In February of 1945, with the Allies closing in on victory in Europe, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin convened at Yalta, a Crimean resort, to determine the future. The outcome wasn’t just a peace agreement; it was a pragmatic division of Europe into spheres of influence – a deal that sentenced countless people to years under Soviet control.
Fast forward 80 years, and the outlines of a new Yalta are emerging, not in a Crimean palace, but in the statements, actions, and strategic omissions of US President Donald Trump’s second term.
Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy clearly outlines a world divided into “spheres of influence.” It champions American leadership in the Western Hemisphere, while seemingly conceding Russian control over Eastern Europe and China’s sway in East Asia.
This represents a significant shift from the past 80 years of US foreign policy, which has been built on the principles of national sovereignty, the sanctity of borders, and the right of people to self-determination.
The US under Trump is returning to a 19th century model of great power politics where smaller nations exist as pawns.
The US under Trump is returning to a 19th century model of great power politics where smaller nations exist as pawns – their independence negotiable, their sovereignty conditional, and their futures determined in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington rather than their own capitals.
Trump has pushed relentlessly for “quick” peace negotiations in Ukraine while soft-pedaling Russian aggression and refusing to characterize Russian President Vladimir Putin as a dictator. His rhetoric portrays the war’s continuation as the result of poor decision-making by individual actors – implicitly blaming President Volodymyr Zelensky – rather than acknowledging naked Russian imperialism.
The August 2025 Trump-Putin summit, far from producing concrete peace terms, confirmed the fundamental incompatibility of Russian and Ukrainian objectives and Trump’s willingness to pressure Kyiv rather than Moscow.
The systematic withdrawal of US military presence from NATO’s eastern flank tells the deeper story. In October 2025, the Pentagon notified Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia of its plans to reduce its military footprint – a “marginal force recalibration,” as veteran diplomats quickly labeled it, that many saw as a strategic blunder.
Combined with Trump’s threats to condition Article 5 guarantees on defense spending levels, the message to Eastern European nations is unmistakable: you are on your own, or worse, you are negotiable.
Belarus offers the clearest example. Notably, Belarus, despite its strategic location, was missing from Trump’s National Security Strategy. The country seems to have been dismissed as a mere Russian satellite. The administration has gone so far as to engage in direct talks with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s government, thereby lending legitimacy to Europe’s last dictatorship and abandoning the Belarusian democratic opposition. This marks a stark departure from earlier US policy and tacit acknowledgment of Belarus as a vassal state of Russia.
Georgia finds itself similarly cast aside. Having seen 20 percent of its land seized by Russian forces in 2008, the country has witnessed US security guarantees fade away, and its hopes of joining NATO quietly disappear. The present administration’s tepid public backing of Georgia’s independence speaks volumes. Tbilisi, much like Minsk, seems to have succumbed to Moscow’s influence, with its sovereignty seemingly not a pressing concern for Washington.
The most concerning aspect could be the uncertain positions of Hungary and Slovakia – both NATO and EU members that Trump views as hybrid entities, simultaneously part of the Western alliance and sympathetic to Russian interests. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s February 2026 trip to Budapest and Bratislava, where he met with respective Prime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico, highlighted this troubling ambiguity.
Trump has consistently praised Orbán as a “strong and powerful man,” while both leaders have continued to purchase Russian energy, oppose EU sanctions, and hinder military aid to Ukraine. The White House’s November 2025 pronouncement, lauding “new heights” in US-Hungary relations, underscores the administration’s readiness to overlook Orbán’s authoritarian tendencies and his pro-Russian stance.
Slovakia’s Fico has brazenly resisted US and EU calls to sever Russian energy connections, cautioning that a swift break would spell economic disaster. Instead of taking a stand against these NATO partners for their Russian alignment, Trump has welcomed them, establishing a troubling precedent: alliance membership no longer seems to necessitate unified action against Russian aggression.
The historical echoes are haunting, yet the comparison reveals something worse than repetition – it reveals regression.
Orbán and Fico now play both sides, maintaining NATO membership while effectively serving Russian interests – a situation unthinkable during the Cold War but now tacitly endorsed by Washington. The result is a gray zone within NATO itself, undermining collective defense and allowing Russian influence to penetrate the heart of the Western alliance.
The historical echoes are haunting, yet the comparison reveals something worse than repetition – it reveals regression.
