January 21, 2025, 10:29 pm
Author – Nick Turse
Just hours into President Donald Trump’s second term, he has already blown his first deadline.
During a 2023 CNN town hall, Trump bragged that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. “I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” he said.
“I’ll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended,” Trump announced during an ABC News debate last September. “If I’m president-elect, I’ll get it done before even becoming president.”
Yet as Trump was being sworn into office in a ceremony surrounded by billionaires, the conflict in Ukraine raged on. Over the last 24 hours, Russian troops took control of the village of Vovkove in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, inflicting “more than 510 casualties on Ukrainian troops,” TASS, Russia’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense. Kyiv said it fired a wave of drones at Russia overnight, sparking a blaze at an oil depot in the western Voronezh region bordering Ukraine. Between Monday and Tuesday, Ukraine counted hundreds of “combat losses” of enemy personnel.
An attack earlier this month in Ukraine’s city of Zaporizhzhia caused the most civilian casualties — 13 killed, 110 injured — in a single incident in almost two years, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Last year, Russia carried out close to 15,000 airstrikes, including drone attacks, in Ukraine, according to ACLED, a international nonprofit organization that tracks data on violent conflicts.
At least 2,064 Ukrainian civilians were killed in Russian attacks in 2024. Another 9,089 were injured, according to the United Nations. Almost 7 million people from Ukraine are now refugees and 3.5 million are internally displaced, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.
Trump’s incoming administration is already began tempering expectations. Earlier this month, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick to serve as the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, walked back his boss’s bombast. “Let’s set it at 100 days,” he said, moving the goal posts for ending the conflict.
“It’s going to be the official policy of the United States that the war has to end and we’re going to do everything possible to bring that about,” said Marco Rubio, Trump’s new secretary of state, on Tuesday. During his confirmation hearings, Rubio said, “There is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine,” but warned that Ukraine would need to make “concessions.”
The State Department press office acknowledged a request for comment from The Intercept on the status of efforts to end the war in Ukraine but did not provide one prior to publication.
In rambling remarks after his inauguration speech on Monday, Trump was uncharacteristically critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal,” Trump said of the Russian autocrat. “I would hope he wants to make a deal.”
“There are some voices around Trump delivering disinformation or pro-Russian messages,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday. “Will President Trump listen to Europe or will he negotiate with Russia and China without Europe?”
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow that Russia is “ready for dialogue with the new U.S. administration on the Ukrainian conflict.”
Last week, Trump took credit for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” he announced on Truth Social. On Monday, however, Trump seemed to back away from the deal. “I’m not confident,” Trump responded when asked if he could keep the ceasefire in effect. “It’s not our war. It’s their war.”
The post Trump Promised a Russia–Ukraine Peace Deal. Where Is It? appeared first on The Intercept.
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Author: Nick Turse
