US president-elect Donald Trump is “strong and unpredictable” and those qualities can be a decisive factor in his policy approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, Zelensky said it will not be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Trump claimed during his election campaign he could do.
“The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly, if Trump is strong in his position,” Zelensky said in a Ukrainian television interview late on Thursday, referring to fighting on the battlefield.
“I believe (Trump) is strong and unpredictable. I would very much like President Trump’s unpredictability to be directed primarily toward the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, has not publicly fleshed out his policy on Ukraine but his previous comments have put a question mark over whether the United States will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest – and most important – military backer.
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Zelensky is eager to guarantee that Washington’s support keeps coming, and he met with Trump in New York even before November’s US presidential election.