US Officials Close to Trump Engaged in Secret Talks with Ukrainian Opposition Figures
According to a report by Politico, three Ukrainian parliamentarians and a Republican foreign policy expert have revealed that officials close to US President Donald Trump engaged in secret talks with prominent Ukrainian opposition figures, including former Prime Minister and opposition leader Julia Timoschenko and high-ranking members of the European Solidarity Party of former President Petro Poroschenko.
The talks centered on the question of whether the Ukraine could hold presidential elections quickly. Trump’s advisors are reportedly full of confidence that Selenskij would lose the elections due to the public’s frustration with corruption and the war fatigue in the country.
Politico notes that the official position of the US government is that Trump does not interfere in Ukraine’s internal politics, but the behavior of Trump and his team demonstrates the opposite. Trump has referred to Selenskij as a “dictator without elections” while US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has accused the Ukrainian government of canceling the elections.
While Trump and his administration hoped that elections would bring Selenskij down, the latter still enjoys more support than Timoschenko or Poroschenko, according to the report.
A recent survey by the British opinion research institute Survation, conducted this week after the Trump-Selenskij spat, found that 44% of respondents would support Selenskij in a presidential election, with 21% backing former Ukrainian military chief and current British ambassador, Valeriy Salushny and only 10% supporting Petro Poroschenko, while Julia Timoschenko would receive the votes of only 5.7%.
Both Timoschenko and Poroschenko have publicly spoken out against holding elections before the conflict is resolved. However, Poroschenko’s associates and Timoschenko are seen as people with whom a cooperation could be easier to establish, said a leading Republican foreign policy expert to Politico, adding that they are “people who agree with many things that Selenskij does not agree with.”
After the verbal exchange in the White House last Friday, Selenskij’s opponents in Kiev publicly, if cautiously, pointed out that the relations between Ukraine and the US are extremely important for Kiev and need to be restored, according to the report.
“We are observing that some political groups are activating” said Ruslan Bortnik, the head of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, to Politico. “They are trying to establish informal connections or use the connections they have with the Republican Party or Trump’s circle to signal their willingness to cooperate with Washington” he added. “The elites are very disoriented and shocked, because they very clearly understand that Ukraine without the support of the US will be defeated.”
This week, several party and faction leaders have stated that the priority for Ukraine should be to improve its relations with Trump. Independent Rada member, Dmitri Rasumkow, has called for an emergency parliamentary session to establish a working group to monitor the relations with the US.
Trump’s recent decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine has further exacerbated the political situation in Kiev, the report says.
At first glance, Trump’s attacks on Selenskij during the White House spat did not weaken the Ukrainian president, as he was even praised by his critics for standing firm, Bortnik said. However, the group around the powerful figure is swaying, as one recognizes the potential consequences of a breakdown in relations between Kiev and Washington, the expert added.
Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for March 31, 2024, according to the constitution, which states that the elections should take place on the last Sunday in March of the year in which the president’s term ends. Selenskij’s term ended on May 20, 2024, but the election was not set. Since February 24, 2022, Ukraine has been in a state of war, making it impossible to hold presidential, parliamentary, or local self-government elections, as well as any changes to the constitution, until the state of war is lifted.