Zelensky responds to Trump’s comments on the war in Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky said in a recent interview that he didn’t understand Donald Trump when he said he could end the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to office, revealing more than just his complicated feelings about the upcoming U.S. election. 

The Wall Street Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker traveled to Kyiv to sit down with Ukraine’s embattled president and ask him about the state of the conflict as well as the prospect of the country’s long-term security goals in the face of an uncertain future. 

One of the most revealing questions Tucker asked Zelensky was if he worried about the upcoming election in the United States, noting specifically that there could be a change in governments and insinuating the incoming Republican administration might not be as supportive and if that made him feel as if he needed to get the war finished quicker. 

“Of course I want the war to end as soon as possible,” Zelensky said. “It has nothing to do with whether the administration will remain the same or will change. 

Zelensky explained that Joe Biden is the President who has been with Ukraine since the full-scale war began and said Biden had been more helpful than Donald Trump when talking about both administrations. 

But Zelensky also conceded that Trump was President before the full-scale war started and said that he wasn’t sure how Trump would have acted if he were in the Oval Office when Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. 

“I didn’t understand when Donald Trump said: ‘in 24 hours I will bring Putin and Zelensky to the table and end the war’,” Zelenesky explained. “He could have done that. But it didn’t happen."

Back in March, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview that if he was re-elected to office he would find a way to solve the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. But the former president gave few details on how he would accomplish that goal. 

“If it’s not solved, I will have it solved in 24 hours with Zelensky and with Putin,” Trump said to Hannity. “And there’s a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don’t want to tell you what it is because then I can’t use that negotiation; it’ll never work.”

“But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place," Trump added. “I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them. Now that’s a year and a half. That’s a long time. I can’t imagine something not happening,” the former president added according to The Hill. 

Trump's remarks seemed like more grandiose promises about the power of his ability to negotiate. But a change in government is exactly what could bring Zelensky and Putin to the table, though you shouldn’t hold out hope based on Zelensky’s response. 

Zelensky explained that when people talk of an administration change he feels the same as anyone, hoping that the exchange will be for the better but also saying he knew that it could also be the other way around—a worrying sign for what he asked for next. 

Zelensky made it clear in his interview with Emma Tucker that Ukraine needed a lot more Patriot missile systems in order to keep the country safe from Russia’s rocket attacks, saying: “This war taught me that people are time, and that’s it.”

“Here is my response,” Zelensky said, “There is one weapon that deprives Russia of its ability to intimidate tens of millions of people—Patriots. The reality is 50 Patriots will, for the most part, prevent people from dying." But Zelensky doesn’t just want Patriots. 

The Ukrainian President went on to passionately explain why Ukraine needed modern fighter jets, saying that everyone knows counter-offensives without air superiority are dangerous and that nations understood the value of being able to protect their skies. 

If there was a change of administration in 2024, would Trump, or any other incoming Republican President, be willing to part with 48 Patriot missile systems to meet the needs of Ukraine? And what about sending modern fighter jets to defend its skies? 

As of right now, the two leading contenders for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, have both shown their willingness to compromise on Ukraine to garner votes with the Republican Party’s base—a situation that could prove disastrous.