Donald Trump has missed his own deadline to end the war in Ukraine, with a new 100-day target to stop Vladimir Putin’s aggression also appearing out of reach, experts said.
Failure to bring Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table within 24 hours means the president has backtracked on a promise, albeit implausible, he made repeatedly while on the campaign trail.
“No one with a decent understanding of this issue could believe that a conflict with such complex and deep roots could be easily resolved,” Vuk Vuksanovica political scientist at the London School of Economics (LSE), said Newsweek.
“It remains more likely that this is a clash of interests and wills that will be resolved on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table,” added the foreign policy expert.
Despite his repeated mentions of the war in the run-up to his inauguration, the president did not mention it in his first speech, other than declaring himself a “peacemaker.”
In his first days in office, he laid the blame for the three-year war on both Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, and went on to boldly claim that he will secure a deal quickly, while giving rather scant details on how.
With the 24-hour deadline now expired and the war showing no sign of letting up anytime soon, Trump is said to have set his Ukraine envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the task of ending it within 100 days.
‘He can’t. The Russians are in the driver’s seat. The Russians, for good strategic reasons from their perspective, are pushing for a tough deal,” said University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, adding: “It’s almost impossible for me to see President Trump agree to the terms the Russians demand. “.
Trump said Tuesday that while he believes Zelensky wants to make a deal, “I don’t know if Putin does.”

Ukrainian soldiers fire D-30 artillery in the direction of Toretsk, Ukraine, December 8, 2024

Trump has threatened heavy sanctions and tariffs on Russia unless Putin settles ‘almost immediately’
Trump is now focusing on his first phone call with Moscow, reports suggest, and when asked how long the war would last, he said: ‘I have to talk to President Putin.’ We’re going to have to find out.
Despite warnings that Trump may be “excessive” in ending the war and might wish to do so at any cost to meet his goals, there has been some optimism from Voices in kyiv and among his allies.
Referring to the fate of his country in light of a Trump presidency, former Ukrainian minister Tymofiy Mylovanov said: ‘It may not be good, but it will be much better than under Biden.
‘Biden managed the war as a crisis: he thought that if he held out long enough, the storm would pass. But it’s not happening.
‘Trump takes the perspective that we have to stop the storm. He’s not worried about how it will stop.
The Republican has continued to make strong statements as he tries to project strength ahead of possible talks with Putin, with whom he shared relatively good relations during his first term in office.
He has threatened heavy sanctions and tariffs on Russia unless Putin settles “almost immediately,” a move that is likely to have little impact given the United States’ limited imports from Russia and the fact that large-scale sanctions are already in place. .
Speaking in the first interview of his presidency, Trump said of Moscow: “If they don’t resolve this war soon, I mean almost immediately, I’m going to put massive tariffs on Russia… I don’t want to do that. I love the Russian people, but we have to end this war.
He added that there was also a strong appetite in kyiv to end the bloodshed, but indicated that this could come at an outstanding cost and that he perhaps had limited patience with Zelensky’s position.
“I will say he wants to settle down now,” Trump said. “He’s had enough.”

Trump said Zelensky is “no angel,” and even claimed he “shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.”

A building lies in ruins after being hit by a Russian attack, on January 23, 2025 in Kostyantynivka, Ukraine
In a somewhat inflammatory statement about the Ukrainian leader, he said that Zelensky is “no angel,” and even claimed that he “should not have allowed this war to happen.”
‘First of all, he’s fighting a much bigger entity, okay, much bigger. “When he was, you know, speaking so brave… Zelensky was fighting a much bigger, much larger, much more powerful entity,” Trump said.
“I shouldn’t have done that, because we could have made a deal, and it would have been a deal that would have been… it would have been a nothing deal. I could have made that deal so easily,” Trump said. “But Zelensky decided that” I want to fight.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump also said of the February 2022 invasion that Putin “shouldn’t have done it.”
‘He shouldn’t have done it and it has to stop. You know, they’ve lost about 850,000 Russian soldiers and 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said, figures that are almost certainly exaggerated, with war monitors putting the death toll closer to 150,000 on the Russian side and 62,000 for the Ukrainians.
With both sides counting their dead and struggling to replenish their frontline forces, an end to the war is an attractive prospect.
But both kyiv and Moscow insist that it be favorable to them, and have demanded concessions from the other side.
‘We must find all possible ways to end the hot phase of the war. This is the number one problem,’ Zelensky said this week. ‘There may be a lot of talk, but the main objective is to stop the active phase. This is the first guarantee of security.
However, he added that ‘Putin It cannot be treated as legitimate in this situation. He has violated everything. You must understand your transgression.

Trump discussed illegal immigration during his interview with Fox News in the Oval Office.
He said that if the Russian dictator were “approached as an equal” in the talks, “that would be a loss for Ukraine.”
Trump said Tuesday that while he believes Zelensky wants to make a deal, “I don’t know if Putin does.”
He threatened that by refusing to do so he “is destroying Russia”, with the country’s economy failing and inflation spiraling.
“I think Russia is going to be in big trouble,” he added, saying that Putin ‘can’t be delighted that it’s not doing so well.’
“I mean, he works hard, but most people thought the war would be over in about a week, and now it’s been three years, right?”
Putin has indicated he is ready to engage with Trump but continues to insist on an outcome that favors Russia.
‘We are open to dialogue with the new US administration on the Ukrainian conflict. The most important thing here is to eliminate the root causes of the crisis,’ the Russian ruler said. An initial phone call is expected to take place in Moscow.
Trump said Zelensky was ready for a deal to stop the debilitating conflict, and the 78-year-old US leader said he planned to meet Putin with whom he had a “great relationship” during his first term.
‘We will try to do it as quickly as possible. You know, the war between Russia and Ukraine should never have started.’
On Monday night, Trump joked about his campaign promise to end the conflict within 24 hours, noting that he hadn’t been president long after being sworn in around noon on Monday.
‘That’s only half a day. I have the other half of the day. We’ll see,’ he said.

A Russian soldier fires a self-propelled gun “Malka” towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location in Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has long been critical of Trump, responded with skepticism, warning that Russia’s war against Ukraine will continue in the long term and that Europe should be prepared.
“Let’s not fool ourselves, this conflict will not end tomorrow or the next day,” Macron said in his New Year’s speech to the French Armed Forces.
He called on Europe to “wake up” and spend more on defense when Trump returns to power, after the president warned Washington could stop defending its alliance allies if they fail to meet defense spending targets.
Newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that ending the war was a priority for the president, but that it would only be possible if both sides make significant concessions.
“Any time you end a conflict between two parties, neither of which can achieve their ultimate goals, each side is going to have to give up something,” he said, adding that the decision would ultimately be up to the Ukrainians and the Russians.
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