Trump says witholding 'surprise' plan to end Ukraine war

Donald Trump said Tuesday he has plans that are "guaranteed" to end the deadly war in Ukraine, but will only reveal them if he wins the US presidential election in November.

The former US president and current Republican nominee is locked in a neck-and-neck race with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

"If I win, as president elect, I'll have a deal made, guaranteed. That's a war that shouldn't have happened," Trump said on the Lex Fridman podcast released Tuesday.

"I have a very exacting plan how to stop Ukraine and Russia, And I have a certain idea -- maybe not a plan, but an idea -- for China," he added.

"But I can't give you those plans, because if I give you those plans, I'm not going to be able to use them, they'll be very unsuccessful. You know, part of it's surprise, right?"

The comments echo the move by Trump loyalists in Congress earlier this year, when they tanked a bipartisan immigration plan reportedly because they did not want the Biden-Harris administration to earn credit on one of the 2024 election's biggest issues.

Kyiv and Moscow are bogged down in a war that began in early 2022, when Russian troops poured across the border into Ukraine.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died, and the West has slapped punitive economic sanctions on Moscow over its invasion.

Trump has faced criticism for repeatedly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the podcast, he said the Ukraine crisis could spiral into "a third world war," and that several global hot spots are boiling because "America has no leadership."

Harris for her part has called out Trump's public praise of Putin, telling the Democratic National Convention last month that "I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators" and that as president she would "stand strong with Ukraine."