Kyiv’s backers take comfort in Trump’s Cabinet picks

Ukraine’s supporters are daring to hope: Kyiv might just be alright in the Trump era.

The latest sighs of (still cautious) relief came after news that President-elect Donald Trump tapped Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) to be his national security adviser and is planning to select Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for secretary of State.

Both lawmakers have hewed to the Trump-era America First foreign policy doctrine but are still ardent hawks when it comes to the U.S. approach to adversaries like China, Iran and Russia — far from the isolationist wing of the Republican party that would seek to abandon Ukraine or NATO.

Rubio and Waltz have questioned or voted against past U.S. aid packages for Ukraine — not for lack of support for Ukraine in its fight to defeat Russia but because they felt the U.S. wasn’t spending enough on securing the U.S. southern border. Waltz has even suggested lifting U.S. restrictions on how Ukraine could use its long-range weapons to strike at Russia — a step the Biden administration hasn’t taken despite its full-throated support of Ukraine.

“Kyiv is quite calm and quite comfortable with the national security officials announced so far,” said Daniel Vajdich, a Republican foreign policy expert and president of Yorktown Solutions, which advises Ukrainian state entities and engages with officials in Kyiv. “Those pushing a narrative of anxiety in Kyiv are doing this for their own purposes and are doing Ukraine a disservice.”

That was echoed by three former Trump administration officials who are supportive of U.S. efforts to aid Ukraine.

“For people who are concerned that Trump is going to sell Ukraine down the river, I think his main priority is going to try and find some kind of equitable peace,” said a former Trump administration official in contact with the campaign and transition teams. The person, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss internal transition matters.

Trump’s latest Cabinet picks have signaled they would back sharper crackdowns on Russia’s energy exports that bankroll its war machine and fund its deepening partnerships with other U.S. adversaries like Iran and China. Waltz has hammered the Biden administration for not doing enough to close loopholes in Russia’s oil and gas exports in recent interviews, which would align with the first Trump administration’s approach to tightening Russian energy sanctions to empower domestic U.S. energy exports.

“I think they’ll try to shut it down as much as they can,” James Carafano, a foreign policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, said of the incoming Trump administration’s likely approach to Russia’s oil and gas sectors.

Some Ukrainian lawmakers are hopeful that the picks of Rubio and Waltz signal the incoming Trump administration is sympathetic to Ukraine’s cause, even as they acknowledge it will still be an uphill battle convincing the U.S. to shell out more military and economic aid.

“Rubio has repeatedly visited Ukraine and even publicly criticized Republicans who doubted the need to help Ukraine,” Iryna Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament from the opposition European Solidarity party, said in a post on Facebook.

Then there’s Trump himself. Current and former senior European officials say Trump the dealmaker setting his sights on the Russia-Ukraine war isn’t all good news for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I think we could use a combination of Trump’s unpredictability with his desire to be a winner and make that a strong formula, for promoting a peace process, in Ukraine,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and NATO secretary general, in a recent interview.

Still, there’s a palpable sense of unease among some senior European officials. If Putin is nervous about Trump’s unpredictability, so is Ukraine and other NATO allies.

Trump has vowed he could end the war in Ukraine in one day — without giving any details on how it would be done. If virtually everyone in NATO is skeptical of that claim, many also fear it could push Ukraine into a bad deal that empowers Russia.

“There will be pressure to negotiate with Russia for the sake of peace, strict conditions for receiving aid will be imposed, and the level of aid may be significantly reduced, and in return the U.S. will demand a greater participation from Europe in supporting Ukraine,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics and former Ukrainian economy minister predicted in a social media post reacting to news of Trump’s election.

And Trump in his first term hammered important U.S. allies like Germany for not spending enough on defense. On the campaign trail Trump suggested he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies that didn’t spend the requisite 2 percent of GDP on defense.

Influential conservative figures deeply skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine still have close access to the president-elect. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., taunted Ukraine on social media over the weekend by sharing a clip referring to his father’s election as a time when Ukraine would be “losing your allowance.” Other Trump supporters are angry that Trump would tap Rubio for secretary of State over other MAGA acolytes like former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who may be more skeptical of sending further aid to Ukraine.

And Ukrainians and other NATO officials fear that any peace deal Trump may broker over Ukraine won’t end the war but only delay it to give Russia time to regroup for more fighting.

“Many times in the past, we have seen partners ignoring Ukraine’s warnings. In the end, we have been proven right,” said Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.