When President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine set off for the United States this week on a high-stakes diplomatic mission, he had one goal above all others: rekindle a sense of urgency among his allies about Kyiv’s fortunes as the war with Russia heads into what promises to be another brutal winter.

But after wrapping up a whirlwind week capped by a meeting with former President Donald Trump on Friday in New York, Zelenskyy was set to return to Kyiv with "more questions than answers about the near future” for the Ukrainian war effort, said Mikhail Minakov, head of the Ukraine research program at the Kennan Institute in Washington.

The only thing that seemed clear was that Ukraine’s prospects for repelling Russian aggression were now firmly swept up in the maelstrom of the American presidential campaign.