LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump has promised to end two foreign conflicts. On the campaign trail, he repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. Once elected, he said it might take six months. Trump also said last month there'd be all hell to pay if Hamas and Israel did not reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal before he assumed office. A temporary and fragile ceasefire took hold on Sunday. NPR correspondents in Israel, Russia and Ukraine report on those countries' expectations as Trump takes office.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: I'm Charles Maynes. Here in Moscow, Russian officials have so far taken a cautious approach to Donald Trump's return to the White House and what it might mean for U.S.-Russian relations and the war in Ukraine. Yet as that conflict heads into its third year, it's increasingly common to hear ordinary Russians say they want an end to the fighting. The question, does the return of Donald Trump help with that? And if so, on whose terms?
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MAYNES: On the Old Arbat Street, popular with Russian tourists, count Alexander (ph) among those hoping for change.
ALEXANDER: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "I've heard Trump say he could end the war in a matter of days, but it'll take compromise from all sides," says the 24-year-old programmer, who tells me he's from a small town a few hundred miles away. Like everyone in this story, Alexander declined to provide his last name out of fear of wartime censorship laws.
VICTOR: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Victor (ph), a retired lighthouse keeper from Russia's south, tells me anything is possible once Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sit down for talks. A supporter of the war, Victor insists Russians want peace but on their terms. And in Donald Trump, he thinks they might just get it.
VICTOR: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "Democrats in Congress blocked Trump from pursuing better relations with us last time," he says. "Republicans are now in control, so there won't be so much interference."
NATALIA: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "I listen to my kids, and they're celebrating Trump's victory and hoping he'll end sanctions," says Natalia (ph), an artist who moved her family to Russia from neighboring Belarus, which served as a staging ground for the Russian invasion. Natalia adds she's never gotten over the shock of the war, and neither has Maxim (ph), an IT specialist from Moscow.
MAXIM: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Several of his friends went off to fight in Ukraine and never came home, he says. Now he's cautiously hoping a new Trump administration can bring an end to the killing. Yet three years of war have also taught him one thing.
MAXIM: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "Fights are easy to start," he tells me. "It's making up that's hard."
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: I'm Joanna Kakissis reporting from Lviv and Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainians want this war to end, even with concessions. But Yaroslav Bazylevych says he worries Donald Trump's administration could force Ukraine to concede too much.
YAROSLAV BAZYLEVYCH: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "Unless the U.S. gives up on Ukraine," he says, "I don't think Russia will agree to end this war." Bazylevych cannot stomach a Russian victory. Five months ago, a hypersonic Russian missile killed his entire family in the western city of Lviv, hundreds of miles from the front line. As the only survivor, he became the face of Ukraine's grief.
BAZYLEVYCH: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "I feel emptiness," he says. "They were everything to me."
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UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in non-English language).
KAKISSIS: His family's funeral was televised, and thousands of Ukrainians attended in person. Bazylevych hunched in agony over the coffins of his wife, Yevgenia, and their three daughters. Emilia, who was about to turn 7, 18-year-old Daryna and 21-year-old Yaryna. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers have been killed in this war, including Melaniya Podolyak's (ph) partner, a legendary fighter pilot. We meet in Kyiv.
MELANIYA PODOLYAK: At this point, you can pick anybody off of the Ukrainian street and ask them if they've lost somebody close to them and they will tell you yes. And there's no indication that Russians want to leave Ukraine alone. So the thing we should do is to present the new administration with options from the point of strength, which is ridiculously difficult in these times.
KAKISSIS: That's also clear to Bazylevych in Lviv. Russian troops are advancing on Ukrainian land.
BAZYLEVYCH: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "Russia will only agree to a ceasefire if they're on the brink of a financial or military crisis," he says. "And even then, it will be temporary." He is set to travel to Washington next month and ask Congress to support justice for Ukraine and his wife and daughters.
BAZYLEVYCH: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "I don't know how to live without them," he says, his eyes filling with tears. "I am like a tree who cannot grow leaves."
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: I'm Greg Myre reporting from Tel Aviv. In the Mid East, Trump wanted an end to the Israel-Hamas fighting before taking office, and it seems he got his wish by one day. After 15 months of war, a ceasefire took effect Sunday. Trump is claiming credit for the deal, but now he inherits a precarious truce. And he's shown no real interest in micromanaging Middle East conflict.
CHUCK FREILICH: He's certainly not a president who can get into the nitty-gritty.
MYRE: Chuck Freilich is a former deputy national security adviser in Israel who now splits his time between Israel and the U.S. He says Trump's big picture approach could have its advantages.
FREILICH: Maybe we needed a president who seems to have done what Trump did in the last week, which is just to come with a big stick and beat both sides over the head, so to speak and lead to the final breakthrough.
MYRE: In some sense, Trump faces a reversal from the presidential transition that took place four years ago. Trump made a deal with the Taliban near the end of his first term which called for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan. President Biden inherited that agreement. When he withdrew the troops, it turned into a fiasco. Based on his public remarks, Trump is much more interested in trying to cut a deal that would normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and open up economic opportunities. This would build on Trump's first term, when he helped broker the so-called Abraham Accords that established relations between Israel and several Arab states. But the war in Gaza has complicated those efforts, says Chuck Freilich. The Saudis are now demanding that Israel take concrete steps toward creating a Palestinian state, and that means Trump is likely to encounter the same challenges previous U.S. presidents have faced.
FREILICH: To achieve a full breakthrough with the Saudis, he may need a breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
MYRE: For years now, U.S. presidents have been trying to reduce American involvement in Middle East turmoil, yet they keep getting dragged back in.
FADEL: NPR's Joanna Kakissis in Kyiv. We also heard from Charles Maynes in Moscow and Greg Myre in Tel Aviv.
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