This week, the US held a debate between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, which generated widespread response with the threat of influencing the future political landscape, including relations with Ukraine.
Past debates have shown that Biden could easily lose the election to Trump in November, barring some dramatic changes. This leaves the Democratic Party with a difficult choice: whether to run Biden or replace him with another candidate.
However, the Democrats currently do not have anyone with a rating that could compete with Trump. And there is a risk that the new candidate could receive even fewer votes than the current president.
For Ukraine, there is only one conclusion here - Trump's victory in the elections has become even more likely. And Kyiv needs to prepare for the fact that a person who has repeatedly expressed skepticism about providing military and financial assistance to Ukraine may become the US president.
And she never once said, unlike Biden, that Russia should return all the captured territories to Ukraine, as well as suffer defeat in this war.
Trump, judging by the statements of his advisers, intends to bring Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table and freeze the war, putting aside the issue of territories, that is, in essence, leaving the part of Ukraine occupied by Russia under Russian control. Which completely contradicts Zelensky's formula, which provides for the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 borders.
Or, as a minimum program, the US president can simply ignore Ukraine, stop funding it and let Europe solve this problem on its own borders.
Thus, a possible Trump victory poses very difficult challenges for the Ukrainian leadership. And the debates have made this prospect, although not 100% certain, but noticeably closer.
Probably, given these threats, Ukraine is trying to intercept the negotiation agenda and form some kind of base for it by the time of Trump's probable "arrival" at the end of 2024.
Zelenskyy said yesterday that a plan to end the war would be prepared "this year.".
“It is very important for us to show a plan to end the war that will be supported by the majority of the world. This is a diplomatic path that we are working on. Not everything depends on us, our production of technology, drones, artillery is really increasing, because we must be strong on the battlefield. Because Russia understands nothing but strength. These are two parallel processes: to be strong and to develop a detailed, understandable plan, and it will be ready this year,” Zelensky said.
It should be noted that the Ukrainian peace plan was presented to Zelensky a long time ago. It envisages the withdrawal of Russian troops to the borders. However, many countries of the world, especially representatives of the “global South”, consider it unrealistic.
That is, some new plan will probably be prepared - taking into account the military and geopolitical realities that are developing at that time. And it is possible that it will be closer to Trump's plans for ending the war on the front line than the previous "Zelensky peace formula.".
Another option is also not excluded - that the Biden administration, if he still remains the Democratic presidential candidate, will try to stop the war in Ukraine before the elections in order to knock this trump card out of Trump's hands. But a quick end to the war, given the current state of affairs on the battlefield, is possible only behind the current front line. And also on the condition of some important concessions from the West to Putin, so that he agrees to lift the demand for the transfer of the entire territory of the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions to the Russian Federation.
However, for now, such a scenario looks difficult to implement from all sides.
In this regard, there is often a version that in the coming months the Armed Forces of Ukraine will attempt a major offensive to liberate part of the territories and, thereby, improve the negotiating position and the overall state of affairs for Kyiv on the eve of Trump's possible return to the White House, to show him that Ukraine has a chance to seize the initiative in the war, and therefore it is worth continuing to provide support.
However, so far, only Russian publications are writing about a possible offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As we can see, the Ukrainian side is making statements about preparing a new “plan to end the war.”.
