Trump vs. Harris: Ukraine’s Future Could Depend on America’s 2024 Election

At this moment, Ukraine’s victory depends as much on the outcome of our presidential election as it does on any front line battle with the Russian army. The ballots Americans cast on November 5 will determine if Ukrainians have bullets to fire tomorrow. So let’s cast those ballots for someone who believes in their cause and will continue to have their backs.

by Ben Hodges Peter Zwack

As retired military leaders, we believe Ukraine’s survival as a sovereign, democratic country is vital for the security of the United States and the future of international order. Allowing Russia to succeed in its brutal invasion of Ukraine would not only reward atrocities, but embolden Russia to threaten other European states, potentially triggering direct military conflict with NATO. So from the day Putin started this war, we have urged the Biden administration to send even more aid faster to Ukraine, and pressed members of Congress of both parties to fund that aid. 

But right now, we believe that the single most important thing Americans can do for Ukraine – and for America’s security – is to elect a president who will provide steady and strong leadership in standing up to Russia and with allied support help Ukraine win. Based on the clear record of what the candidates have said and done, it’s undeniable that only Kamala Harris will do that. Donald Trump has told us he will do the opposite.

The differences between Harris and Trump on Ukraine could not be greater.

First, Harris understands the difference between right and wrong in this terrible war. She called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “an assault on our common values, an attack on our common humanity.” She has praised Ukraine’s leaders and people for their courage in standing up to Russian aggression.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, praised Putin’s criminal actions as “savvy” and “genius.” He has mocked Ukraine’s President Zelensky as “the world’s greatest salesman” and blamed Ukraine for having “let the war start.” His running mate J.D. Vance has said “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.”

Second, Harris has done everything in her power to help Ukraine. She fought for Congress to approve billions of dollars in military and economic aid to produce weapons in American factories that brave Ukrainians have used to destroy half of Russia’s land army. 

In contrast, Donald Trump used his allies in Congress to hold up that aid for six months as Ukrainian forces ran out of ammunition, losing lives and territory to Russia.

Third, Harris supports a just end to the war that vindicates the sacrifices Ukrainians have made. 

Standing with Zelensky at the White House last week, she stated that “nothing about the end of this war can be decided without” the consent of Ukraine. She rightly condemned proposals for Ukraine to give up its sovereign territory or its right to join NATO, and said she would work to ensure that “Ukraine prevails in this conflict and remains a free, democratic, and independent nation.”

Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly refused to say that he wants Ukraine to win. He suggested that Ukraine should simply give in to Russia because he believes (falsely) that Russia always wins its wars. He endorsed a plan to force Ukraine to surrender territory and give up NATO membership forever, promising he’ll try to end the war on what are essentially Putin’s terms even before he’s sworn in.

Finally, Harris understands the danger ahead for America and our allies in Europe and Asia if we let Putin win. She has said that “if we allow aggressors like Putin to take land with impunity, they will keep going.” She knows that other dictatorships, including China, would be emboldened to attack their neighbors if Russia prevails.

Meanwhile Trump has said — and these are his actual words — that he would “encourage” the Russians to do “whatever the hell they want” to our allies.

Again, these are not small differences, but a stark contrast of strength versus weakness. One candidate for president, Kamala Harris, has made clear that she will stand by Ukraine and our NATO allies against Russian aggression — in the same tradition as every past president, Republican and Democrat, from Reagan to Bush to Biden. The other candidate, Donald Trump, has opposed helping Ukraine and pledged to cut a deal that will give Vladimir Putin, one of America’s greatest adversaries, most of what he wants.

Remember, Ukrainians aren’t asking us to fight their war for them. They will keep putting themselves in harm’s way to win it. All they want from us is moral and political support and the ammunition to protect their country and the whole democratic world from Putin’s aggression.

At this moment, Ukraine’s victory depends as much on the outcome of our presidential election as it does on any front line battle with the Russian army. The ballots Americans cast on November 5 will determine if Ukrainians have bullets to fire tomorrow. So let’s cast those ballots for someone who believes in their cause and will continue to have their backs.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=naMfX12gmfU%3Fsi%3DoYSz16pV5L-YMOK-

About the Authors

Lt. General Frederick Benjamin “Ben” Hodges III, retired United States Army officer, served as commanding general, United States Army Europe. He has been Senior Advisor to Human Rights First since June 2022 and also serves as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics

Brigadier General Peter Zwack, retired United States Army officer, had a 35-year Army career that began enlisted at the Officers Candidate School in 1980 and ended with his retirement in 2015. He deployed world-wide as a military intelligence officer and later as a diplomat in the Army Foreign Area Officer corps. He also served in multiple NATO staff and leadership positions in diverse locations such as West Germany, Afghanistan, South Korea and Kosovo while closely working NATO Enlargement issues on the Joint Staff before becoming the US Senior Defense Attache to Russia from 2012-2014.

