As Donald Trump returns to the White House, questions are being asked about arguably his most ambitious campaign promise: to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Since then, it seems like Trump might have given it another thought and a new timeline. Could it be good news for Ukraine?
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00:00What started with 24 hours has now turned into half a year.
00:05Donald Trump's famous promise to put an end to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine
00:10now might seem unrealistic even to the U.S. president himself.
00:14In a rather harsh reality check, Trump said a six-month timeline was more realistic for
00:19ending the war.
00:20The worst possible scenario would be surrender of Ukraine.
00:24And that's the 24-hour scenario where basically, you know, the U.S. has leverage over Ukraine
00:31and the EU in terms of support and doesn't have much leverage at the moment over Russia.
00:37Which means accepting the Russian demands and putting pressure on Ukraine to accept
00:43Russian demands.
00:44That's why the 24-hour scenario is the worst scenario possible for Ukraine.
00:49So the sign that they are talking now about six months or three months suggests that they
00:53will be building leverage over Russia.
00:57And that's why they need time.
00:58Milovanov says there are signs that this leverage is being built now, possibly in coordination
01:03between the administration's amid Biden's last-ditch attempt to confiscate $300 billion
01:09of Russian assets.
01:10The news is not in the attempt to confiscate, but in the fact that it is last-ditch suddenly,
01:16which is coordinated, if you look at the news, with the Trump administration.
01:19Basically, it's signaling to Russia that we're going to try to find leverage over you.
01:25And if you want your money back, we're willing to haggle over it.
01:29Milovanov says it all indicates that the Trump administration is evolving towards a not-so-favorable-for-Russia
01:34scenario, but that still does not necessarily mean favorable for Ukraine and the people
01:39of Ukraine.
01:40The reality is that we need to look at what people are willing to accept and what people
01:44are not willing to accept.
01:46What people are not willing to accept is a change of constitution, disarming of Ukraine
01:51or ceding unoccupied territories.
01:54What are people willing to accept, based on the surveys, is some kind of temporary acceptance
02:00that we do not control the territories, so some kind of de facto reality.
02:04So people are willing to accept reality, but are not willing to surrender.
02:09He says ultimately Putin has to sell it domestically in Russia as a victory, while Ukraine has
02:13to sell it domestically as a guarantee against future invasions.
02:18And these guarantees would take much more than anything signed on paper, given the previous
02:21guarantees promised and then broken by Russia, he says.