What Ukraine can expect from Harris and Trump: an interview with policy analyst Doug Klain

The dynamics of the U.S. presidential race change, without exaggeration, every week, so Kyiv is closely monitoring the signals coming from the Democratic and Republican camps. While Donald Trump once again declared that he would end the war within a day and could have prevented the Russian invasion in general, Kamala Harris remains publicly silent on the Ukrainian issue.

What Ukraine can expect from the Harris administration if she is to be elected in November, and what is the real purpose of Trump's statements regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war — read below in the interview of "Telegraf" with Doug Klain, political analyst of the "Razom for Ukraine" organization (Washington, DC).

Harris has excellent advisors

— What kind of policy regarding Ukraine to expect from Kamala Harris in case of her win: in your opinion, could her administration be more decisive than Joe Biden’s, or softer?

— It's a great question. I think that we will certainly see a Harris administration with a policy toward Ukraine that is at least equally as good as what we have seen from the Biden administration. They will likely try to build on what has been done under the Biden-Harris administration. On whether we can see more decisiveness, less fear of escalation or provocation to Russia, it's going to matter a lot if Harris were to win who are the people that she fills her administration with.

In the U.S. as part of this presidential election, it's kind of understood that Harris's background is not in foreign policy. During the current administration, Joe Biden, who has had a long record on foreign policy, took ownership of these issues. And Harris hasn't really had the opportunity, both as vice president and during her time in Congress as a senator from California, to engage on foreign policy issues.

Now, she has some excellent advisors. One of them is her national security advisor Phil Gordon. And if she were to win, he would be a very prominent figure in foreign policy. He could be the next Jake Sullivan. In terms of his background and approach, Gordon is a classic Europeanist. He is an American foreign policy expert whose real focus and expertise is on Europe and European security.

And I think that's something where we might see some differences from the Biden administration's policy. There might be a real opportunity for Phil Gordon and other officials in the Harris administration to perhaps be acting more like some of the European allies who really understand the threat that Russia poses and the need to act decisively.

— We've seen that Biden's administration was criticized for a lack of a unified strategy for the victory in Ukraine. Congress demanded it from the White House, but we didn't see this strategy being published. So can we expect such a strategy from the next Democratic president, if Harris were to win?

— I think there's an opportunity for the Biden administration to meet their obligations set out by Congress and submit a strategy for victory in Ukraine before they leave office. At the same time, they may not prioritize it. They likely won't face real consequences from Congress if they don't submit it. And they might say, "We don't want to limit Hariss’s options by saying this is what you should do." They might want to leave it up to her.

Now, in contrast, if Donald Trump were to win in November, the Biden administration might work very quickly to submit a strategy to Congress, because it could then limit Trump's options. If he were to deviate from that strategy, then that would be a headline of the news and it will raise political costs if he tries to seek an unjust peace in Ukraine.

Trump wants to be the person who has ended the war

— Trump said that he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours a couple of times already. Is it like just a part of his campaign, or is there a real strategy behind these words?

— When it comes to Trump, and especially this phrase that he will end the war in 24 hours, the best way to understand this is as a tool for trying to win in this campaign. He has said he will bring peace. That he will end the 'Ukraine war'. That was on placards at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

That's a very difficult thing to argue with. If somebody just says, "I will end the war, I will bring peace" for most Americans that sounds fine. They don't really understand what an unjust peace would mean, what a ceasefire, occupation [of the Ukrainian territories], and Russian rearmament would mean. And when Trump says, "I will bring peace, I will end the war" it's very difficult to counter that in the U.S. When he leaves this vague, it's hard for others to point out this is not realistic.

But Trump does have advisors who have laid out their visions for how he could end the war. And we've seen one version of that plan came from the America First Policy Institute, and it was reportedly presented to Trump, and he allegedly responded positively to it. And this was really a negative vision for ending the war.

This vision had a Trump administration threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine to force it to the negotiating table with Russia, threatening Russia with arming Ukraine more to force Moscow to the negotiating table, and being willing to trade away Ukrainian NATO membership to try to coerce Ukraine into giving away territories to Russia in exchange for some kind of a ceasefire and unjust peace.

It's a very naive plan that does not understand Moscow's real aims in this war. And if that's something that Trump responded positively to, and if he were to pursue that, that would be a very extraordinarily difficult situation for Ukraine.

