Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said he believes the ongoing war with Russia is likely to end more quickly with Donald Trump as President of the United States.
Mr Zelensky’s comment came as he said Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the ongoing war with Russia - which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 - ends next year through diplomacy.
He said the war was likely to end quicker under Trump, who said often during his campaign for presidency that he would rapidly end the conflict.
Trump has repeatedly insisted he would find a solution to end the war “within a day” after he takes office but has not explained how he would do so - which some have interpreted to mean a peace on terms favourable to Moscow.
Trump is reported to have spoken to Vladimir Putin in recent days, when he is said to have warned the Russian president not to escalate the war.
But Putin has been massing troops in southern Ukraine for what could be a fresh offensive which would be in defiance of Trump’s warning.
Trump also spoke with Mr Zelensky by phone on Wednesday.
Mr Zelensky said US law prevents him from meeting Trump before his inauguration, which is due to take place on January 20.
“We will do everything that depends on us [to ensure a meeting]. We had a really good meeting in September," Mr Zelensky has since said, adding he would only talk with Trump himself rather than any emissary or advisor.
However Mr, Zelensky said Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal, and argued it was convenient for Moscow to sit down to talk while continuing to fight.
"From our side, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means," he said in a Ukrainian radio interview that aired on Saturday.
Moscow's ambassador to the UN in Geneva said on Thursday that Russia would be open to negotiations on an end to the war if they were initiated by Trump, although he added that these would have to acknowledge "realities on the ground".
Moscow uses this phrase to mean Ukraine would have to cede four regions that Russian forces have partly occupied and that Russia has claimed in their entirety.
Mr Zelensky has repeatedly said since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 that peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned.
However, a return to Ukraine's internationally recognised 1991 borders was not mentioned in the president's "victory plan" that he publicly presented last month.
