Pressure on Zelensky mounts: can Ukraine survive Trump's second term in the White House?
Over the past ten days or so, Ukraine has come under pressure unlike anything in modern European history. Opposing Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, are Vladimir Putin's Russia, Donald Trump, the U.S. president, and Elon Musk, the world's richest man. Meanwhile, opposition parties in the EU's two most important countries, Germany and France, threaten to cut off aid to Kyiv.
If there was once any doubt that many people want Mr Zelensky gone, because they see him as an obstacle to peace in Eastern Europe, there is none now.
A campaign is under way to break him, so that peace in Ukraine can be reached on terms that satisfy Russia, the country that attacked its neighbour. The offensive against Mr Zelensky is nothing new, but over the past ten days it has intensified to an unprecedented degree.
After Mr Trump recently declared that it was time for "Ukraine to get a new president", Mr Musk yesterday shared a post on X, his social network, in which a user claimed that Mr Zelensky was avoiding elections because he would lose them and then end up in court. "It's time for Zelensky to go," Mr Musk wrote beneath it.
Mr Trump opened his latest quarrel with Mr Zelensky last week, when he announced an "energy ceasefire" under which Ukraine and Russia would refrain from striking oil refineries. He also said he was lifting sanctions on Moscow so it could sell its diesel in America and on world markets—diesel that, by some accounts, is in short supply even in Russia.
Mr Zelensky learned of the deal between Mr Trump and Mr Putin from the media. After some initial hesitation, he accepted it, while asking Washington for further clarification and expressing the hope that Russia, too, would stop attacking Ukraine's energy facilities.
The end of a three-day truce, and a breakdown in communications
Ukraine held off attacking Russian refineries for three days. In an interview with the Financial Times (FT) published yesterday, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine would resume strikes on Russian refineries because Russia was attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure. The same day, Russia reported that a Rosneft-owned refinery in the Ryazan region, which supplies Moscow, had been hit.
The attack was carried out by drones, which in recent months have become Ukraine's deadliest weapon. Kyiv is targeting Russia's oil industry in order to destroy its biggest source of revenue.
In an FT interview, Mr Zelensky criticized the Trump-Putin deal and made serious accusations. He said the Ukrainian army had lost access to American early-warning systems for ballistic-missile attacks, and that Starlink, the satellite-internet service owned by Mr Musk, had slowed down across Ukraine. The Americans told him it was a technical fault, he said, but he rejected that explanation. "It was not a technical problem; it was a matter of will," Mr Zelensky insists.
He also set a condition for halting strikes on Russian oil facilities: further deliveries of American missiles for Patriot air-defense systems. Mr Zelensky had complained about a shortage of these missiles before, after Mr Trump diverted stocks to the Middle East for the war against Iran, to protect American military bases and Israel. Russia has exploited this overstretching of Western resources for months, and its attacks on Ukraine, modeled on Iran's strikes in the Middle East, have weakened its enemy further.
Mr Musk gave his own account of the problems with Starlink, or rather with Starshield, its military counterpart. He shifted the blame onto the American armed forces, saying that the military, and ultimately the president, decide the quality of the signal Kyiv receives. Ukraine uses both systems, and slower data transmission has hampered communication between troops and drone guidance.
Starlink and Starshield are vital to Ukraine. Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, warned as early as the end of July of possible disruptions to these systems in Ukraine—that is, of their dependence on Mr Musk's goodwill—arguing that the fate of the war in eastern Europe would be decided over the following hundred days or so.
Ukraine and the West
Some Ukrainian media now say openly that Washington under Mr Trump is changing its policy towards Ukraine. The editorial board of the Kyiv Independent, the country's leading English-language outlet, wrote an exceptionally harsh editorial prompted by Mr Trump's treatment of Kyiv in recent days. Among many damning charges against the American president, it argued that he is bringing peace to Ukraine by letting Russia win. Such a policy, the paper contends, will cost the lives of many Ukrainians, including civilians. It called this a "betrayal" of Ukraine and a "disgrace" for America.
That was not the end of the bad news for Kyiv this week. Yesterday, Reuters, citing sources, reported that America is considering lifting sanctions on the so-called "shadow fleet", the tankers that carry oil from Russia and Iran. The aim is to get as much oil as possible onto the world market and push prices down.
Behind this policy also lies Mr. Trump's anxiety about November's congressional elections. The American-Israeli war against Iran has driven up energy prices, and Mr. Trump is now trying to bring them down, because American voters are sensitive to high fuel prices. Polls suggest his Republicans could do badly. It was therefore to be expected that Mr Trump would try to prevent that, even if it benefits America's rivals around the world.
Ukraine also faces opposition in Germany and France. Alternative for Germany (AfD) has long called for an end to aid for Ukraine, citing the economic difficulties of Europe's largest economy. Marine Le Pen has now joined the chorus. "We can no longer finance Ukraine. France today is in a very dangerous situation," she said on Wednesday, adding that she would end such funding if she wins next year's presidential election. According to the polls, the AfD is Germany's most popular party, and Ms Le Pen leads the presidential race.
Still, Ukraine has Western allies. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Britain will send Ukraine more Storm Shadow missiles. These are exactly what Ukraine needs if it wants to keep up its practice of striking Russian military bases, arms factories and oil refineries far from the front line. On Monday, the European Union imposed new sanctions on individuals and companies that support Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
With two weeks to go before America's November elections, Mr Zelensky is under pressure even from his allies. Beyond the battlefield, where news of Russian gains keeps arriving, Ukraine must once again fight for the favor of Western governments. This is no longer just about Mr Trump: other countries are now in play too, should elections bring political change and should those countries begin to follow America's line on Ukraine.
What should worry Mr Zelensky most is the attitude of the world's greatest power. Alongside the Ukrainian army, America deserves the most credit for the fact that Russia, on the eve of the war's fifth anniversary, has not crushed its poorer neighbor.
November's elections could, however, change a great deal. A victory for Mr Trump's candidates would be dangerous for Ukraine, because it would give the president the backing to pursue whatever policy he likes for the rest of his term. A defeat might mean that the American political establishment is unwilling to give up on Ukraine—but it would leave a belligerent, wounded Mr Trump in the White House for two more years. If he could blame Mr Zelensky for rising world fuel prices and hold him responsible for the war dragging on, he could pin any sin on him. That would not be good news for Mr Zelensky. More importantly, it would be bad news for Ukraine and its European allies.
This article was first published on nap.ba.
Comments