President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t started his second term yet, but his team is already holding high-level talks with Ukrainian and Russian officials in hopes to bring peace to the region, according to reports.
A source cited by Reuters said a Ukrainian delegation led by Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, met with Trump’s choice for White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg.
Since Russia began an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has supported Ukraine with weapons and monetary support under the leadership of President Joe Biden. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would end the conflict on his first day in office.
“Analysts and former national security officials voice grave doubts Trump can fulfill such a pledge because of the conflict’s complexity,” according to Reuters.
Last month, Audacy reported that Trump’s team was “considering a proposal that would establish an 800-mile demilitarized zone in Ukraine, with assurances in return that it would not join NATO for at least two decades.”
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a group that was founded to oppose the former Soviet Union. Countries in NATO, including the U.S., pledge to defend each other from Russian attacks. While Ukraine has requested to become part of the organization, there are concerns about nuclear weapons and direct conflict between the U.S. and Russia – the countries who have the largest stockpiles of those weapons in the world.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin even said this September that a change in policy regarding Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons in Russia would “mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.”
This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukrainian officials holding high-level talks with the incoming Trump administration were “seeking to narrow wide differences on achieving a settlement,” in the war even before he takes office and Reuters said a top official was in the U.S. to build contacts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said shortly after Trump won the election last month that he was encouraged by Trump’s words regarding “peace through strength.”
“This year, we have already spoken with President Trump both by phone in July and in a face-to-face meeting in September; and those were good conversations,” said Zelenskyy in Nov. 6 video.
Reuters said that advisers to Trump “publicly and privately are floating proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future,” based on the outlet’s analysis of their statements and interviews with several people close to the U.S. president-elect. Zelenskyy said this week that Ukraine must find diplomatic solutions to regaining some of its occupied territories, the outlet noted.
In a video posted to Facebook, the Ukrainian president also announced that he signed a decree that gives effect to the National Security and Defense Council’s decision on sanctions related to part of the Georgian government that is surrendering Georgia to Putin.
“We must not lose anyone in this region – neither Georgia, nor Moldova, nor Ukraine. We must stand united in defending ourselves against Moscow,” Zelenskyy said.