How does Trump feel about Ukraine and what awaits us if he is elected president

In his latest Christmas greeting to Americans, Donald Trump wished his opponents, whom he called thugs, "to rot in hell with their Russia/Ukraine."

Remembering the turbulence of Trump's previous term and anticipating the depth of the air holes in the possible next one, in recent months Ukraine was almost convulsed by the thought of the presidential elections in the USA, scheduled for November 5, 2024.

Even last year, the Ukrainian establishment and ordinary citizens, both civilians and military, tried to reassure themselves, saying that there is still time before the American elections. And you can make some time.

However, the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023, despite its success at sea, on land did not follow exactly the scenario that Ukraine and its allies expected. In particular, due to lack of help from partners and lack of dominance in the air.

The watershed moment came on October 25, 2023, when the "Trumpists" in the House of Representatives elected a speaker loyal to the ex-president and a critic of aid to Ukraine - Mike Johnson.

Since then, Kyiv has not been able to receive critical assistance from Washington, its key partner, and feels hostage to the internal political struggle in the Capitol.

It is impossible not to notice the shadow of Trump in the drama surrounding the non-provision of $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, which Joe Biden requested last year.

Despite the declaration of the need for an immediate solution to the problem with the Mexican border, to which assistance to Kyiv has been tied for a long time, Trump is sabotaging the process.

According to the logic of the former president's camp, the solution to this pressing problem for the American voter will be a victory for Biden, and Trump does not want to give his opponent a single point in the midst of the presidential campaign.

Donald Trump has already used aid freezes for political purposes. In 2019, in a telephone conversation with President Zelensky, he suggested investigating the activities of Biden's son in Ukraine.

A week before this call, Trump ordered the suspension of military aid to Kyiv. It was possible to unlock it when the disclosure of the details of the call turned into a scandal. The White House had to react.

But on November 5, America will elect not only a new president. On this day, American voters will also vote for a new composition of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate.

Taking into account the insane popularity of Trump - more than 77% - within the Republican electorate, most congressmen connect their own political future exclusively with his figure and therefore do not risk criticizing the ex-president or questioning his actions.

The many-month postponement of the vote on aid to Ukraine is connected with this.

So what is the history of Trump's relations with Ukraine?

Spoiler: quite unpredictable, like the politician himself.

Ukraine is accused of meddling in the American elections

At the beginning of the summer of 2016, it became known that the National Committee of the Democratic Party of the USA was subjected to a cyber attack.

The Democratic Party Committee is the main body of the party. It is he who chooses who will run in local and federal elections, he also convenes party congresses. The Republican Party has a similar national committee.

Hackers who broke into the committee's server managed to steal the emails of leading members of the Democratic Party, as well as alleged incriminating information about Donald Trump.

The American intelligence service involved the company CrowdStrike, which specializes in cyber security, in the investigation. She discovered that the Democrats' server was hacked by pro-Kremlin Russian hackers from the Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear groups.

According to the results of the investigation, the US Department of National Security and the Director of National Intelligence accused Russia of meddling in the US elections.

However, against the background of accusations against Russia, Trump and his lawyer at the time, Rudy Giuliani, put forward another version - about the Ukrainian trail.

Trump claimed that CrowdStrike is owned by a "very rich Ukrainian".

According to Trump and Giuliani, the company could have falsified the investigation data to blame Russia for the cyber attack. Trump followed this version until the end of his term.

It is notable that CrowdStrike was actually founded by a former Muscovite, now an American citizen, Dmytro Alperovych. In November 2021, he predicted an "almost inevitable" full-scale Russian attack on Ukraine.

The first allocation of lethal military aid

However, it was under Donald Trump that the White House approved the provision of lethal weapons to Ukraine for the first time, removing previous restrictions that operated under the administration of Democrat Barack Obama.

This came in the first year of Trump's presidency and drew approval even from his consistent critics, such as Senator John McCain.