When Roosevelt and Churchill sat down with Stalin at Yalta, they faced brutal constraints. The Red Army already occupied Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and much of Central Europe. American forces were still fighting in Germany, and the Pacific war against Japan appeared likely to cost hundreds of thousands more American lives – Soviet entry into that conflict seemed militarily essential.
Roosevelt, gravely ill and dead within two months, genuinely believed postwar cooperation with Stalin was possible, that the United Nations could manage great power competition, and that Stalin’s promises of free elections might hold. The American public, after years of devastating war, demanded demobilization, not new commitments.
Roosevelt’s accommodation was morally indefensible – a betrayal of the principles for which the war was ostensibly fought. But it emerged from genuine strategic dilemmas, however poorly resolved.
Transactional politics and dealmaking with dictators
Trump faces no such constraints. No Russian army is sweeping across continents, forcing impossible decisions. Ukraine is not a prerequisite for American security but a test of it – and one Ukraine is passing, having demonstrated that with adequate support it can defend itself and bleed Russian military power. European NATO members have committed to massive defense spending increases, creating the foundation for genuine deterrence. The tools for supporting Eastern European sovereignty exist; what’s missing is will.
Trump’s retreat is entirely voluntary, driven by isolationist ideology, the desire for a quick political “win” regardless of substance, a transactional view of alliances as protection rackets rather than mutual commitments, and an evident personal affinity for authoritarian strongmen.
Where Roosevelt made a terrible decision under duress, Trump is making an optional one – sacrificing democratic allies and entire peoples not because circumstances demand it but because his instincts prefer dealmaking with dictators to the patient work of supporting freedom.
The consequences may prove similar: 45 years of communist tyranny, crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Wall, millions imprisoned behind an Iron Curtain, families divided for generations, dissidents tortured and killed, entire nations with development stunted and cultures suppressed. But the moral culpability is far greater when the betrayal is chosen rather than forced.
The current trajectory promises comparable outcomes. Ukraine, fighting for survival, would be forced into a settlement legitimizing Russian territorial conquest and leaving it vulnerable to future aggression. Belarus would remain under Lukashenko’s boot, its people denied the freedom they risked everything to claim in 2020. Moldova would be vulnerable. Georgia would see its occupied territories permanently severed. Hungary and Slovakia would drift further into authoritarianism and Russian alignment, hollowing out NATO and the EU from within.
The stakes extend far beyond Eastern Europe. The liberal international order – imperfect as it is – rests on principles that borders cannot be changed by force, that sovereignty belongs to peoples rather than great powers, and that international law matters. Discarding these principles in Europe invites their destruction everywhere. If Ukraine can be sacrificed for accommodation with Moscow, why not Taiwan for accommodation with Beijing? If Georgian territory can be permanently occupied without consequence, why should any small nation trust international guarantees?
China is watching. Therefore, the actions of every authoritarian regime, every nation that seeks to change the existing order, and every state that resists the rules of international law are relevant.
The tragedy is that none of this is necessary. Ukraine has demonstrated that with adequate support, it can defend itself and impose costs on Russian aggression.
Trump’s approach reflects a shift away from US support for sovereignty and self-determination, replaced by a harsh form of realism where power determines what is right, and smaller nations are dependent on the goodwill of more powerful ones.
The tragedy is that none of this is necessary. Ukraine has demonstrated that with adequate support, it can defend itself and impose costs on Russian aggression. European NATO allies, responding to Trump’s insistence, have pledged to boost defense budgets. This represents a significant leap – one that could actually deter aggression, provided it’s backed by US commitment, not withdrawal.
But tools require will, and will requires moral clarity. At Yalta, Western leaders convinced themselves that accommodation was realism, that the sacrifice of Eastern Europe was the price of peace. They were wrong. The Cold War that followed was longer, dangerous, and very costly.
Trump’s proposed “mini-Yalta” presents an alluring prospect of expedited agreements and diminished obligations. However, historical precedent demonstrates that such arrangements invariably exact a significant toll.
The critical inquiry is whether contemporary US leadership demonstrates the wisdom to heed historical lessons, or conversely, whether the specter of Yalta will reemerge, with a new generation’s autonomy bartered for convenience, and their liberties compromised in the pursuit of great power appeasement.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.