Ukraine becomes another battlefront in the American election

They were the odd couple, one lumbering in his trademark oversized Brioni suit, the other ripped in his olive green military attire. The two had been engaged in a kind of mano-a-mano verbal combat before their official meeting in Manhattan at Trump Tower. It was getting ugly.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that J.D. Vance’s plan, such as it was, for ending the war between Ukraine and Russia was “too radical.” Add in Zelensky’s visit to an armaments factory together with Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, and Trump and his flunkeys went nuts. House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote a sniveling letter demanding the ouster of Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Marakarova. Meanwhile, Trump himself lashed into Ukraine at a rally in North Carolina, claiming that the country, to all intents and purposes, no longer existed —“Ukraine is gone.” It was America and Ukraine that had triggered the war through their obduracy. And so on.

Was Zelensky trying to provoke Trump into revealing his hostility to Ukraine more openly so as to undermine him? Or did he inadvertently stumble into the morass of an American presidential election? The latter seems more likely.

Otherwise he would never have held a pow-wow with Trump on his home territory. “We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And I think if we win, we’re going to get it resolved very quickly,” Trump indicated before his meeting with Zelensky.

“I hope we have more good relations between us,” Zelensky said.

“Oh, I see,” Trump said. “It takes two to tango, you know, and we will — we’re going to have a good meeting today. And I think the fact that we’re even together today is a very good sign.”

Actually, it looks like Trump has a trombone mind — unless, of course, he wants to go over Zelensky’s head, betray Ukraine and announce a peace deal. He would certainly earn hosannas from Germany whose former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has already announced that his brethren should hope Trump wins in November so that he can bring the war to a quick stop. On a recent visit to Washington, my chum Malte Lehming, an editor at Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin, noted that Ukraine is becoming an increasingly volatile issue in German politics, with both the far left and right decrying military support for it. Hostility to Ukraine is also mounting in the GOP. House Oversight Committee chair James Comer is huffing and puffing about investigating Zelensky’s Pennsylvania trip as an instance of election meddling. Senator Ted Cruz called Zelensky a “moron.” This is what passes for foreign realism on some elements of the American right.

For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to use Ukraine as a wedge issue in the Midwest to woo Polish and Ukrainian voters. On Thursday she met with Zelensky and decried “proposals for surrender.” Whether she would remain as avid a proponent of Ukraine as president is an open question. For now, however, Ukraine has become another battlefront in the American election.