In the early hours of Thursday, the future president of the United States, Donald Trump, spoke for almost half an hour by phone with Volodymyr Zelensky. It was one of the earliest conversations that the Republican had with a foreign leader. This talk was possible because at that time the teams of both politicians had agreed to establish a permanent dialogue to bring positions closer together, as the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sibiga, explained this Saturday during a press conference with the head of the European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who began his last official visit to Ukraine this Saturday.
. The key is to know if he will row in favor of Zelensky’s approaches, that is, not give one bit to Russia, or will force Kiev to negotiate a quick end to the conflict with Moscow in which it loses territory and its will to form part of NATO. This last option is the favorite of his future vice president, JD Vance. Trump has insisted during the election campaign that if he won the election, he would turn off the spigot of military assistance to Ukraine and secure a peace deal in a matter of days.
The first objective of the coordination line established between Zelensky’s office and Trump’s is to establish the date of a next meeting between the two, as confirmed by Sibiga, even before the American is sworn into office. Zelensky’s goal is to convince Trump that the United States is risking its global leadership in Ukraine, and in the 1980s.
“Ukraine seeks leadership and changes can be opportunities,” commented the Ukrainian Foreign Minister in reference to Trump’s arrival to power. In recent months, disagreements had accumulated between Zelensky and Joe Biden, especially the document that the Ukrainian head of state has prepared to strengthen his country militarily. The main differences are Biden’s refusal to accept that Ukraine be immediately invited to join NATO, the possibility that the invaded country uses long-range missiles against targets on Russian soil and the request that the White House allocate cruise missiles to the defense of Ukraine.
red lines
“We have been at war for almost a thousand days also because of the slowness in decision-making, because the decisions sometimes do not correspond to reality,” Sibiga said during a press conference with Borrell. The head of European diplomacy, who is visiting Ukraine for the last time as a community representative because he is leaving office in the coming weeks, has taken the opportunity to ask Ukraine’s allies not to “impose red lines” in the fight against the Russian invasion. Borrell has mentioned, specifically, the veto on the use of long-range missiles on Russian soil. “I am in favor of hitting enemy targets in both territories [Ucrania y Rusia]. Ukraine must not only shoot down the arrow, it must also be able to destroy the bow,” he said, referring to the ability of Ukrainian air defenses to shoot down missiles that are fired hundreds of kilometers from Ukrainian cities. “Vladímir Putin does not want to negotiate, and will not negotiate until he is forced to,” he added.
Borrell has indicated that it is too early to know what path the future president of the United States will follow, but he has highlighted the European commitment to Ukraine: he recalled that the EU has provided 47% of global assistance for the invaded country, compared to the 40% from the United States. Sibiga stressed that Borrell has played a fundamental role in European support for Ukraine: “We will always remember his leadership and his historical role.”
