Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tested a variety of tactics to try and manage United States President Donald Trump, from flattering him to offering a favorable deal on Ukraine’s critical minerals. But nothing seems to be working.
On the contrary, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin look set to engage in a strongman bromance once more, and appear to be aligning to target him personally.
Following midweek talks between senior U.S. and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia, Trump’s subsequent call for elections in Ukraine ahead of any peace deal and placing the blame on Zelenskyy for the war, saw the mood in Kyiv darkening.
The Saudi-based talks are being seen as the start of a consequential reset in U.S.-Russia relations, with the delegations — led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov — agreeing to restore embassy staffing in Moscow and Washington, and begin geopolitical and economic negotiations. Ukrainian leaders are thus growing increasingly uncertain of what tack they can take with Trump to ensure a bad peace deal isn’t foisted on them.
Their quandary has only been worsened by Trump’s remarks on Tuesday, when he said: “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down to 4 percent approval rating.”
Trump’s remarks clearly irritated Zelenskyy personally, provoking him to hit back as the hostility between them intensifies. Taking issue with the characterization that he’s unpopular in Ukraine, he said: “With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader … he’s living in a disinformation space,” also noting a recent survey suggested 58 percent of Ukrainians remain confident in his leadership.
But personal irritation aside, Trump’s remarks are adding to Kyiv’s fears that — having already excluded the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO and conceded that the country will have to accept the loss of territory currently occupied by Russia — he’s ready to give Putin most of what he wants. The U.S. leader has already escalated the war of words even further, taking to social media to call Zelenskyy a “dictator.”
“Trump and Putin want Zelenskyy out — their alignment is worrisome,” a former Ukrainian minister told POLITICO, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely. “And knowing that they want him gone, Zelenskyy will do everything to cling to power, which will just further deteriorate Ukraine’s diplomatic position.”
Moscow is probably banking on that happening, keen to see the split between Trump and Ukraine widening to the point where it can’t be bridged.
Before this week, Ukrainian leaders had been inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, to see him as an ally — albeit a difficult one — who they could work with to gain the diplomatic upper hand over Moscow.
Zelenskyy and his top aides ran through an array of tactics to ensure that happens — initially courting and flattering the prickly, unpredictable U.S. leader, and suggesting he’ll be able to pull off a great deal. They also hoped to appeal to his transactional instincts with an offer to share in Ukraine’s critical mineral wealth, but have balked at Trump’s greed.
Meanwhile, they’ve been banking on an obdurate Putin overplaying his geopolitical hand as well, refusing to budge on anything and prompting Trump to lose patience with Mr. Nyet.
So, with all that in mind, Ukrainian leaders were careful not to cross Trump and to avoid being seen as putting any obstacles in the way of peace. Their assumption was that Trump would come to learn just how intransigent Putin is — and how he double-deals.
After a December meeting between U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg, Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, they were quietly confident. According to a top Republican lobbyist who advises Ukrainian agencies and asked to remain anonymous, the Americans assured Yermak they wouldn’t abandon Ukraine, and that Trump intended to leverage U.S. power to strike a good deal with Moscow.
And when, to Ukraine’s relief, Trump began threatening Moscow with the prospect of economic warfare late last month, all seemed to be going according to plan. “We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better,” Trump warned in a message addressed directly to Putin on his social media site Truth Social.
But now confidence and trust have been shattered, and there’s growing Ukrainian fears that Trump is slipping into bed with Putin — that all the talk of negotiating a peace deal on the basis of Western and Ukrainian strength isn’t at all how the dealmaking will unfold, and that Trump will strike a shabby deal that undermines their independence and sovereignty, leaving them vulnerable to Moscow. Kellogg’s exclusion from the Saudi talks has only added to their alarm.
“For the Ukrainians, there’s too much uncertainty now,” an American adviser to Kyiv told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. They’re not sure what their messaging should be, he explained.
Trump questioning Zelenskyy’s political legitimacy is seen not only as galling but compliantly playing into what Putin has long wanted — the removal of Ukraine’s wartime leader, including by assassination if necessary. Putin and his top aides have repeatedly tried to cast doubt on Zelenskyy’s presidency after he stayed in power beyond his term, which as scheduled to end in May last year but continued due to martial law.
Trump’s insistence that his call for an election isn’t a “Russian thing” but something “coming from me” is seen as naive at best, and at worst, a sign he’s ready to team up with Putin to target Zelenskyy. For Ukraine’s leadership — and even for some of Zelenskyy’s domestic political opponents who have chafed at his highly personalized and, according to some, autocratic way of governing — holding elections now, under the current volatile circumstances, would only risk triggering political turmoil and corrode their country’s steadfastness. The Kremlin’s disinformation machine would go into mischievous overdrive to stir up as much trouble as possible.
Early last year, when Trump kicked off his reelection campaign, the Ukrainian leader’s advisers placed a lot of faith in the power of his skills of persuasion were Trump to get back into office. They recognized the U.S. president might still bear a grudge against Zelenskyy for failing to go along with his demand to announce a probe into the Ukrainian business dealings of former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, during his first term. But they believed Zelenskyy’s gift of the gab would dilute any bad blood.
Whether this is that bad blood resurfacing or simply Trump’s apparent readiness to see things more from Putin’s strongman perspective, all the Ukrainians know is that their hopes are unraveling fast — hence efforts to lean on Europe as a possible counterweight. At last week’s Munich Security Conference, Zelenskyy made a powerful plea directly addressed to the Europeans.
So far, though, even a coalition of the willing among them is proving less than inclined.
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