US President-elect Donald Trump will appoint a special envoy to lead negotiations on resolving the Ukraine conflict, Fox News reported on Wednesday. Trump had previously said he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future.
“You’re going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement,” an anonymous source told Fox, adding: “You’re going to see that in short order.”
In the week since he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump has announced a flurry of names that he intends to appoint to senior cabinet and advisory positions. The incoming president announced earlier this week that he would appoint real estate developer Steven Witkoff as his special envoy to the Middle East, saying Witkoff would be “an unrelenting voice for peace” in the region.
Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine conflict “in 24 hours” if elected. He has not explained how he would do this, although he has claimed that he would use his “great relationship” with Putin, and with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, to broker a peace deal.
Trump spoke to Zelensky last week, and told NBC News that he would likely speak to Putin in the near future. Putin congratulated Trump on his electoral victory last Thursday, telling reporters that he was ready to speak to the president-elect.
While the Kremlin has repeatedly downplayed suggestions that Trump could easily end the conflict with Kiev, Putin said Trump’s statements on the matter “deserve attention, at the very least.”
It is unclear what kind of resolution Trump will push for in the conflict. On the campaign trail, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance suggested that a ceasefire could be declared and a demilitarized zone established along the current 1,300km front line, with Ukraine being denied NATO membership. According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, Trump’s advisers support some version of this plan, and are encouraging the president-elect to present it to Zelensky and Putin.
Moscow maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of the Russian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved.