US elections: Ukraine holds its breath | US elections 2024

In the heart of Lviv, the large city in western Ukraine, the wound is still raw.

In the historic district, damage from the Russian attack on September 4 is still visible. Roofs torn off, walls damaged: drone and missile strikes caused significant damage.

On the street, not far from the debris, a memorial remembers the seven civilian deaths from this attack. Among them, four members of the same family, a mother and her three daughters.

That night, Yuri also lost his wife Irina, killed by a shrapnel in their apartment.

They kill civilianshe denounces in his apartment, where we can still see the damage caused by the strike. Behind him, a portrait of Irina is prominently displayed.

Yuri cannot explain why they could not have been protected from this attack, given the anti-aircraft defense systems that Ukraine receives from its allies.

The whole world is helping Ukraine. Countries do a lot for us, but perhaps we need moredeclares the grieving man.

Washington, crucial support

It is thousands of kilometers away, in the United States, that the fate of support for his country will be determined.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington has already granted $175 billion to Ukraine, an amount intended not only for arms, but also for humanitarian and economic aid.

If the Democratic candidate for the White House, Kamala Harris, promised unwavering support for kyiv, without giving many more details, it is different for her Republican opponent.

Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance are questioning the merits of this financial support, which, according to them, allows the conflict to continue. In September, alongside Volodymyr Zelensky who was on tour in the United States, the Republican candidate affirmed that, if he won, he was going to resolve the situation fairly quickly. The former president even mentioned a deadline of 24 hours to achieve this.

In Lviv, opposition MP Roman Lozynskyi is more than skeptical.

Some people say we shouldn’t send more ammunition and weapons because that means the war will continue. But anyway, the war will continue anyway until we stop Russia.

The elected representative to the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, assures that his country cannot afford to plan B. Of course, kyiv does not only depend on Washington for its weapons. Several European governments, with whom President Volodymyr Zelensky has met more often in recent weeks, also provide weapons, ammunition and money.

But Roman Lozynski recalls that several of these countries consult the United States, some of which depend on military contracts, before formalizing their aid to Ukraine. It’s hard to say how independent European countries are. American influence is significantadds M. Lozynskyi.

An army that already has its share of challenges

If Ukraine is holding its breath in view of the American election, it is because the impacts of the changes to aid from the United States have already been able to be measured in a concrete way.

In April, the US Congress approved a US$61 billion package after months of tense deliberations. During the preceding months of political deadlock, the lack of arms and ammunition was felt at the front.

If Congress doesn’t help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the warassured Volodymyr Zelensky shortly before an agreement was reached in Washington.

A drop in arms supplies would add to the human problems facing the Ukrainian army, between the challenge of mobilization and the loss of lives of soldiers on the front.

According to an estimate of Wall Street Journal80,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died since 2022, while losses amount to 200,000 on the side of Russia, a country which has around 100 million more inhabitants than Ukraine.

At Lviv Cathedral, funerals of soldiers from the region are common. When we visited at the end of October, dozens of people came to pay their last respects to Volodymyr, 22 years old.

He was still a childlaments Bodan, one of the young soldier’s friends.

You may think it’s not your war, because it’s not your friends or loved ones who are dying, but this war is yours toolaunches this law student in a plea for the maintenance of Western military aid, particularly American.

It’s weird to listen to this political controversy while at the same time people are dying. If it’s the only thing you can do, give us the weapons so that people no longer die the way they are dying today in Ukraine.

Like many Ukrainians, he still displays his determination more than two and a half years after the Russian invasion. A will that could be tested not only by the results of the presidential election, but also by the races for the House of Representatives and the Senate. Polls held several thousand kilometers from the front.