BarcelonaUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent a message of reassurance about the policy to be expected from future US President Donald Trump regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine. The good relationship between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and some of the tycoon’s statements about the evolution of the war have alarmed Kyiv’s allies, who fear that Washington will reduce military aid to Ukraine and thus the defense capacity of the Ukrainian army. But Zelenskiy has stressed that he trusts Trump. “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to the citizens,” Suspilne said in an interview on public television.
Trump has said that, with him in the Oval Office, the war in Ukraine would be over “within 24 hours,” but the fear is that he will push for a peace deal that would involve ceding Ukrainian territories to Russia. But the Ukrainian head of state said that in the phone conversation he had with Trump after his victory was confirmed, he heard “the basics” of what Ukraine is asking for a just peace. “I didn’t hear anything that goes against our position,” he said.
However, in an interview this Saturday on public radio, Zelenski stated that Putin “does not want peace”, but only wants to end geopolitical isolation. “I think that Putin does not want peace, but that does not mean that he does not want to sit at the negotiating table with any of the leaders. For him, it is about breaking the political isolation and it is beneficial for him to sit, talk, but not to negotiate,” he declared. Zelenski has criticized the call that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had with Putin this Friday, the first in two years between the Russian president and a Western leader: “He opened Pandora’s box.”
Zelensky has said that negotiations with Moscow are possible “as long as Ukraine is not alone with Russia and is strong.” “If we talk only with Putin, only with the killer, and we are in the conditions we are in now, not strengthened by some important elements, it is a loser status for Ukraine from the start. With a weak position there is nothing to do in these negotiations”, he argued.
In this sense, he has admitted that the situation in the east of the country is “really difficult”, with a “slow pressure and advance” of the Russian troops and no possibility of rotation on the front line due to the lack of weapons and teams in reserve brigades. And he has attributed it, in part, to the months-long blockade of aid by Republican ranks in the United States Congress. “We waited twelve months for some weapons to be delivered to us, after they were approved by Congress,” he lamented. He also admitted that there is a lack of soldiers to be able to do rotations and that there are soldiers who “ask if they can take steps back” and that the military leadership allows them: “This is our common position: first the people and then the land”. And he concluded: “For our part, we must do everything possible so that the war ends next year. By diplomatic means. It is very important.”
Source: www.ara.cat
