President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a press conference at the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday, the 7th of November, that he did not know any details about US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan for a quick end to the war in Ukraine and was convinced that a quick end to the war would mean losses for Kyiv, reports Reuters.
He spoke to the Republican via phone call late on Wednesday evening and described the conversation as “great”, but they did not discuss the plan.
“If it’s just quick, it means losses for Ukraine. I still don’t see how it could happen otherwise. Maybe we don’t know something, don’t see something”, he said.
Trump’s election victory this week has added great uncertainty at a dangerous moment in the war,
with Moscow’s troops making their fastest advance in months and North Korea deploying forces in Russia’s Kursk region.
Zelenskyy was one of the first leaders to congratulate the President-elect, who during the campaign criticised the amount of US military and financial support to Kyiv and promised to end the war quickly, without explaining how.
Meanwhile, the White House is reportedly planning to urgently provide billions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, hoping to strengthen the Kyiv government ahead of Trump’s inauguration on the 20th of January.
The US is one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters in the war.
“I believe that President Trump really wants a quick decision. He wants to – that doesn’t mean it will happen. I speak without reproach, … we are where we are,” he told reporters.
In Russia, whose troops control about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to talk to Trump because any ideas for promoting an end to the Ukraine crisis deserved attention.
Zelenskyy said: “We have to prepare for any decision. We want a just end to the war. I am convinced that the imminent end of the war means losses.”
Zelenskyy used harsh words to oppose the idea of a ceasefire without security guarantees for Kyiv, which Ukraine says it needs to prevent Russia from launching an even bigger offensive later.
“This is a very scary challenge for our people – first a ceasefire, then we will see. Who are you? Are your children dying?”
“A ceasefire is proposed, for example, by a leader who is against Ukraine being part of NATO. Imagine… This is nonsense and disharmony”, a comment that seems to have been addressed to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the organiser of the event, who used the summit to repeat his call for a ceasefire in the war as a first step.
Similar calls had been made from Brazil and China, which would essentially serve Russian interests, said Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy also announced on Thursday that North Korean troops had suffered in the fighting with the Kyiv forces and that some of the 11 000 soldiers sent to Russia’s Kursk region had taken part in the fighting.