No wonder DJT hates Volodymyr Zelenskyy
On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (ICYMI: Ukraine did not start it, DJT.), coverage in The Washington Post and The New York Times spotlights U.S.-Ukraine relations and what Donald Trump’s fluffing of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin means for the world more than it addresses what Ukraine continues to suffer at Putin’s hands.
CNN on this anniversary leads with the war’s impact on Ukraine itself:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday hailed Ukraine’s “absolute heroism” as he marked the third anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, and as European leaders began arriving in the capital Kyiv in a show of support for the embattled country.
“Three years of resistance. Three years of gratitude. Three years of absolute heroism of Ukrainians. I am proud of Ukraine!” Zelensky wrote on X alongside a video showing scenes from the frontline and Ukrainian civilians supporting war efforts during the grinding conflict.
“I thank everyone who defends and supports it. Everyone who works for Ukraine. And may the memory of all those who gave their lives for our state and people be eternal.”
The anniversary comes with Ukraine facing great uncertainty about its future after US President Donald Trump pivoted toward Russia and US officials insist that Europe can no longer rely on Washington for its defense.
The embodiment of “the old spirit of the kleptocrats,” Trump would have marked an anniversary like today’s with a paean to himself.
[https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-fact-sheet-february-21-2025]
Franklin Foer begins his essay in The Atlantic this morning by recounting Trump’s effort via U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to pressure Zelenskyy into handing the U.S. hundreds of billions in mineral rights. It is no wonder Trump has slandered him lately. Besides resisting Trump’s proposal, Ukraine’s president is leading the worldwide resistance to authoritarians Trump wants to lead.
The former Ukrainian comic did not begin his tenure as “a sturdy bulwark against autocracy,” Foer explains:
But he became one in the face of an unrelenting assault. Having preserved his nation’s independence, however, he’s now facing not one but two of the world’s most powerful illiberal leaders, conspiring in tandem. For reasons both petty and pecuniary, Trump seems intent on fulfilling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal of crushing Ukrainian sovereignty. The American president is pressing for Russia’s favored resolution to the war, without even allowing Zelensky a seat at the negotiating table. And the resource deal he’s pursuing amounts to World War I–style reparations, but extracted from the victim of aggression. It would force the Ukrainians to hand over the wealth beneath their ground, without any guarantee of their security in exchange. The extortion that Trump proposes would deny Ukraine any possibility of recovering economically, and consign its people to a state of servitude.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday, “I am not signing something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to repay,” while admitting Ukraine could yet be forced into it (given Trump’s appeasement of Putin).
As for Trump’s accusation that Zelenskyy is a dictator, more than a few recognize that if Trump really thought that he’d have his nose far up Zelenskyy’s rectum. Zelenskyy’s counter at a Sunday press conference was that he would resign in exchange for Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
Foer concludes:
American institutions have largely faltered amid Trump’s assault, and European allies have aimlessly panicked. But Zelensky’s very presence reprimands the West for its futile opposition; his resoluteness shames Republicans, who once admired him as a latter-day Winston Churchill, for their own abject capitulation. Although he arguably has more to lose from a Trump administration than anyone on the planet, he’s kept pushing back, with resourcefulness that recalls Ukraine’s guerrilla tactics in the earliest days of the Russian invasion. When the history of the era is written, Zelensky will be seen as the global leader of the anti-authoritarian resistance, who refused to accept the terms that the powerful sought to impose on his nation. He clarified the terms of the struggle with his heroic example. He reminds despairing liberals, “We are still here.”
Plucky Ukraine and its president will be a thorn in the side of authoritarians so long as they resist. May we be as persistent here at home. We haven’t yet begun to pay the price Ukraine has. But the costs will mount the longer our own resistance takes to congeal.