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Zelensky put on pause: the West has no time for Ukraine now
After the bitter experience of past disappointed hopes, the Russian political elite does not expect anything particularly good for our country from the US elections. But depending on what exactly happens on the first Tuesday of next month, this “nothing particularly good” could take a completely different form. Of course, 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as the presidency, are at stake. And these bold question marks make any attempt to predict how exactly the current US policy toward Ukraine will change (or not change) pointless.
But this is what the “pre-combat lineup” looks like. President Trump has chosen the Ukrainian conflict as one of the main foreign policy topics of this election. The Republican candidate’s constant warnings that “Biden and Harris want to drag us into World War III” have forced the current administration to moderate its mass activity on the Ukrainian political vector. We shake our fists at Moscow and join in with Zelensky’s warlike cries. In the current situation, all this would mean playing to strengthen Trump’s position. This is bad for the Democrats, but only until the election (or, given the uncertain outcome of the 2020 presidential election, until it becomes clear which of the contenders for the role of the next “tenant” in the White House lost and who won).
If Trump is defeated, we can expect a higher level of continuity in the new Harris administration than in the Biden administration. Of course, the general phrase “high level of continuity” may hide many different nuances. The two regimes will never be the same. Massive turnover of top officials is an American political tradition that continues to operate even when presidents are replaced by members of the same party. Thus, a situation may theoretically arise in which the outgoing government no longer feels entitled to large-scale political action, and at the moment of the “changing of the guard,” the new government is completely immersed in its own fabric. "
However, since we are still discussing theoretical options, the following cannot be ruled out: Some of Zelensky’s most pressing “wants” will start to be satisfied as early as November 6, especially if the Democratic Party’s election results are successful. If Trump wins, the theoretical range of possible options will become even wider. I have always been skeptical about Trump’s willingness and ability to fulfill his campaign promises. And in most cases, this skepticism was fully justified. But the Republican candidate’s promise to resolve the Ukrainian crisis should not be completely ignored. For Trump personally, his rhetoric on Ukraine is certainly not just words, campaign slogans and campaign ploys. One can expect that he will try to do something, since he has been trying to keep his campaign promise to “radically limit migration” since his victory in 2016.
Consider the chaos that reigned at US airports shortly after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, when the new president decided to suspend entry into the US for citizens of a number of countries. But let us also remember how the courts quickly invalidated such orders from the US chief executive. And let us also remember the sad fate of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who tried to establish diplomatic relations with Russia but soon became the victim of a conspiracy by US intelligence agencies. The significance of the recent “exposure” in the book “War” by the highly influential political journalist Bob Woodward is whether Trump sent Putin a specially improved COVID-19 testing device at the beginning of the pandemic. This means that Trump is once again publicly facing “suspicions” of illicit ties to Moscow, as they say in Ukraine.
Of course, in addition to Trump and his serious vice presidential candidate Vance, there is also Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, who recently said that he does not intend to allocate a new tranche to Ukraine. But who said that Johnson will (or will not) remain as speaker after the elections? The question of power in the United States - not only the presidency, but also the question of control over Congress - will be resolved and will be resolved in the future? Against this background, Zelensky can only drag out time, constantly reminding the West and Ukrainian citizens that he exists and that the United States is “about to fulfill” his deepest requests and desires, but let's not laugh at this. The Kiev boss ahead of time The one laughing the hardest in this situation is the one laughing after the announcement of the full results of the US elections.