Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to US president-elect Donald Trump as the outgoing White House administration sought to accelerate arms supplies to Kyiv and Russia inflicted more deadly air strikes on its neighbour.
Mr Trump says he wants to end the Russia-Ukraine war swiftly and has criticised President Joe Biden for sending more than $60 billion (€56 billion) in military aid to Kyiv since Moscow launched its all-out invasion in February 2022.
“It was a good, productive conversation,” Mr Zelenskiy said, after being one of the first leaders to take to social media to congratulate Mr Trump on his victory.
“Of course, we cannot yet know what his specific actions will be. But we hope that America will become stronger. This is the kind of America that Europe needs. And a strong Europe is what America needs. This is the bond between allies that should be cherished and cannot be lost.”
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Fears in Ukraine that Mr Trump might force it to accept an unfavourable deal with Russia and end US military aid are shared by Kyiv’s allies in Washington and around Europe, and Mr Biden is reportedly planning to rush through some $9 billion (€8.3 billion) in arms supplies for the embattled country before he leaves office in January.
“The administration plans to push forward ... to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible”, an unnamed senior administration official told Reuters, referring to funds that have been approved by the US Congress but not disbursed.
Mr Trump has spoken favourably of autocratic Russian president Vladimir Putin in the past, even after his devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but Moscow reacted cautiously to his re-election.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was possible that Mr Putin could speak to Mr Trump before his inauguration on January 20th, and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was open to discussions.
Mr Putin has said no peace talks are possible until Ukraine accepts permanent Russian occupation of five of its territories – including areas that his invasion force does not control now – and gives up its Nato membership ambitions.
“Now, when the situation in the theatre of military operations does not favour the Kyiv regime, the West is faced with a choice – to continue financing it and destroying the Ukrainian population or recognise the current realities and start negotiating,” Russian security council secretary Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday.
The former defence minister described Ukraine’s democratically elected authorities as “an externally controlled, dangerous terrorist organisation with its own industry and controlled territory, unlike international terrorist cells”.
Russia’s military is using its greater manpower and firepower to grind forward in eastern Ukraine, where it claimed on Wednesday to have captured the villages of Maksymivka and Antonivka in Donetsk region. Kyiv did not confirm the claims.
Ukraine says its forces have clashed in Russia’s Kursk region with North Korean troops that have been sent to bolster Moscow’s ranks, and Kyiv hopes South Korea will respond by supplying it with arms for the first time.
“Now, depending on the level of North Korean involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in phases,” South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol Yoon said on Thursday. “This means we are not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons.”
A Russian air strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine killed at least four people and injured 18 and destroyed houses and damaged a cancer clinic.
Earlier on Thursday, at least three people were injured and apartment blocks and an energy facility were damaged during a Russian air attack on Kyiv and other cities, during which Ukraine’s air defences downed 74 of 106 drones launched.
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