01/12/2026
Within Trump's first 11 months back in office, he vacillated from attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, to hosting the two leaders individually on U.S. soil, all the while trying to broker a deal that Putin does not want to make unless it hands him the objectives his troops have not been able to accomplish on the battlefield.
"We also know that Trump's policy of pressure has flipped back and forth several times since became president for a second time, and now we're in the phase of pressing Ukraine," Ambassador John Herbst, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003-2006, told the Washington Examiner.
Over the course of the year, Trump has blamed Biden and Zelensky for the war, not Putin; has accused Zelensky, not Putin, of sidestepping democracy to stay in power; and has called Zelensky insufficiently grateful for the U.S.'s support his country has received.
Russia and Ukraine’s war continued unabated through 2025, though this year, the United States began a new tactic of pursuing diplomatic negotiations with both sides instead of continuing to fully back Ukraine. President Donald Trump, who was reelected with a campaign pledge to end the war within 2...