Image Credit: Creative Commons. 

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“Putin Has a Big Asterisk on His Calendar for the US Elections. And if Trump Wins, That’s a Win for Moscow” – BG. Gen. Peter Zwack

by GEORGIA TODAY  April 12, 2024 in Editor’s Pick, International, Newspaper, Politic

Reading Time: 7 mins read

Brigadier General Peter B. Zwack (Ret.) served as the US senior defense official and attaché to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014, a period which included Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. He also served in West Germany, Kosovo, South Korea, and Afghanistan. A published author, he has worked with Russian and international colleagues in multiple fields since 1989, including defense, security, academia, policy, veterans, and private citizens. He regularly consults, writes, and lectures within the interagency, defense, think tank, academic, and business sectors, and provides commentary on contemporary Russian and Eurasian security issues.

Radio Free Europe/RL’s Georgian Service sat down with him at the premises of the Rondeli Security Conference 2024, in Tbilisi.

We began by asking him to recall his time in Moscow, in particular the mood there in 2014 when Russia attacked Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

“From our side, diplomatically, militarily, we knew that something was happening in the lead-up to the attack – the Russian news media were showing on their history channel black and white reels of historic Crimea and World War 2, the Crimean War in the 1800s, and the Great Patriotic War. They were accusing NATO of putting a base into Ukraine. The tension was there, the troops moving around. Little Green Men, I will grudgingly say, was quite a stealth operation. And Crimea was infiltrated and occupied in a matter of a week. It happened so fast, the West just didn’t put the pieces together, because it was a very brazen act. And then right on the tail end of that, the Russians started to infiltrate into Donbas. That was an ugly fight. And as an attaché, we would be out on the roads in Russia at that time, and seeing all the troops and the trains and all that moving south. And it was a very, very ugly period.

Was there also a military intelligence breakdown? Or was it something that was expected but just not acted upon?
I think the pieces were seen in different ways, but not completely put together. And there was an aspect of not believing that it was going to happen. The indicators were there. We knew early on in the Donbas fight that there were Russian regulars there, and at that point, we were quite awake to the issue. It was in Crimea that they stole the march, the way the Russians did it, this stealth infiltration I mentioned. The nickname there for the Russian troops was Vezhlivie Ludy, “polite soldiers,” and they were very careful about violence in Crimea. Reluctantly, I’ll say it was well executed. And I don’t think we had any idea what to do- it was a fait accompli. We sanctioned the hell out of Russia, but there were no security guarantees for Ukraine, and nobody was ready to go to war with the Russians. And the Russians knew it.

Present day, two years into the Ukraine war – where do we stand?
We all thought in the beginning that the Ukrainians would be overrun in weeks, yet they actually proved to be a viable, proud, born-in-battle nation. It’s got flaws, issues, but this is a nation that existentially is fighting for its life, this is probably something that the Georgians understand more than just about anybody in the region, about fighting for one’s life, going back to 2008. Two years into it, I’d say the Ukrainians had the upper edge until about six months ago.

I was in Kyiv back in May, with a delegation, and spoke to a number of defense and governmental officials. There was a guarded optimism about the counter-offensive. But the military guys were frank, saying, “I wish you weren’t all talking so much about the counter-offensive. It’s putting a lot of pressure on us.” And all the media and everybody was doing the planning for the counter-offensive for them, and then this long period waiting for the weapons. The Russians, as we have seen, were about as ready as they could be for the counter-offensive, with their massive fortifications. You can put conscripts in heavy fortifications and they’ll fight better. And then the minefields. But after all this, and the beating the Ukrainian offensive, I remind people that this isn’t the end of the war, the United States and its allies in World War Two in Europe, we had several reverses in our European campaign and also in Asia.

Everybody’s gotten so used to the Ukrainians winning with Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson, I call it k-three, that when it didn’t work, “oh my God, that’s the end!” But it’s not.

But now the Ukrainians are in a tough, grinded out stalemate, where troop power and ammunition matter. And while the Ukrainians are better and more motivated, one could say the Russian military has improved a lot. There’s one thing about being beaten up and slaughtered, that those who survive learn. So the Russians still aren’t very good, but they’ve learned a lot. They’ve gotten more mass along the border. They’re in a 600-mile World War One type of trench line with a focus in Donbas and to the south. And the Ukrainians are holding their own, but they are in a little bit of a Russian bear hug, they’re tight, they’re close, lots of artillery, lots of infantry. The Russians are taking much bigger losses, but the Ukrainians are taking a lot of losses too. And then you have these extraordinary, offsetting asymmetric successes by Ukraine in the Black Sea, they are remarkable.

