As Bad as It Gets—Until It Gets Much Worse

By Abe Greenwald

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

 

If there’s a maximally perilous way to go about dealing with the war in Ukraine, it’s the way Donald Trump has chosen. He’s cozied up to Vladimir Putin, called for Russia’s return to the G7, ruled out Ukrainian ascension to NATO, rejected the prospect of Ukraine’s borders returning to pre-invasion lines, left Ukraine out of negotiations, blamed the invaded country for starting the war, and finally attacked Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy with familiar personal venom.

 

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn't be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the US and 'TRUMP,' will never be able to settle,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

 

He added, “I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered,” and closed with a threat: “A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.” 

 

There’s more to the post, but you get the picture. We’re back in Trump Hell. The president is poised to give Putin everything he could ask for, including no NATO peacekeeping troops on the ground in the event that a settlement is reached. Trump is setting up Putin to push forward the moment that Trump’s successor takes office. It’s a deal that allows Trump to say he brought peace for the duration of his presidency and lets Putin regroup for the inevitable resumption of the invasion. And when that happens, Trump will blame it on the next president, Republican or Democrat. 

 

Zelenskyy responded to Trump’s blaming Ukraine for the war, saying that Trump “lives in a circle of disinformation” and “I would like to have more truth with the Trump team.” It’s true that Trump deals in disinformation, but that’s not the problem here. Trump isn’t acting out of a misplaced faith in false narratives. He doesn’t care whether Zelenskyy is a dictator, and I doubt he even believes it. Trump is coming at this from the other way around. He’s throwing up false narratives to justify actions he’s already set on. He wants to end the war no matter how bad the terms. The disinformation about Zelenskyy is just the MAGA dust at hand that Trump can sprinkle atop the whole mess.

 

When the president isn’t responding to external reality, it’s superfluous to fact-check him. And when facts become superfluous, nihilism sets in. I remember this feeling well from Trump’s first term—the sense of losing one’s own stake in the truth. 

 

But if you’re Zelenskyy, you don’t have the American luxury of flirting with nihilism. Your life’s purpose has been handed to you, and that purpose is saving your country from extinction. So Zelenskyy can’t afford to not assert the truth.  

 

Yet in an interview today, Vice President JD Vance criticized the Ukrainian president for defending himself. “The idea that Zelensky is going to change the president's mind by badmouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the President will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.”

 

Vance speaks as if there’s any way to change Trump’s mind about this, as if Trump hasn’t deliberately left Ukraine out of talks because he decided a priori to proceed on Putin’s terms. 

 

There’s not much that a decent, struggling, war-ravaged country can do once the U.S. determines you’re the enemy. Illiberal countries faced with that dilemma can choose to join the U.S.-led liberal alliance. Ukraine was already in that club; America is the one leaving it. So Ukraine will appeal to its European allies. They’ll hold emergency meetings, but that won’t stop the momentum of Trump’s turn toward Moscow. With Putin and Trump now working against Ukraine, Zelenskyy is all but checkmated.

 

And the U.S. should expect misery in the coming decades. Not only will Putin restart his conquest. Iran—barring a bold Israeli operation—will intensify its cooperation with an ascendent Putin, and China will both exploit Europe’s strained ties with the U.S. and invade Taiwan when it sees fit. At that point, the U.S. will have to scramble to put the world back together again. That’s going to cost a lot more than supporting Ukraine would have. Trump is finishing the job that Biden began with the withdrawal of Afghanistan: liberating the beasts and shackling the guardians of global order.