Has Michael McKinley not noticed Trump?

March 2, 2026

The article by Michael McKinley, rehearsing familiar pro-Russian narratives about the US “fighting to the last Ukrainian” would have been comprehensible, even if wrong, before 2025. But if Ukrainians were being dragged into a war they didn’t want, they would have settled when Trump changed sides. In fact, they understand that Putin will settle for nothing less conquest and continue to defend themselves, without the limited and grudging help they received from Biden.

The author, like Putin and Trump, can only see things through the lens of great power conflict, in which the US is pulling all the strings. This view was wrong before Trump’s alliance with Putin, but it is totally absurd now.