On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he’d end the war in Ukraine either before he took office or within 24 hours of taking office. Though he has since claimed “it was said in jest,” it definitely wasn’t.
At least 53 times Trump said he would settle the war between Russia and Ukraine quickly, at the very latest, on his first day in office. Not once did he say this in an even vaguely humorous context. Occasionally he addressed those who wrote the 24 hour promise off as a boast or an exaggeration by emphasizing that he very much meant it literally.
To the grave misfortune of the entire world, Trump took office for his second term on January 20, 2025. He obviously did not end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. One full year later Russia is no closer to ceasing its chosen war of naked aggression against Ukraine.
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Trump blames heroic Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his inability to follow through on his campaign pledge. This is just about the stupidest thing I’ve heard from the mouth of a man who says more stupid things on a daily basis than any other human being in existence.
Zelenskyy does not have the ability to end the war quickly. If he agreed to “peace” on Trump’s terms — a giveaway of Ukrainian territory and people to Russia — the Russian military would only pause to temporarily lick its wounds before coming back for the rest.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Zelenskyy did agree to Trump’s surrender plan in a moment of delusion. That would not change the situation on the battlefield much. Unlike the U.S. military’s top-down structure (which seems a more and more dangerous configuration by the day given who is currently at the top) Ukraine’s armed forces are segmented. If the order came down from Zelenskyy to lay down arms in capitulation to Russia, most of Ukraine’s fighters would disobey it to fight on under regional commanders.
There are only three ways this war could end. First, Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose his grip on power. He could be removed by an external force, his own people could get so sick of his disastrous policies that they get rid of him themselves, or he could die randomly. No Putin, no war: Trump would be able to use U.S. resources to make Putin go away if he really wanted to, but he won’t, because he seems to be in love with the man.
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Second, Ukraine could defeat Russia in combat, pushing its forces beyond Ukraine’s borders. Once again, Trump has the power to end the war in this fashion (maybe not constitutionally if he tried to do it all on his own, though we’ve seen him go well beyond his constitutional powers time and again without consequence in support of far less noble goals). Trump probably wouldn’t even need to put any American lives at risk. He has no interest in empowering Ukraine enough to make this happen in 2026.
Which leaves the third possibility: Russia could conqueror all of Ukraine. Although this is possible in the metaphysical sense of the word, something big would really have to change for this to take place within the next 12 months, or ever, and it wouldn’t really end the broader conflict anyhow. Ukraine’s European allies wouldn’t let this happen, even if its fickle American ally would, knowing they’d be next on Russia’s chopping block. Furthermore, this outcome would merely transform the war into an insurgency in Ukraine.
Trump was never going to be able to end the war in Ukraine during his first 24 hours in office. He could have ended it during his first year in office, but he chose not to. He won’t end it during his second year in office either.
The Ukrainian people are nowhere near to giving up, and Russia is too weak to overpower them. That means if the war ends in 2026, it will be because of a chance mishap befalling Putin, not anything Trump does.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].