Rolf Ivar Skår

Dec 27, 2025

Zelensky meeting Trump at Mar-a-Lago is a mistake.

Volodymyr Zelensky is not just fighting a war of arms.

He is fighting a war of legitimacy.
And in that war, who you meet matters as much as what you say.

It is now well understood that Donald Trump is structurally weak toward Vladimir Putin.

This is not a partisan claim. It is a documented behavioral pattern.

That is precisely why a meeting at Mar-a-Lago is not diplomacy.
It is normalization.

Zelensky should avoid any leader who grants Putin political oxygen.
That list is not controversial:

Viktor Orbán
Robert Fico
Aleksandr Lukashenko
and, uncomfortably for some: Donald Trump

The comparison with Orbán is not rhetorical.
It is functional.

Both:
undermine sanctions
relativize Russian aggression
treat Ukraine as a bargaining chip in domestic power games

Meeting such figures sends a damaging signal: That Ukraine is willing to negotiate the framework, not just the outcome.

That Putin’s enablers remain relevant.
Zelensky’s greatest strength since 2022 has been moral clarity:

Aggression is aggression
Occupation is occupation
Putin must be isolated, not laundered through Western populists
Ukraine will not win by appeasing apologists.

It will win by being consistent.

Trump does not belong at the table.

He belongs in the same boat as Orbán — as a Putin apologist.

Comment from :

David Shapiro

Rolf, I agree with what you say but, here is but one reason that ‘unfortunately’ one has to keep 47 & co on-board > Rough Comparison (Military/ISR Satellites) United States≈240 – 265+ while the EU + UK Combined≈45 – 60. Electronics is my game not geo-politics, but you get my drift?

Sergiu Simion

After the humiliation in the Oval Office to which Donald Trump subjected him, this credit given to a Putin admirer is a huge mistake that nullifies Zelensky’s previously unique integrity and moral legitimacy. If he cedes territory, he undermines the future of Ukraine.