Trump must not sell out Ukraine

On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered in Glen Cove to call for an end to the war that began three years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. The number of lives lost since then has reached into the hundreds of thousands.

A 17-year-old student at Great Neck South High School, Viktoria Polusytok, delivered a moving speech that recounted how she fled Ukraine with her family in the months after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion. She said her best friend was killed there in September. "My life before the war feels like a dream to me. It feels like it never happened," Polusytok said.

Amid the horror, the Biden administration's unwavering solidarity with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s elected government served to uphold the goals of NATO, created after World War II as a collective shield against the Soviet Union. But as the war dragged on, support diminished and the return of Donald Trump to the White House brought a chance to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom Trump professes great fondness, to halt his devastating aggression. 

Obviously, it's time for a bilateral cease-fire. Putin has drained his nation's resources. Ukraine continues to face deadly attacks. This past weekend, Russia reportedly launched a record 267 drones, killing three people and destroying more infrastructure. Putin needs to accept Ukraine as the legitimate and independent state it is. Ukraine has a good case to join NATO — because of Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea and as a protection from further incursions.

But Trump shows no sign of facing the Putin problem. So far, he has slurred Zelenskyy with false charges that Ukraine started the war. Trump hasn’t even brought Ukraine in as a full partner in negotiations that recently began. And disturbingly, the U.S. refused to vote Monday for three United Nations peace resolutions that condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, whose nation borders Russia and Ukraine, warned the U.N. General Assembly against appeasement. "By normalizing relations with Moscow, you would be entrusting your security and economic stability to an autocrat and a war criminal," he said, noting Putin's designs on Africa and South America.

Now, with Ukraine under crushing pressure, Trump has extracted an agreement revealed Tuesday that apparently allows the U.S. to share in developing Ukrainian mineral resources but without explicit U.S. security guarantees. Is the U.S. mediating — or just switching sides? Will defending Europe against a madman be reduced to a greedy deal?

Trump's disregard for facts has been a special embarrassment. This was illustrated Monday in the Oval Office when French President Emmanuel Macron had to publicly correct Trump's inaccurate description of how Europe finances military aid to Kyiv. 

Trump's hostile posturing, parroting Putin, and lies may result in the U.S. abandoning Ukraine to appease Russia. His actions do not inspire confidence that Trump will contribute to a true and fair negotiated end to the war.