Here's What They Were Fighting About

Zelenskyy's explanation for not trusting Putin would have revealed Trump's fecklessness

Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy listens as Pres. Donald Trump fails to close the deal. (Screengrab / White House video.)

There’s no evidence that yesterday’s historically embarrassing and infantile demand for obsequiousness from Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was an ambush, as some have claimed.

And if it were, to what end? Pres. Donald Trump very clearly wants the war to end. He doesn’t see the conflict in moral terms, so he doesn’t care about peace terms. Ukraine is in the weaker short-term position, so that’s where Trump’s applying leverage.

Yesterday didn’t help Trump. The White House has posted Republican ass-kissing in response to the clash, but not the transcript itself.

I don’t, however, think yesterday is fated to be a sea change. History ripples with examples of Trump seeming to care about something and then not. Even deeply personal somethings.

Trump cabinet members have insulted him worse than Zelenskyy did.

The contretemps had both emotional and factual dimensions. They intertwined and fed each other.

Basically, Zelenskyy was trying to explain why he couldn’t accept a ceasefire without protections against Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin violating it. Trump and Vice Pres. JD Vance tried to argue that things would be different now because Trump was willing to engage in diplomacy that Pres. Joe Biden wouldn’t.

Zelenskyy was trying to remind Trump — and in Vance’s case gently educate him — about the fact that Putin violated ceasefires during Trump’s first term, too. There’s no reason to trust Putin now and therefore every reason to insist on security guarantees.

Trump and Vance kept pressing the point that Trump wasn’t president in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. Which is true. But Zelenskyy kept reminding them that Trump diplomacy failed to keep Putin in line the first time Trump was in office, so there’s no reason to trust that it will work now.

Trump, in other words, had ego on the line. Zelenskyy’s need for guarantees stems from Trump’s 2017-2020 failures.

I want to dissect the transcript, but it’s important to note that Trump and Vance got multiple things wrong. Some of the little things have already been noted; Vance said Zelenskyy hadn’t said thank you, but thank you was literally the first thing Zelenskyy said when Trump turned things over to him.

Most importantly, Zelenskyy was right on the big issue. Trump diplomacy failed before to keep Putin in line. Let’s look at the history, which I had to look up myself as most corporate media treated yesterday’s back-and-forth as if there were no researchable facts available to determine who was right. (Salon’s Brian Karem touched on it, but I want to go into more depth because, with real context, Zelenskyy’s conduct becomes much clearer.)

When Trump took office in 2017, three years after the Crimea invasion, the shooting in Ukraine had died down. A cease-fire was in place. Putin broke it.

Ukraine had retaken the strategically important town of Avdiivka, and Putin wanted it back.

So, on Jan. 29, 2017, Putin launched an offensive on Avdiivka, less than two weeks after Trump took office.

Trump did nothing. He was talking about removing sanctions against Russia.

The Guardian’s headline on Feb. 1, 2017, read, “Ukraine clashes leave several dead and test Trump's Russia stance.”

The U.S. chargé d’affaires to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kate Byrnes, a career diplomat, said clearly, “Russia and the separatists initiated the violence in Avdiivka … We call on Russia to stop the violence, honor the ceasefire, withdraw heavy weapons and end attempts to seize new territory beyond the line of contact.”

As The Guardian noted, a very different response came from the then-Trumpified State Department. a department spokesperson merely said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” and wanted “an immediate, sustained ceasefire.”

Russia’s state newspaper caught the difference. “Washington … is not stating any support for Kiev, is not saying a single word about the role of Russia.” The paper noted that “variations of these elements were, as a rule, a key part of all statements of Ukraine under Barack Obama’s administration.”

Time’s headline two days later read, “In Avdiivka, Ukrainians See Surge in Fighting as Putin Testing Trump.”

Eventually, Trump’s UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, called for an end to the Crimea occupation. And Trump himself supported an intact Ukraine, but that support came as an aside, in a letter to the president…of Lithuania.

