All eyes turned toward Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely person to lead the Democratic ticket this fall following U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would be leaving the 2024 presidential race.
If Harris is officially confirmed as the candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump in November — the Democratic party’s national convention delegates still have to select her as the candidate — and becomes president, the question for Ukraine is what that could mean for the course of the war.
While it is likely that if elected Harris’s policies toward Ukraine would remain similar to Biden’s, her appearances at three consecutive Munich Security Conferences — the first being in 2022 just five days before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion — offer clues into the stance she would take on Ukraine.
Representing the U.S. at each conference, Harris has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, using the platform to prove herself on the global stage and reiterate U.S. support for Kyiv.
Speaking at the conference in 2023, Harris said: "As President (Joe) Biden often says, 'The United States will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.' We will not waver.”
And at this year’s Munich Security Conference, she even did what appeared to be a bit of campaigning, taking shots without naming names at Trump and his party’s foreign policies.
She also recently represented the U.S. at the Peace Summit for Ukraine this June, announcing $1.5 billion in energy and humanitarian assistance and again condemning Russia for its brutal war.
"In the past, these moments on the global stage have been good for (Harris),” Matt Bennett, who served as an aide to former Vice President Al Gore, told CBS News in June. “She looks presidential and very capable among world leaders."
John Herbst, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, said he doesn’t expect American policy toward Ukraine to deviate much from Biden’s should Harris secure the White House in November.
Even if the next few weeks don’t equate to Harris as the Democrat’s nominee, Herbst expects a Ukraine policy roughly similar to Biden’s if any Democrat is elected this fall, especially if there isn’t much turnover at places like the Defense Department.
The global stage was also reminded of Harris’s professional experience as a former lawyer and attorney general during the Munich conference in 2023 when she expressed that the U.S. has determined Russia committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
“I say to all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors, who are complicit in these crimes, you will be held to account," Harris said. “There are inalienable human rights, which governments must respect and that the rule of law must be preserved."
Making Russia pay, metaphorically and literally, has been a consistent presence in Harris’s remarks on the war in Ukraine. She has said that if the U.S. stands by while an aggressor invades a neighboring country with impunity, history will repeat itself and they will keep going.
Harris’s focus on Ukraine at each conference has struck various chords, straightforward at times and focused on peace and returning Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia at others.
During the 2024 Munich conference, she said it is in the strategic interest of the U.S. to continue supporting Ukraine.
“International rules and norms are on the line … including the fundamental principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she added.
Harris continued, saying the U.S. will support Ukraine’s efforts to reach lasting peace when the country can emerge from the war as a “nation that is free, democratic, and independent.”
Without naming former president Trump directly, Harris’s remarks regarding the war in Ukraine have also at times served multiple audiences.
“In these unsettled times it is clear America cannot retreat. America must stand strong for democracy,” Harris said during the 2024 conference. “We must stand in defense of international rules and norms and we must stand with our allies.”
Some in the United States disagree, she added in those remarks.
“They suggest it is in the best interest of the American people to isolate ourselves from the world, to flout common understandings among nations, to embrace dictators and adopt the repressive tactics and abandon commitments to our allies in favor of unilateral action,” Harris said.
“That worldview is dangerous, destabilizing, and indeed shortsighted.”
Harris's foreign policy experience, especially of late as she’s gone from years in the shadows to now in the spotlight, has been an intimate engagement with Ukraine.
Peter Rough, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said, however, that it was unclear how Harris would approach Ukraine if elected.
"Although we don't know how Kamala Harris would handle the Ukraine file as president, we do know that she is not a foreign policy specialist and holds progressive values," Rough said.
"For now, I expect continuity on the campaign trail from Harris as she defends the administration's record and seeks to rally the Democratic party."
Oleg Sukhov