There was a more positive vision that was laid out by Trump's former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He wrote a Wall Street Journal article where he laid out a different version of Trump's idea of "peace through strength". And there were more positive things in it, like arming Ukraine to the teeth to make sure that Russia knew it could never conquer Ukraine, like getting Ukraine into NATO and the EU as soon as possible, like using hundreds of billions of frozen Russian assets to reconstruct Ukraine and making Putin pay in that way.

All of the debate between these ideas in public is kind of indicative that Trump does not seem to have a clear strategy for what he actually wants to do. He is open to ideas from advisers on this. He just wants to be the person who has ended the war, who gets a victory. And whatever adviser can say, "This is how you get a win, I can give you the victory that Joe Biden could never achieve," that's probably the most likely thing that he might do. Trump doesn't seem to have a clear preference for what happens to Ukraine. He just wants it to be a win for him.

Walz is going to follow Harris's lead

— And if we talk about the picks of Harris and Trump for Vice Presidents. Given the debates between Tim Walz and JD Vance on a number of domestic policy issues, should we expect discussions between the two candidates on foreign policy, in particular, support of Ukraine in the coming months? We’ve heard statements from Vance. But what might Walz's position be?

— I think that when we have the debates between Tim Walz and Jay De Vance, it is likely that Ukraine will come up as a key point of discussion. Especially because it's something that both of these guys have strong and different positions on. As Senator, J.D. Vance has really gone out of his way to work on Ukraine issues in quite negative ways that are not beneficial to Ukrainian victory or to U.S. strategic interests. He's somebody who has advocated for the U.S. to walk away from Ukraine.

And that's quite different from Tim Walz's position. As governor of Minnesota, he has gone out of his way to show support and solidarity for Ukraine. He made Minnesota a partnership with Chernihiv oblast. One year ago he had a call with President Zelenskyy, along with other U.S. governors, and expressed lasting support for Ukraine.

Obviously, as a governor, there are fewer things that Walz is able to do in foreign policy. So it'll be worth seeing how his positions get more defined. But he is certainly going to be following Vice President Harris's lead.

Anything that he is saying on Ukraine during the campaign, nine times out of ten will be because that is the policy of the Harris campaign. Usually, vice-presidential candidates, even if they have different views, will tend to conform them to the presidential candidates. And that's even what happened with Joe Biden when he was Barack Obama's vice presidential pick. He changed some views to conform with the person at the top of the ticket.

But there are many indications that Walz is somebody who absolutely believes in helping Ukraine win. And I think that given his background as well as a veteran, he is very well positioned to make that argument to the American people of why Ukraine's victory is in our interest. He can speak to America's role in the world and why U.S. leadership is necessary for security and stability and why a great war in Europe is bad for us.

He also has a really extensive academic background on the issue of genocide. And that's something that may influence his thinking on Ukraine too.

— Yes, he's a great speaker. I watch a lot of rallies of Democrats and Republicans, and I think Walz is just really good at bringing people an understanding of some issues given also his teacher background.

— Absolutely. His skills as a communicator are really an asset to the Harris campaign, especially on difficult issues that at times have been hard to communicate to the American people. You know, we have not seen the Biden administration really go in on selling support for Ukraine to the American people. We might see that from Harris and Walz.

But this campaign is going to focus on domestic politics. Foreign policy is not the key issue that Americans are going to be voting on. And we're going to see much more time dedicated to domestic issues and issues of U.S. democracy. They likely will not try to make Ukraine a key issue.

What Biden can do?

— Aside from the elections, we understand that Joe Biden will remain in the Office until January and the inauguration of the next president-elect. So is it possible that he will take bold steps regarding assistance to Ukraine in the next months? I mean, we are witnessing the Ukrainian operation in Kursk, and the U.S. seems okay with that. Is this like a part of a new approach by the Biden administration?

— It is likely that we might see some differences from the Biden administration between now and January. They are leaving office, and we know that they are going to want to put Ukraine in the best position possible before that. For instance, we might see progress in transferring Russian frozen state assets.

And we're seeing some differences in rhetoric when it comes to responding to the Kursk operation. But also, Biden himself is not going to change overnight. And Jake Sullivan is not going to change overnight.

It's going to matter a lot who wins in November. If it's Trump, then I think we might see some more extreme actions from the Biden administration to try to insulate Ukraine or set it up as best as possible before Trump takes over.