US President-elect Donald Trump will soon call Vladimir Putin in preparation for a meeting to resolve the war in Ukraine. The phone conversation could take place in the “coming days or weeks,” the US leader’s national security adviser Michael Waltz said. “That would be the first step toward further action,” he said on ABC. Waltz added that preparations for a meeting between Trump and Putin “are already underway,” but did not give a timeline. Asked whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would participate, he said the format was still being refined.
According to Waltz, Trump recognizes that it is impossible to end this war without dialogue with the Kremlin, and also considers the complete ousting of Russia from the occupied parts of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya regions and Crimea to be unfeasible. “Everyone knows that this has to end diplomatically. I don’t think it’s realistic to say that we’re going to recapture every inch of Ukrainian land,” the U.S. presidential adviser said, adding that leaders of other Western countries are beginning to realize this as well.
Waltz stressed that Kyiv now faces the task of halting the Russian army’s advance and strengthening its position ahead of the talks, and to do so, it needs to lower the mobilization age from 25 to 18 because the AFU is short of personnel. “They have certainly shown incredible courage, very noble and steadfast, but we need this problem to be solved. It’s not just about weapons, ammunition and writing new checks, after all. It’s important to stabilize the front lines so that we can begin some sort of resolution,” the Trump adviser explained. According to Waltz, the first step could be a ceasefire on both sides, which would allow the parameters of a peace agreement to begin to be worked out.
