How the United States Sees Ukraine—and Therefore the World
Anatomy of Betrayal and Indifference to Evil
Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, White House, February 28, 2025. Source : Office of the President of the US
The comments and attitude of Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of his meeting with Putin on Friday, April 10, as well as the interview given by his advisor on Ukraine, General Kellogg, to the London Times, sparked outrage that was far from limited to Ukraine alone. In the United States itself, voices, including in the Republican camp, have rightly been raised calling for the former’s departure. Neither of them is new to this, however: the latter has compared Ukrainians to a mule that needs to be “slapped” from time to time to keep it moving in the same direction. As for Witkoff, he has systematically repeated all the Russian propaganda narratives while conceding that he trusts Putin, who he claims is not a bad guy—his hundreds of thousands of victims would certainly have appreciated that. He is accused of incompetence, which he clearly is, but it must be acknowledged that if he were an official Kremlin mouthpiece, he would not say anything else.
As for Trump’s meeting with President Zelenskyy in Rome on April 25, on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral, followed by statements from the US president that were considered less soft toward Putin, I had the opportunity to state in several television interviews that nothing should be expected from it. This hint of a change in Trump’s stance is likely to be temporary—after all, this is not the first time he has threatened Putin with sanctions. As for Putin’s apparent backtracking, claiming to accept talks with Ukraine without conditions, one day later, as was to be expected, it was already a dead letter, with the Kremlin putting back on the table maximum demands that would amount to a loss of sovereignty for Kyiv. So let’s get back to basics: this almost structural complicity between Russia and Trump’s America.
We could certainly leave it at that and rail against the profound immorality of Trump’s henchmen, their indifference to crime, their lack of empathy, their cowardice, their servility, and their contempt. But such an observation would not dispel the absolute mystery surrounding evil, a moral and even metaphysical question to which there is ultimately no answer. Stupidity and incompetence are never mitigating circumstances. There can be no excuse for evil, nor for indifference to evil. With the Trump administration, we are faced with a kind of textbook case: the absence of any consideration of evil, and therefore of good, is turning into an almost open and official policy. But such a policy requires a judgment that is political in nature, not moral.
This policy of complacency towards evil should be seen as a kind of Trump Inc. trademark. It can be seen at work in almost every area, including domestic policy. We remember Trump’s immorality during his first campaign, when he publicly mocked a disabled person, to the amusement of the MAGA crowd. Trump’s politics are nothing more than a continuation of his attitude: Ukrainians murdered or maimed, immigrants deprived of their rights, exemplary civil servants stripped of their positions, the poorest of the poor in developing countries, now deprived of all US aid, are the collective and political equivalents of all the individuals Trump has offended.
But on Ukraine, it would be wrong to view Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg’s repeated statements, whatever their differences, as revealing only their own assessment. American newspapers like to point to disagreements within Trump’s foreign policy team—the prevailing chaos shows that this is not wrong. But overall, it is impossible to discern anything other than nuances. In other words, their words reflect what Trump “thinks” about Ukraine and the world. There are no adults in the room, no advisors or ministers in Trump’s entourage who express any divergence from their boss's doctrine. Servility, if not Gleichschaltung, is virtually perfect.
In a previous essay, I had already reflected on the continuity between Trump’s predecessors, notably Obama and Biden, and Trump himself. I had pointed out both the real continuities and the profound breaks: the two Democratic presidents did not display any contempt for international law, let alone ideological collusion with Russia. There is therefore a real change in nature with Trump. There is a radicalism in Trump whose excesses, both verbal and cognitive, are leading to paradigm shifts. However, I believe it is necessary to first identify a continuity that seems to me to be characteristic of part of the American ruling class, but also, in fact, often of the European ruling class. This attitude, characterized by a kind of contempt for the fate of Ukraine, was only better counterbalanced by another sentiment on the part of a section of the Democratic elite that has hardly existed, at least since the death of John McCain, in the Republican establishment, beyond intellectuals marginalized in the decision-making process since Trump came to power. However, the major break comes from a political policy. Jenseits von Gut und Böse.
