On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the war between Russia and Ukraine, writing in a post on social media, “there should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin,” and calling the war between Russia and Ukraine one that “should never have started, and could go on forever.”
Trump has repeatedly pledged that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine immediately upon returning to the White House. He met with world leaders while in Paris on Saturday to attend the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron. It was Trump’s first in-person conversation with Zelenskyy since he won the presidential election in November.
Trump said in the post on Truth Social that “Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!”
Additionally, in a television interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,” Trump also said he would be open to reducing military aid to Ukraine and pulling the United States out of NATO. When asked if he were actively working to end the nearly 3-year-old Ukraine war, Trump said, “I am,” but would not say if he had spoken to Putin since winning election in November. “I don’t want to say anything about that, because I don’t want to do anything that could impede the negotiation.”
Zelenskyy himself said Sunday that he had a “good meeting” with Trump, and told the president-elect that Ukraine needs “a just and enduring peace” that “Russians will not be able to destroy in a few years, as they have done repeatedly in the past.” The Ukrainian president said in a post on social media that the war “cannot simply end with a piece of paper and a few signatures,” urging that a ceasefire “without guarantees can be reignited at any moment.” Zelenskyy argued that Putin “can only be stopped by strength — the strength of world leaders who can become leaders of peace. We count on America and the entire world to help stop Putin. The only things he fears are America and global unity.”
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