(Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who’s had a troubled relationship with Donald Trump since a controversial 2019 phone call, sought a political reset by heaping praise on his stunning re-election victory.
Months after urging Trump to come clean about his plans to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, Zelenskiy on Wednesday hailed the Republican’s “peace through strength approach” as the formula that could deliver a settlement.
“This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer,” Zelenskiy said on social media platform X, congratulating Trump on an “impressive” US presidential election win even before it was formally declared. “I am hopeful that we will put it into action together.”
Facing the reality of an incoming president who has criticized the scale of US military support for Ukraine and expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelenskiy had little choice but to attempt an embrace of what he called Trump’s “decisive leadership.” Trump’s pledge to broker a swift end to the war has raised fears in Kyiv that Ukraine may be pushed into a settlement that would freeze the conflict, allowing the Kremlin time to re-arm and renew its assault.
With Russia’s army accelerating its advance in eastern Ukraine, Zelenskiy’s under growing pressure as he appeals to Kyiv’s US and European allies to speed up promised weapons deliveries. Ukrainian soldiers occupying territory in Russia’s border Kursk region are also confronting thousands of North Korean troops sent to bolster attacks by Moscow’s forces.
Officials close to Zelenskiy said they’re neither unhappy nor scared about the outcome of the election. They’re in a working mood and focused on the demands of fighting the war, one said.
Zelenskiy’s relationship with Trump has been turbulent since that July 2019 phone call, weeks after the former comedian took office as Ukrainian president. The conversation led to Trump’s first impeachment trial, over accusations that he leaned on Zelenskiy to investigate allegations against Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in order to damage their reputation.
At the time, Trump was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv that Congress had appropriated to help fend off Russian aggression.
Trump, who during his presidency accused Zelenskiy of corruption, praised the Ukrainian leader’s conduct during the impeachment trial when the two men met in New York in September.
“He said President Trump did nothing wrong,” Trump recalled, adding that Zelenskiy “could have played cute, and he didn’t play cute. So I appreciate that.”
Trump downplayed tensions with Zelenskiy over the war at that meeting, saying “we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made.”
Still, Trump told a campaign rally in September that “we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskiy.” And he has blamed Biden for the outbreak of the war that Putin started in February 2022.
The Republican leader has repeatedly praised Putin and claims to be on good terms with the Kremlin leader. In an Oct. 15 interview with Bloomberg News, Trump said “If I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he didn’t know if Putin would congratulate Trump on his victory, though he told reporters Wednesday that the Russian leader remained ready for “constructive dialogue” with the US. It will be clearer when Trump takes office in January whether the US administration’s attitude will change, the state-run Tass news service cited Peskov as saying.
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow was more categorical, saying in a statement that Russia had “no illusions” about Trump. The political elite in the US is anti-Russian “regardless of party affiliation,” it said.
In July, Zelenskiy challenged Trump to present his touted plan for ending the war quickly — and warned that any proposal must avoid violating the nation’s sovereignty. “If Trump knows how to finish this war, he should tell us today,” Zelenskiy told Bloomberg Television in an interview in Kyiv.
On Wednesday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine relies on “continued strong bipartisan support” from the US and that he wanted to discuss with Trump ways to strengthen their “strategic partnership.”
His powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, echoed Zelenskiy’s comments in a message on Telegram, saying that “Russia and autocrats only understand the language of power.”
Ukraine’s dollar bonds jumped as Trump’s pledges to accelerate an end to the war came into focus. The country’s GDP warrants, a kind of debt security with payouts linked to economic growth, traded above 73 cents on the dollar, their highest levels since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
Reaction in Kyiv to Trump’s impending return was restrained. Lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said his win and Republican control of the US Congress presented “huge challenges and huge hope.”
Former lawmaker Hryhoriy Shverk said the US had turned red “whether from fear or shame,” a reference to the shift to the Republican party.
“I am very skeptical that the war will end quickly, in 24 hours, as Trump promised,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former Ukrainian economy minister who’s now president of the Kyiv School of Economics. “It definitely won’t be boring.”
--With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi.
(Updates with Ukrainian officials in the sixth paragraph)
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