by David R. Wells and Lawrence H. Wells
The Trump administration's actions to end the war triggered by Russia's unprovoked 2022 full scale invasion of Ukraine demonstrates Trump's attitudes favoring dictatorships over democracies.
First we'll contrast the Trump administration's treatment of Ukraine's democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who in all but official title is a dictator.
Prior to a planned 28 Feb 2025 meeting with President Zelenskyy, Trump falsely
accused him of being
A Dictator
, and
falsely stated
that he started the war that actually began with Russia's unprovoked
invasion of Ukraine. He
repeated this false statement at an 18 Feb press conference.
During the
28 February 2025 meeting at the White House, Trump and Vice
President J.D. Vance verbally attacked Zelenskyy, accusing him of
not acting
all that thankful
for U.S. support, and also of blocking a peace agreement
to end Russia's war with Ukraine. Trump subsequently ordered Zelenskyy out of
the White House.
Zelenskyy had in fact publicly expressed gratitude for U.S. support
against Russia's invasion on many occasions; and the real obstacle to a peace
agreement is Russia's refusal to end its invasion of Ukraine.
Trump continued his attack on Zelenskyy in subsequent official press releases.
Not surprisingly the Russian government was delighted, as exemplified by the comments of Russian security council official and former president Dmitry Medvedev.
Contrast this with Trump's treatment of Russian President Vladimir Putin:
In August 2025
Trump hosted Putin at a summit at Joint Base
Elmendorf–Richardson in Alaska. This was Putin's first visit to the United
States since he attended the 2015 United Nations General Assembly meeting. It
is also Putin's first US visit since Russia's unprovoked full scale
invasion of Ukraine.
Trump almost literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin at his welcoming ceremony.
During the September 2026 United Nations General Assembly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Trump had invited Putin to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami. This would be the first time Putin has attended a G20 summit since 2019.
The Trump administration's behavior towards Zelenskyy and Putin extends to how it treats the nations they lead.
The 2022, 2023, and 2024 Federal budgets provided a total of $182 billion (roughly $60 billion/year) for
Operation
Atlantic Resolve" (OAR), the U.S. response to Russia's 2014 invasion of
Ukraine. It includes the
Ukraine Security Assistance
Initiative (USAI) that directly supports Ukraine's efforts to defend itself. Among
other things it provides equipment, training, intelligence support, and
logistical support. From 2022 to 2024 $33 billion of the OAR's budget (roughly
$11 billion/year) went to the USAI.
The 2025 and 2026 Federal budgets provided a total of $12.75 billion for
Operation Atlantic Resolve, and just $0.3 billion for the Ukraine Security
Assistance initiative.
On an annual basis that's an almost 90% cut for the OAR, and a nearly 99%
cut for USAI.
It gets worse: During 2026 shipments of U.S. Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine stopped entirely, leaving Ukraine defenseless against Russian ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks on its cities.
On 12 Feb 2025 President Donald Trump held a formal telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In a
speech at the Ukraine Defense Contract Group conferencein Brussels on 12 Feb 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said
" … returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective."
" … the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement."
Coincidentally these statements align precisely with Putin's demands that Ukraine accept Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, cede its eastern provinces to Russia; and never join NATO.
On 12 Feb 2025 President Zelenskyy and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
were scheduled to meet in Kyiv to discuss a proposed agreement on
development of Ukraine's mineral resources.
During a
press interview the previous week, Donald Trump had indicated that future
U.S. support for Ukraine might be conditional on the agreement.
Just hours before thee meeting the U.S. sent a new draft agreement were
Ukraine would give the United States
… 50% of the financial value received
by Ukraine from
… resources of
Ukraine, including: mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports … other
infrastructure (as agreed)
.
The U.S. also asked Ukraine to sign this agreement - which might be
described as extortionate - at the meeting, despite barely having enough time
to read it.
The Ukrainians quite rightly refused to sign, and began negotiating revisions. The final version of the Ukraine–United States Mineral Resources Agreement that Ukraine and the United States signed on 30 April 2025 replaced these onerous provisions with ones that recognize Ukraine's sovereignty over its natural resources, and only obligated Ukraine to contribute 50% of revenue from new resource development projects to the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund created by the agreement.
On 28 July 2025
Donald Trump announced that 100% tariffs would be imposed on any countries
buying Russian oil unless Russia agreed to a cease-fire in Ukraine by 8 August.
On 6 August
Trump announced tariffs on India for importing Russian oil.
Curiously no new tariffs were imposed on China, which is the largest
buyer of Russian oil.
