DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Last year, when the two met there, things got tense.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You’ve allowed yourself…
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: From the very beginning of the war…
TRUMP: …To be in a very bad position…
ZELENSKYY: From the very beginning of the war…
TRUMP: …That he happens to be right about it.
ZELENSKYY: From the very beginning of the war…
TRUMP: You’re not in a good position.
ZELENSKYY: I was…
TRUMP: You don’t have the cards right now.
ELLIOTT: That was at the White House in February of last year, but a lot has happened since. Trump and Zelenskyy appear to have mended their relationship, despite the fact that support for Ukraine remains divisive among Republicans. Meanwhile, just last week, Ukraine’s military leadership went through one of its biggest shakeups since the start of the full-scale invasion. Oleksandr Kraiev has been following these developments closely from Kyiv. He’s the North America director of the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, a Kyiv-based think tank. Welcome to the program.
OLEKSANDR KRAIEV: Yes. Hello. Nice to connect to you.
ELLIOTT: So in just the last two weeks, Zelenskyy has fired both his defense minister and the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Can you tell us about the significance of those moves and what prompted them?
KRAIEV: Well, first of all, the main problem here is basic governmental mismanagement, because president has no authority without the legal support from the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian Parliament, and without good arguments on why he is going to fire these people. He has no authority to do so. So basically, the main outrage was not only because it was Fedorov or it was somebody else but because Zelenskyy distinctively overstepped his own authority, and he definitely violated several positions from Ukrainian constitution. So that was the first this year. I mean, that was the first major crisis of Ukrainian democracy, which hopefully was prevented by the activity of Ukrainian civil society and the activity of Ukrainians on the street.
ELLIOTT: What was the scene on the street like, and what were people saying?
KRAIEV: Well, as also being a senior lecturer at Kyiv University, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, I can only say that most of our students were there at the streets protesting these managerial decisions of Zelenskyy. We see a lot of young people. We saw a lot of families with children being there. They are well organized. They are well managed through the social media. They involve a lot of people from different backgrounds, as I say. A lot of military guys were also there.
So there is a very distinguishably diverse crowd on the streets of Kyiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr and basically all the major cities in Ukraine. And to many of my compatriots, that was a sign that Ukrainian democracy is still very vibrant. Although we didn’t have elections since 2019, we still see that Ukrainians are not ready to give up on the democracy. And even in wartime, Ukrainians are not ready to give up on their right to protest if the government is ready to do some shady stuff.
ELLIOTT: So now with these two figures no longer at their military post, who’s leading the war effort?
KRAIEV: Well, basically, we have a new general, Drapatyi. He is career military person from Ukrainian armed forces. He was on the first armored vehicle that entered Mariupol when the Mariupol was liberated from the Russian occupiers in 2014. He’s the general of the modern war. He is the one who was fighting for Ukraine since the start of the Russian aggression nearly nine years ago.
And a very big plus for him, especially image-like plus, is that he’s not very media active. Because unfortunately, we saw a lot of the so-called media generals who were mostly active talking about the great victories but not doing even enough for their men. And Drapatyi – he was very – to a very, very big extent, he was shy to promote his successes. Although some of his tactics and some of his approaches, even in training, were deliberately sent to other brigades, to other battalions, to be taught and to be used by other generals. So Drapatyi is one of the best possible variants that Zelenskyy could have chosen.
ELLIOTT: Now, after these tumultuous two weeks in Ukraine, President Zelenskyy is headed here to D.C. to meet with President Trump in just a couple of days. How would you describe their relationship heading into this meeting?
KRAIEV: To say the least, the relations are unpredictable. We definitely do remember their first meeting last year at the Oval Office. But after that, we heard Trump speaking about Zelenskyy in a very good tones. He was speaking about Ukrainians as being the protectors of Europe. He was also speaking about Ukrainians as being the one who started the war. However, we should also understand that as of now, Ukraine and Zelenskyy, personally – we are beneficial for Trump, much more beneficial than the Russians. Because it is not the idea for us to get Trump for being pro-Ukrainian. He cannot be pro-Ukrainian or even pro-Russian. He’s pro-Trumpian.
So the idea for us is just to create this understanding in the Oval Office, in Trump’s head, that he should work with Ukraine rather than working with Russia. Because Russia – they are sabotaging the talks. They are blaming everything on either Europeans or Ukrainians. They do nothing to get the deal done. And what is interesting for President Trump is just to get the deal done, and that is why he’s interested in meeting Zelenskyy. So in that case, if my understanding of Trump is correct, the main task for Zelenskyy is just to get on his good side and get everything rolling.
ELLIOTT: That’s Oleksandr Kraiev, a political analyst at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council in Kyiv. Thanks for your insights.
KRAIEV: Thank you for having me.
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