Trump advisers concede Ukraine peace deal is months away
Item
1 of 3 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald
Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower
in New York City, U.S., September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton/File Photo
[1/3]Republican
presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York
City, U.S., September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights - Trump advisers are quietly backing away from the campaign promise to end the war on Day One
- New extended timeline - months, not days or weeks - recognizes intractability of conflict
- Putin sending mixed messages about readiness to resolve the conflict
WASHINGTON,
Jan 15 (Reuters) - Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede
that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a
sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise - to strike a
peace deal on his first day in the White House.
Two
Trump associates, who have discussed the war in Ukraine with the
president-elect, told Reuters they were looking at a timeline of months
to resolve the conflict, describing the Day One promises as a
combination of campaign bluster and a lack of appreciation of the
intractability of the conflict and the time it takes to staff up a new
administration.
Those
assessments dovetail with remarks by Trump's incoming Russia-Ukraine
envoy, retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, who said in an
interview with Fox News last week that he would like to have a
"solution" to the war within 100 days, far beyond the president-elect's
original timeline.
Yet
even Kellogg's extended deadline was "way, way 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 (Russian President Vladimir) Putin
that there's a downside for being intransigent," Herbst said.
In the run-up to his
Nov. 5 election victory,
Trump declared dozens of times that he would have a deal in place
between Ukraine and Russia on his first day in office, if not before.
In late October, however, he made a subtle shift in his rhetoric, and began saying he could solve the war "very quickly."
Since
the election, Trump has walked back his rhetoric further, often simply
saying that he would "solve" the conflict, without offering a timeline.
And the president-elect has said ending the war in Ukraine will be
harder than reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
"I
think, actually, more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine
situation," Trump said when asked about Gaza during a press conference
in December. "I see that as more difficult."
Russia has also sent mixed signals regarding a possible peace deal,
welcoming direct talks with Trump, while dismissing some of the ideas put forth by his advisers as unworkable.
The
Kremlin declined to comment on the Trump team's updated timeline.
Representatives for Trump's incoming administration and the Ukrainian
embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
'NOTHING OF INTEREST'
Russia has made
significant battlefield gains
in recent months. While those gains have come at a huge cost in terms
of men and materiel, many analysts argue Putin has an incentive to
slow-walk a deal while he tries to gain control of more Ukrainian
territory.
Herbst
pointed to comments earlier this month by Russia's UN ambassador,
Vasily Nebenzya, who said that the peace plans put forward by Trump's
advisers were "nothing of interest."
While the exact contours of a Trump peace plan are still being mulled, Trump's advisers
generally support
taking the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine off the table, at
least for the foreseeable future, and freezing the current battle
lines.
Most
high-ranking Trump advisers also support giving Ukraine a material
security guarantee, such as the creation of a demilitarized zone
patrolled by European troops.
So
far, the Trump team's attempts to end the war have proceeded in fits
and starts, underlining the degree to which campaign promises can run
into the reality of complex diplomatic negotiations.
Kellogg, Trump's Ukraine envoy, postponed a
planned visit to Kyiv before the inauguration, seen as part of a fact-finding mission to give officials a head start on a peace plan,
Reuters reported last week.
The
Ukrainian foreign ministry cited U.S. concerns about violating the
Logan Act, which limits the ability of private citizens to negotiate
with foreign governments.
"I
don't think it's appropriate that I meet (Putin) until after the 20th,
which I hate because every day people are being - many, many young
people are being killed," Trump said at a press conference last week.
Meanwhile,
incoming Trump administration officials at the State Department,
National Security Council and other agencies are still feeling out who
has input and jurisdiction over different geopolitical issues, one of
the Trump foreign policy advisers told Reuters.
Reporting
by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington
and Tom Balmforth in Kyiv, editing by Ross Colvin and Suzanne
Goldenberg