OPINION: Trump, Not Ukraine, Is the Real Loser

Donald Trump believes he is playing a sophisticated game while the world burns. To him, he is the dealmaker and strategist, the man who spots angles others miss. Yet, on Ukraine, his actions suggest a different story. He has not outmaneuvered anyone. Instead, he appears as a leader so focused on his own perspective that he risks losing a game that was never fully his to concede.

Trump keeps saying Ukraine has no cards left, insisting Kyiv must accept whatever terms Putin offers. Not only is this wrong; it is a deliberate misreading. Only one person benefits from it, and that person is in the Kremlin.

Ukraine’s strongest card has been on the table since the first day of Russia’s invasion: international law. The rules-based order has prevented major power wars for nearly eight decades.

This matters. It is not an abstract diplomatic nicety – it is the foundation on which American prosperity and security have been built since 1945. A despotic and expansionist nation that can devour its democratic neighbor through military conquest, that redraws borders by force, that insists might makes right and sidelines democratic allies, does not allow America to thrive. Authoritarians do. Forces hostile to the entire democratic world benefit.

Ukraine has other strong cards: the commitment of its people to freedom and their determination to defend it; the support of most democratic nations; and the resilience and creativity of Ukrainians. After all, they have managed to carry their defensive struggle into Russia itself, even as the US and other allies have withheld long-range weapons and effectively encouraged them to accept whatever status quo is imposed by Russian arms.

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Here is what Trump has actually done: he has rigged the game. Rather than stand with the victim of aggression and uphold rules that protect all nations, he backs the cheat and the bully. Delaying military aid. Questioning Ukraine’s right to defend itself. Publicly undermining Zelensky. Treating Putin’s demands as reasonable starting points.

Call it what you will, but it is not diplomacy. It is capitulation dressed up in a suit and hiding behind a false suntan.

And Ukraine? Ukraine is caught in an impossible vise. On one side is Russian imperialism in its most savage form, with war crimes, mass graves, and the attempted erasure of Ukrainian identity. On the other side is Trump’s cynical inaction, his appeasement of Putin, and his increasingly explicit demands that Ukraine surrender its sovereignty to satisfy his ego and end a war that has become inconvenient for his political narrative. He pressures allies and friends of Ukraine to let him call all the shoddy shots.

The “peace” Trump offers is not the peace of justice. It is the peace of exhaustion and abandonment. Accept Putin’s terms. Give up your land. Forget the tens of thousands dead. Move on. The appeasers of Hitler and Stalin once celebrated this kind of peace. We know how that ended.

Trump’s patronizing disregard for America’s allies – not just Ukraine, but every nation that has relied on American leadership – is despicable. It will have consequences that outlast his presidency.

America’s allies see a US president who treats commitments as suggestions, views alliances as transactions, and believes loyalty flows only in one direction.

And the real loser in all this? Trump.

Ukraine may be battered, but it has shown extraordinary courage and resilience that have surprised even its supporters. Putin may gain territory, but he has exposed Russia as a paper tiger whose military could not subdue a neighbor a fraction of its size yet continues to flaunt its hostility towards the entire democratic world.

In all this, Trump has shown himself as an American president who failed the most basic test of leadership: standing up for what is right when it costs something.

That’s his legacy on Ukraine. He is not the dealmaker who ended the war – but the president who broke faith with America’s allies, empowered America’s adversaries, and sacrificed American interests.

Why? Because he could not see past his own reflection.

This betrayal will define Trump long after he is gone.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.