After years of firm support, 10 days upended the US approach to Ukraine
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 [February 22, 2025]
By JUSTIN SPIKE
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine approached the three-year mark of
Russia’s full-scale invasion, the country’s hoped-for path to a
favorable and lasting peace was upended in a matter of days by the
administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kyiv had benefited from years of staunch support by its allies in the
United States and Europe which had provided crucial military and
financial support to help defend against Moscow’s grinding incursions.
But when Trump held a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir
Putin last week — undoing years of U.S. policy to isolate the Russian
leader over his aggression — it was taken as a signal in Kyiv and other
European capitals that their alliance to contain Moscow was fraying.
Here’s a timeline of events:
Wednesday, Feb. 12
On their 90-minute call, Trump and Putin agreed to begin negotiations to
end the war, a move that was met with jubilation in Russia but which
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned would be “ very
dangerous " if Ukraine were excluded from talks.
Although Trump spoke to Zelenskyy immediately after the Putin call, U.S.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that day that NATO membership for
Ukraine, something Kyiv believes would protect the country and Europe
from future Russian attacks, was unrealistic. He suggested Ukraine
should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back, a perspective
that is remarkably close to Moscow’s.
The breakneck speed of Trump's transformation of U.S. policy toward
Ukraine and Russia left many war-weary Ukrainians feeling that they were
being left out of the conversation on their future, and fearing that a
deal forced by Washington and Moscow would result in lost territory and
vulnerability to future Russian aggression.
Friday, Feb. 14
European leaders had their first chance to meet with members of the new
Trump administration at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where
they hoped to gain clarity on Trump's approach to the war.
But leaders were stunned as senior U.S. officials including Vice
President JD Vance lambasted European nations, gave mixed signals on
support for Kyiv and suggested Europe would not be at the table for
negotiations on Ukraine.
During highly anticipated talks between Vance and Zelenskyy in Munich,
the Ukrainian leader told Vance that his country needed security
guarantees as a precondition for engaging in any talks with Moscow to
end the war.
Zelenskyy also said he'd ordered his ministers not to sign off on a
proposed agreement to give the United States access to Ukraine’s rare
earth minerals, a key part of his talks with Vance. Ukrainian officials
said the U.S. proposal did not offer any specific security guarantees in
return for access to Ukraine’s vast reserves of critical minerals that
are used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries.
A senior White House official described Zelenskyy’s refusal as
“short-sighted.”
Sunday, Feb. 16
On the final day of the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron
began rallying European leaders to fortify their support for Ukraine,
with his foreign minister announcing an emergency “working meeting” in
Paris to assess the continent's next steps.
Meanwhile, amid concerns that U.S. support for Kyiv was faltering, a
group of European countries was quietly working on a plan to send troops
into Ukraine to help enforce any future peace settlement with Russia.
Tuesday, Feb. 18
U.S. and Russian officials met for talks in Saudi Arabia's capital,
sidestepping Kyiv and its European backers. The two countries agreed to
work together to end the war in Ukraine and to improve diplomatic and
economic ties, an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy.
Yet the three U.S. principals at the meeting in Riyadh — Secretary of
State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump's
special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff — maintained that the four-hour
discussion was aimed mainly at assessing Russia's seriousness about
wanting a peace deal.
All three said publicly that no specific proposals had been put on the
table, and that it remained to be seen if the Russians were willing to
negotiate in good faith.
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From right, U.S. Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, United States
Vice-President JD Vance and United States Secretary of State Marco
Rubio meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the
sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany,
Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
They also rejected assertions that either Ukraine or the Europeans
were being excluded, noting that although they weren't present in
Riyadh, Trump, Vance and Rubio had all spoken with both Zelenskyy
and European officials who would be involved if and when peace talks
actually start.
Zelenskyy dismissed the talks, saying they would “yield no results”
in the absence of Ukrainian participation. He postponed a plan to
visit Riyadh the next day to avoid any linkage of his trip with the
U.S.-Russia meeting.
Trump showed little patience for Kyiv's objections to being
sidelined in Riyadh, and ramped up inflammatory rhetoric that caused
anger and alarm in Ukraine and seemed to contradict the assurances
that Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff had endeavored to provide.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump made the jarring
suggestion that Ukraine itself was responsible for starting the war
that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, and criticized
Zelenksyy for Ukraine delaying elections because of the invasion, in
accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution.
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Trump's comments, and a Wednesday post on social media that called
Zelenskyy a “dictator,” led to Zelenskyy saying that some of the
president's claims were “disinformation” that originated in Russia,
and that he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful.”
Trump, Zelenskyy said, is living in a Russian-made “disinformation
space.”
As relations between the two leaders eroded, one thing remained on
the horizon that some observers thought could serve to lower the
temperature on the disagreements between Washington and Kyiv:
Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith
Kellogg, arrived in Ukraine's capital by train Wednesday morning for
discussions with Zelenskyy and other officials.
Kellogg has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues. He was
due to speak with Zelenskyy about Trump’s efforts to end the war,
and the Ukrainian leader had previously said he looked forward to
explaining what was happening in Ukraine to Kellogg and accompanying
him to see the front line.
Thursday, Feb. 20
A news conference that was set to follow a meeting between Zelenskyy
and Kellogg was abruptly cancelled at the request of the U.S.
delegation.
Friday, Feb. 21
In a complimentary gesture that stood in stark contrast with the
tone of the preceding days, Kellogg wrote on X that he'd had a “long
and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine.”
He said he'd had positive discussions with "the embattled and
courageous leader of a nation at war and his talented national
security team.”
Still, Trump continued to lay into Zelenskyy, grumbling that a visit
to Kyiv last week by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was “a
wasted trip” after the Ukrainian side declined to agree to a U.S.
proposal to procure profits on rare earth minerals.
At the same time, Waltz, Trump's national security adviser,
expressed confidence that Zelenskyy would seal a rare earths deal.
"Here’s the bottom line. President Zelenskyy is going to sign that
deal,” Waltz said.
Trump, speaking to “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News radio, also
dismissed Zelenskyy's complaints about not being included in the
Saudi talks. He voiced certainty that Putin wanted to strike a deal.
“He doesn’t have to make a deal," Trump said of Putin. “Because if
he wanted, he would get the whole country.”
___
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington
contributed to this report.
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