Will Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election mean that Volodymyr Zelensky now has to do a deal with Vladimir Putin?
Ukraine could be forced to make a deal with Vladimir Putin after Donald Trump’s victory, a senior conservative has warned.
Lord Hammond, who was the British Secretary of State for Defense and Foreign Affairs, also claimed that the world was more dangerous after the US presidential election result.
The Tory great insisted the outcome was a boost for Russia, adding: “I suspect some of the biggest celebrations will have taken place in the Kremlin.
‘There’s no doubt about it either [Trump] He will have a self-brokered deal in mind that will resolve the situation in Ukraine.
‘For the rest of us in Europe it is much more than Ukraine; it is about our ability to live in peace, to live without constant threat from our large and aggressive neighbor to the east.
“If Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine, I don’t think NATO’s eastern border will be stable and secure.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks while attending a meeting of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group on September 6, 2024
Russia boasted that Trump’s election would likely be bad news for Ukraine. Pictured: Vladimir Putin applauds during a remote ceremony to launch the Arktika-class nuclear-powered icebreaker Chukotka from the Kremlin on Wednesday
Donald Trump (pictured on Tuesday) previously threatened to withdraw from NATO and could cut funding to Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky was one of the first international leaders to congratulate Trump, saying he appreciated his “commitment to peace through strength” in global affairs. The Ukrainian president added: “This is exactly the principle that can bring a just peace in Ukraine closer.”
However, senior security sources fear that the offer to Ukraine could be far from ‘fair’.
Moreover, a Trump administration would also likely oppose Ukrainian membership of NATO, which Zelensky has repeatedly called for since the Russian invasion in 2022.
Lord Hammond also called on Britain and other Western states to increase support to Ukraine if, as widely feared, the United States were to reduce or cancel military aid.
He was defense minister from 2010 to 2014, the year Russia invaded Crimea.
Then in 2016, as Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Hammond criticized Russia’s annexation of the peninsula and called on the Kremlin to return Crimea. Britain also supported sanctions against Russia over its first offensive on Ukrainian territory.
In an alarming indication of how Trump’s return to the White House could affect Russian foreign policy, Kremlin officials celebrated his election victory. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “The crying may remain in the night, but the joy comes in the morning. Hallelujah, I might add for myself.”
Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, predicted that Trump’s victory could trigger the collapse of the Ukrainian government and end Western aid.
He said: “Based on the pre-election rhetoric, the Republican team will not throw more and more American taxpayer money into the furnace of the proxy war against Russia.”
Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the US has spent £40 billion on security assistance to Ukraine.
Pro-Trump Republican lawmakers held up recent aid packages, while newly elected Vice President JD Vance was among the leading voices in the US opposing continued aid to Ukraine. He has also called for the country to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace deal – a suggestion Zelensky has dismissed as “too radical”.
A Kremlin official said yesterday that Russia wants to “achieve its goals” in Ukraine after Trump’s victory.
Ukrainian troops fire a Leopard 2A4 tank during a training exercise in Ukraine on October 27
Rescue teams inspect the remains of a building after a strike in Kharkiv, November 1, 2024
Residential buildings, damaged during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, are seen in a village of Pisky in Donetsk region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, November 1, 2024
A Ukrainian soldier places a claymore landmine along the front line in the Donetsk region, October 30
According to the Kremlin, Putin has no immediate plans to congratulate Trump on his victory (photo: the couple at the G20 summit in June 2019)
Kamala Harris (left) with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (right) in September
Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said his country had no choice but to continue opposing Russia with or without U.S. support.
He said: ‘In any case, we will continue, because it is about our survival. We have no choice. If we stop, we will lose our state and be wiped out as a nation.”
Ukraine is in a precarious phase: it has lost about a third of the conquered territory in the southern Russian province of Kursk, while Kremlin forces continue to make gains in eastern Ukraine.
Putin remains committed to fully conquering the ‘Donbas’ region in eastern Ukraine, a goal he may be able to achieve by 2025 if the US reduces or withdraws military aid.
Ukrainian commanders have repeatedly stressed that the situation on the front lines is “difficult” and say certain areas require constant renewal of resources.
Such an addition would be difficult without American support.
Meanwhile, Russia is bolstering resources with as many as 10,000 North Korean troops, as well as missiles from Iran and technological components from China.