Trump Says Nice Ukraine Things, But Can He Be Trusted? (No, He Can Never Be Trusted)
As always, watch what he actually does.
In what looks like another example of how “whoever talks to Trump last” can often steer policy, Donald Trump yesterday said on his personal antisocial media channel (Bluesky copy) that, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy at the United Nations, he now thinks Ukraine is in a good position to not only win the war Russia started by invading in 2022, but to push Russian forces back to Ukraine’s pre-invasion borders — and maybe then some.
Keeping in mind that you can’t trust Trump to hold on to any new opinion for longer than the lifespan of a fruitfly, it was a pretty remarkable turnaround for the guy who a few months ago was urging Ukraine to just let Russia keep the parts of Ukraine it’s already invaded, and who told Zelenskyy in February that Ukraine had “no cards” in the fight against Russia because the entire nation looked all scruffy in a military-style sweater instead of a suit.
Trump wasn’t particularly clear about what he meant when he said Ukraine could very well “WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” — would that be the borders before Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, or would that also include Crimea, which Putin invaded and then illegally annexed in 2014? And does Trump actually know that happened?
Note also that the message only discusses Ukraine fighting against Russia with European help, not about any new commitments to direct assistance to Ukraine. But hey, Trump will enthusiastically sell NATO countries all the US arms they wanna pass on to Ukraine, as long as Europe pays.
Trump didn’t back up the message with any other concrete new actions to support Ukraine, either, like new sanctions on countries that purchase Russian oil, which was among the many things Trump ranted about at the UN yesterday.
But compared to the usual batshit stuff Trump has said about Ukraine and Russia, the message was at least very different. Now we need to see if Trump actually does more to help Ukraine, including advancing peace talks, or what.
After his meeting with Trump at the UN, Zelenskyy sat down for an interview with Fox News anchor Brett Baier to say that he and Trump now have closer ties than they did previously, probably assuming correctly that if he wanted to underline points he’d made when talking with Trump, Fox was the place Trump was sure to see it. Here’s that interview; note that Zelenskyy again wore a black dress shirt / suit combo like he wore when meeting Trump in August, since getting Donald Trump’s sartorial approval is among the top factors in whether Ukraine continues to exist as an independent nation.
Zelenskyy said, “I think we have better relations than before. It’s good that we have often phone calls and meetings, and I think the fact that Putin was lying to President Trump so many times also made a difference between us.” He added that he was “a little bit” surprised by Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine could push Russian forces back to Ukraine’s original borders — which for Zelenskyy would definitely include getting Crimea back, whatever Trump had in mind.
At the least, Zelenskyy said, it’s encouraging that Trump isn’t pushing (at the moment) for Ukraine to let Russia keep parts of its territory as part of a peace deal. “I think he understands for today that we can’t just swap territories. It’s not fair,” he said.
Zelenskyy also warned that he believes recent Russian incursions into Estonia and Poland, and probably Denmark — the origin of drones over the latter hasn’t been confirmed — signal that Putin wants to extend military conflict beyond just Ukraine.
Trump yesterday said that NATO countries should go ahead and shoot down Russian aircraft entering those countries’ airspace, although we suspect that may signal Trump’s general love of violence more than any deep strategic thinking.
There’s also a good case to be made that his social media message simply indicates that Trump likes rooting for winners and doesn’t like losers, since he talked so much about how “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” a really weird way to talk about our supposed ally, Ukraine. He also highlighted the weakness of the Russian economy after Putin has continued throwing money into the war for little gain; we can’t help but think that if Russian forces were actually driving toward Kyiv, Trump would be all for it, because he likes winners.
That’s probably more important in understanding his strange new love for Ukrainians’ “Great Spirit,” but if it gets more arms heading to Ukraine, great. Just keep in mind that Trump seems more to be cheerleading Europe’s support for Ukraine — and NATO purchases of US arms, for NATO “to do what they want with them” — than any real new commitment to helping Zelenskyy.
Russian responses have so far mocked Trump as waffling, saying that Donald Trump will be back in line with Putin eventually. Former president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Twitter that Trump had simply fallen prey to “alternative reality” fed to him by Zelenskyy, adding,
I have no doubt — he will come back. He always comes back. […] The main thing is to radically change your point of view on various issues more often. And everything will be fine. That’s the essence of successful government through social media.
Yes, the Russians really respect Trump so much because he’s a big tough guy.
As the Great Man says, we’ll have to see what happens. Maybe this is a change toward at least not siding wholly with Russia. Or maybe Trump thinks saying he supports Europe helping Ukraine win is a new excuse to do nothing at all, and to preempt even thinking about policy.
He’ll say he’s leaving it up to Europe, just as he avoided answering questions about abortion by insisting he would leave it up to the states. And we all know how well that has worked out.
[NBC News / WaPo (gift link) / NYT (archive link)]
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Updated with a better conclusion: This might just be like "leaving abortion up to the states," a way of avoiding actually making any policy decisions about Ukraine.
Hey, it's Europe's problem, now let's get back to blowing up boats and scaring you about immigration.
So it took him eight months to allegedly “completely understand” an issue that he thought he could easily resolve on day one? I have a suspicion that he does not yet completely understand it.