Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could be “decisive” in the outcome of the yearslong war between Ukraine and Russia.
“Trump can be decisive. For us, this is the most important thing,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukrainian television.
Zelenskyy said Trump had told him he would be one of the first to visit Washington after the presidential inauguration later this month.
“His qualities are indeed there,” Zelenskyy said about Trump. “He can be decisive in this war. He is capable of stopping [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin.”
Trump has previously said he would be able to stop the war in Ukraine in one day, but he has never detailed how he would accomplish that.
Zelenskyy’s comments came as the Ukrainian military said it had carried out a high-precision strike Thursday on a Russian command post in Maryino, in Russia’s Kursk region.
“These strikes disrupt the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct terrorism against innocent Ukrainian civilians,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement on Telegram.
Russia’s military said air defense units had downed four Ukrainian missiles in the region. The regional governor said the strikes had damaged a high-rise apartment building and other buildings in a nearby village.
Another post from the Ukrainian military showed a video of what the military said was damage to a Russian base in Ivanivskoye, next to Maryino.
A school, pharmacy and apartment building were among the structures damaged in the strike, Kursk regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said.
VOA could not immediately verify the reports.
Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia five months ago. Ukrainian forces remain in the Kursk region, but the Russian military says much of the lost territory has been regained.
Meanwhile, Russia said it had attacked energy facilities in Ukraine that support Kyiv’s military-industrial complex.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that over the past 24 hours, it had used its air force, drones, missiles and artillery to target energy facilities, military airfields and Ukrainian military personnel across multiple locations.
VOA could not independently verify that report.
Russian forces have been advancing quickly on the eastern front of Ukraine.
“They are putting pressure on our boys, who are exhausted, and that is a fact. We will do everything to at least stabilize the front in January,” Zelenskyy said in his Thursday interview.
Ukraine’s military said Thursday that it had shot down 47 drones Russian forces launched overnight at areas in central and eastern Ukraine.
Russia used a total of 72 drones in its attacks, the military said.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down drones over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Odessa and Sumy regions.
Officials in those areas did not immediately report any major damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that its forces had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones, mostly along the Russia-Ukraine border. Intercepts took place in Bryansk, Belgorod, Kursk, Kaluga and Voronezh, it said.
The governors of Bryansk and Kaluga said there were no reports of casualties or damage in their regions.
Thursday’s attacks came a day after Russian forces killed at least two people in Kyiv.
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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