KYIV – As Ukraine approached the three-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the country’s hoped-for path to a favorable and lasting peace was upended in a matter of days by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kyiv had benefited from years of staunch support by its allies in the United States and Europe which had provided crucial military and financial support to help defend against Moscow’s grinding incursions.
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But when Trump held a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week — undoing years of U.S. policy to isolate the Russian leader over his aggression — it was taken as a signal in Kyiv and other European capitals that their alliance to contain Moscow was fraying.
Here’s a timeline of events:
Wednesday, Feb. 12
On their 90-minute call, Trump and Putin agreed to begin negotiations to end the war, a move that was met with jubilation in Russia but which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned would be “ very dangerous " if Ukraine were excluded from talks.
Although Trump spoke to Zelenskyy immediately after the Putin call, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that day that NATO membership for Ukraine, something Kyiv believes would protect the country and Europe from future Russian attacks, was unrealistic. He suggested Ukraine should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back, a perspective that is remarkably close to Moscow’s.
The breakneck speed of Trump's transformation of U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia left many war-weary Ukrainians feeling that they were being left out of the conversation on their future, and fearing that a deal forced by Washington and Moscow would result in lost territory and vulnerability to future Russian aggression.
Friday, Feb. 14
European leaders had their first chance to meet with members of the new Trump administration at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where they hoped to gain clarity on Trump's approach to the war.
But leaders were stunned as senior U.S. officials including Vice President JD Vance lambasted European nations, gave mixed signals on support for Kyiv and suggested Europe would not be at the table for negotiations on Ukraine.
During highly anticipated talks between Vance and Zelenskyy in Munich, the Ukrainian leader told Vance that his country needed security guarantees as a precondition for engaging in any talks with Moscow to end the war.
Zelenskyy also said he'd ordered his ministers not to sign off on a proposed agreement to give the United States access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, a key part of his talks with Vance. Ukrainian officials said the U.S. proposal did not offer any specific security guarantees in return for access to Ukraine’s vast reserves of critical minerals that are used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries.
A senior White House official described Zelenskyy’s refusal as “short-sighted.”
Sunday, Feb. 16
On the final day of the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron began rallying European leaders to fortify their support for Ukraine, with his foreign minister announcing an emergency “working meeting” in Paris to assess the continent's next steps.
Meanwhile, amid concerns that U.S. support for Kyiv was faltering, a group of European countries was quietly working on a plan to send troops into Ukraine to help enforce any future peace settlement with Russia.
Tuesday, Feb. 18
U.S. and Russian officials met for talks in Saudi Arabia's capital, sidestepping Kyiv and its European backers. The two countries agreed to work together to end the war in Ukraine and to improve diplomatic and economic ties, an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy.
Yet the three U.S. principals at the meeting in Riyadh — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump's special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff — maintained that the four-hour discussion was aimed mainly at assessing Russia's seriousness about wanting a peace deal.
All three said publicly that no specific proposals had been put on the table, and that it remained to be seen if the Russians were willing to negotiate in good faith.
They also rejected assertions that either Ukraine or the Europeans were being excluded, noting that although they weren't present in Riyadh, Trump, Vance and Rubio had all spoken with both Zelenskyy and European officials who would be involved if and when peace talks actually start.
Zelenskyy dismissed the talks, saying they would “yield no results” in the absence of Ukrainian participation. He postponed a plan to visit Riyadh the next day to avoid any linkage of his trip with the U.S.-Russia meeting.
Trump showed little patience for Kyiv's objections to being sidelined in Riyadh, and ramped up inflammatory rhetoric that caused anger and alarm in Ukraine and seemed to contradict the assurances that Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff had endeavored to provide.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump made the jarring suggestion that Ukraine itself was responsible for starting the war that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, and criticized Zelenksyy for Ukraine delaying elections because of the invasion, in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution.
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Trump's comments, and a Wednesday post on social media that called Zelenskyy a “dictator,” led to Zelenskyy saying that some of the president's claims were “disinformation” that originated in Russia, and that he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful.”
Trump, Zelenskyy said, is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”
As relations between the two leaders eroded, one thing remained on the horizon that some observers thought could serve to lower the temperature on the disagreements between Washington and Kyiv: Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, arrived in Ukraine's capital by train Wednesday morning for discussions with Zelenskyy and other officials.
Kellogg has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues. He was due to speak with Zelenskyy about Trump’s efforts to end the war, and the Ukrainian leader had previously said he looked forward to explaining what was happening in Ukraine to Kellogg and accompanying him to see the front line.
Thursday, Feb. 20
A news conference that was set to follow a meeting between Zelenskyy and Kellogg was abruptly cancelled at the request of the U.S. delegation.
Friday, Feb. 21
In a complimentary gesture that stood in stark contrast with the tone of the preceding days, Kellogg wrote on X that he'd had a “long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine.”
He said he'd had positive discussions with "the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war and his talented national security team.”
Still, Trump continued to lay into Zelenskyy, grumbling that a visit to Kyiv last week by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was “a wasted trip” after the Ukrainian side declined to agree to a U.S. proposal to procure profits on rare earth minerals.
At the same time, Waltz, Trump's national security adviser, expressed confidence that Zelenskyy would seal a rare earths deal. "Here’s the bottom line. President Zelenskyy is going to sign that deal,” Waltz said.
Trump, speaking to “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News radio, also dismissed Zelenskyy's complaints about not being included in the Saudi talks. He voiced certainty that Putin wanted to strike a deal.
“He doesn’t have to make a deal," Trump said of Putin. “Because if he wanted, he would get the whole country.”
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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine