Late Tuesday night, President Trump appeared to have had enough. While acknowledging China’s Victory Day — the country’s 80th marking the end of World War II in the Indo-Pacific – he pointedly accused Beijing, Moscow and North Korea of conspiring against the U.S.
In so doing, Trump quickly connected the dots that Elbridge Colby, his Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, has failed to or refuses to connect at the Pentagon. China, Russia, and North Korea are actively colluding to globally weaken U.S. interests.
Inexplicably, Colby also cannot comprehend that Ukraine is and always has been the Ground Zero of their war against the U.S. and its transatlantic allies.
Providentially, Ukraine has long had Trump’s back. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals always understood that the fight in eastern and southern Ukraine was bigger than national survival or territorial integrity. They get it that defeating Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Donbas is Europe’s best defense and, by extension, Washington’s own best defense in the Western hemisphere and Taiwan.
Despite occasional clashes, Trump and Zelensky are made of similar mettle. Both embody the same spirit of Trump’s immediate reaction to his attempted assassination when he defiantly stood up and roared, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Zelensky, likewise, when faced with a similar flight or fight moment in the opening days of the war, chose to stay and fight. He refused former President Joe Biden’s offer to evacuate him and, as reported by Jim LaPorta, made it clear in a Winston Churchill-like moment that he needed “ammunition, not a ride.”
Ukraine has never lost sight that Kyiv’s initial survival in February 2022 was due in part to Trump’s decisions in 2017 and 2018 to equip the Armed Forces of Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles and military training. The latter was likely decisive. As then-Defense Secretary James N. Mattis noted, “We’re working with [Ukraine] on reform of their military … and to make sure that they stay independent and sovereign.”
This was in stark contrast to the Obama administration in the aftermath of Putin’s annexation of Crimea. Despite broad bipartisan passage in 2014 of the $350 million Ukraine Freedom Support Act, President Barack Obama refused to “authorize the U.S. government sale or financing of lethal weapons to Ukraine.”
The primary intent of the act was to “deter the government of the Russian Federation from further destabilizing and invading Ukraine and other independent countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.” Yet, instead of zooming in on Moscow’s kinetic threats, Team Obama veered off course.
Instead of confronting Putin, Obama’s White House obsessed more about lecturing Kyiv about its “historic battle with corruption.” Indeed, during then-Vice President Joe Biden’s December 2015 speech to Ukraine’s parliament, although he paid lip service to not allowing Russia “to redraw borders by force,” he chiefly took the position that rooting out corruption and holding free and fair elections were Kyiv’s best defense against Moscow.
Trump, in direct contrast, was willing during his first administration to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. His White House, as opposed to Obama’s, pushed the envelope with Putin by delivering Javelins for storage in Western Ukraine — and, in the process, earned “a sharp rebuke from Moscow, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accusing the U.S. of “fomenting a war.”
Domestic U.S. politics culminating in the first impeachment of Trump muddied the waters, but Zelensky has remained steadfastly consistent that he believes Trump did nothing wrong. As he said at the time, “There was no blackmail.”
Perhaps the fiercest way in which Zelensky has had Trump’s back is making it clear Putin’s war in Ukraine is part of a global assault against the West. As Zelensky warned last April, “If we do not stand firm, [Putin] will advance further. Putin’s ultimate goal is to revive the Russian empire and reclaim territories currently under NATO protection.”
Standing strong has come at a steep price for Kyiv. As of August, it has suffered 13,883 civilian deaths and another 35,548 injuries. Over 3,000 of these victims have been Ukrainian children.
But Zelensky is right. As he warned, if Putin and his Axis of Evil allies are allowed to win militarily in Ukraine, “There won’t be a safe place for [anyone].”
Ukraine’s military casualties have been even greater. Last December, Zelensky stated that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and another 370,000 wounded. U.S. officials believe those numbers to be significantly higher.
Yet Ukraine fights on. The country’s ongoing sacrifices have bought Team Trump and Brussels critical time to see the full scale of the vast and fast-coalescing threat facing NATO and their allies.
During Labor Day weekend the optics of that threat crystalized. Witnessing Chinese President Xi Jinping walking side-by-side with Putin and North Korean President Kim Jong-un at the massive Victory Day military parade made it clear that the growing kinetic threat against the collective West is global in nature.
Putin, Xi and Kim, in their own way, are also messaging “Fight, Fight, Fight!” Their Cold War-like message was intentionally aimed directly at Team Trump — and by extension against Ukraine and Taiwan as well.
Trump, to his great credit, finally appears to be seeing through Putin. As we urged last month, it is time for Trump to tell Putin, “Nyet.”
Ukraine has held the line now for 3 years and 7 months against the Axis of Evil. It has withstood hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers, countless Iranian drones and North Korean artillery shells, and 30,000, if not more, North Korean troops. And now, increasingly, it is facing a broad introduction of Chinese military technology on the battlefields.
It is now time for Trump to have Ukraine’s back when he speaks today with Zelensky and with other European leaders.
Trump can achieve that by introducing game changers to increase Putin’s cost calculus. Impose the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 that 84 Senators have already co-sponsored. Establish a no-fly zone. Make it clear that, unless Russia immediately withdraws from all of Ukraine, Team Trump will support Ukraine’s accession to NATO.
As we have long argued, the world is at war. Ukraine has had our six so far with the Axis of Evil. Going forward, we as a country must have its back as well.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.
