As the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed on 22 February 2025, impartial observers could be forgiven for thinking that global military geopolitics – or more specifically the US approach to it – has ‘fallen through the looking glass’.
Europe’s political leadership was first put into a tailspin on 18 February 2025 when US and Russian officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss ending the Ukraine War without inviting any participation from either Ukraine or Europe.
That same day, during remarks made at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, US President Donald Trump appeared to blame Ukraine for the Russian invasion of the country and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator”.
The latter claim, which appeared to closely mirror the agenda of the political ‘spin doctors’ in Moscow, stemmed from the fact that presidential elections in Ukraine set for the spring of 2024 were suspended, under legislation passed prior to Zelenskyy’s election in April 2019, due to the country being at war.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, meanwhile, can be traced back to Ukraine’s February 2014 Maidan Revolution: a popular uprising that ousted Moscow-compliant President Viktor Yanukovych in favour of a Western-leaning government and prompted Russia’s initial annexation of Crimea on 27 February 2014.
Then, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 24 February, the US disaligned with Ukraine and Europe on two telling votes. Firstly, after a US-drafted resolution calling for an end to the Ukraine conflict was amended, with European nations calling for it to include references to Russia’s invasion and Ukraine’s sovereignty, the US abstained. Then, as the UN General Assembly approved a European-backed resolution from Ukraine that demanded Russia immediately withdraw from the country, the US joined Russia, Russia-compliant Belarus and North Korea in opposing it.
Also on 24 February, Trump’s continued false assertions in relation to the Ukraine War prompted a real-time fact-check by none other than French President Emmanuel Macron. As the two leaders met in the White House, Trump claimed that European countries were merely “loaning” money to Ukraine and that “They get their money back”, at which point Macron immediately intervened to state, “No, to be frank, we paid 60% of the total effort, and it was, like the US, loans, guarantees, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear.”
Trump’s antipathy toward Ukraine can be traced back to his first presidential term in July 2019, when he attempted to coerce Zelenskyy into opening an investigation into his presidential rival, Democrat Joe Biden, by threatening with withhold military aid to Ukraine. Prior to a whistleblower complaint about this becoming public Trump ultimately released the aid and Zelenskyy declined to open the investigation.
Alongside that is Trump’s barely disguised admiration for the world’s authoritarian leaders who operate free from the guardrails of a US political system that Trump has frequently sought to degrade.
For European nations struggling to deal with the Trump Administrations attitude to the war Ukraine, the options are not easy ones. While Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are seeking to engage with Trump, other European leaders have adopted a more fatalistic outlook. Following the German federal election on 23 February, chancellor-in-waiting and former Atlantacist Friedrich Merz stated that day, “I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this … but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week … it is clear that this [US] government does not care much about the fate of Europe. … My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
Meanwhile, back in the US there has been a backlash against Trump’s indifference to Ukraine’s fate on both sides of the US political isle. A typical example of this was a statement by the Democrat US Representative Mike Quigley, co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, who stated on 20 February, “For years, the far right has parroted Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine. Now, those same talking points are coming out of the White House. Let me make it clear to President Trump: Putin is a dictator who illegally invaded a sovereign, democratic nation. He has overseen mass atrocities in Ukraine, including the bombing of hospitals; the rape, torture, and murder of civilians; and the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children. This does not make him a ‘smart’ or ‘savvy’ leader. This makes him a war criminal.
“Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine,” Quigley added, “sends a clear message to our allies that we cannot be relied on, we will not stand by our word, and that we choose autocrats over democracy. The President and his cronies should be ashamed.”
The extent to which such voices will be heard, however, remains to be seen.
