Putin won’t make peace in Ukraine before 2024 US elections, US official says

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON, November 28 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin will not make peace in Ukraine until he knows the results of the November 2024 U.S. election, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday. background of concerns about a possible victory for the former Russian president. President Donald Trump could shake up Western support for kyiv.

Trump, who is seeking re-election in 2024 and is the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has sharply criticized U.S. support for kyiv.

A senior official speaking to reporters after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels said the alliance reiterated its support for Ukraine, knowing a peace deal was unlikely next year.

“I expect that Putin will not make peace or meaningful peace until he sees the result of our elections,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the results of the meeting.

Asked whether they were expressing a personal opinion or that of the U.S. government, the official said it was a “widely shared premise.”

“It is in this context that allies all expressed their strong support for Ukraine” during the NATO meeting on Tuesday, the official added, without mentioning Trump by name or explicitly saying how the election result would affect the support for Ukraine.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-November showed Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden engaged in a tight race, with Trump leading Biden 51% to 49% when respondents were asked to choose between both. This result falls within the poll’s credibility interval, or about four percentage points.

Biden, a Democrat, has provided massive military aid and other support to Kiev since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, but additional funding for Ukraine is blocked by the US-controlled House of Representatives. Republicans.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier this month Trump guestwho said he could end the war in 24 hours if re-elected, traveled to Ukraine to see for himself the scale of the conflict.

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Humeyra Pamuk is a senior foreign policy correspondent based in Washington, DC. She covers the U.S. State Department and travels regularly with the U.S. Secretary of State. During her 20 years at Reuters, she was stationed in London, Dubai, Cairo and Turkey, covering everything from the Arab Spring and Syria’s civil war to Turkey’s numerous elections and the Kurdish insurgency in the South East. In 2017, she won the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship program from the School of Journalism at Columbia University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a master’s degree in European studies.