June 20, 2026

Diane Francis

Weekly columnist National Post and Kyiv Post. Twice-weekly Diane Francis Substack newsletter on power, money, tech, and crime in America at Substack

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DIANE FRANCIS

In brief: Putin’s strike on Kyiv’s Dormition Cathedral coincided with the G7 summit, where Trump again downplayed Ukraine’s war and framed it as Europe’s burden. Though the US president signed a pledge backing Ukraine, his longstanding deference to Putin undermines any value it holds. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues degrading Russia’s military, isolating Crimea, and inflicting heavy losses – and losing Crimea could shatter Russia’s imperial mindset and ultimately discredit both Putin and Trump’s indulgence of him.

US President Donald Trump (R) reaches out to shake hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin as they pose on a podium on the tarmac after arrival at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

On June 15, the G7 met, and the European Union (EU) opened the first stage of accession negotiations to welcome Ukraine as a member state. Hours later, Vladimir Putin thumbed his nose at summitry and humanity by striking at the heart of Ukrainian culture and bombing Kyiv’s most sacred cathedral. He unleashed a massive missile and drone barrage, igniting a major fire on the roof of the 11^th-century Dormition Cathedral, one of Christianity’s holiest sites. The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said, “It was another Russian crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity.” And France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot noted, the assault against the Dormition Cathedral was “the equivalent of bombing Notre Dame.”

The G7 summit in France intended to focus fresh attention on the war in Ukraine because President Trump has been distracted by his war with Iran. Once more, Trump told the summit that the Ukraine conflict, which he bragged he could end within 24 hours, was not on his priority list. He had handed off the financial burden to Europe. “Look, we have nothing to do with it,” said Trump. “It has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons” to Ukraine, he added. “We’re thousands of miles away.” It was an insensitive remark made by an arms dealer, not a statesman.

Trump also boasted about his newly announced Iran peace deal, which The New York Times said: “gave Iran a major economic lifeline in return for minimal concessions”. But Trump threw a bone or two toward Ukraine. He announced that he would reimpose sanctions on Russian oil and, most importantly, signed a G7 pledge to “stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” and “commit to increasing the pressure on the Russian war economy.” The statement, because it includes U.S. backing, is a significant step forward for Ukraine if enacted, given Trump’s pussyfooting around Putin. 

Trump then suggested that with Iran solved, he might return his attention to a deal between Russia and Ukraine, according to Politico. He met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines, who asked the U.S. for more air defense missiles to block Russia’s ballistic missiles that are ravaging Ukraine. Of this meeting with Zelensky, Trump said, “We had a very good meeting. Look, Russia should make a deal.” 

But Trump has never pushed Putin to make a deal. In 2025, he tried to broker a cease-fire between Moscow and Kyiv, but proposed terms that were clearly favorable to Russia, and that could never be acceptable to Ukraine. The problem was that Trump did no homework; he had already decided that Moscow would win and that Ukraine should capitulate to stop the fighting, and became persuaded that America would cash in on massive business deals promised by Putin’s negotiators that would never happen. Thus, his priority has always been to remain on good terms with Putin. Even this week, despite Russia’s latest atrocity, Trump went out of his way to publicly praise Putin for not interfering on Iran’s side concerning his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s summit bonhomie and Putin-pandering mask poor judgment and a willful blindness toward Russia’s genocide in Ukraine, which has decimated a country of 40 million and racked up the highest casualties and displaced the most refugees of any post-World War II conflict in the world. It is Hitlerian, which is why it’s inexplicable that a President of the United States would not move heaven and earth to stop the slaughter and would, instead, remain friendly with the perpetrator. 

To date, about 1.2 million Russians have been killed and wounded, and 600,000 Ukrainians. About 5.9 million Ukrainians are living as refugees globally, 5.3 million reside in Europe, and another 3.7 million have been internally displaced within Ukraine, often multiple times. Roughly 90% of the refugees are women and children. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and given to Russian families to raise. About two-thirds of Ukraine’s power infrastructure has been destroyed to debilitate the country next winter. 

Trump said nothing at the G7 about the Cathedral bombing nor about the fact that in May, just before these summits began, the Russians escalated their war against civilians by killing and injuring more in Ukraine than in any month since the invasion of 2022, according to United Nations figures. The reality is that the war will last into 2027 and beyond, which is why Zelensky warned the G7 and EU this week that if there’s no cease-fire before next winter, Ukraine will need more diesel fuel, natural gas, and gasoline to defend itself.

The only favorable development is that Ukraine rapidly degrades Russia’s military, economy, and morale. In retaliation for the Cathedral bombing, Ukraine blew up a gigantic refinery in Moscow. Kyiv also continues to dominate the “ground war”, killing Russian soldiers at an alarming rate of 25,000 per month. But the country has lost 12% of its territory since 2022, and a total of 20% is held by Moscow. However, this may change because Ukraine aims to retake Crimea, a sacred symbol to Russians of their imperial glory. It has cut off its supply lines, and Crimea is without energy and food. This week, Moscow announced that its naval base is relocating from Crimea to mainland Russia.

The reoccupation of Crimea would mark a psychological turning point, according to Soviet chess champion Garry Kasparov, now a democracy activist and a fierce opponent of Vladimir Putin and his regime. He believes that the loss of Crimea is the visual defeat needed to kill the “idea of empire” in the minds of Russians and to force them to understand that the war is lost. Such a decisive defeat could trigger the economic collapse and bankruptcy of the Russian state. 

If that happens, the Despot in the Kremlin will be no more, and Putin’s Patsy will be discredited in the annals of history.

About

Diane Francis is a journalist, author of 10 books, and Editor-at Large at The National Post. She has launched a newletter on America at https://dianefrancis.substack.com/ and is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, a Distinguished Professor at Ryerson University, and also on the boards of the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, and the Canada-US Law Institute. She is a speaker, an entrepreneur, a software developer, and author.

Comment from :

Daniel 

I have to strongly disagree Diane that “it’s inexplicable that a President of the United States would not move heaven and earth to stop the slaughter and would, instead, remain friendly with the perpetrator”.

We have long known that Trump is a pathologic, narcissistic coward, who sees himself as a ‘strongman’– along the lines of Putin and Xi — rather than the TACO he continually proves himself to be. To assume he is anything less, is to ignore his personal, business and political past. What would be inexplicable would be for him to suddenly find a conscience and do the right thing. That, sadly, will never happen . . . he is totally hardwired against any such thing.

You are correct in that “Putin’s Patsy will be discredited in the annals of history.” Once Trump is gone, and there is no need for his ‘psychophants’ to prop up his bloated ego, history will indeed be unkind to one of the worst political leaders of all time.

Steve Frellick 

Totally ignored is Putin’s rule of slaughter and elimination of opponents, pillage, spread of war, death and destruction in all hemispheres. Does he think he is Stalin?

Putin how are you and cronies enjoying the stolen wealth from the Russian motherland and citizens right now?

Russians will party like it’s 1989 some day.