Last Friday, Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance hosted Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to discuss negotiations over settling the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine a little over three years ago and hundreds of thousands have died as a result—soldiers and civilians alike. The U.S./NATO alliance backed the Ukrainian military effort, but sent no troops. They used Ukraine to wage a proxy war against their Russian imperialist rival. Trump came in determined to settle the war and has been working to change relations with Russia. 

In the White House negotiations, Zelensky did agree to allow the U.S. a large stake in valuable mineral resources in Ukraine—including rare earth minerals that are essential for microchips and other modern technology. This was cast as repayment for U.S. aid to Ukraine during the Biden administration. But Zelensky argued that going forward in ceasefire negotiations would require a U.S. “security guarantee” in the event of a future Russian attack—that is, at minimum, U.S. military aid. Trump refused to commit to that. Go here for background on the war.

At the close of negotiations, Trump brought Zelensky out for a session with the White House Press Corps. At this session, Zelensky repeatedly pressed his insistence on security guarantees and continually warned against Putin’s untrustworthiness. (Of course, Zelensky did not bring up that the U.S. had violated assurances to Russia that the U.S. would not interfere in Ukrainian affairs and that the U.S. would not consider admitting eastern European countries near Russia into the U.S.-led NATO military alliance—promises that were both repeatedly violated.) Toward the end of the press conference, Vance stepped in and chided Zelensky for disrespect, for not really coming to grips with the dire position of Ukraine in the war, and for not sufficiently thanking the U.S. Trump then came in to berate and belittle Zelensky. He told Zelensky that he was in no position to dictate terms; that without the U.S., Ukraine had “no cards”; and that Putin would respect any agreement he made with Trump—but that unless and until Zelensky changed his attitude to one of gratitude, things would not go anywhere. In short: take the deal or stay in the war on your own.

U.S. NATO allies in Europe, along with liberal politicians and commentators within the U.S., reacted with shock and anger to the open strong-arming of Zelensky. In the wake of this, there has been a lot of obfuscation—that is, covering up and “spinning”—of reality by different imperialist (and reformist) politicians and commentators. This is a very high-stakes and complex situation, in which things are radically changing, almost by the day. It’s crucial to approach this with a scientific methodology that enables you to drill down beneath the surface to the truth. That requires clearing away the lies and penetrating to the underlying living dynamics setting the framework and the real material interests behind the posturing and words of different contending forces.

1. The Lie: That Donald Trump was fighting for peace and working to prevent nuclear war when the ungrateful Zelensky recklessly disrespected him and tried to ruin those chances.

The truth: Despite his posturing, Donald Trump was neither fighting for peace nor still less principally trying to prevent World War 3. 

In the wake of Russia’s invasion, the U.S./NATO alliance intervened on the side of Ukraine with massive amounts of military aid, intelligence assistance and military advice, as well as waging severe economic warfare against Russia. Thus the U.S.-NATO alliance transformed that bloody conflict into an inter-imperialist proxy war between them and Russia. This greatly heightened the danger of a nuclear war breaking out that could end civilization. 

Trump had long opposed this war as a distraction from more fundamental imperialist interests—especially contention with China, the rising imperialist power that is increasingly challenging U.S. dominance. But as we dramatically saw Friday, this war has yet to be settled. Further, any “settlement” will not and cannot speak to the root causes of the war. Those causes lie in the capitalist-imperialist system and the way in which the “expand-or-die” logic of that system compels imperialist powers to fight to enlarge the spheres they dominate… at the inevitable expense of other imperialists. 

At the same time, the fallout of the Friday clash between Zelensky and Trump-Vance further intensified what had already been a sharpening conflict between the U.S. and what have been for the past 80 years its closest allies, the nations of Western Europe (Germany, France, Britain, and others). Over those decades, these nations have subordinated themselves to and supported U.S. policies principally to better pursue their own imperialist interests under the NATO umbrella. Now all that is being called into question and the unprecedented public argument with Zelensky was part of that. 

Last week we reported on the ways in which JD Vance and Elon Musk had given backing to the “neo”-Nazi party in Germany; and it is worth noting that Trump spoke at the “Conservative”¹ Political Action Conference that was full of European fascist parties and at which Steve Bannon gave his Nazi salute. 

