Gbenga Adeosun
Since his return to the White House in January 2025, US President Donald Trump has upended American policy established by his predecessor Joe Biden regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Trump had a historically frosty relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dating back to his first term as President when he was impeached by Congress because he tried to coerce Zelensky to implicate Biden {who was then the Democratic nominee for President} in an alleged scandal relating to illicit financial dealings in Ukraine by the Biden family.
When the conflict started in February 2022 and the entire West rallied behind Ukraine and hammered sanctions on Russia, Trump was less explicit in his support for Ukraine and even more restrained in outright rebuke for Putin; hailing the Russian strongman as a “smart guy” in the early days of the conflict. After he clinched the Republican ticket for the November 2024 elections; Trump announced that the war would not have happened if he had been President and that if elected; he would engineer a deal to end the conflict within one day.
He further accentuated his position as a Ukrainian sceptic and rallied his loyal base including Republican congress members to block new financial aid packages for Ukraine; alluding to unaccountability and lack of progress on the battlefield to justify the billions of Dollars already provided. He also berated NATO for its inability to mobilise enough funds among its European members and as the conflict dragged on with no end in sight; he declared that the US could not continue to fund a war in Europe while paying little care to domestic immigration crisis within its borders which according to him deserved more attention than the conflict in Ukraine.
After he assumed office, his actions showed that his utterances during his campaign; as outrageous as they sounded were not mere rhetoric; implementing a swift overturning of the Biden strategy which centered on supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. Even for someone with a reputation for fiery utterances and volatile temperament; Trump’s actions and statements regarding the conflict have left some sections of the US and the West entirely shellshocked; with many striving to live with the emerging reality in Washington which entails decoupling security cooperation with Europe and establishing a strange rapprochement with the strongman in Russia.
Ahead of a meeting between his Vice, JD Vance, and Zelensky as the conflict neared its third anniversary, Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday,” throwing into question the future independence of a sovereign country that with Western backing has defended itself against Russia’s full-scale invasion for three years.
According to Trump “They (Ukraine) may make a deal; they may not. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” He stressed that he also wanted to see a return on investment of US aid for Ukraine, again floating the idea of a trade for Kyiv’s rare earth minerals. Whereas the Biden administration said its support for Kyiv was to defend the right of people to determine their futures and to maintain the principle that a country can’t change its neighbor’s borders by force, Trump’s comments reinforce his transactional approach to geopolitics undermining the broader diplomatic nuances required to execute geopolitical matters.
Trump has made it clear he wants the war to end as soon as possible – even if it means no concession of annexed territories and further land losses for Ukraine. And much to the shock of Kyiv and its allies, Trump at times adopted Russia’s viewpoint and blamed Ukraine and NATO for the conflict. But Trump’s boosting of Russia goes well beyond rhetoric, he also raised many eyebrows when opting to hold a 90-minute phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin before speaking to Zelensky.
US and Russian officials held high-level talks on ending the war in Ukraine in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, excluding Kyiv from the meeting. Putin praised this new US attitude towards his country. Speaking about the talks in Riyadh, Putin said he was told the atmosphere was “friendly, there were completely different people on the American side, who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what had been done in the past,” Putin added.
The US and Russia agreed in Riyadh to appoint high-level teams to negotiate the end of the conflict and said they were working to reestablish diplomatic channels. Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine was not happy with the exclusion, saying that while any country has the right to discuss bilateral issues, the fact that the US held direct talks with Russia helped Putin out of his long isolation.
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelensky pushed back on several claims Trump made including suggestions that Ukraine started the war, while reinforcing Ukraine’s position that a deal to end the war needed its involvement. “Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky said.
After Zelensky hit back, Trump escalated the fight in a post on his Truth Social network, claiming that Zelensky “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing former President Joe Biden like a fiddle… a dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only the Trump Administration, can do.” Trump’s claim that Zelensky is a dictator plays into one of Russia’s rationales for the war, in that the elected Ukrainian leader was illegitimate as part of Russia’s long-term hope of replacing him with a pro-Moscow head of state.
Trump’s turn against Ukraine is not just a remarkable spectacle as the United States changes sides in the middle of a war. It’s one example of Trump’s stunning transformation of US foreign policy as America becomes a nation that is rejecting the international system of alliances and friendships that it built to defend democracy and as its president seeks accommodation with autocratic leaders like Putin.
In Zelensky’s view, the end to the war Trump is envisioning looks like what Russia has been asking for. Already, members of Trump’s administration have ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv and said US troops would not help guarantee Ukraine’s security when the war ends. For months, Zelensky had carefully sought to avoid a full rupture with the new helmsman in Washington; he had arranged a meeting in the weeks ahead of the November 2024 election meant to allay some of Trump’s skepticism about US involvement in the war.
The men emerged at the start of the discussion at Trump Tower in Manhattan to demonstrate their willingness to get along. Trump said he had a “very good relationship” with the Ukrainian leader — but that he also enjoyed a “very good relationship” with his adversary in Moscow, Vladimir Putin. “I hope we have more good relations,” Zelensky interjected. “But, you know, it takes two to tango,” Trump replied. At the time, the exchange hardly registered. Just over a month into his administration, it appears to foretell the remarkable rift that has emerged.
In explaining Trump’s striking public statements, White House officials have insisted his primary objective is to end the three-year conflict in Ukraine, which he believes was mismanaged by the previous administration. Trump himself has appeared almost agnostic on the precise contours of the settlement that would end the war: “I don’t care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed” he said recently.
Zelensky travelled to Washington after the US and Ukraine agreed to terms on the deal over natural resources and reconstruction. Negotiations centred on a deal that could grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as part of wider negotiations to end Russia’s invasion as well as US involvement in a reconstruction fund for Ukraine. A major sticking point had been a demand from the Trump administration for a $500 billion share of Ukraine’s rare earths and other minerals in exchange for the aid the US had already provided Kyiv. Asked what Ukraine would receive in the mineral deal, Trump said: “$350 billion and lots of equipment, military equipment, and the right to fight on. “We’ve pretty much negotiated our deal on rare earth and various other things,” Trump told reporters, adding that “we’ll be looking to future security for Ukraine later on.”
Further commenting on the proposed deal, Trump declared it as an Economic partnership that will ensure the American people recoup the tens of billions of dollars and military equipment sent to Ukraine, while also helping Ukraine’s economy grow as the war comes to an end. He said he is in talks with Putin concerning the ending of the war, and that major economic development transactions will take place between the US and Russia.
The final version of the deal however appears far less onerous for Ukraine, which initiated discussions with the US last year about using its mineral stocks to finance the rebuilding of its devastated cities and infrastructure. There’s talk of a joint reconstruction fund but no mention of Trump’s initial claim for a $500 billion value. But even if he’s managed to remove the most punitive aspects of the proposed deal, the truth is that Zelensky had little choice, he’s trying to force his way back into the peace talks. And if Zelensky’s first visit with Trump since his re-election cools fears Ukraine is set to be sold out, it may also hold the possibility of a long-term US relationship with the country; a prospect that seemed unlikely only a few days ago. Zelensky styled the agreement as only a framework for a future pact — largely because he’s trying to leverage Ukraine’s mineral wealth for future US security guarantees he sees as vital to the survival of any eventual peace deal.
