Biden will force Trump to support Ukraine at transition meeting: Advisor | Russia-Ukraine war News

U.S. President Joe Biden will try to persuade President-elect Donald Trump not to withdraw support from Ukraine when he takes office, the outgoing president’s national security adviser said.

Biden will make his offer to Trump, who has repeatedly criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine, at the pair’s transition meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Jake Sullivan said in an interview on the CBS news program Face the Nation on Sunday.

“President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to argue to Congress and the incoming administration that the United States should not move away from Ukraine, and that moving away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe,” Sullivan said.

“Biden will make the case that we need continued resources for Ukraine even after the end of his term,” he added.

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

Under the Biden administration, the US government has pledged nearly $174 billion in aid to Ukraine, which is fighting invading Russian forces, and the US president is lobbying other NATO allies to continue support.

But Trump has repeatedly criticized aid to Ukraine and said he would end his war with Russia “within a day.” To do this, he suggested, Ukraine might have to give up territory in a peace agreement; The Ukrainians rejected it and Biden never proposed it.

Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

While Trump did not go into detail about how he plans to end the 2.5-year war, incoming Vice President J.D. Vance offered a rough vision.

“It probably looks like the current border line between Russia and Ukraine is a demilitarized zone,” Vance said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast in September.

“Ukraine maintains its independent sovereignty, Russia receives guarantees of neutrality from Ukraine; It doesn’t join NATO, it doesn’t join some of these allied institutions. “This is what the deal will ultimately look like,” he said.

Fearing a decline in US support under Trump, Ukrainians and European NATO members are scrambling to reach the president-elect.

In a message congratulating Trump on his election victory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote: “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach to global affairs. “This is exactly the principle that can bring a just peace in Ukraine closer in practice.”

He added: “We are confident that there will continue to be strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.”

‘The strongest possible position’

Sullivan said one of the Biden administration’s main goals in the remaining months will be to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield and thus ultimately in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”

The White House is rushing to help Ukraine as part of that effort, and plans to spend the remaining $6 billion in Ukrainian funds before Trump takes office in January, according to Sullivan.

Trump and Biden will have the opportunity to review Washington’s stance on Ukraine, among other foreign policy issues, and discuss how Trump plans to address them at Wednesday’s meeting, Sullivan said.

“The President will have a chance to explain to President Trump how he sees things, where he stands, and to talk to President Trump about how he intends to address these issues when he takes office,” he said.

The protracted war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be the final push by Moscow’s forces following their fastest advance since the early days of the war.

Any new attempt to end the war would likely involve some form of peace talks, which have not been held since the early months of the war.