Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents

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KYIV — Four senior mem­bers of Don­ald Trump’s entourage have held secret dis­cus­sions with some of Kyiv’s top polit­i­cal oppo­nents to Volodymyr Zelen­skyy, just as Wash­ing­ton aligns with Moscow in seek­ing to lever the Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent out of his job. 

The senior Trump allies held talks with Ukrain­ian oppo­si­tion leader Yulia Tymoshenko, a remorse­less­ly ambi­tious for­mer prime min­is­ter, and senior mem­bers of the par­ty of Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s imme­di­ate pre­de­ces­sor as pres­i­dent, accord­ing to three Ukrain­ian par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and a U.S. Repub­li­can for­eign pol­i­cy expert. 

The dis­cus­sions cen­tered on whether Ukraine could hold quick pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. These are being delayed in line with the country’s con­sti­tu­tion because Ukraine remains under mar­tial law. Crit­ics of hold­ing elec­tions say they could be chaot­ic and play into Russia’s hands, with so many poten­tial vot­ers serv­ing on the front lines or liv­ing abroad as refugees.

The Trump aides are con­fi­dent that Zelen­skyy would lose any vote due to war fatigue and pub­lic frus­tra­tion over ram­pant cor­rup­tion. Indeed, his poll rat­ings have been in decline for years, although they have picked up in the wake of last week’s Oval Office brawl, when the Ukrain­ian leader was shown the door after being berat­ed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance. The most recent poll shows Zelen­skyy still com­fort­ably ahead in the race for the presidency.

The offi­cial line from the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion is that Trump is not inter­fer­ing in Ukraine’s domes­tic pol­i­tics. This week, Com­merce Sec­re­tary Howard Lut­nick denied his boss was “weigh­ing into Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics,” adding all that Trump wants is a part­ner for peace.

But the behav­ior of Trump and his offi­cials sug­gests quite the oppo­site. Trump has accused Zelen­skyy of being a “dic­ta­tor with­out elec­tions,” and hint­ed he would not be “around very long” if he didn’t do a deal with Rus­sia. Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard has false­ly accused Kyiv of can­cel­ing the elec­tion. (In response to the news in this arti­cle, Elon Musk tweet­ed: “Ukraine needs to hold an elec­tion. Zelen­sky would lose by a landslide.”)

But while the Trump camp may hope an elec­tion will sink Zelen­skyy, he is still mas­sive­ly more pop­u­lar than Tymoshenko and Poroshenko. 

In a poll con­duct­ed by British poll­ster Sur­va­tion this week after the blow-up at the White House, 44 per­cent said they would back Zelen­skyy for the presidency.

His near­est rival, trail­ing him by more than 20 per­cent­age points, is Valery Zaluzh­ny, a for­mer army com­man­der who is now Ukraine’s ambas­sador to Britain. Only 10 per­cent backed Poroshenko, who is known as the Choco­late King due to his con­fec­tionary empire. Tymoshenko gar­nered just 5.7 per­cent support.

Back channels

The key to all of the plans under dis­cus­sion via back chan­nels is to hold pres­i­den­tial elec­tions after a tem­po­rary cease­fire is agreed, but before full-scale peace nego­ti­a­tions get under­way in earnest. The idea of an ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is also being pushed by the Krem­lin, which has want­ed to be rid of Zelen­skyy for years.

Both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko have pub­licly opposed hold­ing elec­tions before the fight­ing ends, as has Kyiv May­or Vitali Klitschko. Nonethe­less, “Poroshenko’s peo­ple and Yulia, they’re all talk­ing to Trump World, posi­tion­ing them­selves as peo­ple who would be eas­i­er to work with. And peo­ple who would con­sent to many of the things that Zelen­skyy is not agree­ing to,” a top Repub­li­can for­eign pol­i­cy expert told POLITICO, ask­ing that his name be with­held so he could speak freely.

After pub­li­ca­tion of this sto­ry, the par­ties of both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko issued state­ments to defend their diplo­mat­ic activ­i­ties. Tymoshenko said her team was nego­ti­at­ing “with all our allies who can help ensure a just peace as soon as pos­si­ble.” She added it was cur­rent­ly impos­si­ble to hold elections. 

Poroshenko said: “We work pub­licly and trans­par­ent­ly with Amer­i­can part­ners, aim­ing to pre­serve bipar­ti­san sup­port of Ukraine.” He added that he had repeat­ed­ly offered to coor­di­nate con­tacts with Zelenskyy’s office and invit­ed the Ukrain­ian ambas­sador to Wash­ing­ton to par­tic­i­pate. “We have repeat­ed­ly spo­ken pub­licly about the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the rul­ing team with the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion, which pos­es a risk to the state,” he added.

He con­tin­ued: “The essence of our con­ver­sa­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Amer­i­can side has always been down to two prin­ci­ples — secu­ri­ty first and peace through strength. Name­ly weapons, intel­li­gence, sanc­tions against Rus­sia, finan­cial sup­port, demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience (free­dom and democ­ra­cy), transat­lantic uni­ty. Our team has always been and is adamant against elec­tions dur­ing a war.”

POLITICO also reached out to the four mem­bers of Trump’s entourage men­tioned as being involved in the dis­cus­sions, but received no imme­di­ate reply.

For days now, Trump cab­i­net offi­cials have sug­gest­ed Zelen­skyy should step aside unless he comes ful­ly on board with the U.S. plan to end the war rapid­ly, even if it involves major con­ces­sions by Ukraine.

