When Americans vote for president on November 5, their decision will reverberate around the world. Ukraine, whose defense against Russia is heavily dependent on U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support, may feel the effects more than any other foreign country.
Under outgoing President Joe Biden, the United States has committed more than $56 billion to Ukraine in security assistance alone since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. It has allocated tens of billions more in financial and humanitarian aid.
"The most significant factor that's going to be driving the outcome of the war, I think, and certainly what happens in the next few months, is the U.S. election," said Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.
The result of the vote "will determine, in effect, whether Ukraine continues to be supported by the United States, or the extent to which it’s supported by the United States," Deyermond told RFE/RL.
Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have expressed vastly different positions on backing for Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris meet in Washington on September 26.
Harris has said she would continue Biden's policy of aiding Ukraine, clearly expressing the desire to see Russia defeated.
Trump has questioned U.S. support for Ukraine, saying that Europe should be carrying the bulk of the burden in backing Kyiv against the Russian invasion, and has left NATO's future in doubt. He has declined to comment on whether he wants Ukraine to win and has asserted repeatedly that if he is elected, he will end the war very quickly -- even before he takes office in January.
"While we could expect a Harris White House to continue to act in much the same way, perhaps, as the Biden White House, certainly not a dramatic turn away from Ukraine, Donald Trump has made it very clear that he wants to see an end to the war quickly," Deyermond said.
"And we know that one of his long-term foreign policy priorities, one of the few consistent foreign policy positions he's held since before he was elected in 2016, was, as he puts it, getting along with Russia," she said. "So he would want to see the war ended quickly, and on Russia's terms, I think."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (left) and former U.S. President Donald Trump meet in New York on September 27.
Trump has said Putin's conditions for peace talks are "not acceptable," argues that he was tougher on Russia than previous presidents, and claims that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if had he been in the White House. In 2017, he gave the green light for the United States to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, something his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, had refused to do because of concerns about provoking Moscow.
'No More'
In April, Trump said he would be open to something like the lend-lease program the United States launched to help allies during World War II as an alternative to aid grants.
Trump has said little about how he would seek to engineer an end to Russia's war against Ukraine.
In an interview with Fox News in July 2023, he indicated he would try to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate by threatening to open the aid spigots for Ukraine. Conversely, he said he would pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by threatening to withhold aid.
"I would tell Zelenskiy: 'No more. You got to make a deal.' I would tell Putin: 'If you don't make a deal, we're going to give [Zelenskiy] a lot. We're going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to,'" Trump said. "I will have the deal done in one day. One day."
Ukrainians fear that any push for a quick peace agreement would play into Russia's hands, leaving about one-fifth of their country under Moscow's control while also letting Putin use a cessation of hostilities as a chance to build up its forces for a future attack.
Words And Actions
In any case, exactly what the winner will do once in power is uncertain, and there are a number of variables that could affect the next president's actions.
Zelenskiy's government has been frustrated with the Biden administration, saying U.S. military aid is coming too slowly and with too many restrictions. Despite persistent entreaties, Biden has not permitted Ukraine to use U.S. long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
Apartment buildings are seen damaged or destroyed by a Russian military strike on Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region in October 2023.
Ukraine is still short of air defenses and ammunition, enabling Russia to pound its cities and critical infrastructure from the skies and advance deeper into the Donetsk region. This month, Russia has made its largest territorial gains since March 2022, the month after the full-scale invasion.
Harris hasn't made clear if she would be more aggressive with aid deliveries and loosen the limitations, one of the points in the "victory plan" that Zelenskiy has been presenting to Western leaders whose reception has been lukewarm. She hasn't commented on the other key point in the plan -- a swift invitation for Ukraine to join NATO.
One factor in how a Trump presidency would affect Ukraine and the Russian invasion would be the makeup of his cabinet.
The Trump campaign is reportedly considering former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the position of defense secretary and former national-security adviser Robert O'Brien for secretary of state. Both have criticized the Biden administration for restricting the use of U.S. weapons and called for more sanctions on Russia.
In an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal in July, Pompeo called for creating a $500 billion lend-lease program to help the country defend itself. He also called for giving Ukraine NATO membership, something O'Brien said this week "is too provocative at this point."
'The Year Of Diplomacy'
Yet another variable: Congress. While presidents have greater sway over foreign policy, the legislature holds the nation's purse strings and could force the White House to adjust its stance on the issue of military and financial support for Ukraine.
Control of the House and Senate could flip in the November 5 election, with the Democrats gaining a majority of seats in the lower chamber and the Republicans in the upper chamber.
That would be a more advantageous situation for Ukraine, as a Republican-controlled Senate would be likely to support aid to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine negotiations in 2017-19, told RFE/RL last month. He said a lend-lease program would be easier to get through Congress.
"I think making the case for spending real U.S. taxpayer money for Ukraine is harder and harder, but letting them borrow as much as they need in order to buy U.S. weapons and fight the war, that should not be controversial at all, and I think should get massive bipartisan support," he said.
But Charles Kupchan, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, told RFE/RL that the United States would likely nudge Ukraine toward talks regardless of who wins the election, in part because the war is straining Western resources.
"I would expect 2025 to be the year of diplomacy," Kupchan said. "I don't believe that where we are today is sustainable."
At the same time, he said cutting off aid to Ukraine was not the way to get the two sides to the negotiating table.
"That's an invitation to Putin to keep coming," Kupchan said.