Why did Antony Blinken come to Kyiv, what Vladimir Zelensky and Joe Biden will soon talk about, whether the election of Donald Trump will be a disaster for Ukraine - more details in the material.
Next week, President Vladimir Zelensky will travel to the United States for the second time during the full-scale war. The official program is participation in the session of the UN General Assembly. But there will, of course, be a separate meeting with American President Joe Biden.
The Ukrainian and American leaders have an endless number of topics for discussion. Their last talks, at the July NATO summit in Vilnius, lasted twice as long as planned, and according to Zelensky, “we would have talked even longer.”
This is not surprising, since the United States is Ukraine’s number one ally in terms of volumes of various assistance, the core of the entire Western coalition. But Ukraine has also become very firmly on the domestic American agenda and will definitely become one of the main topics of the growing presidential campaign.
Trump and everything, everything, everything
With the outbreak of a full-scale war, Zelensky’s team, in working with Western countries, relied not only on the political establishment, but also on appealing directly to voters. And they were already putting pressure on their authorities from below to provide assistance to Ukraine. On the whole, this approach was justified; a striking example is Germany, where the inertia of the political elite was overcome with great difficulty.
On the other hand, if public sentiment in any ally country changes, not in favor of Ukraine, its leadership will be forced to adjust the level of its involvement in the war in the same way.
Current trends in the sentiment of ordinary Americans give some cause for concern. Thus, according to a survey by CNN and the research company SSRS, over the past six months the number of voters who believe that the United States should help Ukraine more has decreased from 62% to 48%. At the same time, opinions are very polarized: Democratic sympathizers are much more inclined to help Ukraine than Republicans.
In other surveys, specific numbers may differ, but the general trend is obvious - the popularity of the pro-Ukrainian position in the United States is declining, although not catastrophically yet (the majority of Americans are still in favor of further assistance to Ukraine). Another alarming point is that on the Ukrainian issue, the opinions of non-partisan voters are increasingly converging with the positions of the Republicans, and it is the undecided electorate that will decide the fate of the 2024 presidential race.
The situation is similar in the political elite. Ukraine still enjoys the support of both American parties, as Washington never tires of reminding. Nevertheless, the camp of Ukrainian skeptics (Republicans who support Donald Trump) is becoming not only louder, but also more influential over time.
Bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress will be seriously tested this month. The Biden administration has submitted for its consideration a budget bill totaling $40 billion, of which $24 billion is in aid to Ukraine (however, direct military assistance is limited to $13.1 billion, part of which will also be used to replenish Pentagon reserves).
Both sides - the Biden administration and Ukrainian-skeptic Trumpists - are resorting to various tricks, Politico notes. Thus, the White House included in the “Ukrainian” bill funding and a host of other issues not related to the war, but popular among voters, for example, the fight against drugs (a tactic that is very popular in our Verkhovna Rada). The bet is that Republicans will have a hard time explaining why they didn't vote for it. In addition, the vote in Congress will approximately coincide with Zelensky’s visit and public speeches in the United States - this is also planned to be used as a pressure factor.
Opponents have their own populist arguments. The most obvious is that the White House bill proposes to allocate 24 billion for issues related to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the remaining 16 billion for US domestic needs. Therefore, the Trumpists are already spreading their favorite argument: they say that Biden and his team are more concerned about the problems of Ukraine, located thousands of miles away, than the interests of the Americans themselves.
Naturally, as elsewhere in politics, the personal factor also plays a role. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will play a key role in passing the new relief package. His position is very precarious; he took his seat at the beginning of this year only on his fifteenth attempt. And the Trumpist wing of the Republican faction is openly blackmailing him with possible resignation, and successfully.
So, after months of hesitation, he finally decided to launch the Biden impeachment procedure - an undertaking that does not even have a theoretical chance of success, but is ardently supported by Donald Trump and his followers. In conditions when the confrontation between Biden and McCarthy is already becoming personal, the successful passage of a new aid package to Ukraine becomes even more problematic.
In July, 70 Republican congressmen (a third of the entire faction) voted to completely stop all aid to Ukraine. The proposal failed miserably, but the impeachment saga shows that a Trumpist minority of Republicans may well be able to influence the position of the entire party.
All these difficulties are a demo version of what Ukraine might expect next year, when the US presidential campaign gets into full swing. Informed interlocutors of RBC-Ukraine in Kyiv also say that in 2024 it will become more difficult to receive help from the United States than it is now.
There is no particular intrigue on the part of the Democratic Party - Biden at the moment looks like there is no alternative candidate. For Republicans, the fight is in full swing, although the favorite has long been obvious: according to average polling data from the FiveThirtyEight portal, Donald Trump is in the lead with 53% support among Republicans. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who a few years ago was seen as a real competitor to Trump, has sharply lost ground, but retains second place with 13.4% support.
