Volodymyr Zelensky spent four and a half years trying to protect his country from Russia. Over the past two weeks, most of his time has been spent fighting the whims of his main ally.
Since Donald Trump struck a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin on October 9, kyiv has experienced one crisis after another: US demands to stop hitting Russian refineries, reported slowdowns of Elon Musk’s Starshield, on which Ukraine’s drones depend, and the sudden absence of early warnings of Russian missile attacks.
But the Ukrainian president faces an even bleaker outlook on November 3. If the Republican Party loses in the midterms, kyiv could well suffer the vengeance of a sullen and lame-duck president whose priorities place Ukrainian sovereignty far below his desire to claim a foreign policy triumph and strike economic deals with Moscow.
“Trump is a man in need,” said John Lough, head of foreign policy and international partnerships at the Center for New Eurasian Strategies (NEST). News week. “He has no sense of commitment to the defense of Ukraine. Ukraine is completely unusable.”
The Kremlin, for its part, is doing rather well; Trump is demanding a peace “deal,” but so far Ukraine is the only party expected to make the sacrifices.
Burn Kyiv, save the party?
Trump touted his Russian diesel deal as a “very important, very important announcement” that would bring down fuel prices in the United States and around the world “IN RECORD NUMBERS AND FAST!” » Analysts are considerably less enthusiastic, and the national average diesel price reached $6.28 per gallon this week.
Yet as the midterms approach, Trump has sought to shift attention from his war in Iran, the main driver of the energy crisis, to Ukraine’s assault on Russian refineries.
Some Republicans have echoed this narrative, including Sen. Mike Lee, who accused Zelensky of “working overtime” to help Democrats win in November. But neither Trump’s diesel deal nor his attacks on kyiv appear to have made much headway with voters.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday put his approval rating at just 31 percent, with Democrats leading Republicans 47 to 35 percent among registered voters in the congressional poll.
The more American voters punish Trump for his handling of the economy and foreign policy, the more incentive he might have to punish Ukraine for the political consequences of his own decisions.
A Democratic-controlled Congress would likely be more sensitive to kyiv’s plight, but it could not simply override the president’s discretion on intelligence cooperation, arms transfers, or diplomacy. Trump, meanwhile, would have two years left in office and a powerful incentive to leave the White House by claiming he ended Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II and secured lucrative energy and trade deals for Washington.
Lough thinks Trump “just seems to be focused on the idea that he can end a major war and there will be a glittering prize of trade deals at the end, you know, plus a Nobel Peace Prize.”
Birthday treats
The Russian president celebrated his 74th birthday on October 7, but the gifts from Washington did not stop arriving.
Beyond the material benefits of Trump’s diesel deal and partial sanctions relief, the White House is giving Moscow its political capital hand in hand. On Wednesday, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff visited St. Petersburg and addressed the Russian president, calling the architect of the war in Ukraine a “humanitarian” for freeing another septuagenarian, U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard, from captivity. A few hours later, Russian missiles hit Kyiv again.
Putin is already enjoying the diplomatic benefits of rapprochement with Washington without having to compromise on his demands for a resolution to the war in Ukraine. But Alexander Morozov, head of research on Russian domestic politics at the NEST Center, believes the Kremlin is playing a more ambitious game.
“Moscow is using Trump’s pressure on Zelensky above all to intensify its attack on Europe,” said Alexander Morozov. News week.
“The Kremlin must undermine European support for Ukraine. Its goal is to manipulate Trump’s negotiating initiative until Ukraine is weakened. Putin is not counting on the results of peace negotiations, but on creating a situation in which Ukraine can be broken.”
The genius of this approach, from Moscow’s perspective, is that Trump becomes an unwitting accomplice in undermining not only Western support for Ukraine, but also the unity on which NATO itself depends. Putin can simultaneously celebrate cooperation with Washington, present kyiv and its European backers as the real obstacle to peace, and accelerate the security divide between the United States and its transatlantic allies.
“Trump believes he is taking steps aimed at reaching a ‘deal’ to end the war,” Morozov said. “Putin is simply pursuing his goal: to break Western unity, disorient it, leave Ukraine without support and force Europe to recognize the outcome of the war that suits the Kremlin.”
The clock is ticking
Seen in this light, it may seem that Putin has every interest in prolonging this process indefinitely.
There is, however, a limit to the economic and social pressure that the Russian war machine can withstand. The Kremlin is grappling with growing budget deficits, labor shortages, deteriorating public finances and huge military losses. Lough believes Putin sees Trump as an opportunity to bring the conflict to a favorable conclusion before these pressures escalate.
“I think he’d rather get out of this as quickly as possible,” he said. News week. “Yes, economically they can continue, but we’re going to see a steady deterioration in state finances. There’s already a yawning budget deficit this year. They’re going to have to cut non-military spending next year. There’s been a promise of victory for, I would say, two years now.”
His colleague Morozov warned against confusing Russia’s desire for a favorable settlement with hope for imminent peace.
“As far as we know, no one among the Russian leaders expects the war to end in the next two years,” he said. “The budgets for 2027 and 2028 show this, as do Putin’s meetings on the development of the military-industrial complex and the government’s preparations to continue adapting the economy to a new phase of the war.”
For Trump, ending the war could be a crowning achievement before turning to lucrative deals with Moscow. For Putin, this could enable, through diplomacy, to achieve what nearly five years of military aggression have failed to achieve.
For Ukraine, its indispensable ally could become the instrument through which its greatest enemy finally succeeds.
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