WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Sunday called for an immediate end to the war between Russia and Ukraine and the president-elect renewed warnings that he is open to withdrawing the United States from NATO.
Trump made his withdrawal proposal after a weekend meeting in Paris with the leaders of France and Ukraine, saying Kyiv would “like to make a deal” to end the more than 1,000-day war. The Kremlin responded that talks were open, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that any deal would have to pave the way for lasting peace.
In his Truth Social speech, Trump said that Russia and Ukraine have lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in a war that “should never have started.”
“The shooting should stop immediately and negotiations should begin. Too many lives needlessly wasted, too many families torn apart,” said Trump. He called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to do something to end the fighting.
Trump's speech came after a meeting Saturday with Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron that Zelenskyy described as “constructive.”
In a Sunday letter on the Telegram messaging app, Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine needs “a just and stable peace, which the Russians will not destroy within a few years.”
“If we talk about effective peace with Russia, we must first talk about effective peace guarantees. Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else. “Russia has brought war to our country,” said Zelenskyy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow's long-standing message that it is open to talks with Ukraine. He referred to Zelenskyy's October 2022 decree that officially declared the prospect of any talks “impossible” as long as Putin is Russia's leader.
That law came after Putin declared four regions occupied by Ukraine to be part of Russia, in what Kyiv and the West considered a clear violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, despite Moscow not having full military control over the areas.
For most of the war, Kyiv's official position was to demand a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, as a condition for peace talks.
In another social media update, Zelenskyy claimed that Kyiv has so far lost 43,000 soldiers since it attacked Moscow on February 24, 2022, and 370,000 were injured.
Both Russia and Ukraine have been reluctant to publish official death tolls. Western officials have said the past few months of fighting for positions in eastern Ukraine have meant record losses on both sides, with tens of thousands killed and wounded each month.
Trump has said before that he would like to see an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Sunday's proposal was very intense, and the quick responses from Ukraine and Russia showed how deeply they view the idea of the incoming American president.
The Biden administration and other supporters of Ukraine in the United States and abroad have made a point of not appearing to press Ukraine for an immediate deal. Ukraine's allies fear that a quick deal would be on the terms of their more powerful neighbor, forcing concessions that hurt Ukraine and allowing Russia to resume hostilities once it rebuilds its military.
Separately, Trump in an NBC News interview that aired on Sunday renewed his warning to NATO allies that he does not see continued US participation in the Western military alliance given his second term in office.
Trump has long complained that European and Canadian governments in the defense bloc are freeloading military spending from the US, its most powerful ally in NATO. NATO and its member governments say most countries in the bloc are now hitting voluntary military spending targets, thanks to pressure from Trump in his first term.
Asked in a taped interview on Friday whether he would consider leaving NATO, Trump said that was an open question.
“If they pay their bills, and if I think they treat us well, the answer is I will stay with NATO,” he told “Meet the Press.”
But if not, he was asked if he would consider pulling the US out of the alliance. Trump responded, “Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.”
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