During his election campaign, Donald Trump pledged to quickly end the war in Ukraine. He would do so within “24 hours” of being sworn in, he said, or even before his inauguration.
But as he prepares to return to the White House, it’s clear that promise won’t be kept.
Nearly three years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there is no end in sight to the war, the worst Europe has seen since World War II. Fighting rages across a long front line, with Russian forces leading a fierce offensive in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian troops holding onto territory inside Russia in the Kursk region, where northern soldiers -Koreans arrived to reinforce the ranks of Moscow. Russia suffered heavy losses, with about 700,000 dead or injured, according to U.S. and British officials.
Since Trump’s election victory, his team has not presented a peace proposal to Ukrainian leaders, according to two sources close to the Ukrainian government and a former U.S. diplomat. And there was no shuttle diplomacy between kyiv, Moscow and Mar-a-Lago.
Members of Trump’s chosen national security team have acknowledged in recent weeks the difficulties of negotiating a possible peace deal.
“Let’s set it at 100 days, let’s go back and find a way to do it in the short term to make sure the solution is strong, lasting and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage” The lieutenant general at the retired Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick to serve as special envoy to Ukraine, told Fox News last month.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, told senators during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that forging a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia would be “very difficult.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Rubio said. “Conflicts of this nature, which have historical underpinnings, are going to require a lot of diplomacy and hard work, but it’s something that has to happen.”
Kellogg is expected to travel to Ukraine for talks shortly after Trump’s inauguration on Monday, people familiar with the matter said. Kellogg had tentatively planned to travel to Ukraine earlier, but chose to postpone the trip, the sources said.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Although the Trump team worked with the Biden White House to secure the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas and the release of the hostages, there was no such collaboration on Ukraine, according to sources.
Rep. Mike Waltz, Republican of Florida, whom Trump selected to serve as his national security adviser, had several conversations about Ukraine with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, NBC previously reported News. The talks focused on information sharing but did not explore strategies to end the war or secure a ceasefire.
Trump has given no details on how he plans to end the conflict, other than leveraging his personal relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump suggested that U.S. military aid to Ukraine could be reduced under his administration, that European governments should increase their support for Ukraine, and that he disagreed that Ukraine fires longer-range missiles into Russian territory.
Trump, whose strained relationship with Zelensky’s government during his first term led to his first impeachment, also suggested that the war was primarily a European problem.
“The war with Russia is more important for Europe than for us. We have a little thing called an ocean between us,” he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker in December.
Trump’s recent comments have raised concerns in Ukraine and among his allies in Washington that the new administration could push Ukraine to make painful concessions without putting pressure on Russia, Western diplomats say, former officials Americans and analysts. Regional experts and Western diplomats doubt whether Putin is ready to make concessions in negotiations as his forces slowly but surely gain ground in eastern Ukraine.
But Kellogg said Trump would not force Ukraine to accept a bad deal.
“I think what people need to understand is that he’s not trying to give anything to Putin or the Russians. He’s actually trying to save Ukraine and save its sovereignty, and he’s going to make sure that it’s fair and just,” Kellogg said this month.
Kellogg co-authored a report last year calling for pressure on Moscow and kyiv to begin peace talks. Under the plan, Washington would threaten to increase military aid to Ukraine if Russia fails to negotiate, while offering possible relief from economic sanctions if Moscow agrees to a settlement. At the same time, Washington would threaten kyiv with the suspension of its aid if it refused to begin negotiations. Ukraine’s membership in NATO would be ruled out for an extended period, but foreign powers would provide security guarantees to kyiv.
Russia has criticized elements of Kellogg’s proposal and similar ideas floated in Washington as unacceptable. Moscow has insisted that Ukraine be a permanently neutral state with strict limits placed on its military and that kyiv abandon territory held by Russian forces as well as areas still controlled by Ukrainian troops.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday his country was open to negotiations with Trump. Lavrov also praised Trump for saying he believed NATO’s willingness to finally accept Ukraine as a member of the alliance helped spark the war.
Lavrov also praised Trump’s new national security adviser, Waltz, for saying it was unrealistic that Ukraine could regain all the territory it lost in the war.
“The very fact that people are increasingly starting to talk about the realities on the ground deserves to be welcomed,” Lavrov said.
Ukraine will most likely come under increasing pressure over its mobilization rules to ensure continued U.S. support. Currently, Ukrainians under the age of 25 are not subject to conscription. But Waltz said recently that Ukraine should lower the country’s conscription age in order to commit more troops to the fight and help stabilize the front line.
“When we hear about morale problems, when we hear about problems on the front lines, look, if Ukrainians have asked the whole world to commit to democracy, we need them to commit to fund for democracy,” Waltz told ABC News. on Sunday.
Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, also suggested in an interview with Bloomberg that Kyiv will need to change its mobilization policy, saying the Ukrainian government will need to address its labor shortage.
