With Donald Trump’s reelection roiling capitals across Europe and Asia, in Ukraine, where many expect the new administration to make the most dramatic changes to U.S. policy, the mood is mixed, at once anxious and surprisingly hopeful.
“No one is committing suicide,” Anton Grushetskyi, executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, a leading polling firm, told me in an interview. “For Ukrainians, this is an existential war. Russia wants to eliminate us and destroy our country, and we can’t just give up.” But as the fighting grinds on, with no victory in sight, many are considering a different approach.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan,” presented to Trump earlier this fall, includes several planks designed to appeal to what is expected to be the new administration’s transactional approach to foreign policy. And many voices, on social media and in parliament, are emphasizing what Kyiv should do in the months ahead to strengthen its hand in anticipation of a Trump presidency.
