by Miceál O’Hurley
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an ever-more revealing pattern of President Donald Trump’s determination to break with America’s almost 250-year ethic of attempting to base its foreign policy on the values of democracy, freedom, justice and at least the pretense of morality, he overnight ordered the immediate cessation of all US military aid to Ukraine on Tuesday. Within 24-hours, the CIA announced it would no longer share intelligence with Ukraine and forbid American allies from sharing US sourced information with Ukraine as well.
Just prior to posting this story, The European Diplomat – Diplomacy in Ireland spoke with commanders of two different military units, one operating in Eastern Ukraine and the other in Southern Ukraine, both of whom reported their US supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) have stopped working due to override commands. Additional claims that some Starlink communications systems, manufactured by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, had their service suspended. The HIMARS rocket system has been an integral part of the bulwark that allowed Ukraine to strike Russian targets with a high degree of accuracy while Starlink signals have powered most frontline, battlefield communications systems. The US Department of Defense and Starlink/SpaceX have not responded to requests for comment.
The disabling of HIMARS and interruption of tactical communications due to any decision on the part of the US would represent a serious degradation of Ukraine’s defensive capabilities thus favouring Russian military operations in Ukraine.
These moves come only days after a contentious Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskii, Trump, US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. That meeting, videos of which have gone viral, devolved into a shouting match with Trump and Vance berating Zelenskii and he in turn trying to plea for security guarantees which Ukraine believes are critical to any peace agreement. After the meeting broke down Zelenskii was reportedly asked to leave the White House.
An image captured by the open source intelligence monitor (@sentdefender/X) showed Ukrainian Ambassador to the US, Her Excellency Oksana Markarova was observed with her hands covering her face during the meeting in a visible show of distress. A planned signing ceremony for Trump’s much pursued rare Earth minerals deal and a joint press conference were hastily cancelled by the White House.
Despite rhetoric from the White House and Republican party leaders, for all observers the Oval Office meeting had all the hallmarks of a public lynching. Un-typical for a Vice President, Vance injected himself into the conversation between Trump and Zelenskii claiming, in the most hostile of terms, Zelenskii has not shown enough gratitude for US assistance (the Economic Times of India published a list of at least 33 times Zelenskii has thanked the United States in public settings, likely far more during visits from US politicians and in private meetings). A pro-Trump “journalist”, Brian Glenn from cable news network ‘Real America’s Voice’, was called on only for him to chide Zelenskii for showing “disrespect” to the United States for not wearing a suit in the Oval Office (Zelenskii is famous for wearing basic military attire since the start of the war – as did Churchill in FDR’s White House – and in keeping with Elon Musk who wore a banded t-shirt and baseball cap in the Oval Office only a week earlier. More unaccustomed to such meetings, Russian State Media TASS was given access to the Oval Office (all while excluding the Associated Press) to ensure Russian media had first-hand access to the spectacle Trump, Vance and Rubio created.
Friedrich Merz, who leads Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and is likely to be the next German Chancellor, accused Trump of luring Zelenskii into an ambush for the media to exploit. Speaking in Hamburg, Merz said, “It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskii, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office”.
Trump’s behviour towards Ukraine has been reflective of his domestic conduct. Since returning to office, Trump has doled out retribution to his perceived political enemies and gone about dismantling institutions he felt undermined his legitimacy. Particular targets of Trump’s retribution campaign have been FBI agents who criticised him; intelligence agents who had access to information contrary to his interests and career Justice Department prosecutors who did their duty by investigating his role in the attempted January 6th 2000 coup designed to keep him in office after losing the 2018 election to Joseph Biden.
Trump nurtures extreme animus towards Ukraine. He has often blamed Ukraine and Zelenskii in particular for being behind one of his two impeachments by the United States House of Representatives. Trump is the only US President to have been impeached twice. He is also the only President to have served having been convicted of felony crimes, some 34 times in total. Other criminal charges against Trump were dropped due to US policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents and the Supreme Court having widened their interpretation of Presidential immunity from bad acts in office.
Since the disastrous meeting in the Oval Office Trump has railed against Zelenskii publicly claiming he is not interested in peace and hasn’t shown enough gratitude for Trump. The talking points from Trump and his supporters claims Zelenskii needs to prove himself by opting into the Trump plan to settle the conflict.
