As President Trump has moved the United States into greater alignment with Moscow, he has lashed out at the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Mr. Trump declared last month.
But after Democrats swept Tuesday’s midterm elections in an unequivocal repudiation of Mr. Trump, a joke circulated online in Ukraine: It seemed that it was the American people who wanted to get a new president.
This touch of humor underscored how wild American political swings have jarred Ukrainians. The United States was once Ukraine’s most important ally in the war. Then Mr. Trump returned to office, blowing hot and at times very cold on Kyiv.
“The general level of optimism in Kyiv and in Ukraine has risen as a result of these elections,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian Parliament. “We believe that Congress will be a deterrent against attempts by Trump to make deals with Putin.”
But Mr. Merezhko cautioned that Ukrainians, looking for any good news against the bleak backdrop of Mr. Trump’s openly siding with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, shouldn’t be carried away with euphoria. “For us right now, it’s important not to forget about Republicans, not to hurt their feelings and to retain good relations with both parties,” he said.
The reality for Ukraine is that Mr. Trump has two years left in his term, and the country’s survival remains intertwined with the shifting political currents in Washington. With depleted air defenses and military ranks, Ukraine is expected to face its worst winter of the war in the coming months, as Russia takes aim at its civilian energy infrastructure. How exactly the midterms will affect the war and peace negotiations will depend in large part on the course Mr. Trump takes during his remaining time in office.
Mr. Trump said he met Thursday with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Washington after a ceremony at the White House, attended by both Russian and Ukrainian officials, that honored the first lady, Melania Trump, for brokering a cease-fire and humanitarian mission in the Russian-controlled city of Oleshky in recent days. After meeting Mr. Dmitriev, Mr. Trump predicted a deal to end the war in Ukraine soon.
“It’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Mr. Trump said. “I could even say it might involve all of Europe. It’s going to be a big, beautiful agreement, and everyone’s going to be thrilled.”
Officially, Moscow has largely put on a neutral face over the election results ahead of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine that Mr. Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to convene in Abu Dhabi next week.
“President Trump will continue to exercise his presidential powers,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters on Thursday. “President Trump will continue to pursue his foreign policy. Everything else, in our view, is an internal affair of the United States.”
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Russian security council, said on social media that Moscow must focus on smashing Ukraine on the battlefield until total victory was achieved.
“Donald Trump has suffered a crushing defeat in the battle for Congress,” Mr. Medvedev said. “How will this affect our interests? In the grand scheme of things, probably not at all — at least for now.”
Some Russian analysts expressed hope that the election result could represent a window of opportunity for a peace deal. Mr. Trump and his envoys, they argued, will have extra incentive to broker an agreement in the next two months, before a Democratic-controlled Congress takes over and stands in the way of a deal favorable to Russia.
It is possible that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin will meet twice over that period — first this month on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, and then again next month at the Group of 20 summit in Miami.
But others in Russia see any hopes pinned to the next few months as wishful thinking. They lamented a political change that they said would inevitably reduce Mr. Trump’s power in his dealings with Moscow and his ability to deliver on what the Kremlin wanted in Ukraine.
“Now anything Donald Trump might propose will face roadblocks in America, and because of that, everything is going to be complicated for Trump in Ukraine,” Vladimir Solovyov, a top pro-Kremlin state news commentator, said on Wednesday.
In a video posted online, Mr. Solovyov called the midterm results a “triumph” for Mr. Zelensky.
“He avenged the humiliation in the Oval Office,” Mr. Solovyov said, referring to the Ukrainian president’s televised clash with Mr. Trump early last year. “He feels like a winner.”
Mr. Zelensky struck a balance in commenting on the election. Speaking to the German public broadcaster ZDF in his first comments after the vote, he expressed gratitude to the Republicans who had stood by Ukraine, but acknowledged the clear shift.
“The Democrats speak very clearly about supporting Ukraine and providing assistance to Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “They speak about renewing the connection between the United States and Europe.”
Mr. Zelensky expressed hope “that a balance of power will emerge and that we will receive more support.”
Open embrace of Democrats in Congress would be a misstep, said Volodymyr Ariev, a Ukrainian politician from the opposition European Solidarity party, as Mr. Trump still has broad leeway in foreign policy.
“We should not welcome a Democrat victory but welcome democracy in the United States,” said Mr. Ariev, a longtime backer of a strategy of bipartisan engagement in Washington.
“We should not be part of American elections,” he said. “Among Republicans there are a lot of Ukraine supporters.”
Ukrainians hope that congressional oversight will make the sweeping business deals with Russia at the heart of the Trump-led negotiations far less likely.
At a minimum, officials in Kyiv hope that a Democratic-led Congress will impose oversight on Mr. Trump’s push for a negotiated settlement, which many in Ukraine fear treats the war as an opening for commercial concessions to Moscow.
Lawmakers in Kyiv also anticipate congressional scrutiny into figures like the billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk over the throttling of Starshield satellite connectivity during Ukrainian military operations last month.
Already, American lawmakers in both parties have shown how they can use their power in Congress and at the state level to stymie Mr. Trump’s concessions to Moscow.
After the Starlink episode, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, led a charge to hold SpaceX and the Defense Department accountable. He vowed to make sure that any U.S. officials involved would be punished and that federal funding would be withheld for any agency taking such an action.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Democrat of New Jersey, warned ports in the state that accepting Russian diesel fuel as a result of a deal between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin would amount to a violation of the law. Ms. Sherrill pointed out that Mr. Trump did not have an unlimited ability to waive sanctions against Russia passed by Congress. According to a tracker launched by the environmental group Greenpeace, several tankers carrying Russian diesel have diverted, and no confirmed deliveries have taken place in the United States. Despite the guarded optimism in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said the huge turnover in Congress reinforced the need to preserve the broad bipartisan support they had long cultivated.
The midterms brought notable losses to the pro-Ukraine coalition, including key allies like Mr. Fitzpatrick. Other important figures are also departing Congress, such as the veteran Republican senators Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis, while many incoming members have yet to clearly articulate their positions on aid to Ukraine.
Ukrainians worry that Russia could assess the Trump administration, weakened after the midterms, as too ineffectual to lead peace talks. Ukraine has no alternative for now: Kyiv has encouraged European engagement in talks, but Russia has made clear that the United States is in the driver’s seat.
“There’s nothing to celebrate,” Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament with the opposition European Solidarity, wrote on social media. “The issue of peace will take a back seat” to infighting between Mr. Trump and the Democrats, he wrote. “Russia may abandon negotiations altogether.”
Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting.
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