Volodymyr Zelensky has spent four-and-a-half years trying to protect his country from Russia. For the past two weeks, the bulk of his time has been spent battling the whims of his most important ally. Since Donald Trump struck a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin on October 9, it's been one crisis after another for Kyiv: U.S. demands to stop striking Russian refineries, reported slowdowns of Elon Musk's Starshield on which Ukrainian drones depend, and a sudden absence of early warnings for incoming Russian missile attacks.
But Ukraine's president faces an even bleaker prospect on November 3. If the GOP loses out in the midterms, Kyiv may well suffer the vengeance of a sullen, lame duck president whose priorities place Ukrainian sovereignty far below his desire to claim a foreign-policy triumph and pursue economic agreements with Moscow. "Trump is a man in need," John Lough, head of foreign policy and international partnerships at the New Eurasian Strategies (NEST) Centre, told Newsweek.
"He doesn't have any sense of commitment to the defense of Ukraine. Ukraine is completely expendable." The Kremlin, meanwhile, is sitting pretty; Trump is demanding a peace "deal," but so far Ukraine is the only party expected to make the sacrifices. Trump billed his Russian diesel deal as a "very big and important announcement" that would send American and global fuel prices tumbling "IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!" Analysts are considerably less enthusiastic, and the national average diesel price actually rose to $6.28 a gallon this week.
Still, with the midterms around the corner, Trump has sought to shift attention from his war in Iran as the principal driver of the energy crisis onto Ukraine's assault on Russian refineries. Some Republicans have parroted the narrative, including Senator Mike Lee, who accused Zelensky of "working overtime" to help Democrats win in November. But neither Trump's diesel bargain nor his attacks on Kyiv appear to have made much headway with voters.
A /Ipsos poll published Monday put his presidential approval rating at just 31 percent, with Democrats leading Republicans 47 to 35 percent among registered voters on the congressional ballot. The more American voters punish Trump for his handling of the economy and foreign policy, the more incentive he may have to punish Ukraine for the political consequences of his own decisions. A Democratic-controlled Congress would likely be more sympathetic to Kyiv's plight, but it couldn't simply override the president's discretion over intelligence cooperation, weapons transfers or diplomacy.
Trump, meanwhile, would still have another two years in office and a powerful incentive to leave the White House claiming he ended Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II and secured lucrative energy and commercial deals for Washington. Lough believes Trump "just seems to be focused on the idea that he can bring a major war to an end and that there will be a glittering prize of commercial deals at the end of it, you know, plus a Nobel Peace Prize." The Russian president celebrated his 74th birthday on October 7, but the gifts from Washington haven't stopped arriving. Beyond the material benefits of Trump's diesel agreement and partial sanctions relief, the White House is handing Moscow political capital hand over fist.
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