The suspicion this was personal always lingered. But there was hope the greater good of both the US and Ukraine would win out.
The past 24 hours has seen US President Donald Trump’s slow-burn, apparent dislike for his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, belch out into the open. And with it comes a real and new uncertainty about the future of Ukraine, and more widely the security of Europe.
Last week, Trump hinted he felt Zelensky’s poll numbers were low and he would have to face elections, but Tuesday night he dug deeper, falsely stating the wartime leader was at 4 per cent favorability and Ukraine had started the war.
This is pretty close to Kremlin talking points. Moscow has been at pains to incorrectly suggest Ukraine’s imminent joining of NATO was behind its unprovoked attack in 2022, and that Zelensky is illegitimate as Ukraine has not undertaken the immense challenge of running elections in wartime.
Zelensky has for months flattered Trump as one who can bring peace through strength. Kyiv knew the Trump team’s rhetoric on the campaign trail spelt a likely sea change for Ukraine, but held out hope, with European allies, that Trump would seek to avoid an Kabul Airport Moment of collapse in security on the continent, and keep Russia back.
In the background, lingered the risk their contentious relationship in Trump’s first term – when Zelensky didn’t give Trump what he wanted in a “perfect” phone call that led to impeachment – was a dark, inescapable cloud that would hang over their future interactions. Now that cloud has loudly broken and Ukraine is getting wet.
Zelensky has tempered his remarks about Trump living in a “disinformation space” by adding he has great respect for this US president and the American people. But Trump sought no such caveats, even adding the “dictator” needed to move fast to save Ukraine and was on a “gravy train.”
Twice in five days this White House has dubbed European democratic leaders tyrants, falsely, while declining to mention the Kremlin’s authoritarian record in the same speech. US Vice President JD Vance at the weekend in Munich said Europe’s most democratic US allies were afraid of their voters. Now Trump says Russia’s greatest adversary is himself a “dictator” on the make. Putin’s army of propagandists are being outwritten on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The existential dilemma now for Ukraine is whether it even has the luxury of choice between its wartime president and its main military backer, the United States. Is enough left intact of either?
Zelensky is now the subject of withering posts by the world’s most powerful man, who is parroting a regular supply of Kremlin talking points stemming from somewhere yet unknown, altering the course of the largest war in Europe since the 1940s.
The Trump administration’s financial support for Ukraine – without which its survival is truly in doubt – is now endangered. Trump has repeatedly referred – falsely – to how Ukraine’s aid is “MISSING,” and somehow that Zelensky is on a “gravy train.” He is preparing a narrative for the American people that probably ends in the aid itself being curtailed.
So why doesn’t Zelensky, who has spent half of his six years in power fighting a war he did not initially believe was going to happen, just call a vote and be done with talk of his legitimacy? Elections in Ukraine have been tough in the past two decades, even in peacetime. Russia has sought to meddle, in 2004 stealing the vote and sparking huge protests that unseated its proxy candidate who stole the vote.
In wartime, elections are suspended during martial law. A ceasefire, proposed also by Trump’s team, could lead to this being suspended, and allowing soldiers to vote. But what of the millions of Ukrainians abroad as refugees? What of the electoral reform and emergency legislation needed for a legitimate, modern vote? Should it be rushed to get a quick result, or labored over to reach the full, gold standards of international legitimacy? What if a Russian drone assault or missiles derail the voting day? Everything could go wrong and almost certainly will.
The result would irrevocably be shrouded in doubt, further damaging the mandate Zelensky is falsely accused of lacking, or empowering an alternative who would also lack full legitimacy. It would sow chaos on the front lines, at the kitchen tables and in the coffee shops of Kyiv, and in the Ukrainian diaspora around Europe. This is exactly what the Kremlin wants: political torment to add to Kyiv’s woes across the front line.
It is becoming harder to divine Trump’s motives. You cannot bluff when it comes to geopolitical security and NATO; your opponents will hear weakness in an alliance, and not fear you more as you strike a hard negotiating pose against your own allies. You cannot force a flawed peace upon a country fearing for the survival of its own borders and people. You cannot undermine a wartime leader and not expect his troops to also falter on the front lines. Only one strategic interest has been served by Trump’s radical rewriting of the global order in the past fortnight. And it is that of the one adversary NATO was founded to confront.