Donald Trump wants “an immediate ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia, and the start of negotiations. The president-elect of the United States, who will return to the White House on January 20, has assured on Truth Social, his platform, that “[el presidente ucranio, Volodímir] Zelensky and Ukraine want an agreement and end this madness,” hours after their meeting in Paris and after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. The Ukrainian president has insisted that his country needs security guarantees and has urged world leaders to ensure “peace through strength.”
The Republican leader – who has promised to end the war in a matter of hours, although he has not given details of how – has the future of the conflict in his hands. All eyes in Ukraine were scrutinizing the images this Saturday after the meeting between both leaders, which lasted about 35 minutes and was facilitated by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on the occasion of the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. They were looking for signs and thought they saw them in the colors of Trump’s clothing: blue suit and yellow tie, like the flag of Ukraine.
“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin,” the magnate said this Sunday. In his message he also wrote: “I know Vladimir well [Putin, el presidente ruso]. This is the time to act. China can help. The world is waiting!” In his message, Trump linked the fall of Assad to the fact that Russia had lost all interest in the country because of the war in Ukraine.
In words released hours later, in his first interview since winning the November 5 presidential election, recorded on Friday and broadcast this Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked if Ukraine should prepare with him as president to receive less aid from USA, Miguel Jiménez reports. “Likely. Yes, probably, for sure,” answered the president-elect. Trump declined to answer whether he has spoken with Putin after winning the election: “I don’t want to say anything about that because I don’t want to do anything that could impede the negotiation.” And as to whether it guarantees the continuity of the United States in NATO, he gave a Yeah conditional: “If they pay their bills and I think they treat us fairly, the answer is that I would absolutely stay in NATO.” But if you think that’s not the case, I would consider turning your back on it. “NATO takes advantage of us. Two things. Number one, they take advantage of us in trade, that is, the European nations, in a terrible way: they don’t buy our cars, they don’t buy our food products, they don’t buy anything. It’s a shame. And on top of that we defend them. So it’s a double whammy,” he argued.
Regarding the strength of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Trump assured, in his message in Truth Social, that they have lost some 400,000 soldiers in the three years of war. Zelensky, who this Saturday had expressed satisfaction with the meeting with the Republican, responded on his social networks that the number of deaths counted is 43,000. To these we would have to add 370,000 medical assistance, although as he himself has clarified, these include minor injuries. The same person can be injured several times, too. According to the leader, half of the wounded soldiers return to the front.
Ukraine rarely discloses this figure. The last time he did so was in February – on that occasion he reported 31,000 military deaths – when he warned that they were in their “most difficult moment” and needed urgent help. American media such as The Wall Street Journal or the british The Economist They have published that those killed on the front on the Ukrainian side would be between 60,000 and 100,000, including thousands of missing soldiers.
In an interview with the Japanese agency Kyodo News published last Monday, Zelensky disputed the figure of 80,000 that he gave The Economist. “We have to be honest, we don’t know how many Ukrainians have died in the occupied territories,” the leader then responded. According to him, on the Russian side 198,000 soldiers have been killed and 550,000 wounded. Since September, the president says, the casualty ratio is five or six Russians for every Ukrainian. Western intelligence sources consider that Russia, which has not provided data on the matter since 2022, has 200,000 dead soldiers and 400,000 wounded, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last week, a slip by the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, Anna Tsiviliova, during a meeting with the press, revealed that 48,000 people have given DNA samples to search for their relatives “missing in action.”
The United States is Ukraine’s main ally and the weapons it delivers, despite often arriving late and in smaller quantities than expected, have been essential in stopping the invader on the battlefield. The plans of Trump, who maintains a relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, have kyiv in suspense. The team he is putting together, with retired General Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, aims at territorial transfers with security guarantees, which would not in any case include Ukraine’s entry into NATO, as Zelensky requests.
The Ukrainian president insisted this Sunday that the war “cannot end simply with a piece of paper and a few signatures.” “A ceasefire without guarantees can be revived at any time, as Putin has done on other occasions,” he continued. Putin, Zelensky has said, “can only be stopped with force, the force of world leaders who can become leaders of peace.” The question is what form these guarantees will take so that they are acceptable to all parties.
Russia responds
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov responded to Trump’s comments and said that Moscow is open to negotiations, but that they should be based on the 2022 Istanbul agreements — in which Russia called for Ukraine’s neutrality, limits on its militarization and control of the occupied territories—and in the situation on the battlefield. Russian troops are in a better position than Ukrainian troops, which suffer from a serious shortage of personnel and weapons. The fighting centers on Pokrovsk, Kurájove, and Velika Novosilka. British intelligence indicates, however, that the rate of soldiers killed in battle has reached a new high in November on the Russian side, with a daily average of 1,523 dead and wounded.
“Our position on Ukraine is well known,” Peskov said in a conversation this Sunday. Putin demands that Ukraine cannot join NATO and that Russia be in full control of the four Ukrainian regions that its troops partially control. The Russian president’s spokesman recalled that Zelensky has prohibited contacts with Russian leaders through a special decree that would have to be revoked if talks are to be held.
The rapprochements between Zelensky and Trump and their teams have been intense this week. In addition to Saturday’s meeting between the two politicians, their teams have met in the United States this week. Given the uncertainty about the continuation of military aid to kyiv, the Administration of outgoing president, Joe Biden, has promised to accelerate the delivery, before mid-January, of new shipments of weapons.
On Saturday, the US Department of Defense announced a new aid package (the 22nd), worth $988 million, which includes munitions for rocket systems and unmanned aerial systems. As detailed by the US Government in a statement, they will send ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), unmanned aerial systems and equipment, components and spare parts for artillery systems, tanks and armored vehicles.
