“Does not capitulate to Putin.” We may see Trump’s strong policy toward the Kremlin, but the process will be complicated — interview with Herbst

— If you look at Trump’s voters, what is Ukraine for them, who are Ukrainians for them? I want to quote Trump from his rally in Pennsylvania, where he repeated three times that “we won’t deal with countries you’ve never even heard of and don’t want to hear about.” Is this how we should understand what Trump’s electorate knows about Ukraine?

– There are many nuances. First, it is still quite large [кількість] of Americans want us to support Ukraine, about 58% of Americans, but less than most Republicans, maybe 45-48%. Such support is not visible among Trump voters. I don’t know the percentage, but maybe 35%, a little more. But much depends on the approach of Trump himself.

Trump doesn’t have to follow one line on Ukraine to get support from his supporters – they don’t care: if tomorrow Trump decided to send you all kinds of weapons, a lot of economic aid, his supporters would support it. Not all, but the majority, even the vast majority of his supporters.

So it’s not about how his voters see it, it’s about how Trump himself sees it. And we don’t know yet.

— What arguments can we find why it should be profitable for Trump to support Ukraine?

– In my opinion, if he wants to be [великим] president in international affairs, he should support Ukraine. He himself, to my understanding, does not understand this.

But we know that around him, in his entourage, there are famous people who understand what I just said. I mean [колишнього державного секретаря Майка] Pompeo, I mean [помічника державного секретаря США усправах Європи та Євразії Джеймса] O’Brien.

And we know that if he went on a course of surrender before [російським диктатором Володимиром] Putin, he would be subjected to huge and correct criticism that he is a weak politician. And when he realizes that, I think we’re going to see a strong policy toward the Kremlin, toward their threat to America. And, of course, this includes their threat to Ukraine.

But it will be a difficult process. Because there are people in his circle who are completely naive about the Russian threat to America, they simply do not understand.

— If you read one of the latest fresh publications of The Wall Street Journal, which talks about what options Trump’s advisers can offer him regarding the solution to the problem of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is said that different factions will fight for his attention regarding foreign policy; that the same thing happened during Trump’s first term as president. And what are these factions, what are their interests? What decisions can they have regarding Ukraine?

— There are quite influential Republicans who, as I said, do not understand that Putin says every day that America is Russia’s number one rival or even Russia’s number one enemy. And they don’t want to see Russia working with Iran, with China. And for them, one advantage of Trump is that he wants to comfort Putin.

But, as I said, they simply do not understand the Russian threat against America, Russian provocations against America.