Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he could end the Ukraine-Russia war within 24 hours of being elected. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to know how.
“If Trump knows how to finish this war, he should tell us today,” Zelensky said in a Bloomberg TV interview aired on Wednesday. “If there are risks to Ukrainian independence, if we lose statehood — we want to be ready for this, we want to know.”
During last week's debate with President Joe Biden , Trump claimed that if the United States had "a real president, a president that knew — that was respected by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, he would have never invaded Ukraine."
He also claimed at the debate that he will "have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on Jan. 20."
"I'll get it settled fast, before I take office," he added.
At a May 2023 CNN town hall , Trump acknowledged that there have been mass casualties in the multiyear war and that he could make it stop.
"And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours," he said.
Trump claimed then, as he has several times since on the campaign trail, that his superior negotiating skills would kick in once he got Putin and Zelensky into a room together. He'd have a deal between the two warring nations wrapped up in a day, he said.
Trump has also claimed that the billions of dollars in aid going to Ukraine was doing little good, adding that Kyiv is “not winning the war.”
Zelensky took umbrage with Trump's comments that Kyiv is losing, rejecting the term "deadlock" that Trump used to describe the conflict.
“It’s not a deadlock, it’s a problematic situation,” Zelensky said. “A deadlock means there’s no way out. But a problem can be solved if one has the will and has the tools. We do have the will, and the tools — they haven’t arrived yet.”
Zelensky acknowledged that they've had a "real long, long, long wait" between what they've been promised regarding money and aid and when they've received it. However, he lauded the $61 billion assistance package approved by Congress this year.
Another person not buying Trump's claims of a quick fix is Russia's United Nations ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, who told reporters on Monday that the "Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day."
The Kremlin also pushed back on Wednesday, claiming there were no talks in place between Putin and Trump on possible conditions for peace.
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"No, that's not true," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the talks.
Separately, on Wednesday, NATO allies agreed to provide at least $43 billion in military aid for Ukraine per year but shied from explicit pledges for the years ahead, Bloomberg reported.
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