Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky beat most world leaders to offer his congratulations to Donald Trump, using his message to apparently express hope that things would continue unchanged between Ukraine and the United States of America.
While messages of congratulations are now beginning to flow in from leaders around the world — and in many cases, as in 2016, through “gritted teeth” — among the very first to react to Former President and President-elect Donald Trump as his victory in the 2024 became apparent was Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. Publishing a statement, the Ukrainian called the victory “impressive” but immediately launched into discussion on “the Victory Plan”.
Promoted by President Zelensky around the capitals of the Western nations in recent months but with a notable exception generally only receiving a lukewarm reception from leaders, the Victory Plan was later publicly unveiled as an itemised list of longstanding Ukrainian demands presented in a new format. At the heart of the document is Ukraine’s request for an “unconditional invitation right now” for the country to join NATO, something which has repeatedly been rejected for as long as it remains at war.
The rush to embrace Trump and make a wishful statement — which has long been a Ukrainian diplomatic tactic, with mixed success — comes after Trump has repeatedly made clear the sprawling Ukraine war would rapidly end in peace if he won the election. The once and future President told Breitbart News in August that if elected, he would negotiate peace between Kyiv and Moscow before he was even officially sworn in.
As reported of his conversation with Breitbart News in August:
Trump said he knows Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and believes he can negotiate peace to end the “death” and “destruction” if elected again on Nov. 5.
“I know both heads of the countries,” Trump said. “I know President Putin very well. I want to see the death stopping. There’s death and there’s destruction. They are destroying the whole fabric of a certain part of the world. I want to get it negotiated, and get it done.”
… “You look at the heritage of the country—the cities are mostly knocked down,” Trump said, describing Ukraine. “They’re flattened. They’re just totally flattened. Have you ever seen some of these cities? There’s not a building standing. The country has been devastated. So I want to get it solved and I will be able to get it solved. And I’d like to do it before I get to the White House after I’m president-elect.”
Contrary to his make-nice congratulatory message today, President Zelensky has issued some surprisingly bitter rebukes to Trump this year, decrying any attempt to bring peace to Ukraine that amounts to anything less than total victory by Kyiv’s standards. As reported in June, Zelensky had said if Trump tried to bring a negotiated peace, that would make him a “loser president” and said “Ukrainians would not put up with that”.
Along with the Victory plan message to Trump this morning, Zelensky reminded the President Elect that Ukraine relies “on continued strong bipartisan support” from the U.S., and said he was “looking forward to personally congratulating President Trump and discussing ways to strengthen Ukraine’s strategic partnership with the United States.”
Per Ukrainian state media, Zelensky signed bills into law on Wednesday morning that extended martial law and conscription, the ‘general mobilisation’ law, for the next 90 days into next year.