It’s hard enough to negotiate with an enemy you do not trust. But imagine not being able to trust your most critical ally, either.
When President Donald Trump said Monday that he’d offer Ukraine “very good security” as he pushed Kyiv to come to some sort of truce with Russia, many Ukrainians watched knowing that he may not keep his word. Trump is known, after all, for constantly changing his mind, including about how much he admires Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Yet the U.S. remains a crucial source of military and economic aid to Ukraine. So there was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Monday (in a suit!), hoping to convince Trump to give Kyiv “everything” it needed for its security. He came with other European leaders who urged Trump to keep helping Ukraine, to pursue a ceasefire first and not to fall for dubious Russian long-term peace proposals.
As the visitors made their practiced pitches while sitting around a table with the U.S. president, the whole thing felt absurd.
Ukrainians obviously cannot trust Putin, a man with a long history of broken promises. But they also cannot trust Trump, another man with a long history of broken promises. Somehow, though, these are the two men pressuring Kyiv to go for a “peace agreement” that could force Ukraine to give up a huge chunk of its territory to an invading Russia.
The harsh reality is that Ukrainians have little choice but to consider any offer Trump puts before them. They still need the United States, even if the relationship stinks.
“We have to hope for the best knowing everything we know,” Yuriy Sak, a former adviser to Ukraine’s defense ministry, told me.
Daria Kaleniuk, a prominent Ukrainian civil society activist, said the best response is to be self-reliant. “The meetings are like a reality show, which will lead to nothing,” she said.
Ukrainians already are doing what they can, under intense Russian fire, to turn themselves into an increasingly independent actor in the war. That includes their manufacture and clever use of drones, which has allowed them to strike deep inside Russian territory.
Nonetheless, the prevailing sense in many circles is that Ukraine will ultimately lose to Russia. Trump seems to agree, telling Fox News, in one of several recent comments meant to pressure Zelenskyy to make a deal with Putin: “Look, Russia is a very big power, and they’re not.”
Ukrainians take care to distinguish between Trump and Putin. The latter, they point out, is a former spy and skilled manipulator responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Trump at least seems sincere in wanting to end the war, some told me.
But, despite some harsh words for Putin earlier this year, Trump seems once again intent on impressing the Kremlin chief. He rolled out the red carpet when they met in Alaska last week. He also called Putin on Monday, as well as meeting with European leaders. Afterward, he wrote on social media that his team would work with Putin’s to arrange a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, to be followed by a trilateral session that also includes Trump.
“Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote.
But Trump’s adoption of Putin’s talking points on Ukraine, including saying Moscow won’t give up the Crimean region, and his on-again, off-again support of the Ukrainian cause, means that, for Kyiv, the diplomatic field is arguably more unpredictable than the battlefield.
That said, even if Ukraine doesn’t trust Trump, the bar for diplomatic success has fallen very low these days. Ukrainians are relieved that Trump even talks to Zelenskyy, whose previous Oval Office meeting with the U.S. president in February was a disaster. Zelenskyy on Monday was more cautious in front of the cameras.
Other Europeans, meanwhile, delight over any sliver of hope Trump offers. They were happy that Trump, in last week’s meeting with Putin, didn’t flat-out agree to give away Ukrainian territory, even though he seems to have aligned himself with that Kremlin position. Trump’s mere openness to a security guarantee for Ukraine is viewed as a huge win.
“The fact that you have said ‘I’m willing to participate in security guarantees’ is a big step,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told Trump on Monday. “It’s really a breakthrough. And it makes all the difference.”
Some Ukrainians hope that the ultimate result of the gatherings is to serve as a wake-up call to other European nations, leading them to take a bigger role in helping Kyiv. That includes handing over billions in frozen Russian assets to Kyiv.
Europe as a whole also needs to put its economy on more of a war footing and be less dependent on Washington for the continent’s security, Kaleniuk argued.
“It's not about war in Ukraine, it's about war in Europe, and Russia is the largest security threat to every single European country,” she told me.
Many U.S. presidents have broken promises before, of course. But Trump is unusual in how often and sometimes how quickly he reverses course. Foreign officials say it makes it hard for their countries to prepare strategies for dealing with Washington.
Hanna Hopko, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who travels the world arguing her country’s case, warned that Trump’s inconsistency in backing Ukraine has wide fallout.
“I'm laughing, honestly laughing,” she said when I asked about how Ukrainians could trust Trump’s promises. “It's about American credibility. It's not about Trump. You guys are losing credibility worldwide.”
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