The mid-term elections in Kyiv

Kyiv, from our correspondent. Donald Trump has tried to turn Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky into scapegoats for his mistakes regarding the war in Iran, the energy crisis and the depleted US arsenals, in a bid to regain support ahead of the mid-term elections, but “he has failed”, Yaroslav Trofimov, chief correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, tells Il Foglio. He has just returned from the security conference in Manama, Bahrain, where the talk was entirely of the coming war in the Middle East – yet again.

Ukraine has paid a very high price for the American about-turn. Kyiv bears the marks of Russian attacks, scars scattered here and there across this splendid and thoroughly European capital, which in recent weeks has found itself more vulnerable than ever, without the warnings from American intelligence – the only source capable of alerting the city to the launch of Russian ballistic missiles: pockmarked buildings, craters, sirens. Over the last five days, Russian bombs first struck the railway station in Dnipro, killing eighteen people, and two days ago a school being used as a shelter and for the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Zaporizhzhia region, killing thirty people; rescue workers are still digging through the rubble. 

The scale of Vladimir Putin’s violence is staggering, even though we have now come to regard the dozens of ballistic missiles fired every day, the dozens of cruise missiles launched every day and the hundreds of drones deployed every day as the new normal. There is nothing normal about this relentless targeting of civilians; the intensification of Russian attacks dates back to June 2025 and goes hand in hand with Putin’s presumption that he has Trump in the palm of his hand. Over the past month, the Russian president’s hopes and the Ukrainians’ fears have come to pass: the supply of Western weapons has been suspended, including via the European procurement mechanism, PURL; pre-emptive intelligence has been suspended for at least two days; the Patriots are not arriving; Starlink and Starshield have been tampered with at the front. All because Trump became agitated ahead of the mid-term elections, in which his popularity plummeted – due in particular to rising fuel prices – and saw fit to blame the Ukrainians for striking Russian refineries. Putin seized the opportunity, negotiated a deal to sell diesel to the United States, secured the lifting of some sanctions, and even offered to mediate with Iran – having, until now, provided Tehran’s ally with the information needed to strike American targets in the Gulf.

But Trump’s attempt has failed: “Russia and its president remain very unpopular in the United States,” says Trofimov. “Not only amongst Democratic voters, but also amongst Republicans and even amongst Republicans who describe themselves as MAGA supporters. Helping the enemy – for that is how Trump’s dealings with Putin are viewed – has brought the American president nothing; on the contrary: in this election campaign, his openness towards Putin has been one of the rare occasions on which many Republican candidates have distanced themselves from their president.” This about-turn has yielded nothing from a political standpoint, nor indeed from an economic one. The price of diesel has not fallen, “but it is not even clear whether the diesel put into circulation under Trump’s agreement with Putin can be sold,” says Trofimov. “Despite the sanctions lifted by the US president, there is formal legislation passed by Congress prohibiting the import of Russian petroleum products.” Many members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have sent official letters to American financial institutions, insurance companies, ports and importers, reminding them that accepting Russian diesel constitutes a breach of US law. According to some reports, this diesel will ultimately be diverted to Brazil.”

Congress, which will see its composition change from January following yesterday’s vote, has resisted Trump’s about-turn. On the issue of Starlink and Starshield – namely, the reduction in the operational speed of the satellite communications system on the Ukrainian front – a strange silence has fallen on the American side. The extent of the damage to Ukrainian troops remains unclear; some reports indicate that drones fell from the sky—illustrating what happens in a technological war when a key pillar is arbitrarily removed—and many operations have been suspended. Ukrainian attacks on refineries have also been suspended for almost ten days, just as Trump wanted – Putin has never stopped; last night he struck energy sites almost everywhere; the country is functioning in fits and starts, yet it is still functioning. “I find it very telling that no one wanted to take responsibility for the slowdown in Starshield,” says Trofimov. “Elon Musk said the decision came from the White House; the White House said that wasn’t true; and the Pentagon, too, said it hadn’t decided anything. In the end, following promises of inquiries – which will likely take place after the mid-term elections – the system was restored. And this is a sign that putting pressure on Ukraine comes at a political cost that, ultimately, is not worth paying for anyone: the reality is that the war in Iran is Trump’s war; it is the war that carries a political cost for him; it is the war that Trump must end, one way or another. The war against Ukraine is not Trump’s war, and this initiative with Putin could backfire: it is even possible that it might cost Trump a few percentage points at the ballot box.”

