The cruelest thing about Trump versus Zelensky? Trump’s right

And just like that, we are back in 2017. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is posting ridiculous hyperbole on his socials and mouthing off from Mar-a-Lago, as he always has.

In the last twenty-four hours, however, the global political and media classes have gone back to gnashing their teeth and wailing in way they did in Trump’s first term. It’s disgraceful! It’s sub-literate! He’s Vladimir Putin’s puppet! He’s reckless and utterly out of control! And that, of course, is the point.

Trump’s re-election proved that he is no aberration, so in 2025 the liberal, western world order has tried to come to terms with him. Western statesmen took turns to recognize his achievements, or his mandate, and to distance themselves from their past condemnations. But this was all insincere politesse and it was never going to work. Trump doesn’t care. His mandate is to cripple their authority. And on the international stage, Ukraine was always going to be the breaking point. 

The West has invested a huge amount of capital — political, economic and strategic — in the fight against Russia, and it has failed. Trump knows that and so he’s ending the war: if that means insulting Volodymyr Zelensky, parroting Russian talking points and playing nice with Putin, so be it.

Fact-checkers have been lining up to rebut Trump’s incoherent Truth Social post yesterday afternoon, which is worth reposting here in full:

Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us – We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is “MISSING.” He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.” A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…

And so it does.

To westerners who have spent years grandstanding against Putin, such words are anathema. To the many Ukrainians who have fought and died fighting Russian forces in their country, such rhetoric is beyond reprehensible. But if you can somehow look through the insensitivity, the febrile exaggerations, the score-settling with Zelensky, the half-lies and the cruel braggadocio, you have to admit that he is right — or at least not wrong.

Only offensive, odious Donald could end the war in Ukraine, which he is now doing. Europe has failed to bring peace. In a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said that Ukrainians shouldn’t complain about not being involved in his dialogue with Russia: “Well, you’ve been there for three years… you should have ended it three years… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” That’s been widely interpreted as him saying that Ukraine started the war, and while his choice of words was poor, in context he is clearly referring to the thwarted efforts to achieve peace in the conflict’s early days in 2022. Trump is also right to say that vast amounts of western funding to Ukraine have gone missing, because the country is —and always has been — deeply corrupt.

For European leaders who have spent years advocating on behalf of Ukraine, the most painful part will be Trump’s reckoning on Zelensky. In the days and months that followed Russia’s invasion, when Ukraine’s president bravely stayed in Kyiv and led Ukraine’s impressive resistance, Zelensky became a western hero. People called him a twenty-first-century Churchill. He was fêted in European capitals, Hollywood and on the cover of Vogue magazine as young men killed each other on the front line.

There’s no doubt that, in our eagerness to champion the man in the military fatigues, we overlooked the more sordid aspects of his leadership. The Pandora Papers showing his links to shady offshore bank accounts were forgotten about. His ties to deeply corrupt and double-dealing oligarchs, such as Ihor Kolomoisky, were brushed over. His ruthless suppression of Moscow-affiliated religious groups was dismissed as Kremlin “disinformation.”

Western politicians, and military-industrial types who have made a lot of money from the war effort, have always known, deep down, that in supporting Ukraine against Putin they have covered up awkward truths. What really frightens them now is not necessarily Trump’s recklessness. It’s that the murkier realities of the Ukraine-Russia relationship and the West’s involvement in the conflict going back to 2014 and before, may soon come to light.

The above is taken from Freddy Gray’s weekly Americano newsletter. To subscribe click here.