The Biden administration is pushing through major support for Ukraine before Donald Trump takes office.
From billions of dollars in security assistance to a nearly $5 billion debt-relief package, Biden is attempting to stockpile support before the wells are expected to dry up under Trump’s presidency.
Trump has claimed he will end the war in just one day, with no explanation of how he would do that. However, Trump’s previous statements regarding the war—including his refusal to pick a side—suggest the felon-elect would lean in favor of Russia to swiftly dissolve conflict.
The nonstop news cycle makes it easy to lose track of the why’s and who’s in this issue, so Daily Kos has compiled a quick walk-through history on Trump’s relationships with Ukraine and Russia.
Here’s what you need to know.
The “perfect phone call” scandal
The way the world views Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has changed quite a lot since he first took office in 2019. Since Russia’s invasion of his country in 2022, Zelenskyy has been a praised wartime leader—a huge jump from his time as a comedian who played the piano with his penis—but in 2019, Zelenskyy found himself as a pawn in Trump’s political maneuvers.
That July, Trump swept Zelenskyy up into an international scandal, threatening in a phone call to withhold aid from the Ukrainian president unless he provided dirt on Joe Biden, who had not even won the Democratic nomination yet.
Later in 2019, officials testified before Congress that Trump withheld $400 million in security aid as a means to coerce Zelenskyy to announce Ukraine would investigate Biden for corruption.
Ultimately, this—and plenty more—led to Trump’s impeachment in the House. He was later acquitted by the Senate.
“I’m the only one to get impeached on a perfect phone call, like a perfect phone call,” Trump said laughably in an August 2020 interview with Fox Business.
Historically, the U.S. has provided aid to Ukraine as an incentive for pushing out corruption and promoting democracy. However, Trump’s request positioned Zelenskyy to play the same games of corruption the Ukrainian president was fighting, in exchange for much-needed aid.
The praise-fest
Trump has a laundry list of kind words for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Here are some of the (many) receipts of their love exchange over the years.
In 2014, Trump praised Putin for the takeover of Crimea, saying the move was “smart” and predicting that Ukraine would fall “fairly quickly” because of it.
In 2022, Trump called the Russian dictator a “genius” and “very savvy” for his invasion of Ukraine.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius,’” Trump said following the invasion. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine—of Ukraine—Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
According to CNN, Trump talked about Putin over 80 times, often heaping praise on him, between June 2013 and February 2017.
Putin is now returning some of the sentiment. In November, Putin said he is willing to reopen the line of communication about ending the war once “courageous” Trump takes office next year.
However, critics have argued that Trump and Putin’s idea of ending the war leans more in favor of the dictatorship claiming Ukrainian land and less in line with the U.S. ‘s history of supporting Ukraine’s independence.
Trump smears Ukraine
While the U.S. has a long track record of providing support to Ukraine to promote the country’s independence and anti-corruption efforts, Trump has turned his back on the idea of Ukrainian independence from Russia, painting the country as broken and helpless.
In September, Trump dismissed Ukraine as “demolished” and called its people “dead” as he raved about how the country should have given into Russia’s demands sooner.
“If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better,” he continued. “They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
The incoming president further speculated that Ukraine shouldn’t have fought Putin, saying that “the worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.”
Trump has seemingly taken up a personal vendetta with Zelenskyy as well, making jabs to delegitimize the Ukrainian president.
“Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States he walks away with $100 billion, I think he’s the greatest salesman on Earth,” Trump said in September, on the campaign trail.
The U.S. has supplied $175 billion of aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, with $106 billion of that going directly to Ukraine’s government.
Notably, Trump has pointed fingers at Ukraine and Zelenskyy for the war while staying mum about any fault Russia might have.
At the end of the day, Trump made his stance clear last month when he said Zelenskyy “should never have let that war start.”
