Donald Trump’s special envoy has arrived in Kyiv - but his hosts’ instincts could be to lock him in a lead-lined room at Kyiv’s central railway station until he can be put on a train back to Poland.
They were not that rude to poor Keith Kellog. But they will be questioning whether he now represents a security threat to a nation at war - given that his boss has embraced the lies and propaganda of their enemies.
In his latest attack on Ukraine, a nation that was invaded ten years ago, Trump has claimed that Ukraine’s president lacks legitimacy and that his country started the war with Russia.
“I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at a four percent approval rating,” Trump said. “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine.”
In saying this Trump was echoing the Kremlin’s latest propaganda effort, which is being amplified on social media platforms like Elon Musk’s “X”, that Volodymyr Zelensky has no legitimacy.
"Putin himself has repeatedly said that if necessary, he would be ready to negotiate with Zelensky as well. At the same time, the legal fixation of the agreements is subject to serious discussion, taking into account the reality that speaks about the possibility of challenging the credibility of Zelensky himself," said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, as Russia’s team was arriving in Saudi Arabia to talk about normalizing relations with Washington and start “peace talks” over Ukraine.
Within 24 hours his message had been received and was being retransmitted by the 47th President, who sneered at Zelensky for his complaint that Ukraine had been left out of talks about its own future.
“Well, you’ve been there for three years, you should have ended it three years. You should have never started it, you could have made a deal,” he said.
Not even Vladimir Putin really claims that Ukraine started the war. The Russian president has long harboured, and written about, a colonial imperative to return Ukraine to Moscow’s rule.
He claimed that Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population was suffering human rights abuses since it got independence, and that its hopes of joining Nato were a threat to security. These were all excuses for invading Ukraine in 2014. He did not, as Trump effectively did, say that Ukraine drew first blood.
Zelensky was diplomatic in his response to Mr Trump’s attacks on him.
“Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Trump’s attack on Zelensky’s legitimacy is preparing the ground for when the Ukrainian president rejects peace proposals from Moscow and Washington that reflect Putin’s desires and delivers Russia victory.
Zelensky’s polling is not at 4 per cent. According to the Kyiv Institute of International Sociology they’re at 52 per cent. Ukraine declared martial law when it was invaded on February 24 2022 which suspended all elections. Zelenksy’s role has been endorsed by Ukraine’s parliament and its members are vociferous democrats.
Russia has maintained for some time that while anyone could speak for Ukraine in talks only “legitimate” authorities in Kyiv could sign any future deal.
In recirculating Russian lies about Zelensky, the US president is joining the Kremlin’s efforts at delegitimizing Ukraine’s leader. This is a man whom the Russians tried to kill and deployed teams of infiltrators who came within a whisker of murder in 2022.
“They want a seat at the table, but you could say ... wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since we’ve had an election. That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me, from other countries,” Trump said.
It is a Russian “thing” though. It is a very Russian thing. So are the US positions that there is no path for Ukraine to join Nato, that any “peace keeping” troops deployed in Ukraine even after a Trump-Putin deal could not be under a Nato banner, that Ukraine must give up on the territory it has lost.
The European Union and the UK, are scrambling to work out how to deal with a new pro-Russian president in the White House who holds Nato in contempt and thinks that Europe is muzzling free speech.
"Russia will try to divide us. Let's not walk into their traps. By working together with the U.S., we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine's terms," Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat said in a statement.
She’s holding up the banner for Ukraine but Europe will have to move very quickly to shore up Kyiv’s defences. There are signs that Brussels recognizes the urgency.
The EU imposed sanctions on 73 vessels it believes have been smuggling Russian fuel, the import of aluminum from Russia, and gaming consoles, which can be harvested for components to make weapons.
Speaking on his arrival in Kyiv former general Kellog said he could understand Ukraine’s need for “security guarantees” and that he would listen to what the Ukrainians had to say and return to the White House.
They’ll ask him not to let the US abandon Ukraine. And they’ll know they might as well be talking to themselves.
