Ukraine faces decisive months ahead as key allies gear up for crunch elections. While early presidential campaigning in the US and a looming general election in Poland will grab the international headlines, a snap election in Slovakia on 30 September may prove every bit as consequential. 

With Robert Fico — Slovakia’s former prime minister and one of the West’s most outspoken critics of the Ukrainian war effort — poised to win the vote, a change of government in Bratislava could have a profound effect on EU policymaking. Fico has promised that if his party makes it into government “we will not send a single bullet to Ukraine,” proudly proclaiming that “I allow myself to have a different opinion to that of the United States” on the war.  

Fico has also claimed on the campaign trail that “war always comes from the West and peace from the East,” and that “what is happening today is unnecessary killing, it is the emptying of warehouses to force countries to buy more American weapons.” Such statements have resulted in him being blacklisted by Kyiv as a spreader of Russian propaganda.  

Yet the former prime minister spearheads a new brand of Left-wing, anti-American populism that has become a powerful force in Central Europe since the war began. Perceptions that “the Americans occupy us” — as one MP in Fico’s Smer party evocatively put it — are shared with a similar groundswell of anti-Western opinion in the neighbouring Czech Republic.  

Yet Smer has been handed a chance to gain power thanks to the chaos which has engulfed Slovakia’s pro-EU, pro-Western forces. Personal grievances coupled with serious policy errors tore apart a four-party coalition formed after elections in 2020, leaving Fico to capitalise on heightened mistrust in establishment politics. Smer is expected to become the nation’s largest party after this month’s election, with an anticipated 20% of the vote.  

Whatever the specific makeup of the new government, if Smer is the largest party it will likely pursue a foreign policy similar to that of Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary. A halt to until-now generous Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine is Fico’s central electoral pledge, while the arrival on the scene of another Orbán-style government prepared to obstruct EU aid efforts for Ukraine would create a serious headache. That is particularly the case as Brussels struggles to win support for both short and long-term war funding commitments. 

Victory for Fico would also amplify Orbán’s scepticism about the overall Western narrative on Ukraine — a scepticism which the Hungarian Prime Minister recently conveyed to Western conservatives during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Orbán portrayed Ukraine’s attempts to win back the territories taken by Russia as ultimately hopeless and claimed that Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly makes him “the man who can save the Western world”. 

Like Trump in America and Orbán in Europe, Fico is hated with a passion by establishment forces. But in Slovakia, the pro-Western establishment itself has become so mistrusted that power may soon pass to a man intent on shattering what’s left of European unity on Ukraine. 

Could this be the moment at which US President Donald Trump washes his hands of Ukraine for good? His son thinks it might be. Donald Trump Jr yesterday told the Doha Forum that his father may walk away from supporting Kyiv, adding that “you don’t know what he’s going to do.”

Why now? Perhaps because Russia continues to block the current peace deal, with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov yesterday demanding “radical changes” to the revised plan. While the exact details of Moscow’s objections remain unknown, a Russian official has indicated that the Kremlin will not back down on acquiring all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, limiting the size of Ukraine’s military and obtaining American as well as European recognition of the territory it has captured.

That Moscow is maintaining a maximalist stance is hardly surprising. Throughout this process, the Kremlin has been consistently unwilling to make any concessions. Indeed, when called upon to identify any compromises the Russians were making in the 28-point proposal, the best Trump could offer was that “they stop fighting and they don’t take any more land.”

The Russian President is even less likely to climb down now. Having seen how willingly US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff acceded to Moscow’s demands, Vladimir Putin will settle for nothing less. Besides, he knows Trump sympathises with his position. Putin last week stressed that Donetsk and Luhansk will eventually fall to him, whether they are taken by force or surrendered as part of a deal. It is a familiar message for Volodymyr Zelensky: in October, after speaking with Russia’s President, Trump urged his Ukrainian counterpart to surrender the Donbas or be “destroyed”.

To make matters worse, Ukraine’s current situation is markedly more challenging than it was then. The Russian army is advancing at one of its fastest rates of the war. While Moscow typically accelerates operations during negotiations so as to project an image of battlefield success, this will only encourage Trump’s belief that Ukraine — and, by extension, its allies — is fighting a losing battle. There is his impatience to consider. The newly released US National Security Strategy is not only “consistent”, in the Kremlin’s words, with Moscow’s vision, but also reveals America’s eagerness for an “expeditious cessation of hostilities” followed by “strategic stability with Russia”.

Beyond hinting at Trump’s possible next move, his son’s remarks underscore how Ukrainian and European attempts to reshape the views of the President’s inner circle have failed. Don Jr dismissed the war as irrelevant to American voters, derided Zelensky as a “great marketer” who is prolonging the conflict to retain power, railed against corruption in Ukraine, and portrayed Kyiv as a financial burden with the US playing the role of “the idiot with the chequebook”. Ukraine’s ongoing energy sector corruption scandal will keep MAGA minds focused on where Western money is heading, while the forthcoming departure of Keith Kellogg, one of Kyiv’s most steadfast supporters in the US administration, will deprive Zelensky of a champion at a vital moment.

Then there are the issues around aid to Ukraine. The PURL scheme, under which allies purchase US weapons for Ukraine, was designed to engage the American President over the long term by appealing to his transactional instincts and demonstrating that Western partners were stepping up to fund Kyiv. Yet, for all the headline-grabbing figures, tensions have emerged over countries which sign up but fail to contribute. Additionally, questions remain about how to sustain the scheme, and the narrative of Nato allies funding America’s defence industry has yet to resonate with US voters. Under these circumstances, the White House’s image of itself as “the idiot with the chequebook” will likely endure.

As is so often the case with his father, Trump Jr’s words could be dismissed as mere bravado. Yet they are being echoed in the corridors of power across Europe. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in a leaked phone call that the US may be about to “betray” Kyiv, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cautioned that America is “playing games” with Ukraine and Europe. With both war and peace at a critical juncture, Zelensky may well find himself on the losing end of these high-stakes games.

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Bethany Elliott is a writer specialising in Russia and Eastern Europe.

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