Editor’s note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names only.
As calls mount for U.S. President Joe Biden to step aside in the upcoming presidential election among Democratic party allies in Washington, Ukrainian soldiers more than 5,000 miles away on the front lines are also voicing their concerns over the U.S. leader's ability to help them fight Europe’s bloodiest war since World War II.
Biden’s latest gaffe in an address at the NATO summit on July 11 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he accidentally introduced as Russian President Vladimir Putin, had Ukraine’s troops worried enough to tune into live feeds of the debacle or watch clips on social media, even amid fierce battles in the country’s east and south.
They expressed fears their country’s top Western ally and main source of weaponry to push back on Russia’s full-scale invasion risks being led by a leader not coherent enough to govern and not able to beat Donald Trump.
The former president and presumptive Republican candidate in the upcoming elections has questioned assistance for Kyiv and has expressed fondness for Putin.
"I believe that (Biden) needs to be removed urgently," Pavlo, a junior lieutenant at Ukraine's 63rd Mechanized Brigade, deployed in the Donbas, told the Kyiv Independent.
Pointing to Biden’s age, 81, he added: "Any reasonable Democrat will be better than him."
Biden was also lambasted for mistakenly referring to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as Trump just a mere couple of hours after the Zelensky-Putin mixup.
Since his poor performance in the June 27 presidential debate with Trump, pressure has been increasing on Biden to step down in favor of another Democratic candidate.
Biden's old age and health problems have also prompted doubts about his ability to lead the West and beat Trump in the election. Ukraine has also been worried about its key ally's potential political instability and possible problems with U.S. military and financial aid depending on the outcome of the election.
Despite this, Biden has so far refused to step down.
Pavlo from Ukraine's 63rd Mechanized Brigade believes that Biden's performance at the presidential debate and the July 11 news conference was "very bad."
He is also afraid of Trump’s potential victory.
“I have a bad opinion about Trump and hope that he will not come to power," Pavlo said. "I believe that (the Americans) will not vote for him because there are wise people in the U.S."
Oleh, a drone operator who works under the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said that “between the two (Biden or Trump) I would choose Biden."
"Despite his age and the fact that he needs to be more active, he is a friend of Ukraine, while Trump is a populist – maybe he (Trump) is a good businessman, but a good businessman and a good president are two different things," he added.
Oleh added, however, that Biden "is unfortunately already old” and “we need someone more active, productive and younger.”
Some Ukrainian soldiers like one named Marian, who used to be with the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, downplayed Biden’s gaffes but instead criticized him for restricting the use of U.S. weaponry on Russian territory to push back and defend Ukraine against a genocidal war waged by its northern neighbor.
“They’re giving us weapons not to win but to avoid losing,” Marian said.
Politicians and investors also concerned
Representatives of the business community shared concerns about the uncertainty looming ahead of the U.S. election and questions about the political stability of a country that for decades represented a “beacon of democracy.”
“With just over 100 days to go until the U.S. elections, Ukraine is watching very closely how events unfold across the Atlantic," Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Independent.
"Strategists are scratching their heads on what a post-Nov. 5 U.S.-Ukraine relationship may look like. A lot is at stake, as Russia is aiming to annihilate Ukraine, so building the right partnership and coalition based on trust and mutual understanding is absolutely essential.”
There are also concerns among Ukrainian lawmakers.
"To be honest, yesterday’s press conference was a failure, I don’t think it looked very good,” a source in Ukraine’s parliament told the Kyiv Independent. “It was supposed to be such a winning summit for him (Biden) before the election, and unfortunately, this whole press conference only again underscored all the issues that appeared in the debate.”
A source close to the Zelensky administration believes the situation in the U.S. shows "a disconnect between the reality of Ukraine and D.C. politics."
“I think D.C. has gone on to business as usual," the source said. "Some officials in D.C. feel like the war is won, when in reality war is far from won in Ukraine. There was a feeling at the NATO summit that everything is temporary because Trump will come in and change it all."
A leading representative of Ukraine's civil society who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter said that he did not expect any decisive positive steps from the U.S. soon due to the focus on elections.