The continuity of contempt
In reality, the fundamental line of the Trump administration’s policy toward Ukraine had been defined by the man who would become vice president, JD Vance: “I don’t give a damn about Ukraine.” For Trump and his ilk, Ukraine is first and foremost an embarrassment. This was also true, all things considered, for the Obama and Biden administrations. I have been involved in this issue for long enough to remember that, for several European governments, this view of Ukraine as an “obstacle” was present between 2014 and long after February 24, 2022. The supposedly serious issue was that of relations with Moscow, which, I sometimes heard at the time, should not be “sabotaged.” Even when Trump claimed during his election campaign that he would end the war “in one day,” it was not to guarantee Kyiv’s absolute rights over its territory, but to resume business with Russia. Witkoff’s haste to give the Kremlin everything it asked for, and even more, was in line with this orientation. The “Ukrainian question” or the “Ukrainian crisis,” as some still dared to call it, sometimes quite infamously in Europe even after 2022, had to be resolved. The historical and inextinguishable guilt of Putin and hundreds of thousands of Russians in mass murder and torture was swept under the rug.
The reality is therefore one of long-standing contempt. Most Europeans gradually abandoned this position, not only because they could not help but recognize the absolute heroism of the Ukrainian resistance and armed forces, but above all because they began to understand, albeit too late, that Ukraine's fight was also a fight for Europe and its security. Without yet fully acting on this logic, they understood that even a partial victory for Moscow would spell mortal danger for the European continent. But the Obama administrations in the early years of Russia's war against Ukraine in 2014, and even Biden after 2022, did not consider Russia’s war against Kyiv as their new security frontier. With the exception of a few members of the Biden administration, such as Antony Blinken, they remained stuck in a classic geopolitical vision in which Ukraine was a secondary country. They certainly showed human compassion, but this was not really followed by actions. In their worldview, Russia remained the essential state which, while it must not be allowed to win, they considered risky to defeat. They remained attached to the classic version of “great powers politics”—a concept whose absurdity and suicidal nature for democracies I have just demonstrated in a book published a few days ago—which ultimately disregards the misfortunes of peoples. One only had to listen to the architects of Biden’s policy, Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jonathan Finer, to be convinced of the dominance in their minds of a barely updated version of bloc geopolitics.
The condescending attitude adopted towards Ukraine and other medium-sized and small nations is, on a strictly strategic level—I will refrain here from any moral judgment—a sign of a literally conservative worldview. The Obama and Biden administrations, like several European leaders at least until 2023, feared above all a world in which Russia would be weakened. Or more accurately, they would undoubtedly have liked to see Russia weakened, but not only did they refuse to make this a guiding objective of their strategy, they also lacked the conceptual intelligence, if not the courage, to imagine a world in which this would be the case. They therefore readily resorted to a historically and conceptually unfounded cognitive analogy between the present situation and the Cold War period. This explains in particular their fantasized terror of Russia’s breakup. It is a well-known tendency to fear the possible emergence of a new world more than the reality of a world that is ultimately more dangerous.
Compared to this pattern popular among his predecessors, Trump does not fear this new world, at least not this one, but an international scene that allows Russia to remain a threat to the very existence of the international norm does not necessarily displease him, as long as Moscow promotes what he perceives as his interests. The Obama and Biden administrations made decent statements about the victims and denounced the crimes committed by dictatorships, but they did little to counter them. The Trump administration denounces them only in half-words, rarely and weakly, without ever using the legal terms that would characterize them, because they do not matter to it. This world is almost familiar to them on a mental and ideological level. This is certainly a substantial difference. But it is as if the former were preparing a world in which these crimes would become, if not lawful, at least anecdotal.
