President-elect Donald Trump is already moving quite fast on his goal to quickly bring to an end the Ukraine war. It has been revealed Sunday he held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin previously on Thursday, the first such communication between the two since Trump won the election.
Trump urged immediate de-escalation in the call with Putin. The Washington Post describes that “During the call, which Trump took from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.”
Multiple sources said the call focused on the “goal of peace on the European continent” and ended on a positive note with plans to hold future conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”.
WaPo has further said that Ukraine was informed that the call was going to take place and did not object. However, the Zelensky government has subsequent this the report rejected this claim.
“Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Reuters.
WaPo has also underscored that the Trump transition team is fearful of leaks at this point:
Trump’s initial calls with world leaders are not being conducted with the support of the State Department and U.S. government interpreters. The Trump transition team has yet to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration, a standard procedure for presidential transitions.
Currently, the Zelensky government and some of the more hawkish leaders within NATO are deeply worried that the future Trump White House will force a ‘bad deal’ – or one that pressures Kiev to give up some 20% of his territory. They are against anything which the Kremlin could view as ‘victory’ for Russia.
One proposed plan, said to be getting the most attention from Trump’s team, would see an indefinite ‘freeze’ on the front lines in the east, paving the way for immediate ceasefire, and enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone.
Peace would also be ensured by Ukraine agreeing to suspend its aspirations to join NATO for twenty years. This buffer zone would not involve any US troops, according to initial reports based on the description of Trump officials.
Included a brief discussion on territory…
SCOOP: Trump had a phone call with Vladimir Putin and talked about the war in Ukraine, including a brief discussion on territory, marking the first conversation between the two men since Trump won the election. Our report w/ @nakashimae @jdawsey1 @siobhan_ogrady @ikhurshudyan pic.twitter.com/h1aOZKIY4C
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) November 10, 2024
Regardless of if the hoped-for ceasefire takes shape, which would spare countless lives, the fact that Trump and Putin are already talking will only be seen as a bad thing by hawks who have recklessly pushed for escalation from the beginning. These same warmongers even condemned France’s Macron when he early in the war sought an off-ramp through an initial series of phone calls with Putin.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield in the east:
Military bloggers on Friday reported that Russian forces were moving closer to capturing a major town on the eastern front in the war in Ukraine as part of their drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region.
Bloggers on both sides reported that Russian forces had entered the village of Sontsivka and were advancing from the northwest on the city of Kurakhove.
“The Kurakhove direction and the Pokrovsk direction are the most challenging right now,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced in a nightly video address this weekend.
The world knows that Ukrainian forces are losing anyway, and Russia is poised to take all of Donetsk, so it is indeed long past time for Washington to do everything possible to both de-escalate and wind down and ultimately find permanent peaceful settlement.
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