At the end of the assembly line inside the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky autographed one of the 155-millimeter artillery shells critical to keeping his nation from losing the brutal land war started by Russia nearly three years ago.
The Ukrainian leader, dressed in his trademark olive green, then handed the pen to two politicians in suits for their signatures: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. Prominent surrogates for Vice President Kamala Harris, both Democrats smiled and shook hands as videographers captured the moment.
To Republicans, the tour looked an awful lot like a campaign stop in a critical battleground state. And the next day when the New Yorker magazine published its interview with Zelensky, it sounded an awful lot like the foreign leader was making an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump did not know how to end the war, Zelensky said, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, is “dangerous” and “too radical.”
Harris leads Trump in the RealClearPolitics Average by 2.2 percentage points nationally and by less than a single point in Pennsylvania. The battle for Ukraine, meanwhile, has devolved into trench warfare reminiscent of the First World War. Election Day here is in six weeks.
While Zelensky insists that meddling in an election would “be wrong,” he is intimately familiar with the U.S. political system after serving as a central, albeit unwilling, character in the first Trump impeachment. Ukraine is once again front and center in American presidential politics. He still gave the interview.
“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” Zelensky said of the Republican vice-presidential nominee during the interview conducted before he flew to the U.S. “But I believe that we have shielded America from total war.”
The foreign leader said of the former president, who vowed to bring the war to an end, “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” he said. “With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it, the less you understand.”
Nothing about the Pennsylvania trip or the advance interview sat well with everyone. Sen. Eric Schmitt said Republicans recognize a campaign stop when they see one. “It is infuriating that the Democrats would bring a foreign leader in to try to influence our elections,” the Missouri Republican, who sits on the Amed Services Committee, told RealClearPolitics. He blasted Zelensky for his “political statements” and took issue with his travel to the United States.
Zelensky flew aboard a U.S. Air Force C17 to Pennsylvania, where Gov. Shapiro made sure to welcome him on the tarmac. “The idea that you bring in Zelensky to a battleground state in the heat of an election cycle,” Schmitt said, “is un-American.”
The son of the Republican presidential nominee felt similarly. “A foreign leader who has received billions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers, comes to our country and has the nerve to attack the GOP ticket for President? And he does this right after a pro-Ukraine zealot tried to assassinate my father,” Donald Trump Jr. posted on social media. “Disgraceful!”
While the visit coincides with an election, the Ukrainian president also had state business to attend to, namely an address at the United Nations General Assembly this week. He is also slated to meet separately with President Biden and Vice President Harris before also speaking with Trump. As Congress debates another $375 million Ukraine aid package, which Zelensky has said would “determine the future of this war,” he plans to present Biden, Harris, and Trump with his “plan for victory.”
As the war drags on and Republicans argue that America’s national interest would be better served by securing the border or preparing for a conflict with China, the Biden administration has repeatedly declined to define what victory looks like.
“The reason it’s difficult to define what winning is, is because, obviously, our view continues to be that an ends will be through a diplomatic process and a diplomatic conversation,” Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, told RCP in April 2022 when the war was still new. “The Ukrainians are the ones who determine what the outcome of that will look like, not for us to determine on their behalf.”
The White House sent Congress a report earlier this month outlining its strategy for the war, a statuary requirement included in the last aid package. It remains classified, and its contents only known to lawmakers. The U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to the ally in military and humanitarian aid, delivering more material support than the European Union.
Among conservatives, Ukraine has become a political minefield. House Speaker Mike Johnson muscled through more military aid for the beleaguered ally earlier this year but had to enlist Democrats’ support after numerous Republicans balked.
Vance, meanwhile, represents the vanguard of a New Right defined by skepticism of foreign intervention. He has outlined an offramp to the conflict: Territorial concessions, a demilitarized zone, and an agreement that Ukraine would never join NATO. Critics say the senator is copying the notes of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. His supporters say Vance is just being realistic. For his part, the GOP candidate told RCP earlier this summer that the U.S. must look to its own challenges stateside before seeking to help an ally prosecute a war “6,000 miles away as tragic as it is.”
Zelensky has not taken kindly to that analysis. He suggested in his interview with the New Yorker that a peace settlement was tantamount to appeasing Adolf Hitler. “Let Mr. Vance read up on the history of the Second World War, when a country was forced to give part of its territory to one particular person,” Zelensky said. “What did that man do? Was he appeased or did he deal a devastating blow to the continent of Europe – to many nations, broadly, and to the Jewish nation in particular?”
The faraway war taking place today was center stage at the first debate between Trump and Harris, who were both pressed to defend their positions on Ukraine.
“Negotiate a deal,” Trump said when asked about how he would bring the war to a close but without saying whether he wants to see Ukraine triumph over Russia. “Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.”
Trump insists the Russians would have never invaded had he remained president, a counter-factual that Harris dismisses as ridiculous. “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe,” she replied before repeating a prepared line that caught most political observers off-guard. “Why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up?”
The Associated Press later reported the strategy behind the canned line: There are an estimated 784,000 Polish Americans in Michigan, 758,000 in Pennsylvania, and 481,000 in Wisconsin. In a race that comes down to a razor-thin margin, the overture could pay dividends. Ukrainian Americans could be just as important in the Keystone State.
“Pennsylvania is home to the second largest Ukrainian-American population of any state in the nation,” Gov. Shapiro said in a video memorializing his visit with Zelensky, “and we share a special kinship between our people.”
Critics of the U.S. support for Ukraine also noted the political dimension, but in a much less sanguine way. “It is not in America’s interest for this war to continue, and it infuriates me that there are not more policymakers acknowledging that now in regard to the political nature of this visit,” said Dan Caldwell, a public policy advisor at Defense Priorities. “I don’t blame Zelensky for trying to manipulate American politics,” he added. “I blame policy makers in both parties for allowing it to happen.”
Zelensky has become something of a celebrity in this country for his heroism in the face of Russian aggression. He famously spurned the U.S. offer to evacuate him from Kyiv during the early days of the war, saying, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” The Biden administration has subsequently delivered everything from F-16 fighter jets to M1 Abrams tanks. Soon, the American taxpayer will also send the artillery shell he autographed in Pennsylvania in the middle of an election season.