This is not an existential war for the U.S. president, but his sympathy for Putin and his acceptance of a possible Ukrainian defeat have distorted it. However, while Ukrainian ingenuity and the European strategy of compensation have made it clear to Trump that defeat is not an option, the issue of the Patriot interceptors remains—which is, in fact, the most direct link between the Ukrainian resistance, the war in Iran and Washington’s mistakes. “The problem with the Patriots isn’t just that the Americans don’t want to sell them to the Ukrainians,” says Trofimov. “The problem is that the Americans simply don’t have them. The Patriot stockpile is empty; not even the Saudis have enough to defend themselves, nor do American soldiers. The American defence industry has been asleep at the wheel, and the country isn’t ready for a war of this scale. For Europeans, the situation is even worse, because Europe does not yet produce missiles for ballistic missile defence. The Germans and the Greeks are buying Israeli systems; France and Italy may begin producing the new-generation Aster missiles next year, which are reportedly capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, but it remains to be seen in what quantities. This is the underlying problem. So even if Trump were to give the Ukrainians 30 Patriot missiles instead of the 15 he currently provides roughly every month, they would not be enough, because Putin is launching hundreds of ballistic missiles.” The production figures are stark: for every Patriot missile produced by the Americans, the Russians produce three or four ballistic missiles, and it takes two Patriots to intercept a single ballistic missile. This is why the Ukrainians have begun targeting the primary source of the Russian war machine – revenue from energy resources – by striking refineries. This is why Trump’s about-turn has come at an enormous cost to Kyiv, as it has created a further imbalance, with the Russians continuing to strike whilst the Ukrainians have complied with the wishes of their main ally – a fickle ally who failed to prepare for modern warfare and now finds itself defenceless.

The US mid-term elections are a huge burden for Ukraine; since 9 October, when Trump and Putin spoke on the phone, everything has gone downhill. Many members of the Democratic Party state that, should they regain control of Congress, they will resume aid to Ukraine; this will be a crucial issue in the US budget negotiations with the President and his party: “Ukraine has become a cause for the Democrats,” says Trofimov. “But even though Trump has decided to do business with Putin, he hasn’t managed to win over the American public, and that is a key factor. Americans do not like Putin and support Ukraine – perhaps even more so today than a few years ago – because they are no longer the ones footing the bill for Ukraine’s defence.” It is the Europeans who are doing so: the Europeans crushed by Russia’s hybrid war and Trump’s hostility; the Europeans who will meet Zelensky in Brussels today, alongside the Americans, within the framework of NATO; the Europeans who are the allies who have not changed their minds. “Between now and the French elections,” says Trofimov, “the Europeans have found a way to fund Ukraine and will continue to do so next year as well. Then we’ll see what happens, particularly in France, but even Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate, says she wants to continue providing military support to Ukraine. She wants to halt civilian financial aid but believes in the Ukrainians’ right to defend themselves against Russian aggression. And this is very important, because the French have contributed significantly to stepping in for the Americans, particularly when it comes to intelligence. Essentially, the position of the French far right is very different from that of the German AfD, which is openly pro-Russian.” In Germany, however, the elections will not be until 2028, which is why Trofimov is not taking a catastrophic view: “It will all be difficult,” he says, “but not catastrophic, because there is also a core group of European countries where support for Ukraine is entirely bipartisan, such as the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. And the combined economies of the Nordic countries and Poland alone – which regard the defence of Ukraine as a matter of national security – are larger than Russia’s: the money is there.”

Ukraine’s immediate objective is to secure an ‘energy ceasefire’, so that the war may continue along the front line but not against Ukrainian cities: “Putin continues to believe it is not in his interests to stop because he thinks he is stronger,” says Trofimov. “But on the front line, things are not going well for the Russians; they are not advancing and, in fact, have lost strategic territory in the Donbas.” ‘Advantage’ is a strange concept when it comes to Putin: ‘Today he pins his hopes on Trump, tomorrow he’ll pin them on Le Pen; he always sees an opportunity on the horizon, like a gambler who thinks luck will always turn in his favour.’

The scale of this war, of this US mid-term election, of Putin’s gambles, and of the strength of European unity can be seen in Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan of revolutions and protests: the flowerbeds adorned with flags, the candles, and the faces of those who have fallen in the war are growing ever larger and ever more numerous with each passing year. The injustice of this war is encapsulated here, in a corner that Trump has never wanted to look at closely, and which is bleeding.