Trump's Ukraine deal with Putin looks messy—but might not change much

Donald Trump said he'd end the Ukraine war in a day. Nobody believed him. But apparently he believed himself enough that when no ceasefire materialized, he took it personally. That wounded ego has now pushed him back toward something genuinely alarming: the idea that Ukraine has to surrender before any deal gets done.

This is where things stood when President Zelenskyy sat down with Andy Burnham at Downing Street on Wednesday. The US president has been calling for regime change in Kyiv. He's claimed a partial truce was already locked in, even as Russia kept pounding away with missiles. And according to Zelenskyy, the intelligence heads-ups that used to help Ukraine defend itself have dried up.

Then there's the Starlink problem. Elon Musk controls the satellite network Ukraine relies on, and reports suggest Ukrainian troops have lost access to it. That's not an accident. It looks coordinated—another way to grind down a country that's supposed to just accept defeat.

But here's the thing: Russia's been failing. Badly. Putin's forces haven't grabbed meaningful territory in months. The Russian economy's getting hammered by Ukrainian strikes. That's not the position of a winner demanding terms.

So while Trump's cosying up to Moscow and throwing his weight around is genuinely grim—and yeah, grubby—it might not actually reshape the war itself. Zelenskyy's European allies need to keep their nerve and show Russia that American backstabbing won't flip the momentum. Ukraine's still bleeding the Kremlin dry. That matters more than whatever deal Trump thinks he's brokered.

The danger isn't that Trump's scheme works. It's that he tries hard enough to wreck things before everyone realizes it won't.