By contrast, Trump, Vance and Rubio have gone to great lengths to explain away their stance that speaking ill of Putin or Russia will only alienate him from potential ceasefire talks. By contrast, Trump has spared no end of pressure or negative attributions towards Ukraine and Zelenskii in particular, whom Trump recently called a “Dictator” and has now claimed Zelenskii “needs to resign”.
At issue is Trump’s fundamental belief that Putin can be relied upon as a partner for peace. Such optimism stands in sharp contrast with Putin’s historical conduct, be it with Georgia whom Russia invaded in 2006 or Ukraine. After the 2014 invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces and multiple breaches of agreements on the part of Russia meant to induce peace Russia simply sent its tanks streaming over the Ukrainian frontier after specifically denying any intent to do so only hours earlier.
Zelenskii’s attempts to defend his world view, facts and reality to Trump in the Oval Office was taken by Trump as disrespectful and a direct challenge to Trump. Allies across Europe have publicly agreed with Zelenskii that Russia cannot be trusted and have voiced reasonable fears Putin’s goals still remain to take even more European territory in his stated quest to rebuild what had been under Russia’s control during the Soviet era.
Both Zelenskii and Ukraine remain acutely aware they are in the midst of an existential point in their history. Without continued Western support, the challenge to maintain their sovereignty and restore their internationally recognised yet temporarily occupied territory seems out of reach. Trump tipping the scales in Russia’s favour by suspending aid, stopping intelligence sharing and repeatedly weakening Zelenskii is demonstrative of his lack of adherence to conventional American foreign policy goals and the nation’s long standing commitment to democracy and the rule of law.
The ultimate question is, however, can a Trump deal based on abandoning international law, surrendering Ukrainian sovereignty over more than 20% of its territory and reaching a settlement predicated on depriving Ukraine of its sovereign right to seek entry into NATO and the European Union prove a durable peace? Given Putin’s stated goal of rebuilding a new Russian empire and Ukraine’s competing goal to remain free, democratic and sovereign there is little cause to believe that absent Russia being defeated and forced to withdraw any settlement will prove durable.
The seismic shift caused by Trump reorienting US foreign policy now pits the nation against Europe and potentially NATO. Earlier last week Trump commented, “the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it”. Given Europe’s demonstration of solidarity and increased support for Zelenskii and Ukraine immediately following Trump having berated Zelenskii in the Oval Office the transatlantic partnership between the US and Europe, a compact that kept the peace in Europe since World War II, that is until Russia invaded Ukraine, now seems to have been unilaterally terminated by Trump.
Proof of this lies not only in the treatment of Zelenskii and abandonment of Ukraine but in the vitriol directed at Europe. On Tuesday, Vance recommenced is insult campaign against Europe saying the United Kingdom was “…some random country that hasn’t fought war in 30 years”. Vance seems to have ignored that almost all of the US wars in the last 30-years failed to meet their stated objective, cost hundred of thousands of live and has left Afghanistan firmly in the hands of the Taliban the war was fought to defeat and left Iraq in disarray. Vance’s lecturing the world about the correctness of power and military might was seen as discordant with reality.
Trump’s open hostility towards Zelenskii and moves to cut-off aid and demand pre-negotiation concessions from Ukraine in favour or Russia render his conduct repugnant to any sense of fairness or justice. Given Europe’s renewed solidarity and offer to broker peace talks, along with Türkiye’s bona fide offer as a mediator, it seems decreasingly likely Trump will be able to deliver on his campaign pledge to stop the war in Ukraine “in a single day”.
With Trump now having blown up the signing of his much vaunted ‘Minerals Deal’ with a chaotic meeting and now having Zelenskii agree to sign the deal only to have Trump cease all military intelligence sharing with Ukraine seems to indicate the minerals deal was a ruse. Trump has twice in a week gone to great lengths to weaken Ukraine while demanding a signature on the minerals deal and when Ukraine seemed supplicant enough he again pulled the rug out from under Zelenskii’s feet. It becomes ever more fantastical to believe that such an erratic and biased party could ever broker a durable peace deal unless that is if Trump’s idea of a peace deal is the abject surrender of Ukraine to Russian control.
