President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed the hope that US President-elect Donald Trump’s unpredictability will work to Ukraine’s benefit in an interview broadcast by Ukrainian television.
“I see him as strong and unpredictable,” Zelensky said in the interview broadcast on Thursday.
“I would very much like President Trump’s unpredictability to be directed primarily towards the Russian Federation,” he added.
Zelensky said he thinks that Trump was genuinely interested in concluding peace and that Russian President Vladimir Putin feared the US president-elect.
Zelensky repeated that all Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since 2014 would be returned to Ukraine, and he insisted on firm security guarantees, rejecting a demand from Moscow for the Ukrainian army to be reduced in size before peace is agreed.
“We understand that he (Putin) will destroy us,” with an army of 40,000 to 50,000 and there would no longer be an independent Ukraine, he said.
The Ukrainian president acknowledged that Russian forces were making advances in eastern Ukraine, attributing this primarily to a lack of reserves. Ukraine would do all in its power to stabilize the front in January, he said.
Zelensky said the number of Ukrainian deserters had declined since October. He was speaking after news that a more than a third of a new brigade of more than 1,700 troops largely being trained in France had gone absent without leave.
Last year up to the end of November, Ukrainian prosecutors opened almost 70,000 cases relating to desertion or absence without leave, many times the figure in previous years.
Ukraine has been resisting the Russian full-scale invasion with Western assistance for almost three years.
Kyiv fears that when Trump takes office on January 20, US aid will be sharply reduced. During his New Year’s address, Zelensky issued an appeal to Washington not to cut aid to Ukraine.