Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that if Donald Trump were to win the presidential election in 2024, it may have a significant impact on the outcome of Russia’s 22-month-long invasion.
He said on Tuesday: ‘If the policy of the next president, whoever it is, is different towards Ukraine, more cold or more economical, I think these signals will have a very strong impact on the course of the war.’
He added that Trump would ‘surely have a different policy’ to Biden, but earlier said he was certain that the US and Europe will continue to support Ukraine’s war efforts.
When asked whether the conflict with Russia could come to an end in the new year, the Ukrainian president said ‘no one has the answer,’ not even top military commanders.
‘We have thoughts and ideas, and ideas can be far from reality,’ the stoic wartime leader said in his speech at the end-of-year press conference.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers an end-of-year press conference in Kyiv on December 19, 2023
Ukrainian tank crews take part in a drill not far from the front line in the Bakhmut direction, in the Donetsk region, on December 15, 2023
Zelensky held talks with President Joe Biden last week in Washington
When challenged over the continuation of Western military support, which one reporter pointed out is ‘fading’, Zelensky responded by insisting that agreements made with the US ‘will be fulfilled’.
He added triumphantly that Vladimir Putin’s forces had ‘failed to achieve any results’ in 2023, while the Ukrainian people and military had maintained their strength.
Russia has sustained heavy losses and has had to mobilise hundreds of thousands of new conscripts since the war began.
As the war drags into its third year, Ukraine is also having to mobilise more recruits, with Zelensky warning today that as many as 450,000 more people could be called up to fight.
He added that this was a ‘very significant amount’ and that there would need to be more discussions around the plans, which military officials are working on.
As well as manpower struggles, Zelensky admitted that while there are challenges around securing continued aid amid a lack of shells and artillery systems, he believes the ‘taps are opening’.
‘I am confident that the US will not let us down and what we have agreed in the US will be fulfilled,’ he said.
It is not currently clear how Trump would handle Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He previously said he would be able to hash out an agreement between the two nations, but has not provided any support to negotiations, despite Zelensky welcoming the support.
Trump also attempted to coerce Zelensky into investigating Joe Biden, then his main political rival, as well as his son Hunter Biden and the cybersecurity company, CloudStrike, Hunter was managing in Ukraine at the time.
Regarding support from the EU, Zelensky added that while the stakes have been ‘very high’, he is confident Ukraine will receive €50bn shortly.
He accepted that while there are ‘risks’ around the West’s continued support, he does not think Ukraine will be ‘betrayed’.
It comes after a series of meetings he held in the US last week, with both President Biden and Republican Senators – many of whom looked on calls for more money and supplies with far less enthusiasm than their Democrat counterparts.
Despite a frosty reception from some, Zelensky today said he is ‘happy we heard one another’ during his trip to Washington, adding that he believes support will come ‘very soon’.
But in a major blow to Kyiv’s war efforts on Friday, Hungary, whose president Viktor Orban is the most Kremlin-alligned of European leaders, blocked an EU effort to provide additional aid to Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, remains undeterred in his public goals, telling military top brasses in Moscow today that he would push ahead with his ‘special military operation’.
This is despite declassified US intelligence reports stating that Russia has suffered a stunning 315,000 troops killed or wounded since the invasion began less than two years ago, out of a pre-invasion force of 360,000.