Two years on, this merciless invasion is as vicious as it was on day one. Ukrainians are holding their own, but we just had Avdiivka, which was a bloody fight. And the Ukrainians had to pull out from Bakhmut. These are Verdun-type fights, where they took out a disproportionate amount of Russians, but they’ve lost a lot of Ukrainians too, and now they’re pushing towards Robotyne and some other towns. How long does the Ukrainian front hold, especially when they’re not getting the ammunition and the aid that they so desperately need? This is a crisis.

In many ways, Russia looks at the Ukrainian fight as more than just a fight. They want to subjugate Ukraine. And they’re trying to break the West, and Western cohesion. Putin has his legs back under him, it seems, and he’s back in charge. They survived Prigozhin a few months ago and they are grinding and pushing because they have a military system that is remorseless with its own people, throwing in grunts, convicts and all that.

We are at a decision point: Who are we? What are we – Europe, expanded Europe, Eastern Europe, United States, the North Atlantic relationship, if we let Ukraine to fail or be forced into a treaty or settlement, a ceasefire it doesn’t want? Then we forced them into it almost in a form of appeasement to the Russians. We don’t want to go to war with Russia, but Ukraine is the line. And we just can’t let them down. We need to pull together, stay together. We have major problems in my country, the US, that we’ve got to get through politically. Because we, I don’t want to oversell it, but we set an example. And we’re looking pretty confused and irresolute right now, despite the best efforts of the current administration.

It’s been 7 months since the last US supplemental aid. How many more will Ukraine have to wait?
This is sadly, in my mind, naked American politics. It’s no secret that there is mostly bipartisan support for Ukraine, that there is a wing of the Republican Party and the former president that wish to see Ukraine defeated, or at least don’t support it. And it couldn’t come at a more critical time. I believe we will get our package eventually, but it’s taken too long. I want to believe it’s going to be sorted out in the next month. It’s such an awful issue and situation. One of the problems the US has is that much of our population, certainly in the countryside, have not been well educated on Ukraine and what it means to them. And right now, it’s painted as sucking resources and that it’s expensive; it’s increasing the cost of food and life and gas and all of that. But we suffered through this before World War Two as well; we went through isolation. It’s incredibly dangerous. It’s short-sighted. It’s naive. And I think that our politics are twisted. And within certain aspects of that right-wing group, the MAGA group, they’re less sympathetic to Ukraine, and some of them, including the former president, even admire the Russians and Putin.

If Donald Trump comes back, what does it mean for the war in Ukraine?
I still hope he’ll be defeated, though right now it’s 50/50 that he will be the next president. I think we’ll retrench in some ways. Our alliances won’t go away, but it will become increasingly transactional again; it’ll be us against them. The US may be more directive in nature. Or Trump might decide the [Transatlantic] alliance isn’t good for America, for whatever his reasons are.

This is why it’s so important that we have it now, in our own law, codified, that a US president cannot unilaterally break the United States away from NATO. So there are precautionary things that are being done in Legislation and Judiciary, but it’s there. What Trump may do is give the Russians motivation. I think Putin has a big, big, big asterisk on his calendar for the American elections. And if Trump wins, he believes that’s a win for Moscow.

What would Trump’s Ukraine policy look like? Keeping in mind his famous claim that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours?
I don’t know. Ok, this is sheer speculation: He would work some deal-with-the-devil peace deal. There’s a strong man aspect of Trump. He may want to put muscle into it or something. He doesn’t have diplomatic finesse; he sees himself as a hardcore businessman. I think it’ll be troublesome. But you have a large foreign policy and large constituency in the United States that won’t agree with that. So he won’t have it easy. That said, he is clearly less interested in our security relations, in Europe and Asia, in Russia and South Korea and Japan; he has a feeling that our allies are free riding on United States’ defense. So it, as a minimum, will encourage Putin to be more aggressive on the margins of NATO. And it’ll shake the trust of our allies in the US, it will force the Europeans to be even tighter. I believe that Trump being president would be profoundly destabilizing, certainly in the near term, of what our long term World Order interests are.

What’s his problem with Ukraine, do you think?
Well, I think it’s a financial problem and he’s not always been positive about it. To be very blunt, he was embarrassed and impeached because of his misadventure, and trying to influence Zelensky in 2020. He got called out by Colonel Alex Vindman. And people on the NSC staff said “you can’t do that.” And then it came up into our congressional system and Trump got impeached. So I think that when he looks at Ukraine, he sees red, and he sees them as that whole screw-up, as a source of so many of his problems. I think he hates Ukraine, and he’s behind the scenes playing the strings. I believe there’s a large at heart, bilateral Republican group that are intimidated by the former president. And then, finally, there’s this side of Trump that has this weird admiration for Putin. I don’t know what the basis of it is, but it’s complex and murky and wrong.

Interview by Vazha Tavberidze

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