But as Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said at the time, “We really need U.S. leadership here.”

Two weeks after the attack on Avdiivka, the verdict was in. On Feb. 14, 2017, The Guardian wrote that, “The big guns have been mercifully quiet for months, but the past fortnight has seen a new flurry of violence, linked in Kiev to a Russia apparently newly emboldened by the election of Donald Trump in the US.”

Even the media flagging that Putin was testing him provoked no meaningful rebuke from Trump. In the absence of a meaningful U.S. response, let alone diplomacy, Putin continued violating agreements.

Ukrainian soldiers continued dying in fighting that may look minor compared to the invasions of 2014 and 2022, but they were deadly, they violated peace deals, and Trump didn’t stop them.

Zelenskyy took office in May 2019. Russian-backed separatists in Donbas were engaged in open combat with Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were dying. Whatever diplomacy Trump was doing, it didn’t end the fighting.

Zelenskyy and Putin agreed to a ceasefire brokered by France and Germany. The pro-Russian forces continued to violate it.

No wonder Zelenskyy won’t agree to yet another Putin peace deal without a hard commitment to Ukraine’s security.

If you look at the transcript, you can see Zelenskyy trying to make his way to his point as Trump/Vance fiercely protect the border between Trump’s first presidency and culpability for developments in Ukraine.

Trump and Vance keep trying to bring it back to the Crimean invasion in 2014, and they derail Zelenskyy whenever he tries to explain that he’s discussing the entire 2014-2022 period.

Vance changes the subject entirely. Zelenskyy is explaining that Trump and diplomacy failed before. Neither Vance nor Trump address that at all, and Vance takes refuge in taking offense at Zelenskyy’s lack of gratitude.

Here’s the key section:

Vance: …look, for four years, the United States of America, we had a president [Biden] who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin. And then, Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden of thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States’s words mattered more than the president of the United States’s actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That's what President Trump is doing.

Zelenskyy: Can I ask you?

Vance: Sure.

Zelenskyy: Yeah?

Vance: Yeah.

Zelenskyy: He [Russian President Vladimir Putin] occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, part of East and Crimea, so he occupied it on 2014. So during a lot of years, I'm not speaking about just Biden, but those time was Obama — then President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now the President Trump. And God bless, now President Trump will stop him [Putin]. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took. He killed people. You know —

Trump: 2015?

Zelenskyy: 2014

Vance: 2014-2015?

Zelenskyy: 2014, Yeah, yeah.

Trump: I was — I was not here.

Zelenskyy: So he killed --

Trump: I was not here.

Zelenskyy: Yeah, but — but —

Vance: That's exactly right.

Zelenskyy: Yes, but during 2014 till 2022, you had — was the situation the same that people have been dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him [Putin]. You know that. We had conversations with him. A lot of conversations. My bilateral conversations. And we signed with him. Me — like you, president in 2019 — I signed with him the deal. I signed with him [Putin], [France’s Emmanuel] Macron and [Germany’s Angela] Merkel, we signed ceasefire. Ceasefire. All of them told me that he will never go. We signed him with gas contract, gas contract, yes. But after that he broken the ceasefire. He killed our people. And he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners. He didn't do it. What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What — what — what — what do you mean?

Vance: I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country.

Zelenskyy: Yeah, but —

Vance: But, Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict —

Zelenskyy: Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?

Vance: I have been to —

Zelenskyy: Then come once.

Vance: I have actually — I've actually watched [TV] and seen the stories [on TV] and I know that what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military?

Zelenskyy: Do we have problems?

Vance: And do you think that it's respectful —

Zelenskyy: I will answer —

Vance: — to come to the oval office of the United States of America and attack [sic] the administration that is trying to — trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

Zelenskyy: — a lot of, a lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning.

Vance: Sure.

Zelenskyy: First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless —

Trump: You don't know that —

Zelenskyy: — God bless you, God bless you, you would not have a war.

