DM Monitoring
WASHINGTON: 0US President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration will work hard to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We’re going to work on the Middle East, and we’re going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine. It’s gotta stop. Russia and Ukraine’s gotta stop,” Trump said at a gala for the America First Policy Institute at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
Turning to his election victory last week, Trump said the American people delivered “something very, very amazing.” “The biggest political victory in 129 years…We swept all swing states. We won the popular vote,” he said.
He stressed that the country is “doing good” since he was elected on Nov. 5.
“Now the only thing is, Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important, maybe you should pass a bill — you have to start my term from November 5, OK? Or November 6 if you want. November 5, because the market’s gone through the roof, enthusiasm’s doubled in the last short while,” he said.
Republicans secured a majority in last week’s election, assuming control of the House and Senate and the White House.
Trump won the election with 312 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 threshold against his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris. He will be sworn into office on January 20, 2025 for a four-year term.
A Russian air attack struck a residential building and power installations in and near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one person, injuring eight and knocking out a boiler plant used for heating, Ukrainian officials have said.
A small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since September 2022, in a sign of mounting pressure on the Ukrainian outpost. Ukraine’s military said its troops were still in full control of the rail hub and their forces had stopped the Russian advance.
Russian forces have captured the village of Voznesenka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defence.
The Ukrainian military has said it shot down 21 out of 59 Russian attack drones launched overnight on Thursday.
A military court in Moscow has sentenced a 43-year-old woman, Anastasia Berezhinskaya, to eight years in a penal colony for posting antiwar comments online, including several calling for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia is open to negotiations to end the Ukraine war if initiated by United States President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances in the conflict, according to Gennady Gatilov, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva.
Trump has chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks security and intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, as the US’s new director of national intelligence. The decision has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment given the 43-year-old is seen as sympathetic to Russia in its war on Ukraine.
Germany needs to step up its role in defence if the US focuses less on Europe, the country’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said, adding it did not make sense to present a debt-free Germany that is less capable of defending itself to President Putin.
