Ukrainian Americans Weigh Ukraine Policy Ahead of US Midterms
Many American Ukrainians will express outrage at the polls on 3 November, according to Eugene Luciw, a retired lawyer and local representative of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a Ukrainian American organisation. The vote comes as the Trump administration's handling of the war in Ukraine has drawn criticism from Ukrainian Americans and others.
In Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, a banner outside the local Ukrainian educational and cultural center reads "Thank you USA for supporting Ukraine." Irene Skulsky, a retired teacher in her late 70s, spoke to fellow retirees there. She told them, "When we vote, we have to vote with Ukraine in our hearts," and urged them to shift the balance of power in Congress and the Senate.
Skulsky also described a personal experience. According to her, her son Darko was sitting in traffic on his way to work in Kyiv when Russian drone missiles hit five cars directly ahead of him. Darko was not injured, she said, but several people in the vehicles in front were killed.
The war has been a long-running question for the Trump administration. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict within 24 hours of returning to office. As of 22 October, he had recently turned renewed attention to the war, according to Reuters.
Since then, several developments have drawn scrutiny. Reporting by The Guardian says Trump struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy nearly 5 million tonnes of diesel, overriding US sanctions, meaning restrictions the US had placed on Moscow. The same reporting says Trump called on Ukrainians to replace President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and that the administration was accused of throttling the Ukrainian military's access to Starlink, a satellite internet service.
Intelligence sharing has also been disputed. The Trump administration denied that it had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine in October. Zelenskyy said Ukraine received no advance warning from US intelligence networks of two Russian missile attack waves. The Guardian also reports that voters who backed Trump in the last election say they cannot vote for him, calling it "an abomination."
Voters will go to the polls on 3 November for the midterm elections, which are held during a president's term rather than in a presidential election year. Control of both chambers of Congress is at stake. The Associated Press counts 35 Senate contests, 435 House contests and 36 gubernatorial races. Reuters reported that more than 100 million people were expected to vote if turnout resembled the 2022 midterms.
Foreign policy has also come up beyond Ukraine. On 28 October, Trump said "anything's possible" when asked whether the US would conduct more strikes against Iran after the midterm elections.
