I strongly encourage you to read Marc Caputo’s detailed assessment of the exchanges between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Trump Administration at Axios. Here’s how he quotes the White House:
In the White House’s view, Zelensky grew too accustomed to former President Biden’s open-ended support for Ukraine’s war effort, the full-throated backing of NATO countries and the positive press that went with it. So he overstepped.
- “Zelensky is an actor who committed a common mistake of theater kids: He started to think he’s the character he plays on TV,” a White House official involved in the talks said. “Yes, he has been brave and stood up to Russia. But he would be six feet under if it wasn’t for the millions we spent, and he needs to exit stage right with all the drama.”
- “We created a monster with Zelensky,” another official involved in the negotiations said. “And these Trump-deranged Europeans who won’t send troops are giving him terrible advice.”
- “In the course of a week, Zelensky rebuffed President Trump’s treasury secretary, his secretary of state and his vice president, all before moving on to personally insulting President Trump in the press,” another administration official said.
- “What did Zelensky think was going to happen?”
Read the whole thing.
I wanted to add one more thing, via Holman Jenkins at Wall Street Journal:
Tweeted a former minister in the Zelensky government last week: “We just didn’t want to admit it. The difference between Biden and Trump is that Trump says out loud what Biden was thinking and doing.”
or, said another way, from the Ukrainian point-of-view the U. S. actions have been consistent from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration. It’s their words that have been different.
Dont believe that last part, though it’s early. If True continues to talk trash and support Russia but still give Ukraine aid then it’s believable. Also, in what way did Biden act that suggested he thought Ukraine started the war?
Steve
I didn’t comment yesterday; but on what should the US do now, I choose (D) provide aid but focus on humanitarian aid (E) negotiate an end to the war as soon as practical.
The situation on the ground is going poorly for Ukraine. Just projecting out the trends, Ukraine will be in a much worse negotiating position 3, 6 months from today. There are models and analogous wars which point to Ukraine ability to fight will collapse around 48-60 months from when the war started, it is month 36 now.
If you go through the noise, there were interesting things that came out of all the noise.
(a) The Europeans don’t want to put their troops to gurantee a peace. When asked for forces they would volunteer to station in Ukraine after a deal, Poland declined, Spain declined, Germany pointed at elections but will decline.
(b) Trump is willing to continue supplying Ukraine with aid, including military. That “$500 billion” minerals contract Trump is “cramming” on Ukraine is the tell. First, there isn’t $500 billion worth of rare earths in Ukraine, and most mineral weath is in the part of the Donbas Russia controls. The deal is to some fig leaf cover that Trump is providing aid for something.
(c) Confirmation that Zelensky’s personal incentives run counter to everybody else when it comes to negotiations. The reality is Zelensky will be a literal dead man whenever a deal is reached and it is worse in everyway for Ukraine to what was comtemplated in Istanbul in the first month of the war.
PS : Trump’s tongue lashing is actually very mild response. If Trump wanted to inflict pain, he could have ordered a deep audit of all government funded aid to Ukraine.