Ukraine prepares to sell Trump on why U.S. should maintain support

KYIV - As Ukraine prepares for the looming uncertainty of a new U.S. president, officials and business executives here are coming up with ways to sell Donald Trump on the idea that a strong Ukraine is useful to his political goals - and expressing cautious optimism that he may act faster and more decisively than President Joe Biden.

Kyiv hopes to convince Trump that Ukraine is not a charity case but a cost-effective economic and geostrategic opportunity that will ultimately enrich and secure the United States and its interests. Ukraine hopes that by embracing Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy - including offering American companies lucrative business opportunities - the new president will help ward off Russia’s advance.

Hopes that Trump will help end the war in a way Kyiv deems fair persist among officials despite views expressed by Trump and many in his inner circle that the conflict is costing U.S. taxpayers too much money and must be brought to a swift end. Such rhetoric has stirred fears that Trump will abruptly cut U.S. support for Ukraine’s military and push it to cede territory to Russia.

But officials here describe their frustration with the Biden administration’s slow rollout of aid. Many Ukrainians are essentially ignoring Trump’s recent negative comments to instead focus on how Trump was the first U.S. leader to directly sell lethal weapons to Ukraine.

During Trump’s first term, Ukraine got Javelin missiles - the shoulder-fired antitank weapons that the Obama administration had long refused to sell - which helped thwart Russian forces from seizing the capital in early 2022. Trump later pointed to the sales, the second of which came after his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became a key point in his impeachment scandal, to claim he was tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin than Democrats were.

“The first weapons that Ukraine received from the United States came from a president who hates Ukraine,” said Dmytro Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s foreign minister until September. He said that despite Trump’s unpredictability, his presidency could usher in an era of positive change for Ukraine.

To win Trump’s support this time around, Kyiv will need to create similar “situations when supporting Ukraine will be a projection of Trump’s strengths,” Kuleba said. “If his goal is to project strength and to say eventually that ‘I’m better than Biden, that Biden failed and I ended [the war],’ then selling out Ukraine is not the way forward.”

Ukrainians saw the Biden administration’s restrained approach toward aid as damaging to U.S. credibility as a global security guarantor. They also grew frustrated that Biden expressed support for Ukraine publicly but that when it came down to key weaponry decisions, his team took a conservative approach, expressing fears over Russian retaliation.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainians have begun pitching a new era for America’s Ukraine policy involving “peace through strength.” They hope that message will resonate with Trump in a way it did not with Biden.

Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Volodymyr Ariev said he expects that Trump will “check out every penny we spent in Ukraine as American aid,” not necessarily because he opposes Ukraine but because he is engaged in a broader feud with the Biden administration.

“If Trump wants to make America great again, it’s in his direct interest to protect Ukraine from being swallowed by Russia because this could be really a point of no return for the United States’ image as worldwide supervisor for security,” he said.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said it will be up to Kyiv to explain to Trump the political pragmatism behind supporting Ukraine.

“We need to provide representatives of the Trump administration, and Mr. Trump himself, with the most comprehensive information about the logic of the process,” he said. “You spend a small amount of money today to support Ukraine - on weapons, finances and so on - investing and producing. You completely nullify Russia’s military potential, and after that, you dominate.”

“I can barely imagine Trump playing along with someone like Putin,” he added.

Still, much has changed since Trump approved sending Javelins to Ukraine.

The president-elect is surrounded by an almost entirely new entourage - including Vice President-elect JD Vance, who as a senator voted against U.S. aid to Ukraine, and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has supported Ukraine with Starlink internet access but also mocked Zelensky and cast doubt on the U.S. role in the war.

Full-scale war has been raging in Ukraine for nearly three years, Kyiv is demanding membership in NATO - the military alliance Trump has threatened to quit - and Putin, responding to Biden’s recent decisions to loosen some military restrictions on Ukraine, has ramped up threats that he could intensify and expand the war.

Much of Ukraine’s ability to sway Trump’s views on next steps, observers say, will rely on Zelensky’s personal ability to convince him.

“A lot is going to fall on Zelensky’s shoulders,” said Scott Cullinane, head of government affairs for Razom, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports Ukraine. “He’ll have to take on that role of becoming that personal interlocutor with Trump. … And at this point, I’m not sure any other person or personality can do what’s required except for him.”

Zelensky appears to have already embraced that reality. He spoke with Trump by phone immediately after he won the election earlier this month - a conversation that followed a September meeting in which he presented to Trump his “victory plan,” which includes a section on Ukraine’s natural resources.

Ukraine is framing its reserves as fruitful business opportunities for Americans. It points to its natural gas storage, the largest in Europe, and the presence of minerals, including lithium, as potentially game-changing for microchips and electric car industries - something that might be of interest to Musk and his electric car business, as well.

“Control of lithium is the control of the future economy,” said Volodymyr Vasiuk, an expert in Ukrainian industry who advises Ukraine’s parliament on economic matters. It is better for the Western world if these materials remain in the hands of a “fairly friendly country like Ukraine,” he said.

Ukraine should take advantage of Trump’s business approach to foreign affairs and position itself to make deals with U.S. companies to mine its reserves, he said, especially for lithium. The largest such reserve is located in the central part of the country, far from current front lines.

In total, the country has enough lithium to produce 15 million electric car batteries, though one of the sites is already under Russian occupation and another is close to the front line, Vasiuk said.

“The Ukrainian gas market is the most lucrative in the world,” said Oleksiy Chernyshov, CEO of state-owned NaftoGaz, who will travel to the United States to meet with American companies in the coming weeks. “I’m confident U.S. companies have a great future in Ukraine now - not tomorrow.”

The Trump administration, he said, is made up of people with “more business expertise.”

“I think it’s great they might consider that. We are speaking about millions of dollars of contracts immediately,” he said.

The message has already reached some U.S. Republicans.

Speaking on Fox News last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who has repeatedly visited Ukraine throughout the war, described Ukraine as home to trillions of dollars of rare earth minerals.

“Ukraine is ready to do a deal with us, not the Russians,” he said. “So it’s in our interest to make sure Russia doesn’t take over the place.”