Former President Donald Trump said Friday he had spoken by telephone with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and vowed to end the war with Russia.
In a statement posted on Truth Social on Friday, Mr Trump said that he had a “very good phone call” with President Zelensky, in which the Ukrainian leader congratulated the former president for once again becoming the Republican nominee for President of the United States and condemned the “heinous assassination attempt” on his life last Saturday.
“I appreciate President Zelensky for reaching out because I, as your next President of the United States, will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives and devastated countless innocent families,” Mr Trump wrote.
“Both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.”
The Ukrainian president confirmed the phone call with the frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race, writing on X: “We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting,” Zelensky said in a post on X.
“I noted the vital bipartisan and bicameral American support for protecting our nation’s freedom and independence,” he said.
“Ukraine will always be grateful to the United States for its help in strengthening our ability to resist Russian terror. Russian attacks on our cities and villages continue every day.
“We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.”
Prior to the phone call, Zelensky said this week that he would “work‘ together with Trump if he win’s the White House in November.
Last week, the former president hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to discuss the war in Ukraine.
This came on the back of Orbán, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, meeting with his counterparts in Beijing, Istanbul, and Moscow in a series of peace missions.
The Hungarian leader has been one of the most vocal critics of the Western response to the war in Ukraine and top voice in advocating for peace talks to begin between the Kremlin and Kyiv.
Following his meetings with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Orbán released a letter detailing his assessment of the current state of play and his recommendations for the European Union going forward.
The Hungarian PM warned that there is a growing feeling that the “intensity of the military conflict will radically escalate in the near future.”
He said: “I personally witnessed that the warring parties are determined to involve themselves deeper into the conflict, and neither of them would like to make initiatives for a ceasefire or peace negotiations. Therefore we can assume that tensions will not decrease and the parties will not start searching for a way out of the conflict without significant external involvement.”
Obrán said that President Trump, whom he said will likely win the election in November, will “be ready to act as a peace broker immediately” after his victory and will not wait until his inauguration, adding: “He has detailed and well-founded plans for this.”
Therefore, he argued that the EU should begin to shift its strategy from copying the “pro-war policy” of the Biden administration to making an “effort to decrease tensions and/or create the conditions for a temporary ceasefire and/or start peace negotiations.”
