WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the results of the Nov. 6 midterm elections in the United States have altered the balance of power in Washington D.C., experts reckon they’ll have little effect on U.S.-Ukrainian relations.
The U.S. sanctions punishing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue, as will U.S. military aid to Ukraine, experts say.
As many polls had predicted, the opposition Democratic Party wrested back control of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber in Congress, while the Republican Party retained control of the Senate.
The Democrats did make gains, but the massive “blue wave” many pollsters had predicted and many Democrats had craved, failed to emerge. In the United States the color blue is associated with the more left-leaning Democratic Party.
Rather than a tidal wave, there was more like a gentle swell that floated Democrats in the 435-seat House comfortably past the 218 mark they needed to win control. But it failed to buoy them in the Senate, where the Republicans now look likely to increase their precariously slim 51-49 majority to gain a firmer grip over the upper chamber.
John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and director of the Eurasia Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, one of the leading U.S. think tanks on Ukrainian issues, told the Kyiv Post he expected no change in U.S. policy on Ukraine.
“I don’t envisage any major changes in policy vis-a-vis Russia or Ukraine as a result of the election,” Herbst said.
“Clearly in Congress there’s been a slight victory for the Democrats and, yes, they have been more adamant in opposition to Russia over the past couple of years but although they’ve improved their position in the House (of Representatives), they’ve lost ground in the Senate.”
“I don’t think the Trump administration’s overall policies will change toward either Ukraine or Russia as a result of this election.”
Bipartisan support
Politicians in Congress with shared interests in specific issues band together in groups called caucuses to discuss and advance their causes.
“There remains a very active Ukrainian caucus in Congress with staunch supporters of Ukraine re-elected in both the House and the Senate, where you’ve seen exceptional bipartisan support for Ukraine and I expect that to continue,” Herbst said.
Michael Sawkiw, the executive vice president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the largest Ukrainian diaspora body in the United States, said 75 percent of all Ukrainian Caucus members were re-elected to their respective chambers.
“I don’t think there will be any dramatic shift in attitudes toward Ukraine,” Sawkiw said. “With the Democrats taking one chamber and Republicans holding onto the other, I think this sets the scene for greater bipartisanship when it comes to foreign policy.”
“I’m hoping that what we’ve achieved by lobbying Congress in the past four years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue and even expand. By that I particularly mean that there could be some more sanctions.”
Sawkiw said the new balance of power augurs well for Congressional funding for Ukraine on military and other assistance.
He added that one of the main tasks he had focused on in UCCA’s efforts lobbying Congress and the administration was to give practical expression to the many statements coming out of Washington condemning Kremlin aggression in Ukraine.
“I’ve constantly been talking to the State Department to ensure that they make Crimea a visible issue,” Sawkiw said.
“It shouldn’t be something that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should just mention in front of a Senate foreign relations hearing without any consequences. It has to be backed up by something that has economic bite.”
To achieve that, he said the UCCA has also worked alongside the Central and East European Coalition, a group of Americans from 18 different ethnic backgrounds, including Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian.
“The Coalition have also been pressing the state department and Congress to make an example of Crimea so that it’s not forgotten.” Sawkiw said.
But Eugene Stakhiv, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in the state of Maryland who frequently writes about Ukrainian affairs, was less optimistic about Ukraine’s prospects under the new Congress.
The majority party members chair the committees in both chambers of Congress and some of the Democrats who could head important committees in the House might be “bad news” for Ukraine as they are on the left of their party, Stakhiv said.
The left shies from military confrontation and, thus might be less enthusiastic about providing military aid to Ukraine, he said.
Key to Ukrainian projects, including that which allowed Ukraine to buy sophisticated Javelin anti-tank missiles earlier this year, is the House Appropriations Committee, which determines financing.
“Until the mid-term election, Republican Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, the representative from New Jersey, was chairman of the committee and a reliable friend of Ukraine – and many Ukrainian organizations in New Jersey supported him financially,” Stakhiv said.
“With the committee turning over to Democrat hands, Representative Nita Lowey of New York will take over as chair. She’s an extremely leftist Democrat, which is bad news for Ukraine.”
Absent friends
Stakhiv said that Ukraine had lost one of its most influential supporters in Congress when Senator John McCain, who had been chair of the Armed Services Committee, died last summer.
“With McCain gone as chair of the committee, most likely the ranking Republican to replace him will be Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, who took over when McCain took ill,” Stakhiv said.
“Inhofe is one of those tough U.S. national security hardliners, but not prone to expanding U.S. military interests beyond what our obligations require. He would be a questionable ‘friend’ of Ukraine.”
Stakhiv said nobody on the Republican side of the committee stands out as a ‘champion’ of Ukraine’s fight against Russian invasion, describing them as ‘heartland’ Republicans – strong on American defense and military power, but unwilling to engage in military conflicts that are not in the direct national interest.
