Kyiv lawmaker: Early results from US elections ‘very good for Ukraine’

Democrats’ strong showing in the midterm elections is “very good for Ukraine,” a member of the Ukrainian parliament told The Hill on Wednesday. 

Oleksiy Goncharenko, who is part of the European Solidarity party in Ukraine, welcomed the early results from the midterm elections, saying he closely followed the defeat of candidates who pushed a more isolationist foreign policy and the victory of lawmakers who have supported U.S. assistance for Ukraine. 

“Speaking about the results from Ukraine perspective, it is clear that for Ukraine the danger was in those people, you can call them isolationist or far-right people, who were saying, ‘Let’s not care about Ukraine, it’s too far from us.’ … These people, I think they’re not right and American voters decided like this.”

Continued U.S. assistance to Ukraine had been a key focus in the political debate ahead of the elections, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) saying Congress won’t write a “blank check” on aid for Ukraine if the GOP take control.

While it is yet unclear whether Republicans will win control of Congress, Democrats had a much stronger night on Tuesday than anticipated. The party flipped a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, narrowing the GOP’s path to taking the upper chamber, and won more House races than expected, minimizing Republicans’ margins if they do take that chamber.

Goncharenko predicted that the GOP congressional base aligned with former President Trump that has urged cuts to Ukraine aid will be less influential than previously thought following Tuesday’s election.

“[Senate Republican Leader Leader] Mitch McConnell is one of the best in the world supporting war for values and freedom in Ukraine,” Goncharenko told The Hill in a phone call from Kyiv.

“But there is a part of Republicans for some of them, they call themselves ‘MAGA people,’ they are using some of this rhetoric that, ‘We don’t need to care about something happening far away from the U.S.’ I see that these people will not be too influential in the U.S. Congress and that means the role of the United States in the international arena will not be challenged.”

One worrying victory, Goncharenko said, was the election of Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio. Vance has said he supports cutting or eliminating U.S. assistance to Ukraine, and his supporters in Washington include Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who voted against a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that passed the Senate in May. 

Vance is replacing outgoing Sen. Rob Portman (R), who traveled last week to Kyiv with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to underscore bipartisan U.S. support. 

Vance is “one of the results I am unhappy with,” Goncharenko said. 

While Biden administration officials have reportedly encouraged Zelensky to offer up the possibility of peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. is not pushing Ukraine to rush to a cease-fire amid fierce military battles to reclaim Ukrainian territory from Russian occupation, as the war moves into its ninth month. 

The U.S. has provided nearly $20 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, and has committed at least $13 billion in economic assistance, making it the number one military and financial donor to Ukraine among the coalition of democracies providing assistance.

As more military equipment is delivered to Ukraine, including the recent arrival of advanced air defense systems, Ukrainians are coming under a new wave of attacks from Russians that are targeting the country’s energy infrastructure, disrupting electricity and water supplies to major cities, in particular Kyiv.

The Biden administration is rallying allies to support Ukraine with more assistance to repair its energy infrastructure, and lawmakers are reportedly in talks to secure an additional aid package to Ukraine during the lame-duck session of Congress. 

Goncharenko said the current situation in Kyiv is “not pleasant, but we can live like this.” 

Residents are collecting water and using power banks amid electricity cuts. Unseasonably warm temperatures are reducing the need for heating homes, but “sooner or later the winter will come and it will be [below freezing temperatures]. That will be a challenge,” he said. 

Goncharenko holds close ties with his counterparts in Washington. He has earlier testified in front of congressional lawmakers part of the U.S. Helsinki Commission on alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and is part of a working group between Ukrainian and American lawmakers to identify alleged Russian war criminals for sanctions listing. 

Promising for Ukraine, he added, is the reelection of the bipartisan co-chairs of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). 

“All those people who I know personally, and who are extremely strong in defending of values, all of them are reelected,” he said.