... “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” Trump said of the nation that was attacked on Feb. 24, 2022, by a Russian leader who had declared that Ukraine deserved no independence or sovereignty because it wasn’t a “real country.” Vladimir Putin’s casus belli was a chilling act of dehumanization, and it was followed by a brutal assault that would have succeeded but for the brave resistance of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.
Those are the moral and strategic issues at the center of the conflict. But somehow, in Trump’s monomania, the war is about him. He has said often, with no evidence, that Russia wouldn’t have invaded if he had been president. Now, he’s claiming Ukraine spurned his help and brought this existential fight upon itself.
... The president has effectively made Zelensky his adversary and, implicitly, moved toward open embrace of Russia’s anti-Zelensky line. His words are also likely to leave deep scars in Ukraine. One retired U.S. Army officer who’s working in Kyiv sent me an anguished message on Wednesday: “What the hell is happening in America? From here, we look like we’ve lost our minds. We’re not just losing our standing with current leaders but we’re losing the next generation who are watching and learning that America cannot be trusted.” (Read it all)
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