In what will be remembered as the defining moment of Donald Trump’s term in office, the President’s scathing rebuke of Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy was more than just an assertion of dominance. It was final cancellation of Project Ukraine: a senseless war initiated by elites of the NATO states, only to blow up in their faces.
On top of that, it was also Trump’s complete triumph over a malevolent operation conceived by European leaders to wreck his presidency.
What occurred on Friday, February 28 was spectacular television, as the President himself remarked at the time. But it was so much more. It wasn’t just history in the making, it was history made, in one fiery ten-minute exchange.
Trump did not merely sidestep the trap that was laid for him; he threw each of his opponents right into it: first French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, then British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, and finally Zelenskyy himself on Friday. Each one was demolished more thoroughly than the last.
This moment was Trump’s final decision to slam the door on Project Ukraine. Zelenskyy, Starmer, and Macron managed only to mangle their hands in the jamb. In this climactic exchange, Trump once and for all proved he would not allow the United States – or himself – to be devoured by Project Ukraine.
Which, of course, was the trap.
Ukraine Needed to Drag the United States into the War
Since mid-2023 – more than a year and a half ago – it’s been clear that Ukraine’s only hope for defeating Russia was to get the Americans to enter the war against Russia. Having the Ukrainians fighting as our proxy was going disastrously wrong. The much-hyped Ukrainian summer 2023 offensive had been a total failure. The Ukrainians had barely managed to capture a village before their offensive was ground to a halt. They didn’t even manage to reach the “Surovikin Line” where the Russians had fortified their defenses, much less pierce it.
The Ukrainians were never able to capture or recapture Russian-controlled territory in any significant way ever since. Worse, they were throwing good men after bad trying to cling to territory long after the battles had been lost. The Kursk offensive last year, which was meant to capture the Kursk nuclear plant, ground to a halt just a few kilometers into Russian territory and turned into another fire bag. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers perished to hold a few kilometers of farmland.
And so the Ukrainians had no other option: either bring the Americans into the war, or the Russians would grind their military down until they had nothing left.
For their part, the Europeans were no less desperate for a victory. They had sunk all of their political capital – and much of their nation’s economies and military stocks – on a lost war. The Europeans and Ukrainians both knew that Trump and Vance had deep-seated misgivings about the war, and this is why they desperately campaigned for Kamala Harris, to no avail, in the fall of last year.
Once Trump was inaugurated, they had only one desperate “Hail Mary” play left: try and trick Trump into getting sucked into the war.
Besides roping America into the conflict for the sake of defeating Russia, let’s not forget that the European leaders harbor a deep personal and political hatred for Donald Trump as well. They knew perfectly well that dragging Trump into Ukraine would distract him from domestic issues, divide him from his base, and ultimately consume his second term. For them, destroying Trump and attacking Russia would be a win-win proposition.
(Never mind the threat of nuclear extinction. More important: GET TRUMP! GET PUTIN!)
Operation Get Trump
The broad strokes of their plan were fairly obvious:
In Step 1, they would seduce Trump with money: Ukraine’s allegedly vast supply of “rare earth” materials and other natural resources. Trump wouldn’t want to let the Russians have these resources if the U.S. could have them. This was their bait to get Trump invested in Ukraine. Although the media today alleges the minerals deal was Trump’s idea, it was Volodymyr Zelenskyy who first floated the notion months ago, even delaying the deal “so Trump can claim credit”:
Second, they would, with U.S. pressure, compel the Russians to accept a ceasefire with Ukraine and bring in European soldiers as “peacekeepers.” Then they would just need an incident to break the peace: a false-flag incident could be arranged, if something didn’t happen organically. Russia would be labeled the aggressor, and the Europeans could invoke Article V of the NATO Treaty to demand American forces defend them against the Russians.
Trump took the bait on Step 1, or at least so it seemed to the Europeans. Zelenskyy was absolutely infuriated by Trump’s demand that Ukraine pay back the hundreds of billions he had taken, insisting the money was a gift, not a loan. But Boris Johnson and others persuaded Zelenskyy that even on these terms, it was critical to get Trump invested in Ukraine: he just needed to accept the deal on Trump’s terms, and the repayment issue could be renegotiated later.
(As an aside, Trump was correct and Zelenskyy was lying: the money was a loan. That why the law was called the “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022.”)
But Step 2 – the ceasefire – went off the rails right at the get-go. The Russians saw right through the plan and immediately rejected it. They noted that peacekeepers can only ever be deployed if both sides agree to it, and they were never consulted. The Europeans floated preposterous figures for the proposed number of the “peacekeepers,” including one calling for 100,000 “peacekeepers.” The Russians weren’t fooled for one instant: these would be warfighters, not peacekeepers.