By early last week, Friedrich Merz, the newly elected Chancellor of Germany—the most powerful country in Europe—said that his priority now was to “strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S., step by step.” Merz went on to say that the “interventions [in German elections] from Washington were no less drastic, dramatic, and ultimately no less brazen, than the interventions we have seen from Moscow.” Fareed Zakaria spoke for other liberal commentators when he called this overall trend a “seismic” (earthquake-like) shift. The incident with Zelensky heightened this.

There are no “good guys” in any of this, no “better force” to side with. These are capitalist-imperialist powers, each driven by the logic of “expand or die”—and each doing so on the broken bodies and spirits of billions of people and of the environment of the entire planet. This logic drives them into war—war against the masses when they rise up, and war against each other over who will dominate. 

Here is an irony: Among his many distortions and lies, Trump spoke one profound truth—the conflict in Ukraine did and still does carry the possibility of escalation into World War 3. But Trump’s aim in pushing these negotiations is not driven by a desire for peace, but an arrangement in which the U.S. will be in a stronger position to contend with its principal rival, China. Where this will go is impossible at this point to say. 

2. The Lie: That Trump endangered one of the “great achievements of history,” the (so-called) “rules-based international order," formed and headed by the U.S.

The truth: The U.S. capitalist-imperialist domination of the world for the past 80 years has been marked by hunger, horror and relentless violent oppression on a mammoth—and totally unnecessary—scale. 

Despite the relentless and, frankly, morally blind commentary of nearly every liberal opinionator and politician, this does not mark the end of a U.S.-“led” global order “in the service of freedom and democracy.” These last 80 years have been an era of U.S. global domination in the service of expanding their empire of exploitation, and beating back challenges to maintaining their grip on this domination. The U.S. came out on top after World War 2, and since then the world has seen over 500 million children die of starvation or curable diseases. Billions have been and continue to be ground up every day in pitiless exploitation to create the great wealth of the capitalist-imperialists, including 150 million children working in the mines, farms and sweatshops of the world. Nearly 10 million people have died due to direct U.S. wars and U.S.-directed military intervention in scores of countries since the end of that war. The “rules” that this system upholds are in the service of enforcing this.²

All this is compellingly put in Bob Avakian’s 2025 New Year’s statement, 2025: A New Year—Profound New Challenges—And A Profoundly Positive Way Forward In the Face of Very Real Horror, and it’s worth it to listen to it again here. 

3. The lie: Volodymyr Zelensky is a true hero in standing up to Trump.

The truth: Volodymyr Zelensky is the representative of the ruling class of a lesser capitalist power, struggling for the best deal for his country within, and as part of, the U.S. capitalist-imperialist bloc.

What Trump, along with his contemptible toady Vance, did to Zelensky was a disgusting display of bullying. Volumes could be written about what this revealed about the character and morality of these fascists.

And the fact is that Putin is a butcher who has carried out terrible war crimes against the Ukrainian people—again, in the service of imperialist interests. But these crimes have certainly been no greater than the horrors carried out by Israel and financed by the U.S. against the people of Gaza—also in the service of capitalist-imperialist domination. It is this capitalist-imperialist system that requires monstrous deeds and makes monsters of those who order and carry them out.

The Ukrainian people have been badly and cynically used in all this and suffered greatly. But shed no tears for Zelensky—he cast his lot by siding some time ago with the most vicious empire in history, the U.S. He presumably did so in the hopes of advancing what he perceived to be his country’s interests in getting part of the spoils of that murderous empire. His fight was not to overturn the imperialist banquet table, but to get a more secure seat at it. Now, like many before him, he is coming to find out that when push comes to shove, the very logic of the system he serves finds him and the people he leads very “expendable.” 

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What has been on display over the past two weeks is neither a bold move by Trump aimed at lessening the threat of imperialist war, nor is it a case of a supposedly great achievement (the U.S./NATO alliance) now in danger of being tragically abandoned. These two weeks instead have shown the imperialist system overall accelerating into an increasingly unstable and dangerous situation for humanity—one that cannot be dealt with within the confines of that system.