By Evan Pliego
The Ukraine war has been a stalemate of pushing forward and pushing back since its beginnings in 2014. Both sides landed recent and effective blows on each other, such as the recent Ukrainian successful strike on a Shahed drone facility on Oct 9th and Russian forces reported attack on 3 civilian vessels that resided in Ukrainian docks since Oct 5th. However, a senior US Defense official stated that Russia has lost over 600,000 casualties at the start of their full scale invasion in 2022 (not including previous casualties from the blurry, unofficial start of the war).
Iran has also involved themselves in this conflict, stating that Russia has provided them with military equipment. This has not and currently cannot be proved.Yet, the countries’ ties can be related to a Central Asia meeting that involved Russia and Iran.
NATO shows concern in the conflict, as NATOs chief Mark Rutte stated, “Russia continues to carry out massive strikes against Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure. Ukraine could be facing its toughest winter since the full-scale invasion began.” With the US having a major role in the war, along with providing around $175 billion in aid to Ukraine, the question of how the US election will affect the conflict is major.
Trump seems to have an optimistic and boastful goal with the Ukraine war, saying he could end it within days once he becomes president. Trump also states that he will not provide aid nor protect NATO members if they do not step up their own defense spending, which has been his view on NATO for a long time. Trump is not opposed to aid to Ukraine but does seem to believe that we are over involving ourselves in the war, as he stated aid could end if he returned to office.
Seeing Trump’s past positive relations with Russia, it’s likely that he could strike a deal between the two countries. Yet, some believe he would force Ukraine to sign off on an unpleasant deal by threatening to withhold aid. On another note, the Trump-Ukraine scandal can also be considered.
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