Wartime Ukraine waits to see what’s in the ‘surprise box’ of Trump presidency

1

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 blocs 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 3-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, toward 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.

“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.”

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

Earlier Thursday, the Kremlin suggested that Ukraine was losing, and that it — and its Western backers — would have to face that fact.

“When the situation in the theater of military operations is not in favor of the Kyiv regime, the West is faced with a choice — to continue financing it and destroying the Ukrainian population, or to recognize the current realities and start negotiating,” said Sergei Shoigu, head of Russia’s Security Council.

For much of the current conflict, which broke out after he left office, Trump has been a detractor-in-chief over 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, 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 a longtime pattern of denying certain types of armaments over concerns of escalation, then providing them often too late to make a difference.

This year’s battlefield news has been mostly bad news 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, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought even before the presidential vote to lay the groundwork for a working relationship if Trump was returned to the White House.

Zelensky — who has a complicated history with Trump, dating to events surrounding the then-president’s first impeachment — met with the then-candidate 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 it, 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 mulling 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 Zelensky’s foreign minister during his 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 Ukraine’s 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, a 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.