Pistorius responds to Trump's intention to end war in Ukraine quickly

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has commented on whether the United States will be able to ensure the end of Russia's war against Ukraine, as promised by new President Donald Trump.

Answering the question in an interview with DW about Trump's ability to quickly end Russia's war against Ukraine, the German minister of defence said that first of all, Ukraine's allies should "talk about a ceasefire, and then a sustainable peace for Ukraine, and this means Ukraine needs security guarantees from all the other countries".

If this scenario is not fulfilled, the likelihood of a repeat Russian attack in "only a couple of years" is very high, Pistorius says, and it is this problem that Europe will have to face "in the months and years to come".

The minister also added that he does not like the idea of public discussions of strategy in relation to any negotiations towards a ceasefire or even beyond.

"This is not a thing we should discuss publicly, because otherwise I [may as well] send an email to Vladimir Putin to tell him what we are planning," Pistorius said.

On 22 January, Donald Trump said that if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not reached soon, he will have "no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries".

On the first day of his presidency, Trump said that Vladimir Putin was destroying Russia by not ending the war.

Later, Trump announced that he was ready to consider tougher sanctions against Russia if it did not agree to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.