Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he spoke with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and agreed to a face-to-face meeting to discuss steps to a lasting peace with Russia.
Zelenskiy spoke with Trump on July 19, a day after the former U.S. president and again Republican candidate accepted his party’s nomination and vowed to end the war in Ukraine if elected.
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“I spoke with @realDonaldTrump to congratulate him on the Republican nomination and condemn the shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. I wished him strength and absolute safety in the future,” Zelenskiy said in a post on X, referring to the July 13 shooting at a Trump rally that slightly injured the candidate.
Zelenskiy said he agreed with Trump “to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting” without giving any details on when and where such a meeting would take place.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social on July 19 that he had a “very good call” with Zelenskiy in which they discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trump vowed to “bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives” through negotiations.
"Both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity," Trump said.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has killed tens of thousands on both sides, is now in its 29th month with no end in sight. Russia currently occupies about 17 percent of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy’s call took place as worries grow in Kyiv and other European capitals about another four years of Trump in the White House. The Republican’s chances of winning the November 2024 election improved following 81-year-old incumbent President Joe Biden’s poor performance in a debate last month that raised questions about his physical and mental state.
Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, said there is interest in how Trump would sort out the war now that it appears "as likely as not" that he will win the election.
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In a post on the social media platform Substack, Freedman cited reports about a rudimentary plan drawn up by two members of the White House National Security Council during Trump's 2017-21 presidency that calls for a cease-fire based on prevailing battle lines.
Keith Kellogg, who drew up the plan with Fred Fleitz, has said it would be crucial to get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table quickly if Trump wins. According to a Reuters report in June, Kellogg has advocated telling the Ukrainians that if they don't come to the negotiating table, U.S. support would dry up, while telling Putin that if he didn't come to the table, the United States would give the Ukrainians "everything they need to kill you in the field."
NATO membership for Ukraine would be off the table as part of the incentive for Russia to come along; putting it back on would be punishment for holding back.
But Freedman, a distinguished military analyst, is skeptical of the plan, which would mark a major shift in the U.S. position on the war.
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"These coercive measures might possibly get the parties to the table, but it does not point to any actual agreed deal," Freedman said on Substack on July 20.
The Kremlin has said any peace plan proposed by a possible future Trump administration would have to reflect the reality on the ground but that Putin remained open to talks. Ukraine has rejected holding talks with the current battle lines as a starting point.
Trump-Putin Relationship
Trump has expressed admiration for authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin, called the Kremlin leader’s preinvasion tactics “genius,” and has repeatedly criticized NATO’s European allies for not spending more on collective defense.
Republican lawmakers in the House of Representative who are closely aligned with Trump blocked Biden's $61 billion aid package for Ukraine for months, leaving Ukraine’s force short on ammunition and air defense. Ukraine’s ammunition hunger contributed to Russian territorial gains this year, experts have said.
Trump has not made his opinion on future support to Ukraine clear, though this week he picked Senator J.D. Vance (Republican-Ohio), an outspoken opponent of aid to Kyiv, as his running mate. The 39-year-old senator has said the United States does not have the military capacity to support Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine and should prioritize the first two.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine maintains bipartisan support in Congress and any future U.S. president will have to take that into account.
"Any administration has to ask hard questions. If we stop, if we reverse ourselves, if we let Ukraine down, what will Putin do? He will then really resume the aggression and possibly have a chance of succeeding where for now he’s failed," Blinken said on July 19 at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
Blinken said Putin would be "likely to go at other countries in the region, including NATO allies." He also said other would-be aggressors are "taking lessons from this too."
During his 92-minute-long acceptance speech on July 18, Trump said he would usher in global peace and stability if elected. He previously said he would “settle” the Ukraine war, should he win the election, before even setting foot in the White House in January 2025.
However, Trump has not said what terms he would propose to Russia and Ukraine. Zelenskiy has said his goal is to drive Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which the Kremlin seized in 2014. Following Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive in 2023, some experts say Ukraine’s objectives are unrealistic and that Kyiv will have to make concessions.
Blinken noted that last week on the margins of the NATO summit in Washington more than 20 countries announced that they had negotiated and signed 10-year bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. All of these countries, including the United States, have committed to help Ukraine build up its defenses for the next decade, Blinken said.
If the United States were to renege on that, there are more than 20 other countries that would continue their support, he said.
Zelenskiy and Trump have a complicated relationship going back to the Ukrainian president’s first days in office.
In a July 2019 call, two months after the former comedian became Ukraine’s president, Trump asked Zelenskiy to look into the Ukrainian business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Trump was charged by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives with using the power of his office to pressure Zelenskiy to interfere in U.S. politics in exchange for a White House visit, becoming the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. However, he was acquitted by the Senate.