U.S. President Donald Trump is right to say Russia’s war against Ukraine “never should have started”—but the blame for it lies entirely with Russian President Vladimir Putin, not with Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
At his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, Trump went on to say: “You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened.” On Wednesday, Trump went further, calling Zelensky a “dictator” who took money from the United States to go to war.
U.S. President Donald Trump is right to say Russia’s war against Ukraine “never should have started”—but the blame for it lies entirely with Russian President Vladimir Putin, not with Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
At his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, Trump went on to say: “You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened.” On Wednesday, Trump went further, calling Zelensky a “dictator” who took money from the United States to go to war.
This is not a war that Ukraine sought but is the result of having been invaded by Russia. Ukraine is merely trying to defend itself, rightfully regain territory seized by Russia, and ensure this doesn’t happen again. And the dictator in this war is Putin, who has been in power for two and a half decades, not Zelensky, who was democratically elected president of his country in 2019.
As U.S. and Russian officials conclude their initial talks in Saudi Arabia on the war, it’s important that Americans understand that it is Putin who bears responsibility for the massive loss of life among Ukrainians and Russians. Putin is guilty of war crimes and genocide against the Ukrainian people. Putin is the one who could stop this war at any moment.
Pressure to end the war, in other words, needs to be applied on Russia, not Ukraine.
For decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine, despite various agreements recognizing the country’s independence and territorial integrity. But the pivotal moment came in the fall of 2013, when Putin pressured then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an openly pro-Russia figure, against signing agreements with the European Union to which he had already previously agreed.
NATO enlargement, it cannot be emphasized enough, wasn’t an issue at all when Putin decided to invade Ukraine the first time in February 2014. (In earlier remarks, Trump said the Russians would not “allow” for Ukraine’s NATO accession.)
In 2010, the first year of Yanukovych’s presidency, Ukraine became a nonaligned state under legislation that ended pursuit of NATO membership as a foreign-policy goal. The issue in 2013 involved the EU and Yanukovych suspending preparations to more closely integrate with it. That sparked what became known as the Revolution of Dignity that saw Yanukovych flee to Russia—he was not overthrown—in February 2014.
Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands protested against Russian interference and a leader who clearly sided with Moscow. It was the second time in a decade that Ukrainians turned out in massive numbers. The first time, in 2004, was against Yanukovych’s attempt to steal a presidential election.
Watching the revolution unfold undoubtedly unnerved Putin, who couldn’t stomach the idea that Ukrainians could turn out in the streets and effect change. In light of sizable protests in Moscow in 2011 and 2012, Putin worried that Ukrainians might provide a dangerous impetus to Russians to revive their own demonstrations against the Kremlin.
To try to stem the tide, Putin sent “little green men”—the term used to describe his invading force—into Crimea, the peninsula part of Ukraine, and arranged for a rigged referendum to argue that Crimea wanted to become part of Russia. Putin and his pliant parliament illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014.
Feeling emboldened from that takeover, which Ukrainians didn’t resist militarily, Putin then tried his luck in Ukraine’s Donbas region. There, Ukraine did put up a fight, and thousands of Ukrainians were killed as a result of Putin’s initial invasion starting 11 years ago. Ukraine was then forced to sign two cease-fire agreements in Minsk that Russia never had any intention of respecting, ultimately leading to the full-scale invasion in February 2022. This history—and the fact that Putin has never viewed Ukraine as a legitimate, independent state, a view he most clearly articulated in a treatise in July 2021 titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”—is vital for understanding the last three years amid the talks in Saudi Arabia.
Following Zelensky’s election victory in 2019 with 73 percent of the vote, he sought to advance NATO membership for Ukraine. As a sovereign, independent state, Ukraine has every right to determine its own foreign policy and orientation. The first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 increased support among Ukrainians for joining NATO with its Article 5 collective security guarantee. Zelensky pursued closer ties with the West because the people who elected him president wanted to integrate more with NATO and the EU.
Yet Zelensky met strong resistance from some NATO member states, especially Germany and the United States, and was making little progress. It was widely known that NATO lacked consensus for admitting Ukraine into the alliance when Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. Once again, NATO enlargement wasn’t an issue when Putin decided to attack Ukraine. His intent was always to create a vassal state similar to neighboring Belarus while eradicating Ukrainian identity and extinguishing its statehood.
Contrary to Kremlin propaganda occasionally parroted by Westerners, there are few wars in which responsibility is as clear-cut as this one: Ukraine is the victim of Russia’s unjustified, unprovoked, and barbaric invasion. Putin, therefore, must not be rewarded for what he has done to Ukraine. Nor must Ukraine be excluded from negotiations that involve its fate. Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
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