Besides, why would the Russians want a ceasefire when they were decisively winning the war? Why give Ukraine the opportunity to be re-armed?
The only body capable of imposing a ceasefire is the U.N. Security Council, but Russia is a member of the Council and Russia flatly, repeatedly declared it would veto any ceasefire plan.
Over and over, again and again, the Russians – Putin; his spokesman; Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov; Lavrov’s spokeswoman; Russian UN representative Vassily Nebenzya; many more – emphatically rejected the ceasefire, to the point of exasperation.
“This [peace agreement] should not be merely a truce or a temporary ceasefire, nor some kind of pause that the Kyiv regime could use to recover losses, regroup, and get rearmed,” Putin asserted on February 5, to give one example of many.
The Russians told Trump the same thing they had told the whole world: There would not be any temporary ceasefire; only a permanent peace deal, or else the war would continue to its military conclusion.
And so the Europeans had to improvise: the proposed “peacekeeping” forces were rebranded “reassurance” forces. Instead of going through the U.N., Britain and France would simply send their forces into Ukraine, and once the Russians had destroyed them, the United States would be compelled to intervene.
But would they? But would Trump really be compelled? It was doubtful. He made no such commitment, verbally or in writing. He criticized NATO, Zelenskyy, and the Europeans frequently. He just had a very ugly quarrel with Zelenskyy, labeling him a dictator (accurately).
The Europeans were desperate to get anything from Trump that they could use to drag him into the war. And so they conceived one final, desperate ploy.
The Setup
The plan was for Emmanuel Macron to meet with Trump to soften him up and trick him into offering Ukraine a security guarantee. Even if it was only verbal, anything would suffice.
Before embarking on his first trip to the White House, Macron huddled with Keir Starmer and came up with a common position: The Europeans would be willing to put tens of thousands of their troops in Ukraine after a truce, and a 30,000 force in Ukrainian cities. The United States would service as a so-called “backstop” to be a more credible deterrent to the Russians.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians announced that Zelenskyy was ready to sign the deal and would arrive in Washington Friday.
But Trump was not the fool that the Europeans took him for, and knew exactly what they were doing. In their arrogance and hatred, the Europeans viewed Trump as greedy, transactionally-motivated, and ruthless, rather than the sincere peace-maker he was. They chalked up Trump’s tough negotiations on the minerals deal to simple greed. They had grossly underestimated Trump and his team. How they thought they were so clever can only be attributed to their own narcissism.
And so, after toying with Macron for a bit and humiliating him, Trump merely restated his position that a peace settlement is needed to be negotiated as soon as possible.
The next day, Keir Starmer showed up. It was an even bigger disaster. Again, Starmer attempted to lure Trump into saying the United States would guarantee peace. Instead, Trump reiterated that the only security guarantee needed was the fact the United States would have this minerals deal.
“We are a backstop because we’ll be over there, we’ll be working,” as a result of the economic partnership, Trump said. “We’re going to have a lot of people over there.”
Trump made fun of the fact that the British would be crushed trying to fight the Russians on their own. And then while Starmer babbled on about the great and historic partnership between the United States and Britain, Trump simply cut him off: “That’s enough.”
The Art of the Deal
The Europeans having been totally rebuffed, Zelenskyy was now set to appear in Washington to sign away his country’s wealth but without any security guarantee, written or verbal, that could be used to demand the United States defend the Ukrainians (or Europeans).
The minerals deal itself was easily the most bizarre and outlandish international agreement ever written. It was incredibly vague. It was incredibly short. Somehow Trump and Zelenskyy’s staff had agreed it would require the ratification of neither county’s legislature. It might as well have been scrawled on a cocktail napkin.
This was explained as the document being a mere “framework,” but if that was the case, then was it really binding at all?
It committed the United States to nothing: only to “help” Ukraine reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Ultimately, it appeared that the entire purpose of having Zelenskyy come to Washington to sign the agreement was simply for Trump to show Zelenskyy who’s boss.
But there was another fundamental problem with the deal: Zelenskyy’s professed desire for peace was a false one.
In truth, Zelenskyy knew that the moment peace is reached, his political career is over. He canceled elections last year and his term of office expired in May of 2024. Lies in the mass media notwithstanding, nothing in the Ukrainian Constitution permits the president to cancel presidential elections and become a dictator on an ongoing basis, as Zelenskyy has done.
The moment the war is over, Zelenskyy is toast.
Zelenskyy walked into the Oval Office knowing that he would not sign the agreement he had stipulated with President Trump. He would be making exorbitant, maximalist demands, as he always does. He would have to force Trump provide security guarantees to Ukraine – in other words, fall into the trap laid for him, to get the United States into war with Russia and destroy Trump’s presidency.
And of course, Donald Trump and JD Vance knew exactly who they were dealing with.
