In one of US President Donald Trump’s typical late-night social media posts, Trump exclaimed that, in negotiations to end the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s joining NATO and reclaiming Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, are both off the table as far as he is concerned.
“President [Volodymyr Zelensky] of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, on the eve of a White House meeting with the Ukrainian president and European leaders.
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“No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!” he wrote.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, an illegal action that Trump never demonstrated the courage to address, much less resolve, in his first term, running from from 2016 to 2020.
At the time, Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were much more keenly focused on blackmailing Kyiv to deliver dirt on Hunter Biden – son of his upcoming presidential political rival, Joe Biden, and a board member of a Ukrainian energy company – proposing to them that the consequences of not doing so would be to lose US aid.
(He lost that election to Biden anyway, and some of those involved in the scheme were convicted.)
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Ukraine’s membership in NATO has been discussed at Alliance headquarters in Brussels, but its accession has been delayed. Several partners in Europe and the US have suggested bilateral military agreements in the meantime, in case Russia again invades its neighbor after an eventual peace deal in the 30-month-old full-scale invasion.
After his initial Truth Social outburst, Trump added, “Big day at the White House tomorrow. Never had so many European Leaders at one time. My great honor to host them!!!”– referring to his meeting with such leaders as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, among others, including NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans follows Trump’s summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska.
During those meetings, Putin reportedly agreed to an “Article 5-like” security guarantee with Ukraine as part of an eventual deal to end the war, referring to the part of NATO’s charter that describes an attack on one Alliance member as an attack on all.