KYIV — The historic defeat of the Republican Party in this week’s midterm elections has brought Ukraine’s embattled leadership a sliver of hope, even as President Donald Trump appeared to tighten his embrace of Russia.
In an interview with German outlet ZDF, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he hoped the Democrats’ flip of both the House and Senate would ultimately foster support for Ukraine.
“I am also grateful to the Republicans, but the Democrats speak very clearly about supporting Ukraine and providing it with assistance. They talk about restoring ties between the United States and Europe,” he said. “So there is hope that a balance of power will emerge and that we will receive greater support.”
“If Congress now talks about strong financial support or support in the form of weapons, as Europe is doing and demonstrating today, then this will be a positive factor that will influence Putin,” he said.
Ukraine is facing a critical and tough winter ahead. The country’s stocks of missile interceptors, including U.S. Patriots, have emptied, as Russia has intensified its devastating jet-powered drone attacks on Kyiv and other large cities, hoping to make them “unlivable” by winter.
Civilian deaths continue to mount. A Russian glide bomb attack on a humanitarian aid distribution point in the Zaporizhzhia region this week killed at least 53 people.
Some Ukrainian officials described their “euphoria” over the midterms results.
“Democracy is the worst because it brings populists to power. And the best because, inevitably, it eventually destroys them. That is why the U.S. elections are a natural consequence of America remaining a democracy,” Mykola Kniazhytskyi, a Ukrainian member of parliament, wrote on Facebook.
Other officials interviewed by The Washington Post said they were cautiously optimistic that Democrats could help restore much of the support that has eroded under Trump and Ukraine skeptics in his administration like Vice President JD Vance, who has said that cutting aid to Ukraine was one of his “proudest achievements.”
While many stressed the need for bipartisan support, there are hopes in Kyiv that the Democrats could get aid back onto the agenda — or at least dissuade Trump from further deals with Russia.
“A Democrat win — coupled with potential investigations into his administration — will mean that Trump will be more careful about making deals with Putin,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign policy committee.
Merezhko noted, however, that U.S. foreign policy is still in the hands of the president.
“Trump is still the key decision-maker, and we need to continue to be respectful and strategic in this regard,” he said.
This reality was reflected in Trump’s announcement Thursday that he had struck a “big, beautiful agreement” with Putin, not just about Ukraine but about “all of Europe” — apparently excluding Ukrainian representatives once again from discussions about their own future.
Trump’s announcement is likely to deepen Ukrainian and European concerns that the U.S. president has again thrown in his lot with Putin after a year-long stretch in which he had appeared more sympathetic to Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Ukraine’s vulnerability to Trump’s whims and its enduring dependence on U.S. support have been on full display, after relations between the two countries deteriorated when Trump unexpectedly announced that he had struck a diesel deal with Putin, an effort to lower prices that have spiked since his war against Iran. Trump then tried to pressure Kyiv into halting its attacks on Russian oil refineries, and Ukraine reported gaps in U.S. intelligence sharing and its SpaceX Starlink and Starshield satellite services, which it relies on for critical defensive operations.
But analysts say Kyiv has little choice but to continue doing what it can to hold onto the crucial remainders of American support.
“Our strategy is the same as before. We must maintain our partnerships, and we must maintain our ability to obtain weapons from the United States, and maintain our access to Starlink and intelligence data,” said Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko. “There is another element of the strategy, of course: U.S. participation in peace talks, but the kind of participation that would end the war, without significant concessions from Ukraine.”
This strategy — with such high stakes for Ukraine and its army — has proved to be a difficult balancing act.
Memories of Trump’s first term and the Burisma scandal that led to his impeachment still haunt Ukrainian politicians. In 2019, it was discovered that Trump had pressured Zelensky to investigate the Bidens’ connection to Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, leading to Trump’s first impeachment on charges of abuse of power.
“There is a fear, of course, that if a confrontation begins between Congress and President Trump, this could provoke Trump’s aggression or create a negative sentiment towards Ukraine, as was the case during his first presidency,” Fesenko said. “There is an understanding that we need to maintain bipartisan support — that we can’t rely only on the Democrats, on the Democratic Party.”
To some extent, the Democrats’ victory is a double-edged sword for Ukraine. Kyiv lost several prominent supporters who were unseated, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania).
“Reaganist Republicans are key to Ukraine’s support,” said Merezhko, while implying that Ukraine may also have a tougher time winning over more progressive Democrats and democratic socialists.
“They are not too warm to Ukraine; they have other issues on their agenda,” he said.
Meanwhile they have gained vocal supporters like Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico of Texas.
Who could lead Ukraine’s outreach to a new House and Senate is another key question.
The country still does not have an ambassador in Washington. Its previous ambassador, Olha Stefanishyna, resigned in August in the wake of a corruption investigation. Ukraine’s chief negotiator David Arakhamia, who helped orchestrate a rare ceasefire negotiated by Melania Trump and was invited to the White House on Thursday, is also now facing an anti-corruption probe. Ukrainian officials say the question of the next ambassador is likely to be resolved before Congress returns in January.
“The results of the U.S. elections are neither good nor bad. They reflect the will of the American people and are a domestic American matter,” former Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Oksana Markarova wrote on Facebook. “The focus of our cooperation must remain unchanged: strengthening bipartisan and bicameral partnership and friendship with all of America.”
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