The abolition of evil as a political category
I will not repeat here my analysis of the need to include evil in the fundamental categories of geo-strategic analysis. It undoubtedly forms the backdrop to the comments that follow. Without a doubt, this is the most brutal question for me: what would become of a world where evil was no longer perceived as the primary political category? But after writing the word “no longer,” I am immediately tempted to correct myself: was there ever a time in history when this category was fully present in large sections of the population? Even if there was, was this category, which was primarily mental but certainly political in the strict sense, ever free of partisan political struggles that could corrupt its meaning and historical significance? It is likely that, in the reality of perceptions and mental patterns, it existed only in fragments and was always carried by waves of inconsistency. Moreover, it is probably unthinkable to detach it so completely from political struggles, given that, historically, it was the forces that embodied this political evil.
So, we can certainly distinguish a few moments, although they were undoubtedly sporadic and quite complex to grasp. How many people in the still free countries of Europe seriously revolted against the passivity of their governments during the Spanish Civil War? On the Republican side, we also know how much the International Brigades themselves were subjected to attempts to bring them into line by the political commissars of the Comintern, the same people who, in 1939, allied themselves with Nazi Germany. Those who returned from the death camps in 1945 also know the awkward silence that most often greeted them. It took decades more, despite the first writings of survivors, for the Holocaust to enter public debate—but with how much real depth? I will not dwell here on the empty incantation of “never again.” What remains today in the collective consciousness of Srebrenica or Rwanda? How can we forget the eagerness of certain perverted intellectuals to justify, when they did not deny them, the millions of deaths caused by Stalinism, Maoism, or the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? Some today minimize the genocide committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, while others would like, in the name of this pogrom, to give Netanyahu a free pass for his crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza. In both cases, the universal scope of mass crime is denied. In a way, justice is denied and the law is not applied. In both cases, by selecting an evil that might be “acceptable” for political or other reasons, we refuse to consider it and place it at the center of political thought. We remove it from the center stage and relegate it to the margins of the public sphere. In fact, we are paving the way for its normalization.
Admittedly, this movement has never had such dramatic consequences as the crimes committed by Russia over the past 25 years. Of course, we cannot ignore the numbers: hundreds of thousands of people murdered in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, but also, albeit on a smaller scale, in Georgia and Africa. Perhaps this does not break the records set by Omar al-Bashir or Bashar al-Assad, but the geographical scope of the territory covered by these crimes is certainly greater. But the main thing is that these crimes, committed in full view of everyone and, especially since 2015 in Syria, broadcast almost in real time, have not led most democratic leaders to designate Putin as a war criminal and a criminal against humanity and to take action. We continued to talk to him, to treat him with kid gloves, to conclude agreements with him, as if nothing had happened. It was not until the end of 2022 that leaders became aware, if not of their past misconduct, then at least of the irrevocable nature of what had happened. But it is not entirely certain that this is the case. Several commentators, in otherwise insightful articles, have pointed to Bucha, one month after the start of Russia’s large-scale war of extermination, as a turning point in the consciousness of these leaders and their populations. I still doubt that this is the case. Some have refused to consider any discussion with Putin for the time being, fearing the reaction of public opinion and other international leaders. We remember the justified outrage sparked by Olaf Scholz when, on November 15, 2024, he broke the taboo of isolating mass criminals. How long will this dam hold? I fear that tomorrow, the mass crime will once again be forgotten.
Even in Russia itself, the few dissidents, mainly in exile, who speak out about the absolute crimes perpetrated against Ukrainians are still hesitant to talk about collective guilt. They still sometimes tend to exonerate the Russians, as if it were not hundreds of thousands of them who had committed the worst atrocities: summary executions, torture of unspeakable cruelty, deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, markets, children's playgrounds, entire villages, and residential buildings Some still seem to refuse to make a clear connection between the crime and the Russian population, as if this crime were not, as were the crimes of the Germans under the Nazi regime, the crime of an entire people, whether perpetrators, supporters, accomplices, or silent bystanders. To designate Putin’s regime alone as the perpetrator of these crimes—which it certainly is, more than any other—is to minimize the crime and fail to place it at the heart of politics.
