In Trump world, Ukraine’s brave leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a spoiled child who exploited the naivety of the Biden administration. “You’re 38 days from losing your allowance,” said the crass caption to an Instagram video of Zelenskiy reposted by Donald Trump jnr, the eldest son of the president-elect, this week.
Trump reacted with sarcasm to Zelenskiy’s appeal for more US aid last June, calling the Ukrainian leader “the greatest salesman of all time” and complaining like an exasperated parent: “He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends.”
Trump’s obeisance to Russia goes back to 1987, when he purchased full-page ads in US newspapers urging the US to stop funding Nato. The KGB were delighted. In the mid-2000s, Paul Manafort, who would later chair Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, went to Ukraine to work for Viktor Yanukovych, the uncouth former convict from Donetsk and a Putin stooge who was prevented from stealing Ukraine’s presidential election by the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Manafort restyled Yanukovych and his Party of Regions for a Trump-like comeback, which culminated in victory in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election.
At Putin’s bidding, Yanukovych distanced Ukraine from the EU and Nato, precipitating his overthrow by the 2013/14 Euromaidan Revolution. Manafort continued to work with the remnants of Yanukovych’s party after the fallen president fled to Moscow. Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau found evidence that Manafort was paid $12.7 million over five years for advancing Russia’s agenda in Ukraine.
Manafort was eventually sentenced to 7½ years in a US prison for fraud and conspiracy stemming from his employment by Yanukovych. He was one of 29 underlings pardoned by Trump at Christmas 2020. The Washington Post reported last May that Manafort is “poised to rejoin Trump world”.
Thus, Trump’s imminent betrayal of Ukraine can be viewed as the culmination of a long contest between US Democrats, who favoured liberal democracy in Ukraine, and Trump Republicans who appeared determined to give the country to Putin.
In a private conversation with advisers in 2019, Trump said that Ukrainian politicians were “terrible people ... all corrupt and they tried to take me down”, the New York Times reported.
Trump’s grudge originated with Ukrainian revelations about his buddy Manafort’s meddling in Ukrainian politics. Trump was so enraged by Zelenskiy’s refusal, in a July 2019 telephone conversation, to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine that he suspended a military aid package for Kyiv the following month. On Trump’s orders, House Republicans blocked a desperately needed $60 billion aid package for six months last winter. There is no reason to believe Trump will not block aid to Ukraine a third time, as he has promised.
Indications of collusion between Trump, his entourage and Putin are alarming. Bob Woodward reported in his new book, War, that Trump had up to seven private telephone conversations with Putin in the past four years. That would have been “a smart thing”, Trump said. The Russia and Ukraine expert Fiona Hill calls Trump’s return to power the “oligarch capture” of the US. The world’s richest man and Trump sidekick Elon Musk has also maintained secret communications with Putin, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk’s participation in Trump’s post-election telephone call to Zelenskiy from Mar-a-Lago is chilling, because two years ago Musk tweeted a “peace plan” for Ukraine that espoused Putin’s demands: Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Ukraine’s abandonment of its application to join Nato, and referendums in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy scolded Musk for expressing opinions about a conflict he did not understand. Like Trump, Musk probably bears a grudge against Zelenskiy. With Ukraine reliant on Musk’s Starlink satellite communications system, Musk holds a sword of Damocles over Ukraine’s prosecution of the war.
Trump returns to power as Russia continues to advance on the eastern front and steps up the bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Zelenskiy attempted to put a brave face on the situation, saying that he, like Trump, believes in “peace through strength”. No one was fooled. Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression, and in Trump world, victims are “losers”, unworthy of sympathy or support.
Lt Yulia Mykytenko, who heads a 25-man drone unit on the front line in Donetsk, and whose story I recently told in a book, is stoical about Trump’s election. “We respect the will of the American people,” she said. “Trump is unpredictable, and ultimately we’re alone against the Russians anyway.”
Europe shows small signs of finally getting its act together. The EU missed its promise to supply Ukraine with one million 155mm artillery shells by last March, but foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says the goal will be met by the end of this year. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, friend to Trump and Putin, whose far-right Patriots for Europe group is the third largest in the EU parliament, can be counted on to block significant EU aid to Ukraine. However, eight “capability coalitions” grouping countries who have the biggest stake in confronting Russian expansionism, chiefly Poland, the Baltic States and Scandinavia, can make up part of the shortfall in US aid.