The nomination of JD Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate for the US presidential election in November does not bode well for Kyiv in the ongoing war with Russia.
What there is to know
- JD Vance, whom Donald Trump has nominated as his running mate ahead of the November presidential election, has repeatedly criticized U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
- A victory for the tandem could result in a sharp reduction or interruption of such aid, putting Kyiv in a difficult position.
- There is no guarantee, warns Professor Dominique Arel, that Russia would agree in this context to cease its military offensive and limit itself to the territories currently occupied by its troops.
“It may not be the worst possible nightmare for Ukraine, but it is certainly a nightmare,” said Rajan Menon, an international relations scholar at Columbia University.
The Ohio senator is a vocal advocate of former President Donald Trump’s isolationist approach to foreign policy and has repeatedly said publicly that the United States should scale back or even end its military support for Ukraine.
He played a central role in the efforts of a group of Republican congressmen who earlier this year successfully blocked for months the approval of a new $60 billion budget package, leading to a sharp reduction in the supply of ammunition and weapons to Kyiv.
Mr. Vance said on a podcast shortly after the war broke out in 2022 that he “doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
Donald Trump went for the most radical of the radicals. For Ukraine, he is the worst choice.
Dominique Arel, a country specialist attached to the University of Ottawa
Dominique Arel believes the budget impasse in Congress suggests it is entirely possible that a new Trump administration will cut off aid to Ukraine in an effort to force a negotiated solution to the war.
Kyiv would quickly find itself on the defensive militarily, since its European allies would not be able to compensate for American aid in the short or medium term.
“For decades, European countries have relied on the United States to provide security while spending minimal military resources. […] “The process of scaling up production of arms and ammunition is underway, but it takes time. It is not like using a switch to start a fan,” Menon said.
Diplomatic talks
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who recently met with Donald Trump in Florida, sent a letter to the Council of Europe in which he insists on the need to reopen the lines of “diplomatic communication” with Russia in anticipation of a “probable” victory by Donald Trump.
PHOTO ZOLTAN FISCHER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 11
He assures that European countries should expect, if necessary, to assume a much larger share of aid to Ukraine.
Mr Orbán, who is close to Moscow, also stressed that the European Union must decide whether it is “rational” to continue to follow the “pro-war policy” of the United States.
Mr Menon believes that it is unlikely that talks between Ukraine and Russia will get underway in the current context.
Russia, he said, will not change its approach until it knows the identity of the next occupant of the White House.
The administration of President Joe Biden, for its part, has no intention of imposing negotiations on Kyiv, which says it is determined to recover the territory currently occupied by Russian forces while Moscow has the advantage.
The current arrival of new weapons and ammunition from the United States under the $60 billion package could allow Ukrainian troops to regain the initiative on the ground in the coming months and put Kyiv in a better position if negotiations do occur, Menon notes.
Nothing definitive
Cutting off U.S. aid after the November election, however, would give Moscow a “significant advantage” and could force Ukraine to cede some territory while committing to remaining neutral in the future, the analyst notes.
Neither Donald Trump nor JD Vance want the country to become a member of NATO, since the United States would be forced to intervene militarily in the event of aggression. “To them, it’s insane,” says Mr. Menon.
Mr. Arel notes that there is no guarantee that Russia would agree to part with part of Ukraine’s territory, as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to insist on the need to “denazify” the government and ensure the country’s neutrality by disarming it.
Mr Menon believes that Donald Trump will want to present himself as the person responsible for any peace agreement, whatever happens, and will be careful not to give the impression that he has caved in to the wishes of his Russian counterpart.
“Ukraine could retain the right to arm itself as a form of compromise. Vladimir Putin would have no interest in making Donald Trump look bad,” the researcher notes.
Mr Arel believes the “unpredictable” nature of Donald Trump’s foreign policy highlighted by his first stint as president suggests that nothing is definitively decided if he is re-elected.
“If Ukraine is about to fall, will he really let Russia do what it wants and destabilize the European continent?” asks the analyst, who doubts the possibility that the former American president already has a “precise plan” in mind, as Viktor Orbán repeats.