Just five months after his election as president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky probably didn’t expect to be at the centre of a political storm in Washington. But as the controversy over a July phone call between Zelensky and Donald Trump continues, it’s an unwelcome distraction for Ukraine’s new president to be caught up in a US impeachment investigation.

The affair is not getting widespread attention back in Kyiv, where Ukrainians are used to being trapped between a rock and a hard place, writes Liana Semchuck. For many, their main concern is the ongoing war in the Donbas region in the east of the country, which has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people and left about 2m people displaced.

Meanwhile, a recent poll after Zelensky’s first 100 days in office shows he is enjoying high levels of trust among Ukrainians, helped by his promise to clamp down on corruption. To maintain this public approval, he’ll desperately want to keep out of the spotlight on Capitol Hill. Yet at the same time, Ukraine needs international military support – and the current situation raises concerns about just how reliable a partner the US really is.

Elsewhere on The Conversation today, read about how IMF programmes can increase corruption, and what translations into 57 different languages reveal about how different cultures interpret Jane Eyre.

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