Sergiy Kudelia, an associate professor of political science at Baylor University, said Trump and his associates have previously signaled the president-elect “will seek to start or launch some negotiation process between” the two sides of the conflict. But he added this may not come about as quickly as Trump would hope.

“It is very unlikely that he will be immediately successful,” Kudelia told TVP World. “So the big question is when he sees and realizes that Putin doesn’t want to start negotiations with Ukraine and Putin wants to continue waging his war against Ukraine, what will be Trump’s response then?”

According to Mikhail Alexseev, professor of political science at San Diego University, “it’s so clear that Trump hates looking weak and he can even make some rash and irrational decisions if he fears that he may be losing.”

Alexseev said “the choice between Harris and Trump is not necessarily the degree of support for Ukraine but its stability versus turbulence.”

Alexseev added that the Ukrainian president’s strategy of praising Trump’s “peace through strength” approach “will be absolutely on point,” and that “it looks like Zelenskyy understands the psychology and motivations for Trump.”