Vice President Kamala Harris ’s new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), has a reputation as a “reliable friend” to Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
“It's a good sign for us,” Oleksandr Merezhko, Ukrainian foreign affairs chairman, told the Washington Examiner. “Of course, we don't know whether or not he will become the vice president because, you know, this political struggle is very close, and again, it's becoming interesting and unpredictable.”
Merezhko and other Ukrainian officials have become avid American political news followers, given the importance of U.S. military assistance in continuing Ukraine’s ability to fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion. And Walz has found ways to cultivate relationships with them, even as a governor.
"Gov. Walz is definitely one of the leaders of such support and a reliable friend of our country,” Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova told a Ukrainian outlet Tuesday. "When I visited Minnesota in December ... the governor and I met with the Farm Bureau and actually joined him in convincing them of how important Ukraine's victory is to the U.S. national interest.”
And in February, Walz signed an agreement with Markarova to establish a partnership between the state of Minnesota and Chernihiv Oblast, a region near Kyiv.
“He is very pro-Ukrainian and our press and our people, they view him as a friend, as a true friend of Ukraine,” Merezhko said.
The presidential election has put Ukrainian officials in a tricky diplomatic position, given the divergent rhetorical postures of the Republican and Democratic tickets. Harris and President Joe Biden have maintained a very supportive tone throughout the full-scale war despite their policy of doling out aid by degrees or imposing restrictions on the use of American weapons against military targets inside Russia.
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have downplayed the relevance of the conflict to U.S. interests and signaled their desire for a quick end to the war — a prospect that worries many Ukrainians, who fear that such a scenario would amount to a victory for Russia. Yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team has been reaching out to Trump and his allies in recent months, which included what Trump described as “a very good phone call” with Zelensky after the Republican standard-bearer survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
“The fact that Trump described this as a good call means his animus against Zelensky is old news,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, told Politico. “It’s why the populist wing of the party was against Ukraine. If Trump is not there, then they’re not there.”
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Vance, for his part, recently suggested Harris doesn’t have the gravitas to “promote an acceptable peace” in a prospective dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin — a jab that, in Merezhko’s view, contains a sign that his position is trending toward one that Kyiv could welcome.
“Interestingly, Vance started to change his rhetoric, and recently, he mentioned that Ukraine should have peace, just peace, not on the Russian terms,” he said. “So we can see that both candidates to become vice president, they’re — well, Vance is becoming more pro-Ukrainian also. It seems to me.”
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