Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine. Now he must decide how.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Donald Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine by Inauguration Day now puts him in a position of having to choose between competing proposals from advisers united by a common thread—a sharp break from President Biden’s “as long as it takes" approach to arming Kyiv. Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump bashed Biden’s handling of Ukraine, warning that it made World War III more likely and that Kyiv fleeced the U.S.
by obtaining weapons worth billions of dollars free of charge. He has said he could resolve the conflict quickly, bringing both sides to the negotiating table, but hasn’t revealed how he would do so. “I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them," he said during the campaign.
In fact, Trump hasn’t approved a specific peace plan, allies said, including how he would persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sit at the same table and negotiate. While advisers have offered ideas, only the president-elect, in consultation with key aides, will decide how to handle the sensitive and high-stakes diplomacy, they said. “Anyone—no matter how senior in Trump’s circle—who claims to have a different view or more detailed window into his plans on Ukraine simply doesn’t know what he or she is talking about or doesn’t understand that he makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this," a former Trump National Security Council aide said.
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