Ukraine rushed to congratulate Donald Trump on a presidential election victory that throws future US support for the country into doubt, as Russia reacted cautiously to the prospect of dealing with an unpredictable character who has pledged to end its war with Kyiv in one day.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was among the first foreign leaders to post congratulations on social media, praising Mr Trump’s “impressive” win and recalling his “great meeting” with the incoming US president in New York in September.
“I appreciate president Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” Mr Zelenskiy said.
“We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under president Trump’s decisive leadership. We rely on continued strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States,” he added, highlighting Kyiv’s desire for “mutually beneficial political and economic co-operation that will benefit both of our nations”.
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Yet there is deep trepidation in Kyiv that Mr Trump will look to cut a quick deal with Russia that will allow him to proclaim a big foreign policy victory while abandoning a large part of Ukraine to occupation and giving the Kremlin a de facto veto over the country’s desire to join Nato and integrate fully with the West.
“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Ukraine and Russia settled,” Mr Trump said last year. “And it will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them, I get along very well with them,” he added of Mr Zelenskiy and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Mr Putin says no talk of peace is possible until Ukraine accepts permanent Russian occupation of five of its regions – including areas that Kyiv now controls – and gives up its Nato membership ambitions forever.
“I would tell Zelenskiy: ‘No more. You got to make a deal.’ I would tell Putin: ‘If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give [Ukraine] a lot . . . more than they ever got if we have to,’” Mr Trump told Fox News in 2023.
Most people in and around the Zelenskiy administration hoped Kamala Harris would win the election and provide continuity from a Joe Biden White House that has provided more than $60 billion (€56 billion) in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion in February 2022.
Some analysts hope, however, that Mr Trump’s unpredictability could actually benefit Ukraine in a way that Ms Harris’s steady hand would not; that he could turn suddenly and strongly against Russia if he felt slighted or underestimated by Mr Putin.
“We will live in Trump’s world, as, unfortunately, I predicted,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former Ukrainian economy minister. “The [financial] market expects the end of the war in Ukraine. Under what conditions? And will it work? We’ll see . . . It will definitely not be boring.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had no information that Mr Putin planned to congratulate Mr Trump on Wednesday.
“Let’s not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in the war against our state,” he said.
“Since the United States fuels and participates in this conflict . . . the United States is capable of changing the trajectory of this foreign policy,” Mr Peskov added. “Whether it will be done and how it will be done, you and I will see after [Mr Trump’s inauguration in] January.”
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