President Donald Trump has finally spoken about Ukraine—though not to offer support, sympathy, or leadership. Instead, he chose to quote Vladimir Putin—and, let’s not shy away from the word, to encourage him.
In a Truth Social post earlier this week, the U.S. President relayed details of a “good conversation” with the Russian leader. According to Trump, Putin informed him “very strongly” that he would be retaliating against Ukraine following a drone strike that destroyed several Russian strategic bombers. Trump’s response? Not a murmur of disapproval. No objection. No effort at de-escalation. Instead, he moved swiftly on to Iran, as if the impending missile barrage on Ukrainian cities were a scheduling inconvenience.
This display of diplomatic detachment comes amid what was widely seen as a battlefield triumph for Ukraine. A carefully coordinated drone operation—nicknamed “Spider’s Web”—hit multiple Russian air bases across five time zones, damaging or destroying aircraft connected to Russia’s nuclear command systems. International observers called it a technological breakthrough. Trump called it a problem.
Sources inside the administration told The Atlantic that the President was “fuming.” Not, it should be noted, because Moscow’s strategic bombers are routinely used to attack Ukrainian civilian targets—but because Kyiv’s success might “prolong” a war Trump insists he wants to end. Privately, the President complained that the Ukrainian action had sabotaged prospects for a ceasefire and reignited his long-held suspicion of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he reportedly labels a “hothead” and, more colourfully, “a bad guy.”
In a remarkable inversion of wartime morality, Trump has reserved his harshest tone for Ukraine—not for the nation carpet-bombing its cities, but for the one defending them. The President, according to advisers, believes the drone strikes may have endangered peace talks in Istanbul. The fact that Putin had already rejected a ceasefire proposal just weeks earlier appears to have gone unnoticed, or more likely, unmentioned.
The President’s public statement made no reference to the ongoing Russian attacks on Kharkiv, Dnipro, or Mykolaiv. There was no mention of civilians killed, nor of the cluster munitions reportedly used in recent Russian strikes. Instead, Trump chose to relay Putin’s “very strong” intention to strike back—and left it at that.
The omission has raised alarm in Kyiv and across European capitals. There are concerns that Trump’s silence could be read in Moscow as tacit consent—or worse, as encouragement. This is not far-fetched. Trump’s administration has not increased aid to Ukraine since returning to office in January. He has refused to back new sanctions against Russia, despite bipartisan support in the Senate. And earlier this week, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth became the first U.S. official to skip a key NATO coordination meeting on Ukraine since the full-scale war began.
Meanwhile, influential MAGA figures close to Trump, including Steve Bannon, have gone on the offensive. On his podcast, Bannon compared Ukraine’s strike to Pearl Harbor, accusing Zelenskyy of undermining diplomacy with a “sneak attack.” The line has gained traction within the White House, where internal discussions are reportedly considering whether the U.S. should “walk away” from Ukraine altogether.
Trump, ever the showman, appears to be testing that message. He has suggested privately that he no longer believes a summit with Putin and Zelenskyy is viable. What began as campaign-trail theatrics—promising to “end the war in 24 hours”—has now morphed into something more dangerous: disengagement dressed as statesmanship.
In public, the President continues to gesture vaguely at peace. “Trump wants this war to end at the negotiating table,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted earlier this week. But in practice, that table seems increasingly bare—especially as Trump now openly muses about shifting his focus to a new diplomatic prize: Iran.
“We also discussed Iran,” Trump wrote in the same post about his call with Putin. “President Putin suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion.” A “helpful” Putin—this, apparently, is now a serious pillar of U.S. foreign policy.
What this adds up to is a presidency that has, either by accident or design, placed Ukraine in a holding pattern: unsupported, unarmed, and increasingly unwelcome. Trump has managed to transform a Ukrainian military victory into a public relations crisis—not for Moscow, but for Kyiv.
Whether this is naïveté, opportunism, or a carefully calculated shift towards a realignment with authoritarian powers, the effect is the same. The President of the United States, told directly by Vladimir Putin of an impending attack on a democratic European country, said nothing in response. Instead, he shared the message publicly, unchallenged, then turned his attention to uranium enrichment.
In diplomacy, silence is never neutral. And in this case, it may prove far more lethal than anything Trump actually said.
Image: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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