“They’re not isolationists, but would be very cautious in continuing support of Ukraine, especially if Ukraine’s leaders cannot solve their rampant corruption problems,” Stakhiv said.
He called the current Senate Appropriations Committee chair, Richard Shelby, friendly toward Ukraine, but said one of Ukraine’s biggest friends in the Senate is now Lindsey Graham “who was a very close friend of McCain and traveled frequently with him to Ukraine. He is now, in place of McCain, Ukraine’s best hope.”
Nadia Diuk, the vice-president of the National Endowment For Democracy, an organization created by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, said U.S. support for Ukraine would hinge on who took the chairmanships of key committees.
Diuk has played an active part in the development of democratic government and institutions in Ukraine, Russia and other post-Soviet countries.
“Many of the people returning to Congress, such as Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey, are good news for Ukraine and have been strong supporters of Ukrainian issues for many years.”
Diuk said that the time between now and when members take their seats in the new Congress on January 3 would likely see fierce contests for leadership of the committees.
“For Ukraine it will be important to see who emerge as heads of the foreign affairs, defense, and appropriations committees.”
Diuk also said that many of the younger members of the new intake may know little about the politics of Eastern Europe.
“Have some of the younger ones taken a class in the history of the Cold War? – Probably not,” she said. She said Ukrainians should ensure that the new members of Congress were equipped with the knowledge to enable them to make informed decisions about Ukraine and the region, such as on providing military aid and imposing sanctions.
Sanctions critical
Everyone the Kyiv Post spoke with emphasized the critical importance of American sanctions against Russian individuals and business entities.
Herbst from the Atlantic Council was confident “exceptional bipartisan support for strong policies reining in Russia” in the form of sanctions would continue.
Bipartisan support for sanctions against Russia has been one of the rare examples of collaboration between the Republican and Democratic Parties on America’s bitterly divided political landscape.
In fact, on Nov. 8 the U.S. government imposed new sanctions on three Russian individuals and nine entities over what it called Russia’s “malign” activity in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Congress has been driving the imposition of sanctions in consultation with the State Department and the Treasury Department. Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, said when announcing the new measures that the United States “remains committed to targeting Russian-backed entities that seek to profit from Russia’s illegal annexation and occupation of Crimea.”
She added that sanctions “target Russian actors for serious human rights abuses” and for furthering the “Russian occupation of Crimea and the use of force.”
The penalties will freeze any U.S.-based assets and ban financial transactions with the targets. These include Vladimir Zaritsky, the former commander-in-chief of Russia’s missile forces and artillery, who is leading a luxury hotel project in Crimea.
Two Russian officials have been sanctioned for abusing human rights in the occupied territories. Russian FSB security service officer Andriy Volodymyrovych Sushko is accused of abducting and torturing a Crimean Tatar activist, while Alexander Basov, the self-styled “deputy minister of state security” in the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” allegedly persecuted Jehovah’s Witnesses.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Department was discussing Congress fresh sanctions to punish Russia for the attempted assassination in the United Kingdom earlier this year of a former Russian spy using a military grade nerve agent.
Mueller investigation
One important result of the midterms is that the Democrats now have more strength to protect Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign staff and Russia.
The Democrats are likely to re-open and broaden their own House investigations into the alleged links, which the previous Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee shelved.
During the investigation, many links have emerged between Ukraine and people associated with Trump or accused of working with the Kremlin against U.S. interests. One of the most important characters with links to Ukraine is Paul Manafort, who for a time headed Trump’s election campaign and for years before that advised Ukraine’s disgraced pro-Moscow former president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort has already been convicted of evading tax on tens of millions of dollars he received from Yanukovych, and is cooperating with Mueller in the hope of a lenient sentence. Many hope that Mueller’s eventual report will provide insider revelations from Manafort about Yanukovych’s regime and help to explain Trump’s frequently voiced admiration and fondness for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin..
The day after the midterms on Nov. 7 Trump forced the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to resign. The president had heaped insults on Sessions for more than a year because he recused himself from the Mueller investigation instead of controlling or shutting it down, as Trump evidently hoped.
Trump has since appointed an acting attorney general who has made no secret about his opposition to Mueller’s probe, and Democrats in the new Congress may have to devote much of their energy to prevent the investigation from being undermined.
Although it is already known who will control each house, the voting in some races was so close that ballots were still being counted on the morning of Nov. 9. Some votes may have to be recounted and there may be delays for many days while postal ballots and results of overseas voting are collated.
The elections are called the midterms because they come two years into the president’s four-year term. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, where members are elected for two-year periods, were up for grabs.
In the Senate, where members serve for six years, around a third of the seats are contested every two years. There were also elections for some governorships and U.S. territories and the District of Columbia, which is only permitted non-voting members in Congress.
