Kyiv tries to stay neutral in US political dogfight

Hyperpartisanship, turmoil of presidential campaign among diplomatic challenges

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KYIV - Ukraine, which depends on US military aid for its survival, has long tried to maintain bipartisan support in the United States. That has never been easy, but it is getting harder, especially with the increased possibility that former president Donald Trump, no great friend of Ukraine, will return to the White House.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is asked in nearly every interview what a second Trump administration would mean for Ukraine. Although Mr Zelensky chooses his words carefully, sometimes the emotional weight of the assumption behind the question that Trump could end US military assistance, allowing Russia to succeed in destroying the Ukrainian state spills into view.

Trump's claim during his June 27 debate with President Joe Biden that he alone knew the path to peace is "a little scary", Mr Zelensky said in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News.

"I've seen a lot, a lot of victims," Mr Zelensky said. "But that's really making me a bit stressed."

"If there are risks to Ukrainian independence, if we lose statehood -we want to be ready for this, we want to know," Mr Zelensky said in a subsequent interview with Bloomberg. "We want to understand whether in November we will have the powerful support of the US or will be all alone."

Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to relish the prospect of Trump's return to the White House during remarks at a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

"The fact that Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, says he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine is something we take very seriously," Mr Putin said on July 4. "I haven't seen his ideas on how exactly he's going to do that, and that is the key question. But I have no doubt that he says that sincerely, and we support that."