The unstable situation in the U.S. is also negatively affecting reforms in Ukraine, he said.
"Currently they have a weak president and a weak administration and are focused on the election," he added, saying that the U.S. has less influence on reforms in Ukraine as a result.
But if Trump is elected, he will not be interested in promoting reforms in Ukraine at all, the civil society representative argued.
Instability is a challenge
Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko agreed that "problems with instability in the U.S. are a great challenge for us."
Support for Ukraine may also be undermined if the election triggers a political crisis in the U.S., he added.
Fesenko said that, as concerns about Biden's health mount, voters will be less motivated to vote for him but "Democrats have no strong candidate who could beat Trump."
He argued that both Biden and Trump pose problems for Ukraine.
"Biden's position is very cautious and not always consistent," Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent. "The Biden administration is aiming to prevent Ukraine from losing but it has no strategy for victory."
But the main problem with Trump is his unpredictability, Fesenko said.
Fesenko disagrees with the view that Trump is pro-Russian. However, there are both pro-Ukrainian and anti-Ukrainian groups around Trump, he added.
"This is the Americans' choice," Fesenko said. "We should support neither Biden nor Trump (in the election). Our interest is bipartisan support for Ukraine and preserving political stability in the U.S."
Yevhen, a drone engineer at Ukraine's 25th Airborne Brigade, echoed Fesenko's view that there are concerns both about Biden and Trump.
"Biden was very useful for Ukraine during the war but he did not fight against Russia strongly enough," he told the Kyiv Independent. And Trump is “ a chaotic person from whom we don't know what to expect," he said.
He regretted that the Democrats had not prepared a stronger and younger candidate. Yevhen hopes they will back Harris, "who would be a better president than both of them."
Concerns exaggerated?
Meanwhile, a former Ukrainian foreign minister told the Kyiv Independent that fears about the U.S. election are overblown, pointing to recent elections in Europe, where concerns about right-wing political groups that had been friendly with Russia turned out to be unjustified as voter support for them was less than feared.
He said that, if Trump is elected, Ukrainian politicians will simply have to learn to communicate with him.
According to the source, Trump is a businessman who is focused on making a political profit, with ideological concerns being secondary.
"The sooner Ukrainian politicians will realize how to deal with Trump as a businessman, the better," the source told the Kyiv Independent. "They should figure out what can be leveraged (in talks with Trump)."
Oleksandr Merezhko, a lawmaker from Zelensky's Servant of the People party and head of parliament's foreign policy committee, also said concerns about Biden and the U.S. election are exaggerated.
“First of all, quite frankly, I don’t see any problem in it because it was just a slip of the tongue which can happen to anyone. It happens to me," he told the Kyiv Independent. "I think it’s been overemphasized just because his debates have not been as successful as what was hoped for and for this reason, he’s under a microscope right now.“
He added that Biden's reaction to the slip of the tongue had a "sense of humor," and "he managed to turn it into a joke.”
Ukrainian soldiers obliged to share views with US brothers
Back on the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Mykola Melnyk, a senior lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, first said "it is wrong for Ukrainians to comment on the elections in the U.S."
"We have our own country and it is to our president that we have to address our demands," he told the Kyiv Independent.
But, he added: "At the same time, the Ukrainian soldier is obliged to turn to our American brothers, ordinary citizens of the U.S., every day, because now Ukraine is fighting for the values on which the U.S. was built — democracy, freedom, equality."
Continuing, he said it's "important for the American voter to realize that either the U.S. is fighting with us, not behind our backs, or Ukraine will lose and Russia will attack other NATO countries and then the Americans will have to bury their soldiers in coffins."
Melnyk added that "there is a chance to prevent this, to provide Ukraine with all the necessary weapons."
Not all Ukrainian soldiers had the opportunity to watch Biden's recent news conference with Zelensky, as they were too busy on the battlefield.
One of them, Valentyn from Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade said:
"No matter what, we will stand here until the end because we have to do all this dirty work."
Andrea Januta, and Chris York contributed reporting to this article.
Asami Terajima
