BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  FEB 24, 2025 

I have this rule.

When something is said or done that hurts or angers, I hold off any response for 24 hours, knowing full well that I probably don’t have enough information or the placidity to make a reasoned judgment. It’s tough. In this day and age, it is a rule that begs to be broken.

I invoked the rule last week when President Donald Trump let loose on Ukraine and looked like he was gift-wrapping the country for his friend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s birthday. I couldn’t believe my ears, so I waited not 24 hours but 48. In the meantime, I read a variety of perspectives from right to left. I researched Ukrainian history and slowly replaced emotion with reason. But it didn’t change my mind.

Trump’s actions on Ukraine are unnerving and to some extent just plain scary, made more so by the disturbing trends taking place on the domestic front in just the first weeks of the second Trump term.

A case in point: Trump recently said that his swordsman, Elon Musk, isn’t aggressive enough. I hope that was in jest.

It is often hard to discern if the President’s bluster is just a bluff or his real intent, damn the consequences. He doesn’t seem to be bluffing or engaging in his brand of transaction diplomacy with Ukraine.

• He decided unilaterally to take command of peace negotiations and apparently did so without much, if any, consultation with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
• Trump has, in fact, said Zelensky will be denied access to peace talks until elections are held in Ukraine, a condition set down by Putin, but illegal under the Ukrainian constitution and law. Trump and Putin cut the Europeans out, too, leaving them to deal with the aftermath, which may well threaten European security and economic stability.
• Trump’s emissaries have demanded that Ukraine give up half of its valuable mineral rights for U.S military assistance up to now. Zelensky wants a guarantee of Ukrainian security.
• Trump and his Secretary of Defense said and implied that Ukraine will have to give up more of its territory to Russia, as well, a fait accompli.
• Trump claimed that Zelensky started the war, an allegation that has no foundation in history or in current events.
• Trump has declared Ukraine persona non grata at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, another Putin demand. There will be no room for him at that table, either.
• Trump accused Zelensky of not really wanting a peace agreement, arguing that he (Trump) could have resolved the problem before an invasion took place, preventing the loss of territory and the lives of its citizens and soldiers. Really?
• Trump accused Zelensky of provoking Putin into a war.
• Trump has claimed that half of the aid given to Ukraine has been lost to corruption. He calls Zelensky a swindler.

Each of these allegations can be disputed with facts. I’ve included a link to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) fact sheet to help you work your way through them: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-fact-sheet-february-21-2025

That was all in about a week, but there is history here. Animosity between Trump and Zelensky has been simmering for a long time and Trump has demonstrated many times that he holds grudges and seeks revenge.

“Zelensky and Trump share an awkward history: When Trump asked the Ukrainian president in 2019 to dig up dirt on the Biden family as a condition for military aid, the scandal led to Trump’s first impeachment,” according to the Washington Post.

“In September, Zelensky infuriated Republicans during the U.S. election campaign when he visited an ammunition plant in President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Several days later, meeting with Trump, Zelensky said he hoped the two would have good relations. ‘Oh, I see. It takes two to tango, you know,’ Trump responded,” according to the Post.

Putin, in fact, annexed Crimea and set up insurgent regimes in Eastern Ukraine during a period of great turmoil in Ukraine. That was four to five years before Zelensky was elected President–in a landslide, by the way–and had no means of provoking the Russian dictator. During this period, as well, Putin began massing hundreds of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian border. Some contend Putin believed conquering the entire country would be as easy as annexing Crimea. Trump called his invasion a stroke of genius.

The modern history of Ukraine and Russia dates back to the Bolshevik revolution and Ukraine’s place in what was to become the Soviet Union. The turmoil has been ongoing ever since. The relationship of the two neighbors has been highly complex and subject to interpretation.

Trump loyalists have their side, too. They question the hysteria over his words and deeds this past couple of weeks. They would argue that their leader is in fact only in his ‘let’s make a deal’ entirely transactional negotiating style. “It’s just a negotiating tactic to end the war…I trust Trump,” one said.

They contend that Ukraine is a strategic threat to Russia’s sphere of influence and that gives Putin the right to defend Russian security. Trump loyalists believe the US has no business dispensing billions upon billions of tax dollars to foreign countries and foreign wars that will probably end in stalemate. Jeffrey Blehar, writing in the National Review wrote that “Trump regards most countries as being essentially parasitic upon the United States.” Trump summed it up himself, Blehar quoted Trump saying: “This war is far more important to Europe than it is to us-We have this big, beautiful ocean as separation.”

Defenders also believe that Trump won the election in 2024 because he understood them and was focused on the issues important to them. They trust him to turn the country around by cutting spending, closing the border, strengthening defense and restoring a sense of nationalistic pride. They should not have to suspend disbelief, to believe that he is that strong leader who can accomplish the impossible and do it in record time.

It is difficult for the lay person–at least this one–to divine the outcome of the Trump adventure in Eastern Europe. He has engaged in irascible, discombobulating, and plain reckless behavior.

The warning signs are ominous.

There is more to this than global games of transactional diplomacy. Trump has been cozying up to Putin for more than a decade, for greater personal and political purpose than getting even with Zelensky. Putin has done the same. We can only speculate what their endgame is.

They do seem to have in common a grandiose view of their power and their unbridled ambitions to impose a new world order. It is generally assumed that Trump admires Putin’s strength, iron-fisted rule, and survival instincts. But Putin is more than a macho tough guy. He is known throughout the world as a ruthless, unscrupulous ruler who in true communist tradition believes in the supremacy of the state over the well-being of its subjects and is not afraid to poison, imprison, and murder his enemies to achieve those ambitions. At the same time, he has established a corrupt system that has amassed massive wealth for himself and the oligarchs at his side. He’s been in power a quarter of a century. There’s a reason for that.

Perhaps there are answers embedded in Trump himself. There is a disturbing thread in his revenge against perceived enemies and the necessity for feudal-style fealty to his presidency, a demand that literally rules out any contrary opinions, moderating advice, or conscientious objection within the White House and the departments or from Congress and the courts. No national democratic ruler should be isolated from dissent or fail to recognize its validity or ignore the rule of law. The White House has windows on the world that give its inhabitants a full view. It seems like the windows have been replaced by mirrors. This country does not prosper under those conditions and it’s not who we are.

Americans want change and rightly so, but I do not believe they signed up for the chaos and nerve-racking unknowns the President and his Muskevite army are delivering. Americans want change that is effective, realistic, and predictable with manageable risk. Americans should be scared but not cowed. They should let their representatives in Congress know that and voice their discontent over and over again so there is no mistaking it for a passing phase.