Since last Friday’s explo­sive clash at the White House, the Zelen­skyy-should-go theme has only inten­si­fied with the Ukrain­ian leader’s domes­tic polit­i­cal oppo­nents indi­cat­ing pub­licly, albeit sub­tly, that Ukraine’s rela­tions with Wash­ing­ton are all-impor­tant and must be restored. That is being viewed in Kyiv as implied crit­i­cism of Zelen­skyy, who has now said he regrets last week’s fiery con­fronta­tion and is ready to work with Trump toward peace.

“We are see­ing some polit­i­cal fac­tions start­ing to move,” said Rus­lan Bort­nik, direc­tor of the Ukrain­ian Insti­tute of Pol­i­tics. “They’re try­ing to estab­lish infor­mal con­nec­tions or use the con­nec­tions they have with the Repub­li­can Par­ty or Trump’s entourage and to indi­cate their will­ing­ness to work with Wash­ing­ton,” he told POLITICO. 

“They are also sig­nal­ing pub­licly, too, although their words are very soft. But they’re dis­play­ing inde­pen­dent behav­ior to show Trump they’re ready to play his game.” 

“The elites are feel­ing very dis­ori­ent­ed and shocked because they under­stand very clear­ly that with­out Unit­ed States sup­port, Ukraine will be defeat­ed,” Bort­nik added.

Sev­er­al par­ty and fac­tion­al lead­ers have made state­ments this week say­ing the pri­or­i­ty for Ukraine must be to repair rela­tions with Trump. 

They include Rus­lan Ste­fanchuk, chair­man of Ukraine’s par­lia­ment and a mem­ber of Zelenskyy’s rul­ing par­ty, as well as Dmytro Razumkov, who led the par­ty to its 2019 par­lia­men­tary vic­to­ry but cur­rent­ly serves as an inde­pen­dent law­mak­er. Razumkov has demand­ed an urgent par­lia­men­tary ses­sion to set up a spe­cial leg­isla­tive group to over­see rela­tions with the Unit­ed States.

Trump’s deci­sion this week to pause mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine has only added to the polit­i­cal alarm here and has boost­ed the back-chan­nel­ing by Ukraine’s politi­cians with Trump World.

On Mon­day, Trump growled that Zelen­skyy “won’t be around very long” if progress isn’t made on a peace deal that sat­is­fies him. Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advis­er Mike Waltz said Wash­ing­ton need­ed “a leader that can deal with us, even­tu­al­ly deal with the Rus­sians, and end this war.”

The U.S. president’s Capi­tol Hill allies have also main­tained a drum beat against Zelen­skyy, with Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Lind­sey Gra­ham sug­gest­ing Ukraine would “need to get some­body new” unless Zelen­skyy comes to see things the way Trump does.

All of that is prompt­ing Zelenskyy’s domes­tic polit­i­cal oppo­nents and even some for­mer allies to pay court to Trump World to gain its bless­ing. “They’re posi­tion­ing them­selves as the best peo­ple to work with. And peo­ple who would con­sent to many of the things that Zelen­sky isn’t con­sent­ing to,” the Repub­li­can expert said.

Olek­san­dr Merezhko, chair of the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment, told POLITICO’s Pow­er Play pod­cast that elec­tions would only be to Moscow’s benefit.

“I believe Trump doesn’t care about whether Ukraine has elec­tions or not. It’s Putin’s nar­ra­tive, Putin’s goal. Trump is being used by Putin to impose elec­tions on Ukraine with only one pur­pose, to under­mine us from with­in. He wants to remove Zelen­skyy because he is a sym­bol of our resis­tance. Putin under­stands that an elec­tion cam­paign dur­ing times of war will be destruc­tive for our uni­ty and for our sta­bil­i­ty,” he said.

Poaching parliamentarians

The tremors from the Oval Office bust-up are also trig­ger­ing talk of par­lia­men­tary realignments.

Tymoshenko has in recent weeks been approach­ing law­mak­ers in rival par­ties to try to per­suade them to defect and join her fac­tion. She has told the law­mak­ers she’s been look­ing to poach that in her view, Zelen­skyy will have no choice but to call elec­tions soon, pro­vid­ing a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to shape a new par­lia­men­tary majority.

Zelen­skyy him­self has dis­missed the notion he’ll step down and joked with reporters in Lon­don over the week­end that even if elec­tions were held this year, he’d like­ly win. “You would have to pre­vent me from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tions,” he said, before sug­gest­ing, as he has pre­vi­ous­ly, that he would only resign if Ukraine received NATO mem­ber­ship, as that would mean his mis­sion was fulfilled.

On the face of it, Trump’s attacks haven’t weak­ened Zelen­skyy, who ini­tial­ly received wide­spread praise, even from crit­ics, for stand­ing his ground in the Oval Office. But the pre­dictable ral­ly-round-the-leader effect is wear­ing off as the poten­tial reper­cus­sions of the break­down between Kyiv and Wash­ing­ton are absorbed, Bort­nik said. The pol­i­tics of the coun­try is high­ly flu­id, he argued.

Pub­lic opin­ion is also start­ing to shift regard­ing the war, with around a quar­ter of the pop­u­la­tion, large­ly com­pris­ing the mil­i­tary and their rel­a­tives, want­i­ng the war to con­tin­ue until the Rus­sians have been eject­ed from all of Ukraine. But two-thirds of the pop­u­la­tion are more focused on talks and want the war to end — with half of those pre­pared to accept major con­ces­sions by Ukraine, and the oth­er half eager for an imme­di­ate cease­fire, accord­ing to an analy­sis of polling data by Bortnik’s institute.

This sto­ry has been updat­ed to include new state­ments from Tymoshenko and Poroshenko.