President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that he will push Ukraine’s president to negotiate with Russia for a ceasefire after he takes office next month. But just days earlier, a Ukrainian lawmaker told reporters in Washington, D.C., that a ceasefire would be “very difficult” for the government to accept without key security guarantees and the delivery of promised military aid.
Trump was asked at a press conference if he would push Ukraine to give up territory Russia was occupying as part of a ceasefire.
He said, “I’m going to let you know that after I have my first meeting, but a lot of that territory, when you look at what’s happened to those I mean, there are cities that there’s not a building standing. It’s a demolition site. There’s not a building standing, so people can’t go back to those cities. There’s nothing there. It’s just rubble.”
On Friday, Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told reporters in Washington, D.C., that the issue with ceding territory wasn’t just up to Zelensky and that the delivery of promised weapons aid was a key factor in what Ukraine would ultimately agree to.
“I cannot imagine a person in the parliament voting for giving up any other territories, because it’s not about territories. This is people. And this stuff has been promised. This stuff needs to be delivered. If it’s not delivered, and we do not come back with a stronger position. It’s going to be very difficult,” Ustinova said.
Ukrainian officials have said their country has received less than half of the total military aid that the United States has promised. Getting that aid, especially long-range missiles, would allow cross-border strikes that could ward off Russian attacks.
Ustinova said that Ukraine’s accession to NATO had to remain on the table.
“The unoccupied part has to be a part of NATO,” she said, citing the various times Putin had agreed to halt aggression toward Ukraine just to re-arm for another expanded assault, while violating the agreements. “We have already been through all of these agreements in 2015 with Crimea, with the Minsk Agreement when we had basically to give up Crimea.”
Trump has opposed NATO ascension for Ukraine. But according to some reports he is open to European countries such as France and the United Kingdom sending their troops to monitor a ceasefire deal.
Ustinova said that she was encouraged by her recent meetings with Republican lawmakers, some members of Trump’s incoming security team, and others.
“I do think that there might be cuts in financial or humanitarian aid [from the United States], but in terms of military support, I can tell you that my main contacts on [Capitol Hill] and everybody who will be stepping in [to leadership positions on key congressional committees] are going to tell [Trump] it’s not going to stop,” she said.
More than half of Ukrainians support a negotiated end to the war, according to polling Gallup conducted in November.
But Ustinova said that support comes with expectations.
“Trump will try to negotiate some deal, but people, all people around him, understand [that] to negotiate some deal, you need to make Ukraine stronger,” she said. “We are trying to push for faster deliveries, because it is difficult for us to fight at the front lines when there’s nothing to fight with, and it’s difficult to recruit people because people don’t want to go [to the front lines] with no protection. A man without a gun is a victim.”
Ustinova said that, ceasefire deal or no, Russia is likely to remain aggressive toward Ukraine and other Eastern European countries until handed battlefield defeat.
“The only thing for them to stop the war is to start losing operations. A great example of that would be Kursk,” the Russian territory where Ukraine has held ground since August, “or our counteroffensive in Kharkiv.
“To do that, we need not just to be promised the capabilities. That stuff has to be delivered.”
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