In Donald Trump’s world, friends and enemies trade places with breathtaking speed. Consider the case of Ukraine.

President Joe Biden hailed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “the man of the year” and pledged that the U.S. “will not walk away from Ukraine” in its war against Russia, which attacked Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014, and launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Last week, President Donald Trump called Zelensky “a dictator,” falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, and effectively walked away from Ukraine by halting the delivery of weapons and stopping intelligence sharing. Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as “savvy” and a “genius.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed the whiplash that many are feeling about Trump when he said, "Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense." 

Yaroslav Trofimov has long been making sense of a complicated world. He is the chief foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Trofimov was born in Ukraine and has reported from the front lines there. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023 for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022 for his work on Afghanistan, and won the National Press Club award for political analysis in 2024. He is the author of four books, including “No Country for Love,” a historical novel set in Ukraine that was inspired by his family history, and was published this month.

Describing the disastrous meeting between Presidents Zelensky and Trump, Trofimov quoted Lech Walesa, the former trade union leader and president of Poland, who co-signed a letter with former Polish political prisoners saying that “the meeting in the Oval Office reminded him of the interrogations he had in the communist secret police rooms and in the kangaroo communist courts, where, as he said, we were also told we have no cards.”

“Zelensky told Trump that I'd like to sign an agreement, but what is the guarantee that Putin won’t attack again? And Trump's response was basically, Trust me bro.”

Trump’s “priority is not a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. His main priority seems to be to open up relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, economic, political, geopolitical,” said Trofimov.

“Zelensky is just a chip to be traded, and it looks like the administration will be perfectly happy for the war to end on Russia's terms, meaning that Ukraine will fall back on the de facto Russian rule (under) Russian authority as long as its mineral wealth is sent over the United States.”

What is behind Trump’s warm embrace of Putin?

Trofimov explained that Putin “has always believed that big powers like Russia have the right to a sphere of influence, to arrange things in the neighborhood, and that it's a natural right. And President Putin has described his policy as the Monroe Doctrine 2.0, which is the American version of this 19th century imperialism.”

Similarly, Trump is “laying claims on Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, which is very similar to the language that Putin is using against Ukraine or the Baltic states. It is also kind of aided by changes inside the American Conservative ... MAGA movement, where a certain fetishization of Russia has taken hold.”

“In the, in the collective imagination of parts of MAGA, Russia is seen as this beacon of Christian family values, traditional values, this antidote to the woke virus. It couldn’t be further from the actual Russia that exists, which is a country with one of (the highest) abortion and divorce rates, with rapidly shrinking population, with endemic corruption.”

What will happen to Ukraine if the U.S. ends its support?

Trofimov believes that “Ukraine will not fold … and Europe, if it really wants to, can sustain Ukraine,” noting that “the European economies are about 12 times the size of Russia.”

“There is a growing realization in Europe that allowing Russia to win in Ukraine will cause much bigger pain in a few years. … Perhaps that will be the end of Europe.”

That is why Europeans are dramatically boosting defense spending. “Obviously, it's much easier with the United States on board, much, much easier. But it doesn't mean that Ukraine or Europe are doomed if the U.S. decides to play for the other team.”

I asked Trofimov whether he was optimistic or pessimistic about Ukraine’s future. He replied by quoting a popular Ukrainian song from the 1920s. “Crying has never brought freedom to anyone. So it's not the time to be despondent or pessimistic. It's the time to do things. Ukrainians are doing things, and the Europeans are starting to do things, and if they keep doing things, then they will be okay.”