‘Worst-case scenario’: Ukraine awaits Trump’s presidency with trepidation
The incoming US leader, who is friendly with Putin, has touted a vague peace plan that worries military experts and government insiders.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Considering US President-elect Donald Trump’s unpredictability, Ukraine’s armed forces are bracing for the worst, a top military analyst has said.
Trump has promised to end the Russian-Ukrainian war in “24 hours”, although he has hardly elaborated on that plan, and threatened to halt military aid to Kyiv if it does not start peace talks with Moscow.
“We’re getting ready for the worst-case scenario, when [Trump] stops all the supplies,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, the former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera.
Trump’s “peace plan” remains vague, but observers say it most likely involves ceding some or all of the Russia-occupied areas – almost 19 percent of Ukraine’s territory – in exchange for a peace deal or a freeze of front-line positions.
Trump, who often describes himself as an impressive dealmaker, has also said that if Moscow does not start peace talks, he will up the ante by supplying advanced arms to Kyiv.
But it is hard to expect anything concrete from him, Romanenko said.
“There are expectations, but it’s like talking to the wind.”
His words are echoed by an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
Trump “is unlike other presidents, he may change his decisions depending on what foot he touches the floor with in the morning”, the adviser said.
“We approached his team with a plan that could benefit us and the West, and he liked it,” he said referring to the proposal Zelenskyy presented to Trump during their meeting in New York in September.
The plan envisages replacing some of the US troops stationed in Europe with Ukrainians and Kyiv’s “sharing” of natural resources with its Western partners.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian public is slowly shifting towards a peace deal with Russia.
Fifty-two percent of Ukrainians would like the war to end “as soon as possible,” even it entails territorial concessions, according to a Gallup poll released on November 19.
Only 38 percent want Kyiv to “fight until victory” – a dramatic drop in comparison with 73 percent in 2022.
“These days, we want peace, not victory,” said Valentyna Krasovets, a 68-year-old Kyiv resident whose nephew was killed on the southeastern front line in September 2023.
“I don’t want to lose more family. I am too old to wake up to air raid sirens every night,” she told Al Jazeera.
‘Any profit will suit him’
Another Zelenskyy adviser claims the key word in dealing with Trump is “profit”.
Trump may not cancel outgoing President Joe Biden’s permission to use high-precision US-supplied missiles for strikes inside Russia if he “profits” from something, Mykhailo Podolyak reportedly said.
“It can be a reputational profit, a political profit or an economic profit,” he told the Interfax Ukraine news agency on Thursday. “It can even be a profit [achieved] through humiliating Putin. Any profit will suit him.”
But so far, the Ukrainian government is dismayed as to what to do when Trump returns to the White House in January, a Kyiv-based analyst said.
“There are no new strategies, everyone wants to change their tune on the go,” Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera.
He said a key moment will be when Trump appoints a new US ambassador to Kyiv and a special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Richard Grenell, who served as Trump’s intelligence chief in 2020 and who opposes Ukraine’s membership in NATO, has been named as a possible candidate.
Another key figure in Ukraine’s future is Republican Senator Marco Rubio, whom Trump named as his secretary of state.
Rubio has so far preferred talks with Moscow over a boost of military aid to Ukraine.
He was one of the 15 Republican lawmakers who voted against providing $61bn in military aid for Kyiv in April.
The Republicans stalled the bill for months, and the delay largely contributed to Russia’s military gains in eastern Ukraine.
However, the gains are minuscule in comparison with Russia’s astonishing advance in the full-scale invasion’s first months.
Moscow has occupied just over 2,000 square kilometres (772 square miles) since 2023 – despite reportedly losing tens of thousands of troops.
Trump announced Rubio’s candidacy on November 13, and within hours, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he was looking forward to “advancing peace through strength in Ukraine”.
He repeated the phrase Zelenskyy used when hastily congratulating Trump on his election on November 5.
Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, said while conclusions about the influence of individual members of Trump’s team are purely speculative, there are signs that Zelenskyy has given up on his principal position about the return of all occupied areas, including the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.
Before Trump’s election, Kyiv insisted that it would not recognise the occupied territories as part of Russia.
There is also a “Putin factor”, said Mitrokhin, who explained that the Russian leader’s conduct could run contrary to the expectations of Trump’s team and cause an upset, before they are in conflict with Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s Western supporters.
Another factor may be Trump’s position on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is aligned with the Patriarchate of Moscow.
It remains Ukraine’s dominant religious group and controls thousands of parishes despite growing pressure from authorities.
The Vatican, some European nations and Trump’s supporters have criticised Zelenskyy’s pressure on the church citing concerns about religious freedoms.
Zelenskyy may have to ease the pressure “for the sake of compromise with reality and the building of a broader coalition to support Ukraine”, Mitrokhin said.