Former President Donald Trump photographed at a fundraising dinner in Florida on Saturday. Photo: Lynne Sladky / AP / NTB
If he becomes president again, Donald Trump may pressure Ukraine to give up Crimea and Donbas, sources close to Trump tell the Washington Post newspaper.
Monday 8 April at 01:17
The short version
- Sources close to Trump say he may pressure Ukraine to give up Crimea and Donbas if he becomes president again.
- This goes against Biden’s Ukraine policy.
- Trump believes both Ukraine and Russia “want a way out” of the war.
Sea view
Trump has said privately that he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up parts of its territory, anonymous sources with knowledge of the plan say to the newspaper.
According to one of the sources, Trump has said that he believes both Ukraine and Russia “will have a way out” to end the war and that the inhabitants of parts of Ukraine have nothing against belonging to Russia.
Trump’s alleged proposal consists of pressuring Ukraine to cede Crimea and Donbas, which border Russia, according to people who have discussed this with Trump or his advisers, the American newspaper writes.
According to Donald Trump’s election campaign staff, the sources must be uninformed.
See their answer further down in the case.
BOMBED: An elderly woman in front of a bombed-out house in Donbas in June 2022. Photo: ARIS MESSINIS / AFP / NTB
Russia has annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula and occupied the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk and Donetsk. The last two make up the area of Donbas.
Trump has previously said that he “can end the war within 24 hours”. But he has repeatedly refused to say how he intends to achieve this.
– What many have feared
– This is what many have speculated and feared when he has said that he has some kind of secret plan to end the war, that it really means that he wants to pressure Ukraine to agree to several of Putin’s demands, says Sofie Høgestøl to VG.
She is a US expert and associate professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo.
– It adds to the picture of what some foreign policy experts have feared, she adds.
– Do you think Trump will do it?
– It is hard to say. In the Ukraine issue, Trump has in many ways turned his own party around. The traditional Republican Party used to be extremely concerned with NATO and the US’s role in the world. Trump has broken the foreign policy line and cast more doubt on the alliance than previous presidents have done, says Høgestøl.
In February, the former president said that he will not defend what he refers to as “criminal states” that do not pay their bills in NATO.
– Uninformed sources
Trump’s campaign staff will not answer direct questions in connection with the article, writes the Washington Post.
– Any speculation about President Trump’s plan comes from anonymous and uninformed sources who have no idea what is happening or will happen, says spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a statement.
– President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing, she adds.
Accepting Russian control over parts of Ukraine, writes the Washington Post, means an extension of Putin’s dictatorship in the wake of the biggest land war in Europe since the Second World War. Some of Trump’s supporters are also said to have warned against this.
– A terrible deal
Foreign policy experts warn that Trump’s plan will reward President Vladimir Putin.
Emma Ashford, a fellow at the non-partisan think tank Stimson Center, believes that trading territory for a ceasefire would put Ukraine in a worse position without assurances that Russia will not rearm and resume attacks. Something they have done in the past.
– It’s a terrible deal, she says to the Washington Post about Trump’s proposal.
If the newspaper’s information is correct, it will then be a complete reversal from the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy.
Bom fast
The article is published on the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj comes out and says that Ukraine will have great difficulties in the war against Russia if the US Congress does not approve a military aid package.
An aid package of 60 billion dollars (about 644 billion kroner at today’s exchange rate) is stuck in Congress because the Republicans are blocking it.
On Saturday, Zelenskyj said that Ukraine is open to the aid package from the US being given as a loan.
– Without the USA’s heavy financial support for Ukraine, they would not have been able to stand in this war for as long as they have, Sofie Høgestøl believes.
While in 2023 Ukraine talked a lot about its counter-offensive, President Zelenskyj realizes that it is not possible now.
– We do not have grenades for any counter-offensive. But when it comes to defense, we have several options and receive weapons, he says in an interview on Ukrainian television, reproduced by Ukrainskaya Pravda.
2024-04-07 23:18:20
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