Zelensky says the war ‘will end faster’ with Donald Trump as president

The incoming US administration could mean a quicker end to the war started by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Amid concerns about what the return of Donald Trump to the White House means for the war, given the president-elect’s criticism of continued US aid to Kiev and his insistence that he can make a deal to end the war, Zelensky said, that the new American administration makes it “certain that the war will end sooner.”

“This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” the Ukrainian leader added. Newsweek has emailed the Trump team for comment.

Zelensky told Ukrainian magazine Suspilne that Kiev must do everything it can to end the war through diplomatic means, although he believed Putin intended to use negotiations to counter the international isolation he has faced from the West before.

“I don’t think Putin wants peace at all,” Zelensky said, according to Ukrainian online newspaper The Kyiv Independent, “but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to sit down with one of the leaders.”

The day before, Zelensky had criticized a phone call at Berlin’s request between Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which Kyiv believes would play into the hands of the Russian president and risk opening a “Pandora’s box”.

However, Zelensky said he had a “constructive” conversation with Trump after the American’s election victory and that he “didn’t hear anything that goes against our position.”

Trump’s Cabinet nominations for attorney general and director of national intelligence, former representatives Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, respectively, have raised eyebrows in Washington, DC, and concerns in Kiev over reports of their opposition to continued US aid to Ukraine.

Trump has nominated for secretary of state Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who previously said the war had reached a stalemate. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has criticized the amount of money the US is spending on Ukraine.

However, Zelensky said in his interview that he would only speak directly to Trump and not through his aides, adding that as the Ukrainian leader, he would “only take a conversation with the President of the United States seriously.”

Gene Moran, national security expert and former adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Newsweek that the nominees “certainly have loyalty to President Trump.” He said that while “in some cases the credentials are quite identifiable, in others they appear to be absent.”

“It’s hard to know with President Trump’s style what his endgame is here,” Moran added.