Ukraine’s Zelensky to BBC: We have to work with the US

President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in an interview published on Thursday that a victory for Donald Trump in the US election in November would be difficult for his country but Ukrainians were prepared.

Trump’s choice of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate has underscored how Washington’s stand on Ukraine, locked in a 28-month-old war with Russia, could change if he won the election. Vance is on record in an interview as saying “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”

Zelensky, speaking to the BBC while attending the European Political Community meeting in London, noted the comment, but added: “Maybe he really doesn’t care, but we have to work with the United States.”

Trump’s election, he said in remarks on the BBC website, would be “hard work, but we are hard workers.”

The administration of Joe Biden has provided weapons and supplies throughout the conflict, though the flow of assistance was halted for months by disputes within the US Congress.

Trump has said during the campaign that, once elected, he would bring the conflict to an end even before taking office by securing a deal at the negotiating table. He said there would have been no conflict at all had he been in office when Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

In other comments to the BBC, Zelensky said Ukraine was thankful for pledges from its partners to supply F-16 fighter jets, most likely this summer, though they had not yet arrived.

“It’s been 18 months and the planes have not reached us,” Zelensky told the BBC.

The planes, he said, were essential to help Ukrainians resist Russia’s aerial dominance and “unblock the skies.”

He said he anticipated no change in Britain’s support for Ukraine, but hoped new Prime Minister Keir Starmer would “become special — speaking about international politics, about defending world security, about the war in Ukraine.”

Ukraine, he said, “doesn’t just need a new page, we need power to turn this leaf.”