'Easy target': How Trump uses Zelenskyy's visit to US in election race

Contents

• Visit to plant as reason for criticism
• Aggravation against election backdrop
• Will bipartisan support for Ukraine continue?
• Victory plan without Trump

Visit to plant as reason for criticism

Suddenly, Ukraine is facing a new crisis on the diplomatic front. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit, which was supposed to resolve many issues in relations with the United States, instead led to a new escalation. Although not through the fault of the Ukrainian side.

Zelenskyy's previously announced meeting with Republican candidate Donald Trump was essentially canceled after the Ukrainian president visited a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the hometown of US President Joe Biden. Zelenskyy also met with the Ukrainian diaspora in the state, which is one of the largest in the United States.

At the same time, Pennsylvania is a swing state in the election, meaning that the toughest fight is taking place between Republicans and Democrats. According to many forecasts, it is the winner of the Pennsylvania election who will become the future president of the United States. In addition, on the eve of his visit, Zelenskyy criticized the statements about Ukraine made by Trump's vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, in an interview with the New Yorker.

Trump interpreted this as Zelenskyy's attempt to play along with Harris and directly accused the Ukrainian president of wanting the Democrat to win.

Trump's rhetoric on Ukraine is not new. He has spoken similarly about Kyiv before, and RBC-Ukraine has already analyzed the reasons for this rhetoric. But the current demarche risks going much further.

Moreover, over this week, Trump's rhetoric has become more and more strident. In his latest speech, he said, with his usual exaggeration, that Ukraine is gone, thousand-year-old cities have been destroyed, and children and old people are fighting at the front because soldiers are running out. In addition, Trump voiced the essence of his mysterious “peace plan for Ukraine” for the first time. According to the Republican, the worst deal would be better than the current war, and Ukraine should give something back before 2022, and then there would be no war. If he wins the November elections, this is the approach to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that Trump will be guided by.

Aggravation against election backdrop

At the beginning of the year, when the saga of the large aid package for Ukraine was unfolding, many Republicans were in favor of it. The decision was blocked by House Speaker Mike Johnson and a small faction of Trumpists. Since then, Trump's influence on the Republican Party has become even stronger. Consequently, more influential members of the party have joined the criticism of Ukraine.

Mike Johnson, for example, in an open letter called on Zelenskyy to fire Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova. The reason is the same: alleged interference in the election by organizing Zelenskyy's visit to an ammunition plant.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because - on purpose - no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson's letter reads.

At the same time, a group of nine Republican congressmen asked the Department of Justice and the Pentagon's inspectors general to conduct a full investigation into the use of US military assets and federal resources in connection with the visit.

The Republicans also initiated an investigation into the Biden administration's abuses of cooperation with Zelenskyy. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and White House Counsel Edward Siskel in this regard.

At the same time, in the past, presidential administrations have regularly used military aircraft to transport foreign leaders to meet with American state and local officials, Axios notes.

“The election campaign is the key story here. There are some questions, of course, but the Republicans would have found something to pick on one way or another. And since, most likely, the latest polls have shown a very disappointing trend for them, they decided to rely on the most aggressive rhetoric about the Russian-Ukrainian war, to push the case of a possible apocalypse, World War III, and so on. In this regard, Zelenskyy's visit and the events around it are a very easy target, which they used to the fullest,” political analyst Ihor Reiterovych tells RBC-Ukraine.

Will bipartisan support for Ukraine continue?

Ukraine still has the support of the Democratic Party, especially if the resonance around the visit sways some voters to Kamala Harris' side. So far, the overall risks for Ukraine are minimal.

“This will most likely have a negative impact, but there is a nuance here. Congress is already on vacation, and it is going to be on vacation for a very long time. Therefore, from a practical point of view, we will not lose much, but simply because the holidays and the height of this campaign coincide,” Reiterovych says.

According to him, after the recess, Congress will be renewed, because along with the presidential vote, Americans will elect a new House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. And if Republicans win a majority in both houses, it could cause difficulties for Ukraine.

Victory plan without Trump

The scandal caused by the Republicans has pushed Zelenskyy's victory plan into the shadows. Namely, his presentation in the United States was an important, in fact, the most important component of the visit. In Trump's case, it was a matter of correcting his position at best. Since the Republican seems to have his plan, the Ukrainian leadership should have told him where the limits of compromise lie and what Ukraine will not accept in any case. Now it will be possible to communicate with Trump at best through his advisors.

“We will be able to do this only indirectly when it is made public, and then it will be clear. If they attack it, then that's it. At the very least, we have lost this direction, and we will not get it back by November 5 (the day of the US election - ed.). If they comment on it more or less neutrally, carefully, I think we will be able to convey some of the main points of this plan to some Republicans. Because Trump has many different advisors, people to whom he listens,” Reiterovych says.

In any case, Ukrainian diplomacy now has a new headache, and the Ukrainian leadership is tempted to openly side with the Democrats and Kamala Harris.

During his visit to the United States, Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the UN General Assembly. During his speech, he said that the United Nations cannot resolve the issue of war and peace in the world, so there is a Ukrainian peace formula.

Sources: Donald Trump and representatives of the Republican Party, Axios, Politico, and comments by political scientist Ihor Reiterovych.