Donald Trump is facing an uncertain political future following the revelation that he pressured his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky — who is Jewish — to investigate Joe Biden, his presumptive challenger in the 2020 presidential election.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Mr Trump said in the call, according to the transcript. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … sounds horrible to me.”
The US president was referring to a conspiracy theory that Mr Biden had intervened in Ukrainian politics by threatening to withhold aid in an effort to get the country’s top prosecutor fired — so that he could protect his son. Hunter Biden, who was never accused of any wrongdoing, sat on the board of a local corporation that was being probed for corruption.
The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, had garned a shady reputation and several European states had called for his removal as part of efforts to assist Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts.
Ukraine, embroiled in a war against Russian-backed separatist forces, is reliant on US and European aid.
Several days before the call with Mr Zelensky in July, Mr Trump unilaterally overruled his military and diplomatic advisors and withheld several hundred million dollars intended
for Kyiv.
Mr Zelensky’s deferential tone in the converastion shocked many in the west. In response to the president’s request, he said that the “next prosecutor general will be 100 per cent my person” and promised to “look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.”
Replying disparaging comments by Mr Trump about Ukraine’s European backers, Mr Zelensky replied: “you are absolutely right. Not only 100 per cent, but actually 1000 per cent.”
“Zelensky’s way of speaking with Trump tells a lot about relations of Ukraine and US,” commented Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko. “I think this conversation is more embarrassing for Zelensky than for Trump. I mean, the tone Zelensky speaks about the EU leaders demonstrates the readiness to [act on] the investigation even more than Trump asked.
“I bet no Ukrainian president had ever talked to either Yeltsin, or Putin in such ingratiating manner that Zelensky did with Trump.”
Despite this, however, Kyiv Post News Editor Matthew Kupfer says the response in Ukraine has thus far been muted.
“I think people understand that this is a big thing, but they largely see it as part of US internal politics,” he told the JC.
“We did a vox populi segment with people on the street and I have to say, when I saw some of the responses, I was a bit surprised how they weren’t always fully cognisant of the situation and seemed kind of out of touch.”
But despite popular indifference, the phone call has raised some concern domestically.
One opposition lawmaker wrote on Facebook that Mr Zelensky’s statement about controlling the incoming prosecutor was worrisome: “if we want to have a strong country, we must do everything to form strong, independent institutions.”
It is unlikely, though, that the Ukrainian president’s political woes will match those of Mr Trump.
