Trump’s strength and unpredictability can help end the war in Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

Zelenskyy believes Trump's strength and unpredictability could help end the war in Ukraine.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is “strong and unpredictable,” and those qualities can be a decisive factor in his policy approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

However, Mr. Zelenskyy said it won’t be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Trump claimed during his election campaign that he could do.

“The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly, if Mr. Trump is strong in his position,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a Ukrainian television interview late Thursday, referring to fighting on the battlefield.

“I believe (Trump) is strong and unpredictable. I would very much like President Trump’s unpredictability to be directed primarily toward the Russian Federation,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

Mr. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, hasn’t publicly fleshed out his policy on Ukraine, but his previous comments have put a question mark over whether the United States will continue to be Ukraine’s biggest — and most important — military backer.

Mr. Zelenskyy is eager to guarantee that Washington’s support keeps coming, and he met with Trump in New York even before the U.S. presidential election in November.

With the war about to enter its fourth year next month, and with Mr. Trump coming to power, the question of how and when Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II might end has come to the fore.