Your questions, answered: How Trump will handle Ukraine
We asked CNN readers for their questions about the incoming second Trump administration.
Here’s what one reader is wondering about the president-elect’s approach to Ukraine and its war against Russia:
“As an American volunteer in Ukraine, what should I expect? I know it’s not going to be ‘business as usual’ for me, but I’m really concerned for my safety - more now than ever.”
Jim Sciutto is CNN’s chief national security analyst and the author of “The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War.” This is what he wrote in response:
I don’t speak to anyone in the US, Europe or Ukraine who expects business as usual. The question is not if Trump will change the US approach, but how much.
For my book, several former Trump administration officials told me they expected him to end US support for Ukraine in a second term, part of a broader effort to improve US relations with Russia.
That said, there is another school of thought that Trump — seeing the damage done by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan — would not want to invite accusations of weakness if Ukraine were to fall or otherwise be further occupied by Russia. We don’t know yet.
What is clear is that he has said multiple times he intends to end the war. The question is: How far will he be willing to go to do that? And can he end it, given Russian President Vladimir Putin sees the Ukraine war as a strategic interest?
His Cabinet appointments are somewhat contradictory, with some having expressed support for Ukraine, while his pick for spy chief, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, blamed Russia’s invasion on NATO.
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