In 2018, the first Javelin anti-tank missile complexes arrived in Ukraine. Until that time, Washington provided Kyiv with only non-lethal ammunition and transport.

"I am the one who gave Ukraine offensive weapons and anti-tank systems. Obama didn't do that... He sent pillows and blankets," Trump compared himself to his predecessor in an interview with CBS.

Impeachment of 2019

The main political scandal of 2019 is the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

Then the former president froze the allocation of aid to Ukraine, and the Democrats initiated an investigation due to the suspicion that Trump put pressure on President Zelensky.

The basis of the investigation was Trump's telephone conversation with newly elected President Zelensky.

During the call, Trump asked Zelensky to "look into" the case of Hunter Biden, the son of his expected opponent in the upcoming election, Joe Biden.

According to Alexander Windman, a US Army officer born in Kyiv, who overheard the phone conversation and acted as an informant in the case, Trump in this way induced Kyiv to investigate Hunter Biden's involvement in corruption while he was on the board of directors of the gas production company Burisma.

At the same time, Donald Trump rejected all the accusations.

And although the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate lacked the votes to do so.

Therefore, the impeachment of Donald Trump was not officially announced.

However, after that, Ukraine and Trump became toxic to each other.

A promise to end the war in 24 hours

After February 24, 2022, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that Russia would never have attacked Ukraine if he had been president of the United States.

Last year in July, the politician said that he was able to end the war in 24 hours by organizing negotiations with the participation of Putin and Zelensky.

"I know Zelensky very well, I know Putin very well, even better, and I had a good relationship with both of them," he said on Fox News.

However, Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton claims that such statements only mean the desire of the potential future president to negotiate with Russia at the expense of Ukraine, that is, to force Kyiv to surrender.

Volodymyr Zelenskyi called the statements of the former US president about the possibility of ending Russia's war against Ukraine in one day dangerous. And invited Donald Trump to visit the country.

"It will take me 24 minutes to explain to President Trump that he cannot solve a war. He cannot bring peace through Putin," said the President of Ukraine.

In response, Trump said that he has great respect for Zelensky, but his visit during the Biden presidency would be inappropriate, because it could create a conflict of interests.

Assistance in exchange for a loan

Before entering politics, Donald Trump was a businessman. He partially remained so even during his stay in the White House.

During his term in the Washington hotel, which at that time belonged to his business empire, the Trump International Hotel, foreign delegations from six countries spent more than 750,000 dollars.

So Trump's idea, recently floated by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, should come as no surprise.

The latter stated that the USA can provide aid to Ukraine on credit or in exchange for minerals.

In this way, Graham claims, it will be possible to unlock aid. Some Ukrainian experts consider such an idea quite working.

Trump demonstrates a similar transactional business approach not only to Ukraine, but also to America's closest allies in NATO.

The West was upset by a politician's recent statement that he would encourage Russia to attack those Alliance states that do not invest enough in defense.

In response to this, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, reminded that the only case of application of the Fifth Article of the North Atlantic Treaty took place after the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001.

"Poland sent a brigade to Ghazni, a difficult province in Afghanistan. But we did not bill Washington. The military alliance is not a district security company," said Sikorskyi.

Is Donald Trump ready to see all the complexity of Russia's war against Ukraine, abandoning business optics?

Can he realize that the loss of Ukraine will mean the strategic strengthening of the main, in his opinion, opponent of the USA - China - on the world political arena?

The final scenario of the war in Ukraine largely depends on this.

Recently, at a rally in South Carolina, the politician accused Joe Biden of being indecisive about Putin on the issue of Ukraine.

According to Trump, the head of Russia "will be given everything he wants, including Ukraine." "This is a gift. He received a gift," said the former US president.

However, the main predictable feature of Donald Trump remains his unpredictability.

Therefore, the politician's latest rhetoric is not able to immediately convince Ukrainians that Kyiv will not become a gift to the Kremlin if Trump becomes the owner of the White House again.