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US president-elect Donald Trump has pushed back his campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours” to several months, in a shift European partners have interpreted as a sign that his administration will not immediately abandon support for Kyiv.
Two European officials told the Financial Times that discussions with Trump’s incoming team in recent weeks revealed they had not yet decided on how to solve the conflict, and that support to Ukraine would continue after the US president’s inauguration on January 20.
“The whole [Trump] team is obsessed with strength and looking strong, so they’re recalibrating the Ukraine approach,” said one of the officials.
The incoming administration was also wary of comparisons being made with Joe Biden’s calamitous US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was something the Trump camp would not like to see repeated in Ukraine, the official added.
Trump earlier this week suggested that “six months” was a more realistic target to end the war. His appointee as special envoy for the war in Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News on Wednesday that the aim was to stop the conflict in “100 days”.
“I would like to set a goal on a personal and professional level — I would set it at 100 days and move all the way back,” Kellogg told Fox News when asked about a Ukraine peace deal. “And figure a way we can do this in the near term, to make sure the solution is solid and it’s sustainable and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage.”
European leaders and officials have been making the case to Trump and his team that continued US military aid is needed to put Kyiv in a stronger position for peace talks and help bring Moscow to the negotiating table, nearly three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
French officials said last month that strengthening Ukraine’s position on the battlefield meant stopping Russia’s advances in the east of the country because there would be no talks if Moscow was still taking territory.
Washington’s continued military support is crucial for Ukraine’s defence, even as European nations have also contributed with armament and a significant financial lifeline to Kyiv.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, has ruled out that Washington would “abandon” Ukraine.
“I don’t foresee a US disengagement,” she said in a news conference on Thursday, adding that Trump had proven capable of blending diplomacy with deterrence. “On peace, Trump may be someone who is moving forward towards a solution, but I don’t think that means abandoning Ukraine.”
Meloni said that Ukraine would have to receive concrete security guarantees as part of any potential diplomatic deal to end the active conflict.
“Security guarantees are fundamental if we actually aspire to have peace in Ukraine,” she said. “We all know that in the past Russia has violated the agreements that it has signed. Without security guarantees, we cannot have certainty that will not happen again.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought to persuade Washington and other Nato allies to anchor those security guarantees in a concrete timeline for his country to join the US-led defence alliance. But both Biden and Trump have signalled reluctance in endorsing such a step, and so have some European leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile has suggested that European troops could be deployed to Ukraine to ensure that Russia does not attack again — an idea that also lacks unanimous support in Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin would “welcome” any approach from Trump and was prepared for “dialogue” with the US, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
Putin’s main goal in any talks was to create new security agreements that would ensure Ukraine never joins Nato and that the US-led military alliance pulls back from some of its eastern deployments, according to a former senior Kremlin official and another person who has discussed this with the Russian president.
“He wants to change the rules of the international order so there are no threats to Russia. He is very worried about how the world will look after the war,” the former senior Kremlin official said. “Trump wants to roll back Nato anyway. The world is changing, anything can happen.”
Western officials including Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte have sought to stress the importance of Trump ensuring “peace through strength” in Ukraine, and avoiding a defeat for Kyiv that would embolden Putin and his allies in China, Iran and North Korea.
“We cannot have a situation where we have [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un and the Russian leader and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and Iran high-fiving because we came to a deal which is not good for Ukraine, because long-term that will be a dire security threat not only to Europe but also to the US,” Rutte told the FT last month.
Additional reporting by Ben Hall in London
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