The 38-year-old businessman of Indian origin, Vivek Ramaswamy, who has no political experience, unexpectedly came into third place with a rating of 7%. Obviously, the rise in Ramaswami's popularity was ensured by his harsh and contradictory statements, including on Ukraine. He not only advocates stopping aid to Ukraine, but also for “freezing the conflict,” that is, for recognizing Russia’s occupation of part of Ukrainian territory.
Ramaswamy, who has been described as "trying to be more Trump than Trump himself," has ingratiated himself with the former president, with Trump saying he is open to the idea of nominating Ramaswamy as his vice presidential candidate. Obviously, this is the task of the young businessman in this campaign, since his chances of becoming the Republican presidential candidate look very slim.
For Ukraine in this situation, the most dangerous thing is that the three most popular Republican candidates - Trump, Desantis and Ramaswamy - take an anti-Ukrainian position or, at least, in the case of Desantis, allowed themselves ambiguous statements about Kyiv. Supporters of Ukraine, in particular, former Vice President Michael Pence and former US Representative to the UN Nikki Haley are still behind in the ratings and have almost no chance of winning the nomination.
How such different positions on the most important foreign policy issue for the United States, Russian aggression against Ukraine, can coexist within the same party has long been of interest to American experts and journalists. The Republican Party no longer resembles itself in the days of Ronald Reagan.
For Republicans, historically hawkish and supportive of American interventionism, the internal fight over aid to Ukraine underscores what analysts say is the party's broader struggle to define what it represents - a long-simmering issue that, as "is expected to become even more acute as the next election cycle gets underway," The Washington Post writes.
For Ukraine, the question is simpler, but also more global: is the potential election of Trump, the chances of which are still 50/50, a disaster or not? And what to do if he does become the next president of the United States?
An important disclaimer: the numerous criminal cases against Trump, according to American law, are not an obstacle to his election as president, and even if he is convicted, he will be able to run for office.
Director of the New Europe Center Alena Getmanchuk, in a conversation with RBC-Ukraine, admits that in the Ukrainian situation it is necessary to think through the scenario of a possible Trump victory.
“It would be worse if we came out and said that the election of Trump is a disaster for us. With Biden there is more predictability, we already know his approaches, we know how to change them, although this happens slowly and comes at a great cost to us. With Trump, we don’t know what to expect; for him, the issue of the integrity of Ukraine is not the holy of holies. And after all the accusations and criminal proceedings, now so many specialists, military men, and diplomats who came to him during his first term will no longer come to him,” says Getmanchuk.
In a recent interview with The Economist, Zelensky said that Trump would never support Putin if elected. “This is not what strong Americans do,” the Ukrainian president said.
Such statements may become part of the general line of behavior of the Ukrainian authorities for the coming year, and in the worst case scenario, if Trump is elected, for the duration of his term. As a competent interlocutor in the Ukrainian government explained to RBC-Ukraine, even Trump can, in principle, be dealt with. The main thing is to create situations for him in which he will be forced to make decisions in favor of Ukraine, for example, fearing new accusations of “working for Moscow.” In any case, with Trump in the White House it will become much more difficult for Ukraine, although, as the publication’s interlocutor assured, his election will not be a “catastrophe” for us.
American style training
In any case, for now, Ukraine has to deal with President Biden and his administration. And despite the high density of contacts between the leadership of both countries and the multibillion-dollar American assistance, the current relations between Kiev and Washington cannot be called “ideal”. Ukraine is consistently dissatisfied with the volume of military assistance and often voices this publicly. In the US they say they are doing everything they can. The notorious “fatigue with Ukraine” among the American establishment, if present, then, fortunately, has not yet been realized in practical actions.
Of course, both Ukraine and the United States have their own national interests; they do not have to completely coincide. But in the conditions in which Ukraine now finds itself, this dissonance has very specific consequences. The problem is not even that the vision of the end of the war in Kyiv and in Washington is different. The problem is rather that the American government does not yet have a specific vision for the future, as all the interlocutors interviewed by RBC-Ukraine admit.
“There is still no answer to the question of whether Washington’s internal general line involves ending the war in the format of a “negotiated peace” or a “negotiated settlement” (“peace agreement”, which a priori assumes some kind of concessions on the Ukrainian side,” ed. ). There are many signs that this is the most optimal scenario for them, this is evidenced by their calibrated, dosed support,” says Alena Getmanchuk.
