The Daily Fuckup

President Donald Trump spent Feb. 12, 2025 turning Ukraine policy into a public moving target. He said he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that the two sides would begin talks on ending the war, then later said he had also spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The White House presented the day as part of a broader push to bring home American detainees and move toward a peace process, but the public sequence was stark: Washington opened the door to talks with Moscow while still leaving the shape of those talks undefined. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/98418693957b1fa0189ee8ac4e8b4f2d?utm_source=openai))

That mattered because the administration’s message was not coming from one channel. In Brussels, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO allies that Ukraine joining the alliance was not a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement and said any security guarantees would have to be backed by European and non-European troops rather than U.S. forces. Taken together, Trump’s call with Putin and Hegseth’s remarks signaled a sharp shift in posture, even if the administration had not yet laid out a detailed road map for how negotiations would work. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/a3ca747b102cae6737436596444a32d0?utm_source=openai))

The Biden administration had insisted that Ukraine be part of any peace process, and Zelenskyy’s camp made clear that no deal struck over Kyiv’s head would be acceptable. Trump, meanwhile, was noncommittal in the immediate aftermath about whether Ukraine would sit as an equal party in any talks with Russia. That left allies and observers reading a policy that was changing in real time, with no public sign of a coordinated rollout across Washington, Kyiv and Europe. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/98418693957b1fa0189ee8ac4e8b4f2d?utm_source=openai))

The timing also folded in a separate prisoner-release moment that gave the day an unmistakably transactional feel. The White House said Marc Fogel, an American detained in Russia, had been released through an exchange negotiated by Trump, Steve Witkoff and presidential advisers, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said that exchange was a sign the United States was moving in the right direction to end the war in Ukraine. That does not prove a broader peace framework was in hand. It does show the administration using a small diplomatic win to advertise momentum on a much larger conflict. ([whitehouse.gov](https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/02/president-donald-j-trump-brings-marc-fogel-home/?utm_source=openai))

So the clean read is narrower than the hype around it: on Feb. 12, Trump did not announce a finished settlement or a settled bilateral reset. He announced talks, and the rest of the day showed how unfinished that policy still was. Putin was suddenly central, Ukraine was still fighting for a seat at the table, and NATO allies were left to infer the shape of an American position that had not been fully explained in public. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/98418693957b1fa0189ee8ac4e8b4f2d?utm_source=openai))