Trump: — Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

Trump and Vance never address the stumbling block between Zelenskyy and a deal. They say diplomacy will work in lieu of security guarantees, but can’t explain how when it didn’t before. They won’t acknowledge or even let Zelenskyy recount the history.

The dispute over what America will “feel” was partly a language issue — Zelenskyy wasn’t telling Trump what emotions he would have, Zelenskyy was predicting an external influence that would make itself known to the country. But it was also a temporal issue.

Zelenskyy is looking at the long-term future. If Russia isn’t stopped at Ukraine, it will continue to gobble up former Soviet republics. A strengthened alliance with China and North Korea and Iran could very well lead to something that future generations of American will feel pointedly.

That’s why Zelenskyy doesn’t see himself as a supplicant. He imagines that Trump is capable of envisioning America’s future without him, let alone caring about it.

Trump’s attitude of superiority must be especially irksome to Zelenskyy because of that very point. Zelenskyy may not understand just how blind Trump is to the fact that Ukraine is the primary bulwark against future Putin aggression.

As for being disrespectful, how? Did Zelenskyy call Trump an incurious, joyless, fat, orange sack of toxic superfund poisons with the face of an orangutan’s ass? Newsfucker, he did. But only in his mind. And only in Ukrainian.

Out loud, Zelenskyy was the epitome of respect. He literally asked whether he could address what Vance said. And Vance said yes! You can’t complain that it’s disrespectful of someone to address a subject you introduced — diplomacy — and that you explicitly said he could ask a question about. After he respectfully asked permission.

Sidebars

JESUS CHRIST I suspect Zelenskyy is especially perplexed about yesterday’s turn of events in light of concessions he has already made — to U.S. evangelicals. As I and virtually no one else has reported, a member of Ukraine’s tiny evangelical population has served as a liaison with Christian congressional Republicans.

Zelenskyy has made the concessions they wanted — giving them an official prayer breakfast and flirting with anti-LGBTQ+/abortion rhetoric. That’s what led to the $61 billion aid package last year, so Zelenskyy may be feeling somewhat bait-and-switched right about now.

Then again, American evangelicals who backed Trump are now also seeing anti-hunger efforts they’ve championed for decades get dismantled piece by piece. So maybe everyone’s feeling a bit bait-and-switched.

AN AMERICAN FUNERAL IN UKRAINE As Trump pressed Zelenskyy to make concessions — to let Russia steal his nation’s land — the daughter of Trump’s envoy to Ukraine was helping to bury an American who died there defending Ukraine’s land. At the age of 21, U.S. Marine Corps veteran Ethan Hertweck was killed by Russian forces while volunteering to defend Avdiivka in 2023.

Hertweck’s funeral was arranged with help from a nonprofit run by Meaghan Mobbs, whose father Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg (Ret.) is Trump’s lead envoy to Ukraine. Here’s what Mobbs said Thursday night:

“I fear some of us in the West have become so consumed with the idea of peace, that we have forgotten the true meaning of it,” Mobbs said. “We have come to believe that peace above all else is the highest virtue, yet peace at any cost is not peace — it is surrender dressed in the false guise of virtue.”

Hertweck’s parents had flown to Ukraine to bury their son.

ALLIANCES As America under Trump retreats from global alliances, and Putin builds his own, others are filling the void. North Korean troops are getting combat experience helping Putin’s forces. So now South Korea is holding talks with Ukraine, primarily about sharing defense-industry information.

That, and the major European nations rallied to Ukraine’s side. Which might actually be a really positive outcome, intended or not, of Trump’s “style” of “diplomacy.”

BESPOKE QUESTIONS Trump reportedly ridiculed Zelenskyy about his attire, and one of the White House media asked him about it. As Salon’s Brian Karem notes, Elon Musk got no such treatment when he showed up to a cabinet meeting dressed like Elon Musk.

GOOGLED IT Here’s how many times trump mentioned Avdiivka during his first term:

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.