Zelenskyy Was Right

By Abe Greenwald

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

 

If you were concerned that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were teaming up to force an unjust peace on Ukraine, you can stop worrying. Whatever Trump’s true intentions, Putin clearly doesn’t want anything to do with his plan. The Russian dictator is humiliating Trump, and people in the president’s orbit are starting to notice. Even Trump has said he’s “p—ed off.” So we might be close to the break-up of his most toxic bromance.

 

It’s been almost 30 days since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yes to a 30-day cease-fire proposed by the U.S. This was supposed to have “put the ball in Putin’s court.” But, in reality—as is the case with Hamas vis-à-vis Israel—the ball was always in Putin’s court. It’s up to the party that’s waging the war to stop the killing; the party fighting for its survival is obligated to defend itself until it can’t. In any event, Putin has rejected the cease-fire proposal, demanded Ukrainian territory not currently under Russian control, called for the easing of Western sanctions, and speculated about replacing Ukraine’s government.

 

All Trump’s efforts have bought him nothing but total Russian rejection. Just think about how he’s carried on in pursuit of this fantastical deal. Before being elected, Trump bragged that it would take him a single day to impose peace on the two countries. Once in office, he boxed Ukraine out of opening negotiations and called Moscow directly. After speaking with Putin on the phone, Trump at once became his American PR flack. “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” he posted on Truth Social. “President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’”

 

Then Trump began attacking and pressuring Ukraine. Right off the bat, he ruled out Ukrainian NATO membership and a return to pre-invasion borders. Next, the administration proposed a mineral-rights deal that would obligate Ukraine to pay the U.S. billions in natural-resource revenues. In late February, Zelenskyy came to the White House, where—in the most vulgar public episode in the history of the Oval Office—Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him for his supposed ingratitude. After kicking Zelenskyy out, the administration halted intelligence-sharing and military aid to Ukraine. Trump and his acolytes ramped up personal attacks on Zelenskyy, calling him a “dictator,” etc., until Zelenskyy showed sufficient public remorse. Then came the cease-fire agreement and another round of praising Putin. All of this, not incidentally, has severely strained U.S.-European ties.

 

And Trump thought Zelenskyy was ungrateful?

 

Putin has played the great dealmaker for a chump. It’s all coming to naught. Russia is stringing the U.S. along, while Zelenskyy is wary of signing a rewritten version of the mineral-rights agreement. No deals seem to be getting done anywhere.

 

Now, those who went out on a limb for Trump when he turned on Ukraine are trying to undo the mess they’ve gotten into. Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham—who said, after the Oval Office debacle, “I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again,” and who called for the Ukrainian president to resign—introduced a bill that would, in his words, “sanction the hell out of” Russia. And Trump is also talking about imposing massive sanctions on Russian energy. If he does so, it would automatically make him tougher on Putin than Joe Biden ever was, as Biden refrained from properly going after Russian oil. That should be a sufficient incentive in itself.

 

The irony is that this is exactly what Zelenskyy was trying to warn Trump and Vance about at the White House. He was attempting to explain that Putin is a deceitful marauder who doesn’t respond to diplomacy or abide by the obligations of treaties. They punished him for it when they should have been taking notes.