Ukraine's Peace Awaiting Trump's Approval

As Kyiv bleeds, Trump treats peace like a personal endorsement, turning war, death, and diplomacy into a loyalty test for his ego and Nobel fantasy.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Remember to follow him on Substack for more by clicking here. Michael just hit 500,000 subscribers on YouTube! Subscribe today for free here and let’s keep the momentum going!

Last night, while Kyiv burned for ten straight hours under Russian missiles and drones, President Trump was busy polishing his imaginary Nobel Peace Prize. Bodies were being pulled from rubble. Hospitals were running on generators. Families were sleeping in basements. And yet, somehow, miraculously, Trump managed to make it all about himself.

That takes talent.

By the time Ukrainians woke up to shattered windows and fresh graves, Trump had already reduced their suffering to a footnote in the ongoing saga of Donald J. Trump: Savior of the World. His now-infamous line, “Zelenskyy doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” wasn’t just a diplomatic insult. It was a confession. A Freudian slip wrapped in faux bravado. Trump doesn’t see peace as a moral imperative. He sees it as a brand extension. A trophy. Something to put on a shelf between the Time magazine covers and the nonsensical FIFA Peace Award.

I know this man. I’ve sat in rooms where human lives were discussed with less seriousness than hotel carpeting. When Trump says “peace,” what he really means is leverage. When he says “deal,” what he means is dominance. And when he says “approve,” what he means is obedience.

Zelenskyy is coming to Florida with a 20-point peace framework: demilitarized zones, security guarantees, nuclear plant oversight, territorial negotiations. In a normal universe, this would be treated with gravity. In Trump’s universe, it’s another audition. Zelenskyy isn’t presenting a plan to stop a war; he’s pitching to a narcissist who believes the Nobel committee is just waiting for him to end a conflict with a Sharpie and a handshake.

Trump’s framing is revealing. Ukraine doesn’t exist as a sovereign nation fighting for survival. It exists as a prop in Trump’s one-man show. Russia’s bombs? Background noise. Civilians killed? Inconvenient details. What matters is whether Trump can strut around Mar-a-Lago telling donors he personally brokered “peace,” preferably while hinting that Joe Biden and Barack Obama never could.

And let’s be honest about what Trump is actually signaling. When he says Zelenskyy “doesn’t have anything” until Trump approves it, he’s not pressuring Putin. He’s pressuring Ukraine. Russia hasn’t moved an inch from its maximalist demands—full control of Donbas, permanent territorial concessions, submission dressed up as a ceasefire. Trump knows this. He doesn’t care. In Trump-world, the weaker party always gets squeezed harder, because squeezing them looks like strength.

I’ve watched him do this for decades. Contractors. Lawyers. Employees. Allies. He mistakes cruelty for toughness and bullying for leadership. Putin understands that instinct perfectly. Zelenskyy, unfortunately, is being forced to navigate it while his country bleeds.

Trump claims he expects things to “go good” with both Zelenskyy and Putin. That’s not optimism; it’s moral vacancy. You don’t “get along” with an aggressor and the victim equally unless you’ve already decided whose pain matters less. And history tells us exactly how Trump resolves that equation: he sides with whoever flatters him, empowers him, or feeds the myth that he alone can fix everything.

Even his unrelated decisions betray the same pathology. Delaying military strikes for “symbolic reasons.” Timing violence like a marketing rollout. Calling airstrikes a “Christmas present.” To Trump, force isn’t about necessity or restraint; it’s about optics. It’s about the headline. It’s about how it makes him look and feel.

Now Netanyahu is coming. Zelenskyy is coming. “They all come,” Trump bragged, like a mob boss holding court. Respect, in Trump’s mind, isn’t earned through principle or reliability. It’s extracted through fear and dependency. If you need him, he believes you respect him. If you suffer without him, that’s your problem.

And hovering over all of this is the Nobel fantasy. Trump wants to be remembered not as the man who coddled autocrats, but as the genius peacemaker who bent history to his will. Never mind the bodies. Never mind the rubble. Never mind the fact that peace imposed through coercion isn’t peace at all; it’s surrender with better branding and optics.

The tragedy here isn’t just Trump’s ego. It’s the cost of indulging it. When the fate of Ukraine becomes a stage prop in a vanity project, real lives are devalued. When approval from one man matters more than international law, alliances fracture. And when a president believes nothing exists until he blesses it, democracy itself becomes conditional.

Kyiv doesn’t need Trump’s approval. It needs solidarity. It needs accountability. It needs a world that understands peace isn’t something you win; it’s something you protect.

For Trump, peace bends to his vanity, and the cost in lives is invisible until he gives the nod.

---

LET’S FINISH 2025 STRONG…I’M LOOKING FOR 400 NEW SUBSCRIBERS!

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS…

SUBSCRIBE. READ. LIKE. RESTACK.

Yeah, I know—you’re tired. This shit is exhausting.

Guess what? Me too.

But I’ve spent the last eight years throwing punches in the dark so truth could get a little daylight. And now I’m asking you to step into the ring with me.

Because if you’re still reading this, you already get it:
This isn’t just a newsletter. It’s a rally cry. A war drum. A line in the sand.

We are not passive observers of the downfall. We are the resistance. We call out the liars. We drag corruption by the collar into the sunlight. We say the quiet parts out loud, and we don’t flinch.

But here’s the truth: I can’t do this solo. Not anymore.

The storm is already here. We are standing in it. And it’s wearing stars and stripes like camouflage, preaching “freedom” while it sells fascism at retail.

So let me ask you:
Are. You. In?

Because this is not a scroll-and-forget read. This is a living, breathing, fire-breathing movement, and movements don’t move unless you do.

We need to be louder than spin, tougher than propaganda, and impossible to gaslight.
That takes more than clicks. More than likes.
It takes skin in the game.

So if you believe truth matters; if you’re sick of the bullshit; if you’re ready to stop screaming into the algorithm and start pushing back with purpose, this is your next step.

HERE’S HOW YOU PUT YOUR FOOT ON THE GAS:

Become a paid subscriber. Fund fearless, unfiltered journalism that hits back.

Share this with the loudest people you know—the ones who never sit down and shut up.

Build the community. Amplify the message. Be the damn megaphone.

And yeah—Founding Members? The first 240 of you will get a signed, numbered, limited-edition Substack version of Revenge. That’s not just a collector’s item. That’s receipts. Proof you didn’t sit this one out.

But let’s be clear:

This isn’t about a book.
It’s about backbone.
It’s about calling out the gaslighters and refusing to be played.
It’s about locking arms and saying, “Not. On. Our. Watch.”

You want to make a difference?

Then make it—right now.

Because if we don’t fight for truth, no one will.
But if we fight together?

They can’t drown us out.

Let’s be so loud, they wish we were just angry tweets.
Let’s be unshakable.
Unignorable.
Un-fucking-breakable.

Let’s go!