Wartime Ukraine awaits the 'surprise box' of a Trump presidency

A massive monument of a figure is fitted with a mock flak jacket.

By Sabra Ayres and Laura King

Nov. 8, 2024 Updated 11:28 AM PT

Donald Trump boasted that he could end Russia’s war on Ukraine in 24 hours.
Now Ukrainians worry he will cut military aid and press them to give up territory to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, denigrated by Trump, is trying to build a relationship through congratulations and praise.

KYIV, Ukraine — The war is never distant. In the skies above the Ukrainian capital, the buzz of drones is the stuff of urban nightmares. Glide bombs smash without warning into apartment blocks in Ukraine‘s east and south. Military funerals are a daily staple.

As the carnage raged, Donald Trump boasted he could end the fight in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now that he’s the president-elect, Ukrainians are grimly gaming out the next move in their country’s nearly three-year-old war with Russia, in which the United States has been Kyiv’s prime backer.

In his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump appeared to allude at least partly to Ukraine when he declared: “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”

For many Ukrainians, the principal worry is whether their government — faced with a potential choking off of vital military aid in a few short months — would be forced to accede to a negotiated settlement giving up parts of their country to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to whom Trump has long demonstrated striking deference.

Some Ukrainians fear that if the front lines are frozen as part of a negotiation process, it would only give Putin time to regroup and return.

Amid the gloom, however, are glimmers of hope. There are those in Ukraine who wonder whether Trump’s election could shake up a dynamic that has grown increasingly frustrating for Ukraine and its supporters: the provision of just enough U.S. military assistance to keep Ukraine from losing the war, but not enough to give it a real chance to prevail on the battlefield.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky walks with then-candidate Donald Trump.

“If Trump can end the war as he says he can, great — let’s see him do it,” said Ksenia Vyshtykailo, 20, a student in Kyiv. “Maybe his ego is big enough that he won’t want to back down on his promise to end the war in a day.”

One wild card for Ukraine is the likely role in the incoming Trump administration of mercurial tech billionaire Elon Musk. Multiple news outlets reported Friday that Musk — whose Starlink satellite internet service has been crucial to Ukraine’s war effort, but whose affinity for Putin’s policies has alarmed some in the government in Kyiv — was on the line when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump spoke by phone Wednesday, hours after Trump’s victory.

Putin himself congratulated Trump on his win — and told an international forum in southern Russia on Thursday that the president-elect’s “desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, deserves attention at least.”

In a predictable but ominous-for-Ukraine commentary, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — a staunch Trump ally and one of the biggest Ukraine skeptics in NATO and the European Union — said Friday he expected support for Ukraine would end under the new U.S. administration.

“The Americans will quit this war,” Orban told Hungarian state radio as EU leaders were gathered in Budapest for an informal summit.

For much of the current conflict, which broke out after he left office, Trump has been a detractor of Ukraine’s desperate fight against a larger and stronger invader.

He has spoken of Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 with something akin to admiration, calling it “smart.” Trump has repeatedly echoed Kremlin talking points about the conflict, asserting that the blame lies with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with Ukraine itself.

The vice president-elect, Sen. JD Vance, has in the past professed indifference to Ukraine’s fate. During the campaign, he denounced military aid to Ukraine, even that which financially benefits U.S. companies.

On the face of it, the Trump-Vance ticket presented a sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s unflagging expressions of support.

But in Ukraine, particularly in recent months, gratitude for vital backing has been mixed with resentment over perceived timidity on Washington’s part — particularly restrictions on use of long-range weaponry to strike military targets inside Russia, and its longtime pattern of denying certain types of armaments over concerns of escalation, then providing them often too late to make a difference.

Rescue workers in Ukraine clear the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian airstrike.

This year’s battlefield news has been mostly bad for Ukraine. Its outgunned forces have incrementally been losing ground in the country’s east, and North Korea’s deployment of troops to aid its ally Russia recently introduced a volatile new element to the fighting. Attacks from missiles, drones and aerial glide bombs have killed dozens of civilians in recent weeks.

Against that backdrop, Zelensky sought even before Tuesday’s U.S. election to lay the groundwork for a working relationship should Trump return to the White House.

Zelensky — who has a complicated history with Trump, dating to events surrounding the then-president’s first impeachment — met with him in September. The Ukrainian leader was among the first to congratulate Trump on his “impressive” victory in Tuesday’s vote, and the two later spoke by phone.

Even before the election, Zelensky shrugged off denigrating references from Trump, who at one point called him the “world’s greatest salesman” for his successes in garnering U.S. aid. After the vote, he quickly sought to cast the president-elect’s stance on Ukraine in a positive light.

In a video address to his nation on Wednesday, Zelensky expressed support for what he described as Trump’s international approach of “peace through strength.”

“People want certainty, they want freedom, a normal life,” Zelensky said. “And for us, this is life without Russian aggression and with a strong America, with a strong Ukraine, with strong allies.”

Longtime observers of the conflict are studying Ukraine’s options.

Vadym Prystaiko, a career Ukrainian diplomat, said if Trump in fact has a plan to end the war, he must understand Ukraine’s “red lines,” including its aspirations for closer ties with Europe.

“We cannot compromise our core beliefs,” said Prystaiko, who was foreign minister during Zelensky’s first year in office and served as an envoy in the United States, Britain and at NATO headquarters.

“We cannot compromise our principles of a democratic society,” he said. “We cannot go with Russia and be subservient again.”

Throughout the war, Ukraine has demonstrated a remarkable degree of resilience, but people are tired. Next week will come another bleak milestone: The conflict will hit the 1,000-day mark.

Hardship is growing. Russia is now firing about 10 times as many drones at Ukraine as it did last fall, the Ukrainian government says. In Kyiv, there has been only one night since Sept. 1 without the wail of air-raid alerts sounding from smartphone apps.

On Wednesday night — by no means an atypical one — Russia staged a grueling eight-hour aerial attack on Kyiv, with dozens of drones buzzing overhead and near-constant alerts making sleep nearly impossible. Two people were injured in the barrage, authorities said.

Russian strikes have severely damaged Ukraine’s power grid, and as winter approaches, officials predict that power capacity will be strained, although repairs and support from allied nations may help the country avoid the large-scale blackouts of previous seasons.

In her high-rise Kyiv apartment, Vita Vigul, an entrepreneur, showed how she and her husband had prepared for winter: rechargeable LED lighting strips, a propane-fueled hot plate and a small pellet stove in case the city’s central heating system, the largest in Europe, stops functioning.

“We know what this winter will be like,” said Vigul, 52.

Among so many practical wartime concerns, Trump’s coming presidency figures large in her worries.

“He talks about reducing funding for military actions and support for Ukraine,” she said. “Only God knows how it will turn out.”

Vyshtykailo, the student, said there was little to do but wait and see what the Trump era will bring.

“He’s like a surprise box,” she said. “You don’t know what you will get when you open it.”

Special correspondent Ayres reported from Kyiv and Times staff writer King from Washington.