Editorial: Donald Trump is helping Russia win the war

It's already been said many times that the U.S., under President Donald Trump, was turning its back on Ukraine.

But the past few days show something worse than abandonment: Trump is now actively helping Russia win the war.

Many media and commentators have been far too careful in their phrasing, saying that Trump is "squeezing Ukraine" or putting pressure on it. We all need to do the responsible thing and call it what it is, as ugly as it sounds: Trump is not trying to reach a deal — he is trying to "end the war" by simply helping Russia win.

Since last week, the Trump administration has been in a downward spiral of betraying Ukraine and embarrassing the U.S.

It started when Trump announced that he had reached a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy diesel from Russia. By doing so, he went against the sanctions bill he himself had signed less than a month ago, which sought to penalize countries buying energy from Russia.

The deal is not going to help bring down fuel prices for regular Americans, but it sends a tremendously harmful signal: That it's alright to make deals that pump cash into Russia, despite its brutal ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

That move was followed by Trump announcing a surprise energy ceasefire that Kyiv didn't know about. When Russia ignored it and continued to attack Ukraine's energy infrastructure, Trump said nothing about it.

It only got worse from there. For the past two nights, Russia has hit Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles that came without any warning. That is, the early warning alerts that Ukraine typically receives about missile and drone launches from its partners — chiefly, the U.S. While there is no confirmation yet, there is a strong possibility that the U.S. has limited some intelligence data sharing.

If true, it would mean more Ukrainians killed. No warning means there is no time to get to the shelter. At least three people were killed in such an attack in Kyiv last night — civilians in their homes.

Finally, this morning, we learned that Ukraine's military use of Starlink had been restricted without warning, undermining Ukraine's middle-strike capabilities that are critical for its front-line operations against Russia. In the rear, it hurts Ukraine's ability to intercept Russian drones targeting civilians.

This betrayal comes after one of the deadliest weeks for Ukrainian civilians. Last week, Russia killed more than 150 civilians in Ukraine. Just one of the strikes, on a bus stop in Kramatorsk, killed 33 people. In another Russian attack, in Pryluky, three one-year-old children were among the dead.

Most strikingly, Trump has repeatedly condemned Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries — Moscow's largest source of revenue to fund its war effort —  but remained silent on Russia's slaughter of Ukrainian children.

The most recent time we found Trump publicly condemning Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians was in 2025.

While Trump has shown his disdain for Ukraine on many occasions (you will remember the Oval Office episode, surely), his latest cynicism should shock even his most ardent supporters.

But what may come as a surprise to the American president is that giving a boost to Russia’s war effort, while a big help, cannot force Ukrainians to stop fighting. That is not up to the U.S. What is up to it, and to its president, is whether it wants to uphold the values of democracy by supporting a country under siege from its aggressive neighbor that wants to determine its future.

Because helping Russia to win the war won't stop it. It will simply give it the ability to cause more death and more destruction. In other words, it will help prolong the war.

And the danger isn't confined to Ukraine — the rest of Europe is at risk. U.S. intelligence last month warned that Russia could launch a limited attack on a NATO country as early as this fall.

An emboldened Putin makes that more likely. Trump is endangering the security of the entire European continent in an attempt to score short-term political points. It's difficult to name a time when a U.S. president has acted so recklessly on the international stage.

We all need to start calling it what it is:

Trump indeed wants the war to end quickly. He’s just choosing to end it with a Russian victory.