President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers now admit that the war of Ukraine It will take months or even longer to resolve, which represents a harsh blow of reality to his greatest promise in foreign policy: reaching a peace agreement on his first day in the White House.
Two Trump aides, who have discussed the war in Ukraine with the president-elect, told the news agency Reuters that the resolution of the conflict would take months, and They described the government’s first day promises as a combination of campaign bravado and a lack of understanding of the difficulty of the conflict and the time it takes to staff a new government.
These assessments coincide with the comments of Trump’s new envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kelloggwho in an interview with Fox News last week he said that would like to have a “solution” to the war in 100 days, which goes well beyond the president-elect’s original term.
But even Kellogg’s extended deadline was “too, too optimistic,” said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who is now at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.
“For this to work, Trump has to persuade Putin that being intransigent has its drawbacks”Herbst said.
On the eve of his Nov. 5 election victory, Trump said dozens of times that he would reach a deal between Ukraine and Russia on his first day in office, if not sooner.
In late October, however, he made a subtle shift in his rhetoric, and began saying that he could resolve the war “very quickly.”
Since the election, Trump has retreated further in his rhetoric, often limiting himself to saying he would “resolve” the conflict, without offering a timetable. and the president-elect has said that ending the war in Ukraine will be more difficult than reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I think, actually, the more difficult the situation is going to be between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump said when asked about Gaza during a press conference in December. “I find it more difficult.”
Russia has also sent mixed signals regarding a potential peace deal, welcoming direct talks with Trump while dismissing some of the ideas presented by his advisers as unworkable.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the Trump team’s updated schedule. Representatives of the incoming Trump administration and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
By Gram Slattery (Reuters)
