BY MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS MARCH 05 2025
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a very public argument at the Oval Office last week when Zelensky came to Washington to sign a rare minerals agreement with the United States. The heated exchange was a vast departure on how Zelenskyy was treated by the Biden administration, and if the world wants the war in Ukraine to end, that is a very good thing.
When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, it was the clear and obvious aggressor in this conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has had his eyes on expanding Russian territory for decades; he did so with Georgia and Crimea already. Any excuse he made about Ukraine possibly joining NATO was merely a justification for action that he was going to do anyway.
Due to the heroism of the Ukrainian military with Zelenskyy at the helm, Putin did not walk into Kyiv like he originally planned. The first few months of the war were incredibly bloody, and both sides lost lives and territory in the process. To date, approximately 1.5 million lives have been lost, and millions more are injured and refugees from their homes. Now, however, the metrics of the war has changed, and there is basically a stalemate. Unless one side or the other radically escalates – like with nuclear weapons – this war is not moving. So it is time to end it.
Before Trump entered office, there seemed to be little interest in America or Europe to end this war. The EU and the Biden administrations painted themselves in a rhetorical corner. They so loudly and so often called Putin a dictator and Zelenskyy a hero while proclaiming their unwavering commitment to helping Ukraine until all of its goals are achieved, they could not actually negotiate a peace between the two sides. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy made so many promises that he cannot keep to his people that they would retake land Russia conquered, he cannot willingly sit at a negotiating table.
Enter Trump on the eve of the third anniversary of this war, and he is clearly trying a new tactic. Trump’s rhetoric is, as always, unpolished and brash. Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” in a Truth Social post and then questioned whether he did it a few days later. Trump lit the media ablaze when he wrongly suggested that Ukraine started the war. All of this rhetoric fuels the Leftist fire that the media and Democrats have had about Trump for a decade: that he is too friendly to Putin.
The conspiracy theory of Trump’s relationship to Putin is a joke. Pundits, elected officials, presidential candidates, and scores of others claim with a straight face that Trump is a compromised agent of Russia. Their only evidence for years has been comments that Trump has said publicly after Putin is trying to butter Trump up. There has been no benefit to Putin that Trump has been in office. During Trump’s first term, he only got poorer and more isolated, and during Biden’s term he got richer and gained more territory. Now, Putin is already signaling he’s willing to negotiate an end to the war, something that Kamala Harris would not have been able to do.
The question for America in this is: “What do we want to do about Ukraine?” If the answer is “end the war,” then there are two options. We can either escalate by arming Ukraine to the point that they can retake their lost land, risking that Putin would retaliate with nuclear weapons. Or America could force the two sides to the table and make a deal with security guarantees, potential land swaps, and other points that come up during negotiations. Biden’s willingness to keep the war going ad infinitum doesn’t work for Trump and doesn’t work for the American people.
Trump is even willing to allow the war to continue on forever by empowering the Europeans into taking control of the arming of Ukraine. Europe is still thinking like the Biden team did, meaning they are willing to prolong the war. After Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday, he met with European leaders in London over the weekend as they scrambled to formulate a “Coalition of the Willing” amongst themselves (no, Zelenskyy still did not wear a suit). This coalition vows to continue arming Ukraine, thus prolonging the war.
If Europe wants to bankrupt itself over this war instead of trying to end it with strong decisive mediation, then they can leave America out of it. That is basically what Trump is trying to do. While his critics claim that this meeting of European countries is a rebuke of Trump, it’s really a rebuke of Biden. Europe should have taken over this conflict years ago. The problem is that since World War II, Europe has become completely dependent on the United States in every way while maintaining that they despise the United States. They are spoiled children who are being cut off.
Too often, discussion of this war devolves into partisan barking—talking points lobbed like grenades across ideological trenches. One side paints Putin as a cartoonish villain and Zelenskyy as a flawless martyr; the other blames NATO’s hubris or America’s meddling. Both miss the point. This is not a morality play; it’s a geopolitical quagmire, where every actor bears flaws and every decision carries weight. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the complexity of a conflict that has reshaped the world—and may yet unravel it.
That is what Trump is trying to do. He recognizes Zelenskyy for what he is: someone who needs to be bullied into negotiating while a guy like Putin needs to be flattered. Trump is a businessman, and he’s approaching this like a merger between two companies that hate each other. No one yet knows if it will work, but Trump’s instincts on foreign policy are more correct than they are wrong, and the opposite tactics have already failed. The irony is, if this is successful, no one criticizing Trump today will give him credit for actually bringing peace.