In her opinion, Biden does not need an absolute victory for Ukraine for his presidential campaign, in the form in which the Ukrainians themselves see it - a simple cessation of hostilities and bloodshed may be enough, this can already be “sold” to the electorate. Biden, who won the election with a promise to “end wars” (and somehow managed to do this in Afghanistan), is now trying to balance between helping Ukraine and avoiding further escalation, up to a third world war, especially with the use of nuclear weapons. In addition, Getmanchuk notes, questions from American voters about whether Ukraine should continue to be supported and whether China (and not Russia) is the main threat to the United States also play a role.
That is, the bottom line is that the fear of nuclear war plus the optionality of Ukraine’s absolute victory in the war plus thoughts about the Chinese threat are the components of American policy regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war.
According to the publication’s source in the Ukrainian government, there are two main red lines left for the West in general and the Americans in particular. The first is the liberation of Crimea by military means. The second is a possible nuclear strike from Russia, which will somehow have to be responded to (with further consequences). However, the interlocutor says, the West has not yet seen real scenarios of action in the worst-case scenario - they simply want to avoid them at all costs.
From a Western, including American point of view, the situation is complicated by the fact that the Ukrainian government systematically and deliberately burned all its bridges in terms of “peace agreements” or any “compromises.” The goal is one and maximalistic - the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine within the 1991 borders (although it should be understood that the war will not end there), no one is developing any backup “exit strategies”.
Because of this, the space for usual diplomatic maneuvers is greatly narrowed. Consequently, because of this, both the Ukrainian and American authorities are mainly repelled by the demands of the current moment.
Ukraine will continue to demand military and financial assistance from the United States, and the Americans will respond by talking about the fight against corruption. According to the publication, this topic was also raised during Blinken’s last visit to Kiev, however, there were few specific cases - only the bill on strengthening the independence of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office was mentioned, this is a condition for receiving money from the IMF and not only. But there was no mention of the arrest of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, although American law enforcement officials have long been aware of the interest in him. However, this case is quite suitable for improving the general atmosphere of negotiations.
“The more understanding there is that Ukraine has survived, the more active the topic of corruption will be. And this is also a counterbalance to our requests regarding the slow pace of arms deliveries. The louder our criticism is, the louder they will raise questions about corruption, the rule of law, etc. We ask them uncomfortable questions - they create discomfort for us,” says Alena Getmanchuk.
Another issue on the Ukrainian domestic agenda in which Americans are showing interest is the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections. Due to the martial law, the parliamentary elections scheduled for October will no longer take place. Holding presidential elections next year on time is also a big question.
At the official level, the topic of the Ukrainian elections was raised last month by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham during a visit to Kyiv. “We will continue to fight to get you weapons so you can win the war we cannot afford to lose. But you also have to do two things at once. There are supposed to be elections in Ukraine next year,” Graham said. In response, Zelensky assured that holding elections during a war is extremely difficult, but Ukraine is ready to make the necessary changes to the legislation, but the West will have to provide support, from financial to sending observers to the front line.
RBC-Ukraine's interlocutors were divided on whether Graham's statement was his personal initiative or whether he spoke on behalf of certain circles of the American establishment, which would somehow benefit from holding elections in Ukraine.
In any case, during the last visit of Secretary of State Blinken to Kyiv, the issue of elections was also raised, but - an important point - the Americans emphasized that they are not exerting any pressure on Ukraine in this regard, whether to hold elections or not is Kyiv’s sovereign decision, they are only ready to if necessary, provide the necessary assistance.
However, the very fact that the American leadership is talking about elections in Ukraine is already indicative - it means that this topic is on the agenda. And over time it can gain relevance.
The Biden administration is likely also under pressure from the fact that the Trumpist wing of the Republicans, in particular the famous host Tucker Carlson, is trying their best to twist the topic of the Ukrainian elections in their favor. In numerous broadcasts, podcasts, and posts on social networks, Carlson and his like-minded people dispel the thesis that Ukraine is an authoritarian state, since it does not hold elections, therefore, why Biden is helping such an anti-democratic country. And even though statements about the “authoritarian regime of Zelensky” consist entirely of populism, unreliable and distorted facts, they find their audience in pre-election America.
“The Americans constantly need to “train” us. They give us help, which means we must carry out some “tasks”. The first is anti-corruption, the second is transparency in how we use their help,” says RBC-Ukraine’s interlocutor in Servant of the People. Even in the public speeches of Biden’s team members, he sees signals that Ukraine will still not be in first place for them in the foreseeable future, and it will be increasingly difficult to get money “for war.”
However, at least in the foreseeable future, we should not expect the United States to abandon Ukraine, since they have already invested too much in us and are too deeply involved in our situation, says another source in power. Of course, provided that Ukraine itself does not “fall apart” at the front or from within, for which there are currently no prerequisites. And even better - to win significant and visible victories at the front; there is nothing better to strengthen American-Ukrainian friendship. Americans love winners.
