U.S. 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 Zelenskyy.
However, Zelenskyy said it won’t be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Trump claimed during his election campaign he could do.
“The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly, if Trump is strong in his position,” Zelenskyy said in a Ukrainian television interview late Thursday, referring to fighting on the battlefield.
“I believe [Trump] is strong and unpredictable. I would very much like President Trump’s unpredictability to be directed primarily toward the Russian Federation,” Zelenskyy said.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, hasn’t publicly fleshed out his policy on Ukraine but his previous comments have put a question mark over whether the United States will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest — and most important — military backer.
Zelenskyy is eager to guarantee that Washington’s support keeps coming, and he met with Trump in New York even before last November’s U.S. presidential election.
War’s trajectory not in Ukraine’s favour
With the war about to enter its fourth year next month, and with 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 capitalized 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.
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, Zelenskyy said. He met with Trump and 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 U.S. will be there,” Zelenskyy 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,” Zelenskyy said in the television interview.
Zelenskyy 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 didn’t significantly change the dynamic of the war, and military analysts say Ukraine has lost some 40 per cent of the land it initially captured.
Nevertheless, Zelenskyy said the achievement impressed countries in Asia, South America and Africa and tarnished Russia’s military reputation.
‘Stabilizing the front was critical’
Zelenskyy also said he wanted to ensure that any U.S. plan on a settlement took account of Ukraine’s views.
“It cannot be otherwise. We are Ukraine and it’s our independence, our land and our future.” He also hoped that Trump’s administration could establish quick contact with Russia. Putin has said Moscow is open to talks, but they must take account of Russia’s gains in the war and its annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
With Russian forces capturing village after village on the eastern front in their fastest advance since the February 2022 invasion, Zelenskyy said stabilizing the front was critical.
“They are putting pressure on our boys, who are exhausted and that is a fact. We will do everything to at least stabilize the front in January,” he said.
Zelenskyy, elected in 2019, repeated that new elections could not be held as long as a wartime state of emergency remained in place but said he would consider running again once conditions permitted.
“I don’t know how this war will end,” he said. “If I can do more than I am able, then I will probably view such a decision [seeking a new term] more positively. For now this is not an objective for me.”
