Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says war ‘will end faster’ as Trump enters White House | Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Russia’s war against his country will “end faster” than it otherwise would have when Donald Trump becomes US president next year.

In a radio interview broadcast on Saturday, the Ukrainian president admitted that the situation on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russia was making progress. He said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal.

Zelenskyy said US law prevented him from meeting Trump before his inauguration next January. The Ukrainian leader said he would only speak to Trump, rather than an emissary or adviser.

“I, as the President of Ukraine, will only take a conversation with the President of the United States seriously, with all respect for any consequence, to any people.

“From our side, we must do everything for this war to end next year, end by diplomatic means,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said on Friday that he had a “constructive exchange” with Trump during their phone conversation after his victory in the US presidential election. “I didn’t hear anything that goes against our position,” he added. During a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday, Trump said: “We are going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine. It has to stop.”

In other developments:

• Zelenskyy criticized one telephone call between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Putin, said it opened a “Pandora’s box” by undermining efforts to isolate the Russian leader. “Now there can be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words,” Zelenskyy said in his evening speech on Friday. “And this is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation and to conduct regular negotiations.” According to Reuters, Zelenskyy and other European officials had warned Scholz against the move.

• Scholz said Donald Trump privately had “a more nuanced stance than is often assumed” toward Ukraine. Trump’s re-election in last week’s US presidential vote has raised concerns that he could withdraw Washington’s significant support for Ukraine back in the White House. Scholz, who spoke to Trump by phone on Sunday, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Friday that his call to the president-elect was “perhaps surprisingly, a very detailed and good conversation”. Asked by the newspaper if Trump wanted to make a deal over the heads of the Ukrainians, Scholz said Trump gave “no indication” that he would. Germany, for its part, would not accept a “peace by diktat”, Scholz said.

• Scholz urged Putin will withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine and open talks with Kiev that will pave the way for a “just and lasting peace”, in the first telephone conversation between the two leaders in almost two years. The Kremlin said the conversation on Friday had come at Berlin’s request and that Putin had told Scholz that any deal to end the war in Ukraine must take into account Russian security interests and reflect “new territorial realities”. A German government spokesman said Scholz “underscored Germany’s unbroken determination to support Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression for as long as necessary”.

• Russian air defense units intercepted a number of Ukrainian drones in several Russian regions, officials said, many of them in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched a major incursion in August. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the air force shot down 15 drones in the Kursk region on the Ukrainian border. It said units shot down one drone each in Bryansk region, also on the border, and in Lipetsk region, further north. The ministry said a drone was shot down in the central Oryol region. And the governor of Belgorod region, a frequent target on the Ukrainian border, said a series of attacks had broken windows in an apartment block and caused other damage, but no injuries were reported.

• Russia will suspend gas supplies to Austria via Ukraine on Saturday. Russia’s gas export route to Europe via Ukraine is set to close at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says helps finance the war against it. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Gazprom’s announcement to end supplies was long overdue and that Austria had made preparations, but Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia’s action showed it was “again using energy as a weapon”.

• Russia’s leading tanker group, Sovcomflot, said on Friday that Western sanctions against Russian oil tankers limited its financial performance as it reported falling revenues and underlying earnings. The United States imposed sanctions on Sovcomflot in February, part of Washington’s efforts to reduce Russia’s revenue from oil sales, which it can use to finance its war in Ukraine. Sovcomflot reported a 22.2% year-over-year decline in nine-month revenue to $1.22 billion. and said its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization fell 31.5% to $861m.