"And This Is The Most Important Thing That Could Happen In The U.S. Election"

• 3.11.2026, 15:49

It will be harder for Trump to be friends with Putin.

Midterm elections have begun in the U.S., and they could become a turning point for the second presidential term of Donald Trump.

Can these elections be considered a kind of referendum on confidence in the White House? The website Charter97.org discussed this with Ukrainian political scientist and professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv Petro Oleshchuk:

— Let me start by saying that the Democrats have a very good chance of winning a majority in the House of Representatives. At least, all preliminary estimates and polls indicate that the Democrats are likely to win there. As for the Senate, the situation is somewhat more complicated, since only one-third of its seats are up for re-election.

Many analysts point out that there is a chance the Democrats could also secure a majority in the Senate, but this is not guaranteed. In any case, there is a small gap both between the candidates and in the number of seats. Overall, the Senate remains up in the air. In any case, this will mean that even if the Democrats secure a majority in just one chamber, the White House’s absolute power will come to an end.

He will now be forced to reckon with a fairly serious and organized opposition that will have concrete leverage over him and his policies.

As for whether these elections can be considered a referendum on Trump’s popularity, in a sense, yes. Although it should be noted that the trend of the incumbent president’s party losing midterm elections—that is, elections held halfway through his presidential term—is not unique to the United States. In fact, it’s more like the norm. But on the other hand, when Trump won the presidential election, he won very decisively. At the time, many people spoke of a new era dawning. Even back then, the U.S. president was talking about amending the Constitution so he could run for a third term. In other words, it followed that all of this was meant to last, and in fact, Trump himself is largely to blame for all of this.

I think the Republican Party will most likely see internal infighting. For example, a search for who is to blame. There will, of course, be attempts to blame Ukraine, including for the attacks on the oil refinery. But I think everyone ultimately understands: Trump is to blame because of his war in the Middle East. It has driven up prices for oil and petroleum products, and that is very important to the Republican electorate in particular.

The White House’s attempts to somehow change the situation through a deal with Putin, it seems to me, have only made things worse. Ukraine has now launched a new series of attacks on Russian oil refineries. So far, it’s not clear that all these agreements with Putin will bring Trump any practical benefit, aside from a significant reputational risk.

— To what extent could the midterm election results affect U.S. aid to Ukraine?

— That’s a difficult question. Foreign policy remains the president’s prerogative. Therefore, ultimately, Trump still has quite serious tools of influence at his disposal. But what is Congress’s primary function—besides the legislative one—in the American political system? It is that Congress alone controls U.S. finances. In other words, the Pentagon’s budget and any funds that are allocated will be approved only through Congress.

It’s important to understand that, overall, the American legislative system differs significantly from the system we’re more familiar with in Europe. That is, they don’t have, for example, a single, clear document titled “the U.S. budget for the coming year.” As a rule, it consists of a series of different documents—a series of separate laws with varying terms of validity.

In principle, if the Democrats win the congressional elections, they could very well include aid for Ukraine in the next budget. Trump would then face a choice: either veto the budget and risk, for example, serious problems in the United States, or sign it and thereby approve it. In other words, all of this will be up for negotiation. In fact, the U.S. president himself speaks openly about this, saying, “I’ll be ‘Mr. Veto.’” But ultimately, everyone comes to an agreement. That’s how it all works.

That is, in exchange for voting in favor of certain decisions that Trump cannot do without. After all, he can do without legislation, but he cannot do without a budget. This opens up a space for compromise.

I’ll note that you can’t really say that all Democrats are pro-Ukraine and so on. That’s certainly not the case. But in any case, since they themselves see how Trump has seriously created problems for himself with his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, they may well push the issue of support for Ukraine, including as a means of putting pressure on Trump.

In other words, this will in any case be a domestic political issue, but Trump will no longer be able to carry it all out on his own. Since the U.S. president has significantly violated U.S. law through his deals with Putin, we can expect fairly serious investigations at the congressional level: these include the diesel agreements and all of Trump’s other actions aimed at forming an alliance with Putin. I think that even if Ukraine doesn’t receive any specific assistance in the form of weapons or anything else, there will certainly be very serious tools available to block all of Putin’s attempts to reset relations with Trump—and Trump’s attempts to reset relations with Putin.

So it will become much more difficult and problematic for Trump to be friends with Putin. And that is probably the most important thing that could happen.