One campaign promise that has eluded President Donald Trump for nearly two years is that of ending the Russo-Ukrainian War that began under Joe Biden and has ravaged the Ukrainian countryside for nearly a half-decade. Unfortunately, most leftists are rooting against him because they still believe the whole “Russia, Russia, Russia” narrative, so they seized on a waiver the president signed last week that pauses enactment of portions of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act as more evidence that Trump was in cahoots with Vladimir Putin.
“Mr. Trump offered no explanation beyond a statement that ‘the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States,’” explained the editors of The Wall Street Journal. “The opposite is true, and Mr. Trump is now Mr. Putin’s best friend in the world, after perhaps China’s Xi Jinping.” They charge that “the evidence compounds that Mr. Trump wants Ukraine to surrender on Mr. Putin’s terms.”
That belief gained momentum last week when it was learned that Starshield, the Starlink-backed internet system Ukraine uses to target its missiles, had limited access issues. “It’s [the] opinion of our generals, of our government, and of course my also opinion ... that it was a message from American government to limit the speed,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As The Washington Post reports, “Rising tensions between Trump and Zelensky have played out in public, largely through television interviews and Trump’s posts to his social media network, Truth Social.”
Yet the Trump administration believes striking a deal with Russia can help lower the exceptionally high cost of diesel fuel.
Moreover, there’s now anger over news that Ukrainian strikes on vessels in the Black Sea are hitting ships carrying American oil, at least according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Now, I don’t believe Ukraine intentionally targeted them, but those ships got hit,” Rubio said. “And we already have a world that is facing an energy crisis. We don’t need any exacerbating situations. And there’s been frustration that despite these asks, that has happened.” That’s one reason why President Trump believes Zelensky “doesn’t want to end the war,” much to Trump’s chagrin.
“Trump has largely turned on Zelensky in recent weeks as he seeks to negotiate an end to the conflict and simultaneously bring down domestic energy prices ahead of November’s midterm elections,” opined Carter Schroppe of the Washington Examiner. “He has repeatedly criticized the leader for striking Russian oil sites, arguing such targeting is to blame for high gas prices.”
With the turmoil against Iran being America’s focus, less attention has been paid to events in the Russo-Ukrainian War, particularly as it has morphed from the trench warfare of its early days into an air-to-air conflict involving thousands of drones — a defensive tactic that allowed Ukraine to escalate the battle far beyond the frontier between the two nations. Those strikes on Russia’s energy industry are one of the drivers behind the increasing cost of fuel, although a larger portion of the blame rightly falls on the situation in the Middle East.
But the momentum that seemed to be shifting in Ukraine’s favor over the summer now seems to be reverting back to Russia, another reason those in Congress who have supported Ukraine all along are so angered about Trump’s decision to suspend enforcement of the Graham sanctions. Surely, though, Trump is acting in the belief that all those foreign policy plates he is trying to juggle are at risk of being smashed should the Democrats gain full control of Congress, which explains his attempt to cut the price of diesel despite the benefit to our Russian adversaries.
If you believe Jennifer Kavanagh at The American Conservative, though, there is a path to peace next year. But it would bring us back about where we were in the Biden administration, when the argument was whether peace could be won by territorial concessions from Ukraine of its Russian-speaking regions.
“There is, however, something that Ukraine’s partners can do to help: start planning now for a serious push to end the war in 2027. To be successful, a future diplomatic campaign would have to look very different than past attempts to broker peace,” Kavanagh explains. “Specifically, Kiev, Washington, and European capitals will need to internalize three lessons they have stubbornly ignored to this point: Shifts in momentum are temporary; more time will not fundamentally improve, and likely worsens, Ukraine’s negotiating position; and any peace will require painful and unpopular concessions by Kiev.”
Kavanagh goes on to pontificate on the five things she believes the Trump administration needs to do to bring this war to a close next year, warning that the opportunity may pass as we come closer to a presidential change after 2028.
Regardless of what is done, there will be those in Congress and the media who will object. Democrats will either continue to pound on the dead horse that is the “Trump is Putin’s puppet” narrative or whine that we’re not doing enough to help poor little Ukraine. While it’s an unsavory sort of alliance to buy Russian diesel — and there’s no small risk that bargain could blow up in the president’s face — let’s not forget that Donald Trump has created a lot of peace in the world, so there’s always the chance that his initiatives will somehow succeed in the end.
