Fighting has resumed near Avdiivka, a town to the north of Donetsk, with multiple civilian and military casualties and thousands of people left without electricity, water and heating. (c). Friedemann Kohler DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.Last week, as I traveled around Ukraine’s eastern front, I found myself talking to soldiers stationed there. The new US president was a regular topic of conversation. “What’s with your new president? He seems unstable,” said one Ukrainian soldier before opening a gate to a hill-top military base. Another, examining our American passports at a checkpoint, asked us what we thought of him, and then threw in his own opinion that Trump is a “rare piece of shit”.
Others have responded more diplomatically. “If Trump is for democratic values and if his work is aimed at helping the development of democratic countries, then he will support Ukraine,” said Viacheslav Filin, commander of Ukraine’s 46th battalion, known as the Donbas Battalion. But for all of Trump’s talk about putting “the people” in charge, he isn’t very interested in promoting democracy at home or abroad as he dams the flow of information and enacts policy by executive order.
Trump comes up so much in eastern Ukraine because there is an awkward standoff in place. Despite a recent uptick in fighting, most places are quiet and returning to a kind of normalcy. But everyone knows that this quiet can vanish in an instant. Any action (or inaction) by Trump can change the status quo. That is a lot of power to give someone with little knowledge of, or interest in, Ukraine.