Russia did not agree to a cease fire in Ukraine by 8 August.
On 8 August 2025 no new U.S. sanctions on buyers of Russian oil were announced; instead,
Trump announced the summit meeting with Vladimir Putin
that we mentioned above.
On 5 March 2026 the Trump administration announced it was temporarily lifting sanctions on India related to its purchase of Russian oil.
The Trump Administration's November 2025 "28 point" cease-fire plan largely reflected Russia's demands
On 5 Sep 2026 U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Russian
President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. This was at least the third time either
Kushner or Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow.
On 6 Sep 2026 they met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv
for the first time.
Speaking at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference the following week, Jared Kushner remarked
"President Putin laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that."
Putin's "line of what he wants to achieve" is for Ukraine to cede its eastern provinces to Russia, including territory in the Donbas region that Russia has been unable to capture. Russia's demand for Ukrainian territory has not changed at all since it invaded Ukraine.
Kushner's comments indicate that the Trump administration regards Ukraine's
unwillingness to reward Russia's unprovoked invasion is the main obstacle to
ending Russia's war with Ukraine.
The fact that Russia has never offered even the smallest concession is
apparently not a problem for Kushner or the administration he represents.
On 18 Sep 2026 President Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (H.R. 5334) > into law. Among other things it allows the President to increased tariffs on all Russian imports to 500%; and to impose up to 100% tariffs on imports from nations that purchase Russian oil or natural gas.
On 9 Oct 2026 President Trump spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin by telephone. Following the call Donald Trump announced an agreement with Russia allowing Russia to export diesel fuel to the United States. The U.S. Treasury Department almost immediately issued a license allowing Russian diesel imports for 6 months. These imports had been prohibited by the U.S. Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions Regulations and Ukraine-/Russia-related Sanctions Regulations.
The next day
Trump falsely accused Ukraine of causing high diesel fuel prices
in the United States, ignoring the fact that US diesel prices only rose
after Trump began his ill-conceived war with Iran. Trump also publicly called
for Ukraine to replace President Zelenskyy:
I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made
many deals and for some reason he never does.
Trump once again overlooked the fact that Russia has never altered its
demand that Ukraine surrender to its invasion.
The agreement to import Russian diesel fuel is exactly the opposite of the intent of the Graham Act that Trump signed just 3 weeks earlier.
The money from Russia's diesel fuel sales to the U.S. will of course find its way to the Russian government, where it will help to fund Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Whether Russia can actually deliver the diesel fuel remains to be seen.
On 11 Oct 2026 Donald Trump
announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an "energy ceasefire".
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy
said he was unaware of the agreement,
But
if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree.
The Russian government said nothing.
In remarks to reporters on 12 October, Trump said
Well,
they agreed. You know why? Because I said, ‘You agreed.’ That’s why.
This suggested Trump's so-called "energy ceasefire" agreement
was nothing more than wishful thinking. Ukraine nevertheless unilaterally
suspended its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure.
Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure continued.
Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine also continued.
On 13 October
President Zelenskyy said Ukraine received no intelligence from its partners on
the Russian ballistic missile attacks the previous night that had killed
Ukrainian civilians. He did not say the intelligence was deliberately withheld,
since it was at least possible it was caused by some technical problem. But on
14 October
Ukraine announced its access to Starshield communications had been
restricted, hampering both its ability to defend itself against Russian
missile and drone attacks, and to strike Russia. (Starshield is a military
version of the commercial Starlink system that is controlled by the U.S.
Department of Defense.)
Russian attacks on Ukraine, including its energy infrastructure,
continued unabated, killing more Ukrainian civilians.
After three days of uninterrupted Russian missile and drone attacks,
Ukraine announced it would resume attacking Russian oil infrastructure
since Russia had never observed Trump's "energy ceasefire".
Trump again falsely blamed Ukraine and President Zelenskyy for the high
diesel fuel prices that were actually caused by Trump's war against Iran.
On 16 Oct 2026
President Trump issued an executive order waiving all economic sanctions against Russia
that were imposed by the
Graham
Act, which Trump signed into law just one month earlier.
Trump claimed the waiver was
in
the national interests of the United States
.
We do not see how suspending economic sanctions against a hostile foreign dictatorship is in the national interests of the United States.
Trump's words and actions clearly indicate that he favors an agressive Russia
and its dictatorial ruler over Ukraine and its democratically elected
president.
We need to elect a Congress that will actively oppose this, and that will pass
legislation to materially support Ukraine's efforts to defend itself.
© 2026 David R. Wells & Lawrence H. Wells
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