In a first, US President-elect Donald Trump makes an official statement on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump condemned the lives lost in the war not only in Russia-Ukraine but also in West Asia.
“We're going to work on the Middle East, and we're going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine. It's got to stop,” Trump said.
He added, "administration will also work on bringing peace to West Asia."
Trump was speaking at a gala for the America First Policy Institute held at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday as part of his first major speech and public appearance since victory at the elections.
“Russia and Ukraine's got to stop. I saw a report today. Thousands of people over the last three days were killed. Thousands and thousands of people were killed. They happened to be soldiers, but whether they're soldiers or they're people sitting in towns, we're going to work it,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly said that his main goal is to end the war and stop what he sees as a drain on U.S. resources, especially the military aid being sent to Ukraine.
Even though Trump mentioned about trying to stop the ongoing war and conflict in West Asia, he did not mention the names of the countries involved including Israel or Palestine. Neither did Trump expressed solidarity towards any country specifically.
In an interview by PTI, Lisa Curtis, who served as deputy assistant to Trump in his previous term and National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021 spoke about the war in Ukraine.
Curtis said, "President (elect) Trump has in the past talked more favourably about (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin than most US presidents. He has also talked about trying to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. We haven't seen yet how he's going to do that."
"I would just simply say that it needs to be done in a way that Russia faces some consequences for its actions,” Curtis added.
It needs to be done in a way that Russia doesn't try to do the same thing two or three years down the line, she said.
"It needs to be done in a way that doesn't encourage other US adversaries to try to illegally invade their neighbour's territory," said Curtis, who is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Programme at Center for a New American Security think-tank.
Also Read | Will Trump Fuel Or Finish Wars?
On November 11, a media report claimed that US President-elect Donald Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone regarding the end of the war in Ukraine amongst many other important topics.
However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later denied the media report of the phone call between Putin and Trump.
