Zelenskiy’s visit to the US sets off a political firestorm

In 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was dragged into the US presidential election campaign. This time, just weeks before a vote that could have a massive influence on Kiev’s defenses against Russian invasion, he got right into it.

On September 22, Zelenski visited a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that produces ammunition for his armed forces, thanking workers and signing one of the 155mm shells that are crucial to Kiev’s war effort. He was joined by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and two members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats.

If Zelenski had visited the plant on any of his four previous trips to the United States since Russia launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it would have been long forgotten by now.

Instead, he has become a flashpoint for Republicans, creating controversy that marred his nearly weeklong visit to the United States, Ukraine’s biggest supporter, at a time when Russia is making gains on the battlefield , decimating Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches and relying on Western support to wither Kiev.

Battlefield

Scranton is the hometown of President Joe Biden. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state whose voters could end up deciding the Nov. 5 election between former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

For Zelensky, the factory tour was meant to “demonstrate and show … that assistance to Ukraine is beneficial to the United States, because this assistance makes it possible to create new jobs,” Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Ukrainian think tank New Europe . Center and a non-resident senior fellow at the US Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told RFE/RL in Kyiv.

Trump, she said, apparently “perceived this as an attempt to … influence the electoral balance, which is very fragile in the state of Pennsylvania. That is, he saw it exclusively in the context of the elections”.

As Zelenskiy’s U.S. trip continued with speeches at the United Nations and meetings with Biden and Harris at the White House, Republicans shied away from the factory tour. House Speaker Mike Johnson called it “a partisan campaign event” and he asked Zelenskiy “immediately dismissed” his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.

Charles Kupchan, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said the visit to the munitions factory had “backfired”.

“It’s more indicative of the polarized debate between Democrats and Republicans than any missteps by Zelenskiy,” he told RFE/RL.

“much more difficult”

Mykola Byelyeskov, an analyst at the Ukrainian government-backed National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, suggested that the U.S. election campaign makes navigating ties with Kiev’s most important supporter particularly difficult.

“Zelenskii is doing his best” on the trip to the US, Byelyeskov told RFE/RL. “We’re seeing some results. I’m sure we’re going to see more results. And we have to deal with every faction in US politics. And we’re trying to do that. And it’s much more difficult during election season.”

For Biden, it’s also “very difficult to take radical steps that, in his mind, could bring the problem of escalation closer. Because all the polls in the US, the domestic ones, say that the American population is really concerned about the hypothetical nuclear escalation”. he said. “That’s why it’s more difficult for Ukraine to argue for various things that we need.”

During the visit, Zelenskii did not secure a public promise that the United States would allow Kiev to strike deeper into Russia with long-range American missiles.

A group of House Republicans withheld $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine for six months, leading to a shortage of ammunition on the battlefield, in part because the money could be better spent at home . The United States spends most of its aid money at home to resupply weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine, and the trip to Scranton highlighted that fact.

Johnson was instrumental in ultimately passing the package; His public anger at the plant visit signaled the goodwill that the development had lost.

Kurt Volker, a Pennsylvania native who served as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine in 2017-2019, called the timing of the plant tour “a big mistake.”

“It’s a very sensitive time, a sensitive issue, a sensitive state — like the key swing state. It’s just playing with fire, and Ukraine should do everything possible to avoid being a political subject in our elections.” Volker said. , who is now an analyst at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.

Back when

Lucian Kim, senior Ukraine analyst for Crisis Group, called the visit a “misstep” on Zelenskiy’s part, opening him up to criticism from opponents of aid to Ukraine in the Republican Party faction known as the MAGA Republicans for their staunch support for Trump and his people. policies.

“US bilateral support has been one of the foundations of Ukrainian foreign policy,” Kim said. “That level of bipartisan support now appears to be in question. The anti-Ukraine wing of MAGA is increasingly defining the Republican Party.”

The Pennsylvania plant visit was ultimately a factor that cast doubt on an expected meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump — whose relationship has been colored for years by a phone call in 2019, just months after his election to the Ukrainian leader, which led to Trump’s impeachment — would take place.

Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in December 2019 over the phone call in which he was accused of pressuring Zelenskiy to unearth the Biden family’s activities in Ukraine. He was acquitted by the Senate, then controlled by Republicans, in February 2020.

Trump has targeted Zelenskiy several times. At a Sept. 25 campaign stop, he repeated his description of the Ukrainian president as “the world’s biggest salesman” — a reference to the tens of billions of dollars in aid approved by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle since start. of the large-scale invasion of Russia.

“Teaching Proposals”

He also repeated his argument that Kiev should have reached an agreement with Russia to halt or end the invasion. “Any deal – the worst deal – would have been better than what we have now,” he said. “If he had made a bad deal, it would have been much better. He would have given up a little and everyone would have lived.”

Trump has said he would quickly end Russia’s war on Ukraine if elected, saying several times that would happen even before his inauguration in January — a claim he made again when he and Zelenskiy they met in New York on September 27. He did not say how he would achieve this, but his comments raised concerns that his efforts would involve urging Ukraine to hand over territory to Russia.

The main purposes of Zelenskiy’s trip to the US was to introduce Biden and others to a “victory plan” for the war against the Russian invasion, although the details have not been made public. Trump, in his Sept. 10 debate against Harris, declined to answer directly when asked if he wanted Ukraine to win, saying, “I want the war to stop.”

On September 26, Harris said suggestions that Kiev would cede territory for the sake of peace were “dangerous and unacceptable”. Such calls are “teaching proposals,” she said.

A meeting in New York

In an interview with The New Yorker ahead of his US visit, Zelenskiy said: “Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war, even though he might think he does.” He also said JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was “too radical” and suggested he wanted Ukraine to “give up our territories”.

The atmosphere seemed warmer when Zelenskiy and Trump held talks at Trump Tower in New York, with Trump praising Zelenskiy for his conduct during the impeachment trial — “he was a piece of steel” — but there was no sign of change in Trump’s Attitude to the Russian Invasion.

Trump again did not provide details on how he would seek to end the war, saying he believes “we will solve the problem very quickly” if he wins the presidency. “If we have a victory, I think well before January 20th … we can work something out that’s good for both sides this time,” Trump said before the two sat down for the meeting.

“It’s a shame, but this is a war that should never have happened, and we’re going to solve it,” Trump said after the meeting. “It’s a complicated puzzle… Too many dead people.”

In a post on Telegram after what he called a “very meaningful meeting,” Zelenskiy said he presented Trump with his “victory plan” and that they “discussed many details.”

“We have a common opinion that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must win,” he said.

Whether Zelenskiy’s visit will affect the outcome of the US election is an open question.

“Foreign policy issues generally don’t drive (US) election results. People vote on the economy, immigration, crime, that’s on their radar screen every day,” Kupchan said.

And how a victory for Trump or Harris could change the course of the war is also unclear.

Kupchan said that despite Trump’s rhetoric, he would fight to make a deal with Putin if elected and would likely end up approving aid to Ukraine.

“Trump would not want to be the American president who lost Ukraine. And so, even if he is elected and tries to negotiate an endgame, he too will have to send support to Ukraine,” he said.

Via RFE/RL

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