When Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Joe Biden rallied the world. The U.S. and its partners isolated Russia and poured tens of billions of dollars in arms, cash and loans into Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s battered country – even as Putin refused to yield.
“America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are,” Biden said from the White House.
That was then.
Now, on the anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Biden administration’s position of “nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine” has been tossed aside by President Donald Trump and his advisers. Trump has lashed out at Ukraine, blaming its leaders for Putin’s invasion and cutting Kyiv out of early negotiations with Russia – to the shock of America’s allies.
His taunting of Zelenskyy, who he called “dictator,” was rebuked by European leaders and peeved Ukraine-supporting lawmakers in the U.S.
“I’m just here to try and get peace,” Trump said this month. “I don’t care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed.”
Who started it?
The president’s team says he deserves credit for shifting the conversation to how the war ends after more than a year of grim stalemate on the battlefront. But his repetition of Russian talking points about who’s to blame for the war has put the the White House in an uncomfortable position.
Trump national security adviser Michael Waltz would not say whether Trump believes Putin or Zelenskyy is more responsible for the Russian invasion at a White House briefing Thursday. Waltz pointedly underscored Trump’s frustration with the Ukrainian president, who said Trump was living in a “disinformation” bubble informed by the aggressor’s narrative.
“There has been ongoing fighting on both sides. It is World War I-style trench warfare,” Waltz said. “Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and – and insults to President Trump – were unacceptable,” he added.
In a floor speech later that day, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member on the Foreign Relations committee, said Ukraine still has bipartisan support.
“Vladimir Putin is responsible for this. He’s responsible for the bodies in Bucha and for thousands across Ukraine,” Shaheen said, recalling the 2022 massacre of hundreds of Ukrainian townspeople by Russia’s 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment. “And he’s got to be held accountable. We cannot let him get away with this.”