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The US + Russia - Ukraine = ?

Fears that President Donald Trump was going to keep his promises to end the war in Ukraine by selling out our ally seemed overblown in the first few weeks of the new Trump administration. 

But that’s changed. 

After weeks of Trump administration slights toward Ukraine, US and Russian negotiators met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for talks, not only on the war, but on reestablishing diplomatic and economic links between the two superpowers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t invited. 

Adding insult to injury, Trump gave a press conference on Tuesday in which he made several false claims about Ukraine, seemingly echoing Russian talking points: 

• Trump blamed Ukraine for having started the war. 
• He said that the US has provided Ukraine with $350 billion in aid — far more than Europe. (The US has provided Ukraine around $118 billion — European countries have provided more, when both military and economic aid are included.) 
• Trump said that Zelenskyy’s popularity is around 4 percent. (He’s lost support since the start of the war, but most surveys still have him above 50 percent.) 

Trump also seemingly confirmed reports that the US is pushing Ukraine to hold new presidential elections before the end of the war. After Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-created “disinformation space,” Trump responded with a Truth Social post calling the Ukrainian leader a “modestly successful comedian” and a “dictator without elections.”

In short, the Trump Ukraine policy that the country’s defenders feared — overly deferential to Russia; pushing for a quick deal, even at the cost of Ukraine’s sovereignty — appears to be coming to fruition. 

But is that really what’s happening? 

Some observers stress that for all the public back and forth of the past few days, there haven’t actually been dramatic changes in material US or Western policy toward Ukraine.

In fact, more military hardware has been arriving in Ukraine recently, thanks to the Biden administration’s moves to rush aid out the door. Western officials believe Ukraine has enough military hardware to last until the summer. And the US hasn’t actually lifted any sanctions on Russia.  

John Herbst, who served as US ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush, told Vox he believes the administration has made “rhetorical” concessions, and that it has made a major “process” concession by holding the meeting in Riyadh without Ukraine’s involvement. But that it hasn’t made substantive concessions.

This could change. If it were to do so, that would represent a major retreat on the US’s part. And it would make Ukraine Europe’s problem. 

Recent events have made European leaders realize that “Trump could be a real ideological challenge to Europe,” Liana Fix, a German political analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me.  

And European nations are mobilizing in response. 

France called two emergency summits in the past week to discuss Ukraine policy and the policy shift from Washington. 

Senior leaders across the continent are calling for increased defense spending, and there are increasingly prominent discussions about deploying troops to Ukraine to maintain any possible ceasefire. The UK said this week it’s “ready and willing” to send troops.  

On the other hand, European officials also say they would be unlikely to deploy such a force without a willingness on the part of Washington to step in if Russia attacked these troops, something the Trump administration has seemed to rule out. 

All that said, there’s still a visible path toward a deal where the US works with its allies, is willing to put continued pressure on Russia, and shows patience. 

The events of the past few days, however, suggest we shouldn’t count on that.

Maria Korneeva/Getty Images

Elusive Zzzs: My sleep is nothing to write home about, and it turns out, that’s a common problem. Jonquilyn Hill asked an expert what to do about it.

Power up: Zack Beauchamp examines an essay written by OMB Director Russell Vought a few years ago, and finds it to essentially be a roadmap for the new Trump White House.

Sanctity of the mind: Our thoughts may no longer be our own; Meta has developed technology that can turn thoughts to text, a breakthrough that could prove to be a privacy nightmare, Celia Ford writes.

Trouble in the West Bank: An ongoing Israeli operation has displaced more than 10,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, involved mass arrests, and left homes in ruins. [CNN]

Outsourcing immigration: Migrants deported from the US and sent to Panama have been moved to a detention facility in the jungle after being locked in a hotel overnight. [New York Times]

Quiet at the border: Illegal migration appears to have fallen at the US/Mexico border; the Trump administration says that it's thanks to them. [Reuters]

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It’s always a good time for book recommendations, and my colleague Constance Grady has four for you, all of which see characters real and imagined revisiting the past. 

Paige Vickers/Vox

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Today’s edition was produced and edited by me, news editor Sean Collins. I hope the week has been a good one thus far!

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