Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, hasn’t publicly fleshed out his policy on Ukraine but his previous comments have put a question mark over whether the United States will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest — and most important — military backer.
But the incursion didn’t significantly change the dynamic of the war, and military analysts say Ukraine has lost some 40% of the land it initially captured.
Zelenskyy is eager to guarantee that Washington’s support keeps coming, and he met with Trump in New York even before last November’s U.S. presidential election.
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With the war about to enter its fourth year next month, and with Trump coming to power, the question of how and when Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II might end has come to the fore.
The Ukrainian leader is determined for his country to become a NATO member. The alliance’s 32 member countries say Ukraine will join one day, but not until the war ends.
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Trump responded favorably to the possibility raised by French President Emmanuel Macron of Western peacekeepers being deployed in Ukraine to oversee an agreement that stops the fighting, Zelenskyy said. He met with Trump and Macron in Paris last month.
“But I raised an issue, saying we didn’t hear what specific countries will join this initiative, and whether the U.S. will be there,” Zelenskyy said.
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“The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly, if Trump is strong in his position,” Zelensky said in a Ukrainian television interview late Thursday, referring to fighting on the battlefield.
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