Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s triumph in the US presidential election, fearing it could lead to a suspension of military and financial aid from Washington to Kiev, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.
In an interview with Radio Slovensko on Saturday, Fico discussed how Trump’s policies could impact global politics and the conflict in Ukraine. The Prime Minister stated that when he saw Zelensky during the EU summit in Budapest, Hungary, on November 7, the Ukrainian leader appeared visibly shaken.
“Have you ever seen a person who is afraid that the war will end? I saw him, and his name is Vladimir Zelensky,” Fico told the host, adding that Zelensky seemed “shocked that Trump won and that there could be a halt to aid from the United States.”
Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the fighting in Ukraine within “24 hours,” without specifying how he would achieve this. Fico argued that the fighting will never stop as long as the West continues to send billions of dollars worth of arms into the conflict.
“That means there will be some fundamental decisions regarding the war in Ukraine,” the Prime Minister explained. “He is someone who simply doesn’t like wars as such,” Fico remarked, reflecting on how Trump, as a businessman, “prefers” tariffs and sanctions to military confrontations and suggesting that the President-elect would take “decisive steps.”
If Washington cuts off financing to Kiev, the EU will also need to adjust its policies and push for negotiations instead of doubling down on arming Ukraine in hopes that Russia will eventually lose.
“We are again acting as a military cabinet in relation to Ukraine… Is the EU ready to assume all the costs of the war in Ukraine?” Fico wondered.
“There is still an opinion that if we keep supporting Ukraine, we will bring Russia to its knees, but that does not work,” he argued, urging the bloc to recognize that this logic is flawed. “The EU is a peace project, and the war must be stopped.”
European Union leaders discussed in Budapest whether they can afford to continue financing the Ukrainian military if Trump indeed decides to withdraw Washington’s support for Kiev, Bloomberg reported on Friday. However, according to sources, rather than money, they are more concerned about “the available military resources that have come primarily from the US.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky seemed more concerned about the money as he demanded from the EU roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets, if the US cuts him off, claiming the money “rightfully belongs” to Ukraine. He also told the summit that he did not yet know Trump’s plans but that only Kiev should “decide what should and should not be on the agenda for ending this war.”
