Outside the Ukrainian educational and cultural center in a quiet Pennsylvania suburb of Jenkintown, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a banner expressed unqualified gratitude: “Thank you USA for supporting Ukraine.” Inside, however, the sentiment was altogether different. Irene Skulsky, a retired teacher in her late 70s, voiced indignation at Donald Trump’s sudden turn against her ancestral homeland, which she believed had come close to killing her son, Darko, and a desire to punish his fellow Republicans at next week’s midterm elections. We need to shift the balance of power in Congress and in the Senate.” Days earlier, Skulsky told fellow members at a meeting of the Ukrainian American Senior Citizens Association, Darko had been sitting in traffic en route to work in Kyiv when Russian drone missiles slammed into five cars immediately ahead of him.
There had been no prior alert, allegedly as a result of a decision by Washington to suspend its intelligence-sharing arrangement with Ukraine that has acted as an early warning system against missiles attacks since Russia invaded in February 2022. In recent weeks, Trump – who pledged during his victorious 2024 presidential election campaign to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict within 24 hours of returning to office – appears to have abandoned Ukraine. He struck a deal with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to buy nearly 5m tonnes of diesel, overriding US sanctions on Moscow.
He called on Ukrainians to replace the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His administration was accused of throttling the Ukrainian military’s access to the Starlink satellite internet service. And while the Trump administration denied that it had stopped sharing intelligence this month, as relations with Ukraine nose-dived, Zelenskyy has said his country received no advance warning from US intelligence networks of two Russian missile attack waves.
Darko escaped injury, but several people in the vehicles in front were killed in the strikes, according to Skulsky. Her frustration spilled over to include Trump’s fellow Republicans, whom she said were “selling our souls” rather than standing up to the president. I think their heart is with Ukraine, but they’s sitting on their hands.” Many American Ukrainians will express their outrage at the polls on 3 November, according to Eugene Luciw, a retired lawyer and local representative of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, an advocacy group.
If Ukraine loses this war, we have the beginnings of world war three.” The most recent Ukraine development is the latest in a trio of Trump foreign policy decisions with the potential to hurt Republicans when Americans head to the polls next week. More relevant to voters’ living costs – a key issue in this election, according to polls – has been Trump’s protracted war with Iran, and his determination to impose tariffs on imports from much of the world. The Iran war, launched with Israel in February, shows no signs of ending despite Trump’s early claims that it would be a short-term “excursion” certain to end in the “unconditional surrender” of Tehran’s Islamic regime.
Instead, Trump has reportedly drawn up plans to launch renewed strikes against Iran after the midterms as he seeks to break Iran’s grip on the strait of Hormuz, an energy choke point that was the conduit for one-fifth of the world’s energy supplies before the Tehran regime closed it in response to being attacked. The strait’s closure has resulted in soaring global oil prices, which have been passed on to US consumers in the form of higher prices for petrol and diesel, which is vital for supply chains and US farmers. Polls have consistently shown voters’ disapproval of Trump’s handling of the war, and his management of the economy and inflation.
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