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Monday marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war — which the Kremlin once characterized as a “special military operation” to discipline an insubordinate neighbor — has sprawled across hundreds of miles of front lines, devastated swaths of the country, displaced millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands. Against the odds, Ukraine doggedly held its own in an existential fight for survival, backed by a flow of Western military assistance. Nevertheless, the far larger Russian war machine is still grinding through Ukrainian territory and raining down missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities.
As the conflict enters its fourth year, it appears to be reaching a tipping point. Ukraine’s hopes of reclaiming land lost to Russia are dimming, and European governments are grappling with the limits of their capabilities and unity as President Donald Trump accelerates his own approach to an endgame. Trump vowed to forge peace but in recent days seems to have put his thumb on the scales for Russian interests, much to the chagrin of traditional U.S. allies.
Ukrainian officials and European diplomats expressed a cautious optimism about what Trump could achieve in the early days of his second term. But Trump and his lieutenants have managed to shock and enrage many on the continent within his first month in office. Trump doubled down this week on his attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of provoking Russia’s invasion and even casting him as a “dictator” for not staging elections while his country was staving off Russian invaders.
Meanwhile, Trump officials held meetings with senior envoys of the Kremlin in Saudi Arabia, breaking a long policy of nonengagement with Russia. The talks — and subsequent Trump rhetoric — raised fears elsewhere of Ukrainian interests and European concerns being swept aside in a grand bargain between Washington and Moscow. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Thursday that “a forced capitulation of Ukraine would mean a capitulation of the whole community of the West.”
In Kyiv, the mood is defiant. Trump’s targeting of Zelensky has stoked the popularity of the embattled leader, who said the U.S. president was living in a “disinformation” space. “If anyone wants to replace me right now, then it just isn’t going to happen,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “I wish Trump’s team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine.”
The spur of the spat may be Zelensky’s reported refusal last week to sign a document proffered by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that would have promised half of Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to the United States in return for continued security assistance. That natural wealth was subject of discussions between Kyiv and the Biden administration as well, but Trump’s transactional style has made it a central fixation of the White House.
Trump’s hectoring Zelensky over not holding elections — which are broadly unviable with parts of the country occupied by Russia and millions of Ukrainians displaced — is a likely pressure tactic. “I don’t think Trump simply cares about any of this,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former minister of the economy, told me, referring to the absence of elections since the Russian invasion. “I think it’s a bargaining chip.”
According to Axios, some Ukrainian officials close to Zelensky are urging him to agree to an updated version of the minerals agreement to bring the White House back on side. White House national security adviser Michael Waltz accused the Ukrainians of “bad-mouthing” Trump. “They need to tone it down,” Waltz told reporters Thursday, referring to Zelensky’s fact-checking of Trump’s claims and appeals to Europeans to step up. “Take a hard look and sign this deal.”
The Kremlin seems pleased with what it’s hearing. Veteran Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov praised Trump this week for being “the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly” echoed the Kremlin’s line that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO was the cause of the war.
Multiple Trump Cabinet officials have already floated the prospect of sanctions relief for Russia, ahead of Moscow making any concessions to Ukraine. Much to the dismay of European interlocutors, the United States is resisting signing a Group of Seven nations statement on Ukraine that decries “Russian aggression” three years after the full-scale invasion.
Secretary of State Mark Rubio, once a stalwart anti-Kremlin hawk, has tried to reassure European counterparts that the Trump administration will maintain a tough line on Moscow, even as he glowed openly in Riyadh about the “incredible opportunities” to partner with Russia geopolitically and economically. Some Republicans believe finding an accord over Ukraine will help drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing.
Ukrainian critics say the move won’t work. “The desire of American leaders to tear Russia away from China and use it against China is the greatest geopolitical mistake of the 21st century,” Valerii Pekar, a prominent Kyiv-based analyst, told me. “Russia and China are so integrated that this is impossible.” He added that bringing Russia “out of international isolation” would be “unprofitable for the United States.”
Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, argued that Trump was contributing to a “re-imperialization” of global politics, where the concerns of great powers — or, at least, nuclear-armed powers — run roughshod over “republics and democracies.”
Mylovanov, the former Ukrainian minister, suggested that the angry atmospherics of the past week have convinced many Ukrainians of a greater need for self-reliance. “The world in which the U.S. will take care of this conflict doesn’t exist, and actually never existed,” he told me, pointing to various moments in the past two decades where the United States and Europe failed to adequately support Ukraine in the face of Russian coercion. “The lasting illusion of that world has gone now, and in that sense Trump has done a huge favor to Ukraine.”
