Three votes. Three resolutions. Three opportunities for America to support Ukraine. It did not once.
February 24, 2025, UN General Assembly: The resolution condemns Russia as an aggressor and calls for withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. Ninety-three states vote in favor. Eighteen against. America votes against, alongside Russia and North Korea.
February 24, 2026, exactly one year later, UN General Assembly: The resolution affirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. One hundred seven countries vote in favor. Fifty-one abstain. America abstains.
March 5, 2026, Vienna. The IAEA Board of Governors considers the seventh resolution on Ukraine since the start of the war. The resolution states what everyone knows: attacks on power plants supplying nuclear reactors “pose a direct threat to nuclear safety.” Since October 2025, Russia has destroyed more than nine gigawatts of capacity in Ukraine. Millions are left without electricity in the harshest winter. Hospitals are in darkness. Children are freezing. The resolution confirms this. Twenty states vote in favor. Four against: America, Russia, China, and Niger.
Three votes. Never in favor of Ukraine. Twice against. One abstention. These are not diplomatic niceties. This is politics.
Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. Since then, America has not supported a single resolution condemning Russian aggression. Not one. The reasoning? The resolution is “unnecessary” and “does not help achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia.”
Washington now repeats the same language Moscow uses to justify its aggression. Moscow has argued for years that condemnation of its crimes “disrupts peace.” Now Washington repeats it – literally, using the same words, at the same place, by voting the same way.
US officials explain that “previous resolutions have not ended the conflict.”
The logic is flawless. Since condemnation of aggression did not stop the aggressor, condemnation should cease. Calls for peace did not bring peace, so they should stop. Since justice has not prevailed, it should be abandoned.
Applied to any other crime, this logic is absurd and bizarre. Since anti-robbery laws have not eliminated robbery, let us repeal the law. Since the ban on murder did not prevent murders, let us abolish it.
The official justification for this vote in the IAEA? “America does not want to interfere with negotiations.”
What negotiations? The ones in Geneva that lasted two hours and ended without any progress? The ones Trump paused because America went to war with Iran, while Russia relentlessly targeted civilian facilities in Ukraine? The ones where Russia demands that Ukraine capitulate? The ones where America and Russia jointly exert pressure on Ukraine to withdraw from its own territory? These negotiations should not be interrupted?
Here is what is hindering those negotiations: the truth. The IAEA resolution states the truth. Russia is bombing power plants that supply nuclear reactors. This threatens nuclear safety. It violates international law. It kills civilians. It is a war crime!
But when you tell the truth, you disrupt the “negotiations.” Yet America is not telling the truth; America is voting against the truth, together with Russia.
Three days earlier, Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. The topic of conversation was not Ukraine. The topic was the new conflict between America and Iran. Moscow offered to mediate. The Kremlin said Putin was ready to convey the Gulf states’ concerns to Tehran and help calm the situation.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin “will certainly make every effort to contribute to at least a slight easing of tensions.”
This is what the president of a state that has been waging a brutal war of conquest against Ukraine for four years is saying. A state whose military sends drones and missiles to Ukrainian cities every night. A state that has not declared a single day of ceasefire during all that time. Now the same Kremlin is talking about stability and de-escalation in the Middle East. A man who destroys a European nation every single day tries to present himself as a peacemaker in another conflict. The paradox is so obvious that it once would have been the subject of ridicule. Today, it passes without reaction.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement: “The US attack on Iran is a premeditated, unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state.”
The words are correct. When applied to Ukraine, these words provide an accurate description of the Russian invasion. But Putin did not mention Ukraine. He condemned the aggression, demanded respect for sovereignty, and called for a ceasefire. For Iran. Not for Ukraine.
And that is not a mistake, because hypocrisy is his method.
America is watching. America is silent. And America – three days later in Vienna – votes with Russia against the resolution on Ukraine.
But immediately after the IAEA vote, the United States announces that the Pentagon and the Gulf states are negotiating to purchase Ukraine’s inexpensive drone interceptor. Why? Because Iranian Shahed drones are striking American Patriot systems in the Gulf – the same drones Russia has been using against Ukraine for four years.
One Patriot costs more then 13 million dollars. One Ukrainian interceptor costs three thousand. One Shahed costs thirty thousand.
The math is clear: the United States spends millions to shoot down thirty-thousand-dollar drones. Ukraine brings them down with three-thousand-dollar drones and has done so for four years. Every night. Hundreds of drones each month. Now the United States is asking Ukraine for help.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer invited Ukrainian experts to the Gulf to help counter Iranian drones. Zelensky replied, “We have received no official requests. But we are ready, on the condition that the Gulf states ask Moscow to implement a month-long ceasefire.”
Read that again.
Ukraine – bleeding and defending itself for four years – offers help to the United States, which has been at war for seven days. But it asks for something in return: a month without bombing. Thirty days without drones or missiles over Kyiv. One month. No answer was received.
The United States votes against Ukraine at the IAEA. The United States asks Ukraine for military help against Iran. The United States cannot secure a month-long ceasefire for Ukraine.
But Russia offers to mediate for Iran. Absurd? No. System.
Putin does not offer mediation because he believes in peace. He offers mediation because he wants a role. He wants to be indispensable. He wants the West to understand: there is no solution without Moscow – not for Iran, not for Ukraine, not for anything. And it works. He gets away with it.
Donald Trump called Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and accused Kyiv of starting the war. He also said that Ukraine must begin negotiations quickly, or it may soon have no country left to negotiate for.
Zelensky responded calmly but precisely: “Trump is living in disinformation space created by Russia.”
Soon after, the United States joined Russia at the United Nations in voting against a resolution condemning Russian aggression.
This moment changes the tone of the entire war.
Putin understands that wars are not only military conflicts but also political processes. He does not need to win on the battlefield if he can change how the war is described. It is enough for aggression to stop being called aggression. This creates space for normalization.
American votes in international institutions become part of this process. There is no need to formally recognize Russian territorial claims; it is enough to relativize the context. When condemning aggression is represented as an obstacle to peace, it ceases to be seen as a problem. It becomes a negotiable fact.
This is why Zelensky’s later words carried a weight rarely found in diplomacy. He did not ask Trump to help Ukraine. He did not seek justice. He said only one thing: I want America to stay on our side. This is not diplomatic language; it is a plea. The president of a country under invasion is begging the US president not to switch sides.
However, America under Trump is increasingly showing it is not an ally of Ukraine. America under Trump is somewhere between intermediary and complicit: a mediator between the victim and the aggressor, an accomplice in pressuring the victim to accept capitulation under the guise of compromise.
If this is the new American policy, then Ukraine no longer has a problem only with Russia. And not only Ukraine.
The Western Balkans as the second front of European security