This detour was necessary because Trump could give credence to this movement, which first normalizes crime, then accepts and fails to punish it, and finally legitimizes it as a quasi-normal instrument in relations between nations. Most Western leaders, ultimately, are somewhat ashamed of the crime when it becomes too immense. It is a safeguard, albeit weak and minimal, but one that at least maintains, de jure, certain foundations of international law. I will never say how minimal, perhaps even pitiful, this is on the part of leaders who have little desire to enforce it by the only means at their disposal: military power. It is therefore a very tenuous safety net. But Trump, because he is attacking the very foundations of international law in the same way that he systematically, unrestrainedly, and openly violates domestic law (attacks on judges, contempt for the Constitution, refusal to protect the most vulnerable, rejection of any independent entity, even academic or charitable ones, etc.), he is aligning himself with Russia and China, albeit without the deadly consequences of those states’ actions.
Some will argue that Trump’s rhetoric is mostly just talk and that it could be reversed one day. Without debating here the likelihood of a Trump-style regime lasting in the United States or the strength of the American countervailing powers, I believe it is essential to pay attention to the discourse used to legitimize it. It is easier for millions of people, and not only in the United States, to subscribe to Trump’s rhetoric—especially since traditional democratic leaders had already largely abandoned the defense of the law—than to words that use the law as a banner. I have already shown here how deeply damaged the law and the rule of law are in Western democracies, and how they are being challenged by figures from traditional conservative parties, not just the extremes. Trump, because he was clearly elected for a second term and because he is the leader of the world’s leading power, has become the agenda setter, despite the catastrophic assessment already apparent after 100 days, for all those who want to challenge the rule of law.
When the rule of law no longer applies, international crime becomes not only possible, but a crime that we have chosen to leave unpunished.
Prolegomena to a restless conversation
Trump may thus appear as both a symptom and a precursor of a new world—one that liberals must fight against. Perhaps his power will ultimately remain more limited than we fear, due to his own grotesque character and the damage, perhaps irreversible, that he will do to his country’s power and to reactions, first internal and then international – but it would be risky to speculate too much on this. What is certain is that Trumpism is indeed an ideology of destruction of the law, of freedom and of norms themselves. Trumpism is not conservative in the sense that it seeks to restore forgotten values, the famous traditional values that we are constantly being fed by hypocrites who are themselves far removed from practicing them. All of this, as we know, is window dressing designed to attract the gullible. The true Trumpian ideology, ultimately expressed by people like JD Vance and, in a slightly milder form, Peter Thiel, is the destruction of all values and the very principle of norms. Trumpism is not about conformity, but about transgression—first and foremost of the rule of law.
Betrayal of Ukraine is certainly not conceptualized in Trump’s mind. It is a pretext for profiteering for someone like Steve Witkoff. It is an ideological tool for JD Vance, for whom Russia is a kind of efficient instrument in the destruction of the principles of freedom, dignity, and respect for the law that are at the heart of the European project. JD Vance is not “pro-Russian” in the sense that he admires Russia – he is certainly too astute not to despise it. But Russia embodies the project that Trump intends to promote on the international stage, that of a world without law. For Vance, it is undoubtedly more than that: it is poison for the continent that still embodies, however imperfectly, the camp of freedom.
I will therefore save for another time my thoughts on this troubling question: what is it in our societies that breeds indifference to crime and to the rule of law, because this movement is ultimately connected. How—it is partly a question of education, but only partly, because that would be too simple—is thinking becoming dulled? For if, tomorrow, Ukraine is ultimately betrayed, if free nations end up consenting to this betrayal—and by betrayal, I also mean compromise—it will ultimately be due to our own collapse, that of our historical consciousness, which is, in the final analysis, an awareness of evil.