Biden to pressure Trump to support Ukraine in transition meeting: Advisor | Russia-Ukraine war News

United States President Joe Biden will try to convince President-elect Donald Trump not to get support from Ukraine if he takes office, said the outgoing president’s national security adviser.

Biden will talk to Trump, who has also sent US aid to Ukraine, when the two meet on Wednesday for a transition meeting at the White House, Jake Sullivan said in an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation program on Sunday.

“President Biden will have an opportunity in the next 70 days to make the case to Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not leave Ukraine, that leaving Ukraine means more instability in Europe,” Sullivan said.

“Biden will make the case that we need continued assistance to Ukraine after his term ends,” he added.

The war in Ukraine highlights the foreign policy divide between Biden and Trump.

Under Biden, the US government has committed an estimated $174bn to aid Ukraine as it battles Russian aggression, with the US president urging other NATO allies to continue their support.

Trump, however, has repeatedly criticized aid to Ukraine and said he would end his war with Russia “in a day”. To do that, he suggested Ukraine might have to cede territory in the peace deal, something the Ukrainians reject and which Biden has never suggested.

According to the Washington Post on Sunday, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, urging him not to escalate the war in Ukraine.

While Trump hasn’t gone into detail about how he plans to end the 2.5-year-old war, his Vice President-elect JD Vance offered a bleak outlook.

“What appears to be the current demarcation line between Russia and Ukraine, is like a demilitarized zone,” Vance said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast in September.

“Ukraine keeps its sovereignty, Russia gets a guarantee of neutrality in Ukraine – it doesn’t join NATO, it doesn’t join some of these allied institutions. That’s how the agreement will look in the end,” he said.

Because of the fear of support from the US under Trump, Ukrainian members and European members of NATO have been trying to reach the president-elect.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a message congratulating Trump on his election victory, wrote: “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace by force’ approach to world affairs.” This is the system that can really bring peace to Ukraine.”

He added: “We count on continued strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.”

‘The most powerful position possible’

Sullivan said that one of the main goals of the Biden administration in its remaining months, will be to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it is finally in a very strong position at the negotiating table”.

As part of this effort, the White House is speeding up aid to Ukraine, with plans to spend its remaining $6bn on Ukraine before President Trump’s inauguration in January, according to Sullivan.

Sullivan said Trump and Biden will have an opportunity to review Washington’s position on Ukraine, as well as other foreign policy issues, and discuss how Trump plans to address them at their meeting on Wednesday.

“The President will have the opportunity to explain to President Trump how he sees things, where they stand, and talk to President Trump about how President Trump thinks about dealing with these problems when he takes office,” he said.

Ukraine’s protracted war is entering what some officials say could be its last action after Moscow’s military has made rapid advances since the war’s early days.

Any new effort to end the war is likely to involve peace talks of some kind, which have not been held since the early months of the war.