While Donald Trump’s administration wavers and calculates profit margins, European leaders are in London today with President Zelensky, offering the kind of firm support that used to be America’s calling card.
The contrast is mortifying: European capitals understand what’s at stake in Ukraine better than Washington does. They recognize that this isn’t a business deal to be brokered – it’s a fight over whether international law means anything at all and solidarity within the free world still exists.
Trump’s promise of a swift “deal” to end the war – one that would almost certainly require Kyiv to surrender substantial territory to Moscow – deserves to be called what it is: Criminal in its violation of international law, naive in its misreading of authoritarian ambition, and dangerous in ways that will haunt American and Western security for generations.
What Trump dismisses as a real estate transaction is actually a test of whether the rules-based international order survives or collapses into a world where might makes right. The answer America gives will determine not just Ukraine’s fate, but whether the world enters an era of cascading conflicts that will make the current war look modest by comparison.
Why it’s criminal
Forcing Ukraine to cede territory to Russia would constitute the most significant violation of international law since World War II. The UN Charter, which the US helped write in the ashes of that conflict, explicitly prohibits the acquisition of territory by force. This principle has prevented great power wars for nearly eight decades.
Trump's belief that every problem can be solved with the right deal fundamentally misunderstands Putin's regime.
Russia’s invasion violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK. Any deal that rewards Putin’s aggression by letting him keep conquered land doesn’t just betray Ukraine – it dynamites the entire architecture of international law. Every treaty becomes worthless. Every border becomes negotiable. Every security guarantee becomes a lie.
Consider the precedent. Russia invades a neighbor, commits war crimes including the deliberate targeting of civilians and infrastructure, and forcibly deports hundreds of thousands of children – and then gets rewarded with territory. The message to every dictator on earth: Crime pays. The strong can devour the weak. International law is just a suggestion for those powerful enough to ignore it.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes. Rewarding him with Ukrainian territory would make the United States complicit in those crimes, transforming it from a defender of international order into its gravedigger.
Why it’s naive
Putin has violated every major agreement he’s ever signed with Ukraine – from the Budapest Memorandum to the Minsk Accords to multiple ceasefire agreements. He annexed Crimea in 2014 after promising to respect Ukraine’s borders. He launched a full-scale invasion in 2022 after amassing troops and insisting he had no such plans.
Any territorial concession would simply give Putin time to rearm, regroup, and attack again when the moment suits him. Munich 1938 should have taught the West this lesson permanently: Britain and France let Hitler dismember Czechoslovakia in exchange for “peace in our time.” Within a year, Europe was at war.
Trump’s belief that every problem can be solved with the right deal fundamentally misunderstands Putin’s regime. This isn’t a negotiation where both sides want to close. Putin’s goal isn’t sustainable peace – it’s the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state and the restoration of Russian imperial dominance over Eastern Europe. He views compromise as weakness and agreements as tactical pauses before the next offensive.
Putin has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to exist as a nation, called its statehood a historical mistake, and framed the war as an existential struggle against Western encroachment. No one can make a lasting deal with someone who denies the other party’s right to exist.
Trump’s history of pursuing business deals in Russia, his repeated praise of Putin, and his family’s financial entanglements create a toxic mix where policy and profit motive become indistinguishable.
When Trump promises a quick deal, the obvious question arises: a deal for whom? For Ukraine’s security, or for Trump’s business interests?
Why it’s dangerous
The strategic consequences of forcing Ukraine to surrender territory would reverberate far beyond Eastern Europe. NATO’s credibility would be shattered.
Trump's approach treats alliances as protection rackets and sovereignty as a commodity to be traded.
If the United States abandons Ukraine after three years of promising to support it “for as long as it takes,” why would any ally trust American security guarantees? The Baltic states, Poland, and Romania would conclude they’re on their own. Israel, surrounded by hostile actors and dependent on American commitments, would be watching. Taiwan would probably accelerate its own nuclear weapons program, as would South Korea and Japan. The nuclear non-proliferation regime would collapse as nations conclude that only nuclear weapons guarantee sovereignty.
China is watching intently. If Putin succeeds in conquering territory through force with American acquiescence, Xi Jinping will draw the obvious conclusion about Taiwan: invade, endure some sanctions, wait for American attention to wander, and eventually Washington will pressure the victim to accept the new reality.
Trump’s approach treats alliances as protection rackets and sovereignty as a commodity to be traded. This betrays the values that have made America a superpower – not just military might, but the credibility that comes from standing by principles and partners. Once that credibility is gone, no number of aircraft carriers can recover it.
What hangs in the balance
Ukraine isn’t asking America to fight its war. Ukrainians are asking for the weapons to defend themselves against an imperial aggressor. They’ve shown extraordinary courage and determination. They’ve degraded Russia’s military, exposed its weakness, and proven that free people fighting for their homeland can defeat a larger authoritarian power. All they need is for America to keep its word.
Forcing Ukraine to surrender territory wouldn’t end the war – it would guarantee the next one. It would tell every dictator that aggression works and every democracy that America’s word means nothing. It would unravel the security architecture that has kept Americans safe and prosperous for generations.
The choice facing Washington is stark: Stand with Ukraine and defend the principle that borders cannot be changed by force, or make a “deal” that trades away both Ukraine’s freedom and America’s credibility.
One path leads to a more secure world. The other leads to an era of chaos and conflict that will make the current crisis look like a preview.
There is no middle ground. There is no clever deal that squares this circle. America will either remain the defender of freedom and international law, or become the enabler of their destruction. That choice will echo for decades.
P.S. Watch the new blockbuster movie “Nuremberg” and draw some lessons. Were Hitler and his cronies allowed to get away with their barbarism when a deal after Dunkirk or Pearl Harbor might have “stopped the killing,” for a while, at least? And a new Nuremberg is not beyond the hills.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.