President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team has held discussions with the White House and Ukrainian leaders as part of a concerted effort to find a way to end the war with Russia, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Trump’s advisers and Cabinet nominees, who hold a range of views on Ukraine, have yet to present a conceptual or specific peace plan to Kyiv, the sources said.
The president-elect has vowed to end the conflict even before he is inaugurated next month, calling the casualties suffered on both sides “a tragedy.” But he has sent mixed signals in his public comments, urging Russia to make peace but also suggesting he might scale back U.S. military aid to Ukraine or reimpose limits on Kyiv’s use of American-made long-range missiles against targets inside Russia.
Despite Trump’s promises to end the war quickly, it remains unclear whether he can persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt the fighting as Moscow’s forces gain ground in eastern Ukraine. It is also not clear if Trump’s team has communicated with Putin’s government about Ukraine, and if so, what has been conveyed by either side.
When asked on “Meet the Press” if he were actively working to end the war, Trump said, “I am, but he declined to say if he had spoken to Putin since the November election.
“I don’t want to say anything about that, because I don’t want to do anything that could impede the negotiation,” Trump said.
The transition team declined to comment on whether a Putin ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, carried any message from Russia to Trump in his recent visit to Mar-a-Lago.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held several conversations with his named successor, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., whom Trump has tapped to take over the position, a senior administration official and other sources familiar with the matter said. They have focused on sharing relevant information, but have not explored strategies for ending the war or securing a ceasefire, one of the sources said.
A benefit of those discussions is that they will ensure Trump’s transition team will not be surprised by any Biden administration actions on Ukraine before the president-elect is inaugurated in January, the senior administration official said.
“Trump is really serious about wanting to get to a ceasefire on day one,” said a source with knowledge of the matter.
Trump’s team is pushing hard to bring about a pause in fighting that would open the way for peace talks., but the challenges remain daunting as the war approaches the three-year mark.
Asked if Walz and others on Trump’s transition team are working with the Biden administration on a ceasefire plan, transition spokesperson Brian Hughes said: “Congressman Waltz and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are in contact on many issues. The goal is for the world to understand there is a desire for the time of transition to be seen as a strong America, working for peace and stability around the world, until President-Elect Trump is sworn in.”
Trump’s team has not yet informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government about any potential plans, according to two sources close to Kyiv and former U.S. officials who are in communication with Ukrainian officials. But recent meetings and conversations between Zelenskyy, Trump and their advisers have been constructive, including a face-to-face meeting in Paris brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron, the sources said.
“The atmosphere thus far in terms of the engagement between the Ukrainians and the incoming Trump team, including Zelenskyy and Trump himself, has been positive,” one of the sources said.
When Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, held talks last week with Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick for U.S. envoy to Ukraine, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance joined the meeting.
Ukraine and its supporters in Washington and Europe had worried that Trump would return to the White House with the view that Kyiv was the main barrier to ending the war. But the president-elect’s social media posts suggest he views Putin and not Ukraine as the problem, the two sources and former U.S. officials said.
“There’s a sense that Trump himself understands that the Ukrainians are not the obstacle to peace,” a source said.
On Sunday, Trump wrote on social media that Zelenskyy and Ukraine were ready for a peace deal and it was time for Putin “to act.”
But there are “zero indications” Putin is ready to make concessions or that his overall objective of having effective control of Ukraine has changed, John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said.
The momentum has been shifting in Russia’s favor on the battlefield in the east in recent weeks as Ukraine struggles with a manpower shortage, and as a result, the Kremlin will be reluctant to halt fighting, analysts and former U.S. diplomats say. Also, Russia would be unwilling to accept a ceasefire while Ukrainian troops continue to hold territory inside Russia in the Kursk region.
A Russian hardliner with close ties to the Kremlin said in recent interviews that any attempt by Trump to end the war will be doomed unless there are broader talks that address Moscow’s security concerns. Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian tycoon and ultra-nationalist, told the Financial Times that Putin was likely to reject a peace proposal floated months ago by Kellogg, before he was chosen by Trump to work as U.S. envoy to Ukraine.
“Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don’t like any of it. That’d be the whole negotiation,” Malofeyev said. “For the talks to be constructive, we need to talk not about the future of Ukraine, but the future of Europe and the world.”
Earlier this year, Kellogg proposed pressing both sides into peace talks by threatening to cut off military aid to Ukraine if it doesn’t agree to negotiations and to ramp up weapons deliveries to Kyiv if Moscow refuses to come to the table. The plan would rule out Ukraine joining the NATO alliance for up to 10 years.
Under the plan, Ukraine would have to accept the current front lines, at least for now, and could regain lost territory only through diplomatic or political means.
Trump’s team will likely reject Ukraine’s long-held goal of eventually joining the NATO alliance as a way to try to persuade Russia to enter into peace talks with Kyiv, sources with knowledge of the matter said. Instead, Ukraine might be offered security guarantees by some alliance members. Zelenskyy has proposed the idea of foreign troops being deployed in the country until Kyiv could join the NATO alliance.
The Trump transition team declined to comment on how Trump views the idea of barring Ukraine from joining NATO indefinitely or for some designated period of time.
Earlier this year, Biden officials weighed whether to launch an effort to press the transatlantic alliance to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join. But the idea was discarded after Trump won the election in November, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
The Biden administration official said it would be a grievous mistake for Trump to push for a peace deal that would bar Ukraine from becoming part of NATO for the foreseeable future. That would amount to a great achievement for Putin — advancing his strategic interests by preventing Ukraine from becoming part of the West’s military bulwark against Moscow — and nearly justify his invasion of Ukraine, the official said.