it weakened the Russian leader’s isolation.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, says he is positive that once Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, the war with Russia will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have.
According to Zelensky, he spoke with Trump over the phone following his win in the US presidential election and had a “constructive exchange.”.
Although he did not specify whether Trump had made any demands about potential negotiations with Russia, he did state that he had not heard anything from him that went against Ukraine’s stance.
Trump has repeatedly stated that ending the conflict, which started when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and what he calls a waste of US military aid to Kyiv are his top priorities.
A $61 billion (£49 billion) military aid package was approved by the US House of Representatives earlier this year.
The biggest source of armaments for Ukraine has been the United States. According to the German research group Kiel Institute for the World Economy, it delivered or promised to send $55.5 billion (£41.5 billion) worth of weapons and equipment between the beginning of the war and the end of June 2024.
Nonetheless, it seems that domestic support for arming Ukraine has decreased since the start of the conflict, especially among Republican voters, whom Trump was able to win over.
Although the former president-elect made repeated promises to end the war “in a day” during the US election campaign, he has not yet revealed his plans.
“With the policies of the team now in charge of the White House, it is a given that the war will end sooner. In an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne, Zelensky stated, “This is their strategy, their pledge to their people.”.
With Russian forces advancing on the battlefield, he continued, Ukraine “must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means.”.
Since Ukraine’s highly anticipated counteroffensive in 2023 fell short of the sweeping territorial gains it had hoped for, the war’s front lines have essentially stalled.
With the majority of the fighting occurring in the eastern Donbas region, Russian forces have established positions in the country’s east and southeast.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington, DC-based think tank, said that Russian forces made small advances along the eastern front line on Friday, with heavy fighting occurring in the area of the south-east city of Vuhledar and the northeastern city of Kupyansk.
According to Ukrainian military sources in the area, the ISW also reported that Russian infantry continued a “limited” offensive into the northeastern Kharkiv region from the Russian border.
Ukrainian forces became the first to occupy Russian territory since World War Two when they launched a break-out offensive into Russia’s Kursk region over the summer, ostensibly in an attempt to halt Russian advances.
The operation’s objective, according to Zelensky, was to divert Russian troops from the Ukrainian front lines, but it’s unclear if this has been accomplished. Russia has been able to increase its numbers by using hundreds of thousands of conscripts, whereas Ukraine’s much smaller army has had to rely on cutting-edge weapons provided by the West.
But according to analysts, Ukraine’s Kursk territory could be used as leverage in any peace negotiations. The “victory plan” that Zelensky unveiled last month stated that the offensive would proceed without establishing “buffer zones” inside Ukraine.
Concerns about growing war fatigue both inside and outside of Ukraine have prompted a renewed focus on a diplomatic solution.
Zelensky has consistently refused to give up any Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014. It is unclear, nevertheless, what such a solution might entail.
Zelensky and Trump have had a turbulent relationship for a long time. Trump was accused of pressuring Zelensky to unearth harmful information about US President Joe Biden’s family, which led to his impeachment in 2019.
Trump has maintained that he had a very positive relationship with Zelensky despite years of disagreement.
Trump claimed to have “learned a lot” from the September meeting in New York and promised to have the war “resolved very quickly.”.
He has been accused by his Democratic opponents of favoring Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they claim that his strategy for the war amounts to a surrender for Ukraine that would put Europe as a whole in jeopardy.
Russia refuted earlier this week reports that Putin and Trump spoke over the phone just days after Trump won the election, during which the president-elect reportedly cautioned against escalated hostilities.
Trump had a “more nuanced” stance on the war than was widely believed, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who spoke with the president after the US election.
Zelensky criticized the German leader during a phone conversation with Putin on Friday, the first in almost two years. Zelensky claimed that even though Scholz’s office claimed that he reiterated his call for the war to end, it made the Russian leader less isolated.
