The war in Ukraine, which has been resisting Russian invasion for almost three years, will take several months or even longer to resolve. The advisers of the newly elected US President Donald Trump, who promised to end the conflict quickly, admit this, writes TASR according to Reuters.
Two associates of Trump, who discussed the war in Ukraine with him, say that they need several months to resolve it. They called Trump’s promises to end the war within a day of returning to the White House a combination of campaign hype and a lack of understanding of the complexity of the conflict. They also talked about the necessary time to fill in the incoming administration.
The statements of the advisors of the future US president coincide with the statements of his incoming special envoy for Russia and Ukraine. Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg said in an interview with Fox News last week that he would like to reach a “solution” to the war within 100 days.
However, even this time horizon is too optimistic, said former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who now works at the Washington think tank Atlantic Council. “For this to work, Trump needs to convince (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that intransigence has its downsides,” Herbst added.
In the campaign before the November presidential elections in the USA, Trump declared several times that he would reach an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the very first day of his inauguration, if not earlier. But in late October, according to Reuters, he made a subtle shift in his rhetoric and began saying that he could resolve the war “very quickly.”
After his election, Trump toned down such statements even more. He often said he would “solve” the conflict, but did not indicate any specific plan. He also said that ending the war in Ukraine will be more difficult than achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
According to Reuters, Russia is also sending ambiguous signals about a possible peace agreement. On the one hand, it welcomed the possibility of direct talks between Putin and Trump, but rejected some proposals of his advisers as unworkable. Herbst pointed to the statements of the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vasilii Nebenzia, that the peace initiatives of Trump’s associates are “nothing interesting”.
The exact contours of Trump’s peace plan are still being considered. However, his advisers generally support the removal of the possibility of Ukraine’s membership in NATO from the negotiations at least for the foreseeable future, as well as freezing the current situation on the battlefield. Most high-ranking officials around Trump also support the provision of certain security guarantees to Ukraine – for example, the creation of a demilitarized zone that would be guarded by European troops, writes Reuters.