That’s why the fireplace in the Oval Office was kept dark.
The Climax
All of this led to the incredible show on Friday.
If you haven’t watched the full hour, you need to.
The media lied about Trump and Vance “ambushing” Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy provoked the fight. He was furious that he hadn’t gotten the security guarantees he was looking for. He was not ambushed.
You could tell by his disrespectful choice of wardrobe that he was spoiling for a fight when he walked into the Oval Office. You could tell by Zelenskyy’s body language.
In fact, the meeting had gone on for nearly 45 minutes before the fireworks even began. Some “ambush.”
It was, in fact, at the last question from the press that Zelenskyy threw the first punch, when he attempted to leverage JD Vance against his own President, right in front of the news cameras.
Vance was making the entirely sensible point that Ukraine needed to negotiate peace before the situation got even worse.
“For four years, the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is, maybe, engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States’ words mattered more than the president of the United States’ actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.”
Zelenskyy responded by making various accusations about how bad the Russians are. Accusations that, true or not, have no bearing on the fact that Ukraine was inexorably losing the war. And so, after alleging that Putin broke a ceasefire, Zelenskyy push Vance: “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?”
Understand what Zelenskyy was doing here: He was trying to use JD Vance to undercut Trump.
And that was when Vance called Zelenskyy out on his bullshit.
“I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”
That was when Zelenskyy lost his temper.
“Have you ever even been to Ukraine?” Zelenskyy spat at Vance.
And so it began, where Trump showed the entire world who Zelenskyy really was.
No need to provide that part blow-by-blow. You’ve seen the video. Probably several times at least.
But there were some incredible acts of impudence by Zelenskyy. When Trump observed, “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards,” Zelenskyy shot back, “I’m not playing cards.”
To which Trump threw down the hard truth: “You are playing cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.”
And so Trump proved that Zelenskyy was the one who refuses peace. This might seem obvious to people that follow the Ukraine conflict closely. But for the American public, this was a revelation.
By the time it was all over, Trump had not only avoided the death trap laid for him: He had shown the entire world who Volodymyr Zelenskyy truly was.
He even said so: “But you see, I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going for so long.”
And then, Trump had Zelenkyy escorted out of the White House, and allowed staffers to eat the meal prepared for Zelenskyy and his entourage.
Epilogue
There are so many observations to make of this incredible moment in history.
First, let’s note that in one hour, JD Vance played a more integral role in the administration than Kamala Harris played in four years of Joe Biden, despite Biden being senile and unable to serve the role of President.
Let’s also not neglect to point out that this was a news conference in which Trump casually took questions from reporters for an extended period: something Joe Biden never did, but which Trump has already done several times in less than six weeks in office.
I, for one, have never been more proud of President Trump. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller hit the nail on the head: “President Trump defended Americans after YEARS of being fleeced and abused… American hearts swelled with overflowing pride today to watch Trump put Zelenskyy in his place.”
The Europeans went sulking off, and are now defiantly talking about defending Ukraine themselves, taking action against the U.S., and so on. The European Union is now a chicken with its head cut off. It is a walking corpse. They just aren’t yet ready to admit it.
They held a big summit over the weekend. They forgot to invite any countries outside of Europe. Brazil, China, India, South Africa didn’t come to London. It was exclusively for European states, which proves they’re only stewing in their own isolation.
It also came out later that before meeting with Trump and Vance, Zelenskyy had met with congressional Democrats, who of course riled him up to be as pugnacious as he could be. The Democrats are attempting to put the blame on Trump for the events at the Oval Office – because what else could they do? – but ultimately this event will be the beginning of the end for them, too.
Because deep down, Americans know that every bit of the Russia-Ukraine conflict all comes back to the Democrats and their pals in Europe. They (the Obama State Department) they overthrow the Yanukovych government in Ukraine in 2014; they (the Democrats) made Russia the scapegoat for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, they ginned up Russia as the great anti-American bogeyman, they (Biden and EU officials) met in Munich in 2022 calling for the strategic defeat of Russia, they (NATO) funneled arms into Ukraine and put troops at the Russian border.
They are the ones whose machinations led to the death of over a million Ukrainians and a hundred thousand Russians.
They tried to make Trump a party to their terrible crimes.
They failed.
And now Trump is talking to the Russians. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel are dismantling the Deep State operatives at the Justice Department. Tulsi Gabbard is dismantling the Deep State in the intelligence community. Pete Hegseth is dismantling the Deep State at the Pentagon. Marco Rubio and DOGE are dismantling the Deep State at the State Department.
The Deep State is being dismantled by the Trump administration. Nothing can stop them.
It’s only a matter of time before Ukraine capitulates and ends the war, on terms dictated by an agreement between the United States and Russia.
There’s never been a more exciting time to be alive, and to see what happens next.
