Officials in Kyiv have spent months gaming out what Donald Trump’s victory could mean for their war against Russia, and many have come away worried that his history of deference toward autocrats like Vladimir Putin, and his transactional approach to foreign affairs, would add up to disaster for Ukraine. But not all of their predictions are as dire as one might expect. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “The first eight or ten months, basically all of 2025, would be very hard,” a senior Ukrainian official tells TIME, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.