By Jeremy Kinsman

February 25, 2025

The term “Iron Diplomacy” was coined by former Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Kamyshin to describe the “Rail Force One” shuttle system he established to transport foreign dignitaries from Przemyśl Główny, in Southeast Poland, to Kyiv after Ukraine airspace became too risky in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion in 2022.

On Monday, the third anniversary of that invasion, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined other Western leaders on the overnight Rail Force One trip to Kyiv to demonstrate their solidarity with President Volodymyr Zelensky and the embattled Ukrainian people in the wake of Donald Trump’s volte face of U.S. foreign policy away from Ukraine and toward Russia.

Having made several bombastic promises to end the war in 24 hours, Trump has adopted a self-appointed, wholly conflicted mediator’s role, without even a pretense of being even-handed. Trump has excluded Ukraine from negotiations between U.S. and Russian officials, while all-but pre-emptively endorsing Putin’s bottom-line demands.

As with so many of his foreign policy forays, Trump’s performance on Ukraine not only undermines a democratic ally and favours an autocratic one, it is an affront to the US-led post-1945 global compact against wars of territorial conquest, reinforced Monday by the failure of Trump’s UN delegation to pass a resolution on the anniversary that omitted any condemnation of Russia’s aggression. Instead, the general assembly backed the resolution drafted by Ukraine and the European Union condemning Russia.

Trump’s recent 90-minute telephone conversation with Putin might have had the merit of “re-setting” bilateral relations to support Trump’s “mediation,” but he and rookie Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went on to valorize the “reality” of Russia’s occupation of about 20% of Ukraine’s territory and to oppose Ukraine’s admission to NATO, two of Putin’s core demands.

After Trump asserted that he believed Putin’s claims that he wants peace (conjuring an awkward flashback to George W. Bush’s comment that he had looked into Putin’s eyes and seen a soul), Zelensky protested that the U.S. President seemed to be operating within a Russian “disinformation bubble,” a diplomatic euphemism echoing the parallel reality in which Trump has lied tens of thousands of times.

Trump promptly and crazily set the record straight on the borderless nature of disinformation by accusing Zelensky of having started the war and referring to him as a dictator supported by only 4% of Ukrainians. As propaganda, this deflected from Putin’s real dictatorship. It also overlooked that Zelensky won election in 2019 with 73% support, that today, polls award him a 52% approval rating, higher than Trump’s, and the reason he hasn’t held an election lately is that his country was invaded by the autocrat Trump is defending.

After indicating that US financial support and security guarantees for Ukraine were unlikely, Trump, unbelievably, demanded 50% of Ukraine’s rare mineral deposits with potential value of $1 trillion in recompense for what Trump falsely claims has been $350 billion of US aid to Ukraine (the true figure is around $120 billion). Zelensky turned down the extortionist “deal”, but U.S. pressure continues as US-Ukraine trust erodes.

Trump also denigrated European allies who were themselves left out of the “mediation” process even though EU countries have contributed more than the US to Ukraine’s security, and will continue to bear the military and financial brunt if a cease-fire is obtained.

They were astonished and angered at the assertion by Vice-President Vance (a denier of the 2020 US election result) at the recent Munich Security Conference that the threat to Europeans is not from Russia, or China, but “is in Europe“; in their allegedly flawed democracies. After Trump partner and propagandist Elon Musk endorsed the extreme-right AFD (Alternative for Germany) party in the German federal elections February 23, Vance chose in Munich to meet with its leader, Alice Weidel, and not Chancellor Olaf Scholz or the man subsequently elected his likely successor, Friedrich Merz.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arriving in Kyiv on ‘Rail Force One’ on Monday, February 24, 2025, the third annniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion/AP

In reaction, longtime arch-Atlanticist Merz informed his traditionally pro-U.S. party that Vance’s speech was for Germany a moment comparable to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when “we woke up from our dreams and had to learn to understand that our world is no longer what it was supposed to be.” He warned that Europe “can no longer rely on the US to defend it unconditionally,” suggesting Berlin instead seek deeper security assurances from Europe’s two nuclear powers, U.K. and France.

Other EU leaders, President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, headed to Washington this week to try to moderate Trump’s reckless and aggressive upending of loyalties and bilateral relationships, in the same spirit of Canada’s efforts regarding Trump’s economic intimidation purportedly to support his fantasy of “annexing” Canada as a “51st US state.”

In Washington Monday, Macron seemed to obtain more recognition and support for a European force to help protect Ukraine if Trump can encourage a cease-fire from both sides, and pitched Trump hard on the need for the US to provide the force with essential backup, that Starmer emphasizes will need US “back-stopping” in air defence, cyber, intelligence as protection from a reprise of Russian invasion.

But a peace process to end the war won’t flow unless Trump looks beyond his conflicted definition of U.S. interests and listens to others. After the German election won by Merz on Sunday, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke for most of Europe — and Canada — about Trump’s role thus far: “Does anybody honestly think that some thoughtless conversations or some reckless statement…can make us give up our principles or make the wrong choice (on Ukraine)?”

In what has been a basic stalemate of technology-driven attrition, Russia has gained territory in 2024, about 2500 square km, but remains stuck at about 20% of the country they intended to conquer entirely in February 2022. They have failed to win the four regions of Donbas they “annexed” two years ago.

Economic costs from Russian attacks on cities and essential infrastructure are very steep for Ukraine. On the Russian side, border cities have been attacked (most notably Ukraine’s assult on Saratov and Engles the week before Trump’s inauguration), the Russian war economy has coped with economic sanctions, and with inflation at 10% and interest rates at 22%, the Russian economy is straining.

Most Russians want the war to stop. Hard-core war support remains at about 20%, but dominant in media. A comparable 20% regrets the war as wrong, but the police-state harshly smothers its public voice. The remaining 60% just try to stay out of it, hoping the war will end, but not in Russian defeat.

Once both sides accept there will be no breakthrough, as costs mount and public support wanes, a cease-fire at present lines of demarcation could occur, with settlement of divisive border issues put off until later. Meanwhile, we can count on Russia being a disruptor as long as Putin reigns.