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Zelensky Says 'Ready For Elections' After Trump Indicated He's An Obstacle To Peace

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by Tyler Durden
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Update(1435ET): Is this finally the end of the road for Zelensky? President Trump has really ramped up the pressure, in a fresh Politico interview signaling that the Ukrainian leader must begin to accept reality and make compromises, starting with holding elections. According to a fresh audio statement being circulated, Zelensky has newly responded by stating "I am ready for elections. I will be in Ukraine tomorrow and expect proposals from our partners and lawmakers on legal changes to allow elections during martial law," according to a translation.

"Since this issue is being raised by the U.S. president and our European partners, I’ll be brief: I am ready. I ask the U.S., together with Europe, to ensure security for the vote. If that is done, Ukraine can hold elections within 60 days."

Has Trump finally put some real pressure on him? It seems so. Given Zelensky had put the brakes on the US-proposed pace plan by definitively rejecting the territorial concessions aspects to the document, the US president's assessment to Politico was blunt and highly critical, going so far as to basically call Ukraine not a democracy. "They haven’t had an election in a long time," Trump said. "You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it's not a democracy anymore."

There was also this blistering and mocking statement from Trump: "He’s a great salesman – I call him P.T. Barnum. You know who P.T. Barnum was? One of the greatest ever. He could sell any product at any time, whether it worked or not. Zelensky did the same thing: he got Crooked Joe Biden to hand him $350 billion, and now 25% of his country is gone."

All of this means that in two months Ukraine could finally see a new leader. A likely frontrunner candidate who has some big name recognition, both in Ukraine and internationally, is Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who is the former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces. He was forced out by Zelensky, to the frustration and anger of many commanders, and took up his diplomatic post in July 2024.

Trump's Politico interview made clear that Zelensky is now seen as the main obstacle to peace...

The FT is reporting that Trump has given Kiev just days to accept the US ceasefire deal. Trump now wants a deal done by Christmas Day, according to the report.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while meeting with so-called 'coalition of the willing' European leaders in London on Monday definitively ruled out that his country will agree to cede territory as part of a peace deal.

He specified that the question of territorial compromise is why he has not reached agreement on Donald Trump's peace deal. "There are visions of the US, Russia and Ukraine – and we don’t have a unified view on Donbas," Zelensky told Bloomberg.

via Associated Press

Zelensky also wants much firmer security guarantees in the Washington plan. "There is one question I — and all Ukrainians — want to get an answer to: if Russia again starts a war, what will our partners do," he said shortly before meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Friedrich Merz.

But the US peace plan hinges precisely on offering some level of significant territorial compromise, given that Moscow - which has the clear upper hand militarily - considers anything less to be an automatic non-starter not worth even discussing.

President Trump has recently declared that if Zelensky rejects the US plan, he should be ready to fight Russia alone and with much less Washington help. But is Trump ready to cut off weapons supplies altogether? 

Likely he'll be content with Europe buying them, and still transferring them to Kiev. But all of this could mean that US intel sharing is finally cut off.

Meanwhile Trump has belittled 'weak' Europe for seeking to scrap together a counter-plan:

President Trump mocked Europe's involvement on Monday, sharing an opinion piece which praises him for sideling "impotent Europeans" from the Ukraine peace talks. Trump has also criticized Zelensky, accusing him of not reading the latest peace proposals.

As for the US peace plan, it appears to have been primarily drafted by White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev - but so far the Zelensky government has complained that it's being cut out of the process.

Zelensky has throughout the war consistently rejected any proposal which features territorial concessions. He is supported especially be Ukrainian hardliners, both in the military and in parliament. 

Kiev and EU's maximalist counter-demands...

Now he's seeking to get European leaders to back him up, and they appear to be doing so. This is all a recipe for keeping the endless war going with no end in sight, and the proxy conflict nature of it continues to get dangerously out of hand.

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