While much of the world’s attention has been focused on the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has been escalating. And with the approach of winter, Russia will accelerate its bombardment of Ukrainian cities – a bombardment that has targeted not only the nation’s energy infrastructure but also commuter trains, buses, apartments and other civilian targets, in an attempt to wear down the morale of the Ukrainian people and beat them into submission.
Regrettably, President Donald Trump appears to be tipping the scales in the aggressor’s favor.
CONFUSION
Following a recent phone call with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump did the inexplicable by announcing a deal that would allow Moscow to release diesel fuel onto global markets in exchange for sanctions relief. He then cynically implemented a bipartisan measure sanctioning Russia – only to immediately waive the very sanctions authorized by that measure.
Not surprisingly, President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders reacted with confusion and anger.
Responding to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s observation that the war was stalemated and that the U.S. would continue working toward a settlement, Zelensky – while visiting the city of Pryluky, where a missile strike on an apartment building killed 20 people, including five children – demanded: “So where’s the truth here? Where’s the honesty? Where’s the stalemate?” Calling the diesel deal “unworthy of our partners” and “weak,” Zelensky pointed out that Moscow’s response to Trump’s deal was fresh strikes that killed more than a dozen Ukrainian civilians.
Zelensky went on to condemn Washington’s concessions to Moscow and questioned the intentions of bringing authentic peace to the years-long conflict. On a social media post, he insisted, “Peace never comes through weakness,” adding, “Any easing of sanctions versus Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious weakness. It plays into Russia’s hands – allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict greater losses and damage on the world.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas declared, “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t.”
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland put the war in proper perspective. The war, he said bluntly, is “a confrontation between good and evil.” Tusk was adamant: “Nothing will remove Russia’s 100% responsibility for the war.” Making indirect allusion to Trump, Tusk insisted that “anyone who suggests that Ukraine is responsible for the war is giving a valuable gift to the aggressor – Putin.” Offering context, he recalled Nazi attempts to assign blame to Poland for the very aggression that was directed against Poland.
Today, the same sort of blame-the-victim rationalizations are seeping out of Moscow – and, sadly, Washington.
Returning to the indefensible position he staked out in 2025, Trump declared this month that Zelensky “wants to make problems for the world…He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world.” Trump added for good measure, “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
Never mind that the Ukrainian constitution bars elections during wartime and/or when the country is under martial law. Never mind that the Ukrainian people, with their country dismembered and under Russian bombardment, oppose trying to hold elections. Never mind that the price of diesel is at record levels because of the cascading effects of the Iran war – not because of Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself from Russian aggression. Never mind that Trump’s diesel deal with Putin violates a 2022 U.S. law. Never mind that the 300,000 to 800,000 tons of Russian diesel to be released under the deal would have virtually no impact on global markets, which devour millions of tons of diesel per day. Never mind that the deal would give Putin an infusion of cash that he will use to build more weapons – weapons that will be used to target not only Ukrainian civilians, but also American troops in the Middle East.
WRONGS
Trump’s U-turn in recent days – from signing the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill in September to making an illegal deal with Putin, withholding critical intelligence from Ukraine and neutering the sanctions measure in October – is not only inexplicable. It’s wrong.
It’s wrong for the United States to tell a democracy fighting for its existence that life-saving intelligence is dependent upon that democracy agreeing to a one-sided ceasefire. It’s wrong to thank and praise and applaud a tyrant regime as it wages a war of terror against a member of the free world. It’s wrong to make demands of the victim but not the aggressor. It’s wrong to blame the attacked and justify the actions of the attacker. It’s wrong to lecture the victims of unprovoked aggression about peace.
It’s wrong to slander a defender of the free world with the label “dictator,” while praising a bona fide war-mongering dictator.
It’s wrong to turn our backs on Ukraine, especially after Ukraine answered when our troops in the Middle East called for help – and Ukraine’s specialists in drone and counter-drone warfare came running.
It’s wrong to hamstring Ukraine’s military, block delivery of weapons Ukraine has already paid for and call for elections that violate Ukraine’s constitution – all while throwing a lifeline to Russia’s economy and war machine, saluting its leader, and eliding the l’etat, c’est moi approach to governance taken by Russia’s latter-day czar.
“Why would you restrict a country fighting for its survival?” Zelensky asks. “Just give us Starlink back,” he added, after the Trump administration ordered SpaceX to shut down satellite internet service to Ukraine. “Why make it harder for us to defend our people? I simply cannot understand the reasoning behind this decision.”
Nor can we. Again, it’s all inexplicable – and indefensible.
The path Trump has chosen is worse than neutrality. Trump appears to have chosen sides, and he is on the wrong side. “It’s painful when Trump chooses to be on Russia’s side,” as Zelensky concludes. “This is not the right side of history.” Indeed, Trump seems to have chosen the side of unprovoked aggression, the side of mass-rape and mass-child abduction and mass-murder, the side of terror and empire. This is not moral relativism. This is moral inversion.
Trump’s “peace at any price” Russia-Ukraine policy fails at the most basic level, for it is unwilling to acknowledge that there is such a thing as an unjust peace. After all, the Mafia, terrorists, pirates and drug cartels maintain a kind of “peace” in their realms, in order to carry on their vile enterprises. There was a kind of “peace” in Stalin’s vast prison yard. There was a kind of “peace” after Munich.
Indeed, the civilized world could bring about a kind of “peace” – a false, unjust peace – simply by not resisting the enemies of civilization, by not keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, by not defending the 38th Parallel, by not standing up to Beijing in the South China Sea or Russia in Ukraine, by not maintaining armies. As President Ronald Reagan said, “There’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace – and you can have it in the next second – surrender.”
That’s what Trump wants Zelensky and the Ukrainian people to do – surrender their land, their sovereignty, their freedom. Again, it’s all inexplicable.
A GROWING CHORUS
We know that inflation, affordability and other pocketbook issues are top of mind for the American people – and understandably so. But we also know that foreign policy failures can do far more lasting damage than missteps here at home. As President John Kennedy observed, “Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”
Polling indicates that 80% of Americans recognize Putin’s Russia for what it is: an adversary. That explains why 74% of us support maintaining or increasing U.S. commitment to NATO – and why 62% of us support sending weapons to Ukraine, which is fighting our common enemy. Inexplicably, the president of the United States does not share these commonsense positions.
In recent days, Trump-sympathetic members of Congress have raised concerns about these inexplicable policies, challenged Trump’s diesel deal and questioned the sanctions two-step. Trump-sympathetic media outlets are calling for investigations into the Trump-Putin minuet. The Hill reports “A growing chorus of House Republicans is warning President Trump that they’re ready to block additional Pentagon funding unless the administration gets tougher on Russia.”
That chorus will grow louder and stronger in the months ahead.
The new Congress could teach the always-transactional Trump that Congress can play the transactional game, too.
The new Congress could make clear that Trump’s diesel deal is a violation of the law – and tie funding for his legislative priorities to following and enforcing that law.
The new Congress could attach fresh Ukraine aid – and fresh Russia sanctions – to every bill sent to the president.
The new Congress could investigate and expose any quid pro quos between the administration and our adversaries in Russia.
Perhaps this form of political hardball will help the president come to his senses. But even if it doesn’t, by exposing these lethal U-turns and cynical ploys and morally-empty gambits to the light, Congress could help end a farcical foreign policy.