Sadly, Trump is right on Ukraine

I rarely agree with President Trump, but his latest controversial statements about Ukraine are mostly true. They only seem preposterous because western audiences have been fed a steady diet of disinformation about Ukraine for more than a decade. It is time to set the record straight on three key points that illuminate why Ukrainians and former President Joe Biden — not merely Russian President Vladimir Putin — bear significant responsibility for the outbreak and perpetuation of war in Ukraine.

First, as recently documented by overwhelming forensic evidence, and affirmed even by a Kyiv court, it was Ukrainian right-wing militants who started the violence in 2014 that provoked Russia’s initial invasion of the country’s southeast including Crimea. Back then, Ukraine had a pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych, who had won free and fair elections in 2010 with strong support from ethnic Russians in the country’s southeast.

In 2013, he decided to pursue economic cooperation with Russia rather than Europe as previously planned. Pro-western activists responded with mainly peaceful occupation of the capital’s Maidan square and government offices, until the president eventually offered substantial concessions in mid-February 2014, after which they mainly withdrew.

Just then, however, right-wing militants overlooking the square started shooting Ukrainian police and remaining protesters. Police returned fire at the militants, who then claimed bogusly that the police had killed the unarmed protesters. Outraged by this ostensible government massacre, Ukrainians descended on the capital and ousted the president, who fled to Russia for protection.

Putin responded by deploying troops to Crimea and weapons to the southeast Donbas region on behalf of ethnic Russians who felt their president had been undemocratically overthrown. While this backstory does not justify Russia’s invasion, it explains that it was hardly “unprovoked.”

Second, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky contributed to a wider war by violating peace deals with Russia and seeking NATO military aid and membership. The deals, known as Minsk 1 and 2, had been negotiated under his predecessor President Petro Poroshenko in 2014 and 2015 to end fighting in the southeast and protect endangered troops.

Ukraine was to guarantee Donbas limited political autonomy by the end of 2015, which Putin believed would be sufficient to prevent Ukraine from joining — or serving as a military base for — NATO. Regrettably, Ukraine refused for seven years to fulfill that commitment.

Zelensky even campaigned in 2019 on a promise to finally implement the accords to prevent further war. But after winning election, he reneged, apparently less concerned about risking war than looking weak on Russia.

Zelensky instead increased weapons imports from NATO countries, which was the last straw for Putin. So, on Feb. 21, 2022, Russia recognized the independence of Donbas, deployed troops there for “peacekeeping,” and demanded Zelensky renounce his quest for NATO military assistance and membership.

When Zelensky again refused, Putin massively expanded his military offensive on Feb. 24. Intentionally or not, Zelensky had provoked Russian aggression, although that obviously does not excuse Moscow’s subsequent war crimes.

Third, Joe Biden too contributed crucially to the escalation and perpetuation of fighting. In late 2021, when Putin mobilized forces on Ukraine’s border and demanded implementation of the Minsk deals, it seemed obvious that unless Zelensky relented, Russia would invade to at least form a land bridge between Donbas and Crimea.

Considering that Ukraine already was existentially dependent on U.S. military assistance, if President Biden had insisted that Zelensky comply with Putin’s request, it would have happened. Instead, Biden lamentably left the decision to Zelensky and pledged that if Russia invaded, the U.S. would respond “swiftly and decisively,” which Zelensky read as a green light to defy Putin.

Had Trump been president, he would not have provided such a blank check, so Zelensky would have had little choice but to implement the Minsk deals to avert war. Even if Zelensky had still refused and provoked Russia to invade, Trump would have denied him a veto over peace negotiations, which Biden recklessly gave by declaring, “There's nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

That pledge tragically emboldened Ukraine to prolong the war in expectation of eventually decisive U.S. military aid, which Biden then refused to supply due to fear of nuclear escalation. In that way, Biden raised false hopes in Ukraine, needlessly perpetuating a war that has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands in the last two years alone during which the frontlines have shifted by less than 1 percent of Ukraine’s territory.

The basic outlines of a deal to end the fighting are obvious even if details remain to be negotiated, as Trump and Putin started doing today in a phone call. Russia will continue to occupy Crimea and other portions of the southeast, while the rest of Ukraine will not join NATO but will get security guarantees from some western countries. The sad thing is that such a plan could have been achieved at least two years ago if only President Biden had made military aid conditional on Zelensky negotiating a ceasefire.

Even more tragic, whatever peace deal emerges after the war will be worse for Ukraine than the Minsk accords that Zelensky foolishly abandoned due to his political ambitions and naïve expectation of bottomless U.S. support.

Alan J. Kuperman is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches courses on military strategy and conflict management.

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