Last week I was honored to speak at the Kyiv Economic Forum about the U.S. elections, after President Trump had won. As we all know, U.S. support is critical for the future of Ukraine to defeat Russia and many in Kyiv are concerned whether this assistance would remain in place. Prior to the election, considerable uncertainty was about to who would be president. Now that this uncertainty has ended, there is now more uncertainty as to how Donald Trump and his administration will lead in relation to Ukraine. I suggested to the audience at the Forum and wrote in a column for Ukrinform to watch the four most important Trump appointees to help determine the future U.S. support. The four positions are the National Security Advisor (in the Biden administration it’s Jake Sullivan), the Secretary of Defense (currently Secretary Lloyd Austin), Secretary of State (currently Antony Blinken), and CIA Director (Currently Bill Burns). I spoke at length about the most important, in my opinion, of these four key positions with regards to Ukraine. And that’s the National Security Advisor.
This week the appointments have been announced but, again, there’s uncertainty as to what they will do once they are in the role on January 20. CIA Director will be John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence during Donald Trump’s previous term. The Secretary of State will be Marco Rubio, a Senator from Florida. The Secretary of Defense will be Pete Hegseth. And the National Security Advisor will be Congressman Mike Waltz. All four are perceived as “hawks” against Russia, China, and Iran.
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