Zelensky thinks he'll win the war before the 2024 US election

Volodymyr Zelensky said he believes Ukraine will win its fight against Russia before the next US presidential election according to comments he made during a recent interview on May 10th.  

While speaking with broadcasters in Kyiv, Zelensky dismissed fears that he was worried about losing US support if Joe Biden wasn’t reelected in the 2024 presidential elections. 

BBC News reported that Zelensky said his country still enjoyed bipartisan support in the American Congress and that he believed the war could be won before the next election. 

"Who knows where we'll be,” Zelensky said, insinuating that he meant where the war would be before the 2024 presidential election. “I believe we’ll win by then,” he added. 

Zelensky’s comments came less than one day after former American President Donald Trump refused to say whether or not he wanted Ukraine to defeat Russia in the conflict. 

“I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying,” the former president said during a CNN town hall hosted by Kaitlin Collins. 

According to a CNN report, when Collins pressed Trump on the issue, he still wouldn’t budge, and explained that he didn’t think of the conflict “in terms of winning and losing.” 

“I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” Trump explained, before moving on to comment on the amount of equipment being sent to the Ukrainians.

When asked by a voter at the town hall if Trump supported providing Ukraine with more military aid, the former president would not commit to sending more according to CNN.

“We’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now,” Trump said. “We don’t have ammunition for ourselves, we're giving away so much.”

Fortunately for the Ukrainians, Zelensky wasn’t wrong when he stated that his country really does enjoy broad support from both sides of the American political spectrum. 

The Wall Street Journal noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a bloc of vital Republicans have pledged support for Ukraine while Congressman Thom Tillis said: “fundamental commitment to Ukraine in the United States Congress is strong.”

However, even if Ukraine receives significant military and financial support up until the next US election, can it beat Russia before American voters pick their next president?

Ukraine’s ability to win the war really only hinges on whether or not Russia will accept a political defeat in the conflict, and that could complicate things even if Ukraine is able to push Russian forces out of the occupied territories and the Crimean Peninsula. 

Anything is possible in war and the much anticipated Ukrainian spring counter-offensive could be the springboard for pushing Russia out of Ukraine. But what happens if Russia doesn’t accept the defeat and continues to press the fight?

Russia is unlikely to back down if its military still has the capacity to fight and its political class is still willing to continue, which leaves one begging the question: How will this conflict eventually come to an end?