‘People Can’t Go Back to Those Cities: There’s Nothing There,’ Trump Says – Ukraine at War Update for Dec. 17

US President-elect Donald Trump repeated his calls for a negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine on Monday, saying that the war represents “the worst carnage that this world has seen since Word War II.” And when asked if Ukraine would have to cede territory for a deal, Trump noted that the refugees who had left certain cities “can’t go back to those places” because “there’s nothing there.”

“[President Volodymyr] Zelensky would like to have peace. Everyone’s being killed,” Trump said at a press conference at his resort home in Florida. “It’s the worst carnage that this world has seen since Word War II. I’ve had pictures of fields where bodies are lying on top of bodies. Looks like the old pictures of the [US] Civil War… If you’d seen those pictures you’d feel more strongly about it, it’s got to stop.”

“We’ll be talking with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine.”

When asked by reporters if Ukraine should cede territory in those negotiations, the president-elect responded:

“Well, I’m going to let you know that after I have my first meeting. When you look at those territories, I mean, there are cities where there’s not a building standing. It’s a demolition site. There’s not a building standing. So people can’t go back to those cities, there’s nothing there.”

Other Topics of Interest

Give Ukraine Enough Money to Defeat Russia

The West is responsible for whether Ukraine wins or loses the war. It must be held accountable and the most obvious source of funds to secure Ukraine’s victory is hiding in plain sight.

The real estate heir went on to express awe at the size of the buildings in Ukraine that were “flattened like a pancake” by Russian airstrikes, and repeated his claims that civilian death tolls, and troop casualties, will turn out to be much higher than reported.

Trump has already called for an “immediate ceasefire in Ukraine” and said that European troops, not American boots on the ground, would enforce it.

Meanwhile, in Warsaw, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Kyiv should not be the one “forced” to the bargaining table but rather Moscow, explaining that “the aggressor and not the victim should be encouraged and forced” to negotiate.

Sikorski’s remarks come just ahead of a meeting on Wednesday between Zelensky, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and other allies in Brussels.

At 78, Trump is the oldest president to be elected in American history, and at times during his self-called press conference struggled to remember Zelensky’s name and went off of unrelated tangents.

He also spent a great deal of time talking about how he plans to attack journalists who have covered his first term unfavorably, while painting certain members from his loyal conservative Fox News channel, including Tucker Carlson, as having covered the news correctly.

For one thing, he said he would call for the rescinding of the Pulitzer prizes awarded to New York Times and Washington Post journalists who uncovered his shady dealings with the Kremlin ahead of the 2016 elections. After a Republican-led Senate refused to convict him on those impeachment charges, despite the evidence, conservatives have been calling his failed scheme to collaborate with Moscow, and against Ukraine, a “hoax”. 

Trump launched a defamation suit against ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos over his coverage of a trial in which the then-former president was found guilty in a civil case for sexual abuse.

ABC settled out of court for about $15 million instead of standing up for their anchor.

Putin tells his top military brass that Moscow’s advances in Ukraine have never been greater

Putin proclaimed on Monday that Russia’s army had captured another small village in the Donetsk region, AFP reported, as the Russian autocrat lauded a “landmark year” of territorial gains in Ukraine in 2024.

AFP’s analysis of Institute for the Study of War (ISW) data found that in November Russian troops advanced at their fastest pace since March 2022.

Putin claimed that Moscow’s forces had seized 189 Ukrainian settlements in 2024 and called it a “landmark year in the achievement of its goals [of the almost three-year illegal invasion].”

On Monday, AFP also reported that Moscow’s troops were “almost at the gates” of the key eastern city of Pokrovsk, the site of some of the fiercest fighting since the October 2024 surrender of Avdiivka, about 60 kilometers west in the same occupied region of Donetsk.

To an audience of top Russian military generals on Monday in an end-of-year meeting, and amidst Western talk of brokering a peace deal in Ukraine with Kyiv negotiating from a position of strength, Putin insisted that his troops had the upper hand across the entire front line.  

“Russian troops are firmly holding the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact,” Putin said. 

Speaking after the president at the same meeting, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov claimed that Russia’s troops had seized a total of almost 4,500 square kilometers (1,737 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in 2024 and were now gaining approximately 30 square kilometers a day. 

Italy to send tenth aid package to Kyiv, but reaffirms its decades-old role as peacemaker

Italy’s government on Monday approved its tenth military aid package since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Italian state news agency ANSA reported.

“Italy stands with Kyiv, fully supporting a just peace that excludes Ukraine’s capitulation,” said Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani during a conference. He added that Italian efforts continue to organize a second peace conference that would include Russia, “along with partners such as China, India, and Brazil.”

At a recent G7 meeting just outside of Rome, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who then held the EU’s rotating presidency, reiterated her country’s goals and aspirations of supporting Ukraine’s reconstruction. Her foreign minister on Monday added that Italy’s commitment to supplying Kyiv with more weapons places it “on the front line,” at the upcoming Ukraine Recovery Conference, which Italy will host in Rome in July.

Italy’s center-right government has been a steady supporter of Ukraine since the Russian invasion, but at the same time might not be considered to be among Europe’s most vehement opponents of the Kremlin.

Traditionally, Rome has held something of a role as a peacemaker between the West and its adversaries, notably with Moscow during the Cold War, as Italy was home to Europe’s largest communist party and shared a border with the Iron Curtain; and with Arab countries in the Middle East, because of its proximity with that region and historical political ties with crude-oil producers, as Italy has virtually no fossil-fuel deposits of its own.

Italy’s tenth military package will be presented formally to Ukraine on Wednesday by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto at a meeting of Rome’s intelligence service’s parliamentary oversight body, COPASIR.

The exact contents of the military-aid package remain confidential.