Newsletter: Zelensky nails it: Trump lives in Putin’s ‘disinformation space’

Good morning. It is Saturday, Feb. 22. Here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.

In August 1939, according to testimony at the Nuremberg trials, German forces arrested an ethnic Pole named Franciszek Honiok, murdered him and dressed his corpse in a Polish military uniform. They left Honiok’s body with a gunshot wound to his head at a German radio tower as proof of a repelled attack by Polish saboteurs against the Nazi reich. Germany used it as justification to invade Poland.

No one believed the Nazis’ ruse, but it didn’t matter: World War II was underway.

I thought about that watching President Trump stand in front of reporters Tuesday and say that Ukraine “should have never started” its war against Russia three years ago. This is nonsense, of course, as the entire world watched Russian forces start the largest war in Europe since World War II when they invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Before then, Vladimir Putin had stated his desire to rebuild the superpower lost at the end of the Cold War in 1991, so anyone who had been paying attention knew that taking over Ukraine — a former Soviet republic long coveted by Putin — was part of the plan to make Russia great again.

But oddly enough, Putin needed a pretext, not just rank imperialism. Before the invasion, he accused the Ukrainian government of committing genocide against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Moscow-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine staged an evacuation of civilians to make it seem as if innocent lives were at risk because of Ukrainian aggression. Russia even said it killed Ukrainian saboteurs near the border (sound familiar?).

Few believed any of this — but Trump might. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have been onto something when he said his American counterpart lives in a Russian “disinformation space.” One would have to take Putin at his word to call Zelensky a dictator and accuse Ukraine of picking a suicidal fight with its much larger, nuclear-armed neighbor.

Does Trump believe the fake evacuation crisis in eastern Ukraine was real or that Kyiv wanted to kill or otherwise ethnically cleanse the Russian speakers within its borders? Would he have believed the Poles authored their own annihilation by attacking a German radio tower in 1939?

Whatever motivated Trump’s migration into Putin’s “disinformation space,” we now live in a world in which the United States shrugs off its role as guarantors of European security (fulfilled so successfully that nearly all Americans take peace on that historically war-ravaged continent for granted) and appeases an accused war criminal like Putin. In other words, we’ve become one of the world’s bad guys within a month of Inauguration Day.

That has profound implications for the U.S. and Europe, but the immediate crisis is in Ukraine. Writing on our op-ed page, Ukrainian author Sergey Maidukov lays out the grim reality for his country that the war’s end portends:

“A peace agreement perceived as a capitulation could further erode national morale that is already at a low point, with falling troop levels and Russia’s recent front-line gains in the fighting. History shows that in such moments often public disillusionment grows, weakening confidence in leadership. During these periods, extreme factions may emerge, stoking unrest and upending a fragile order.

“When Russia launched its full-on invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians united under symbols that had previously divided them. The slogan Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine), once associated with ultra-right-wing nationalist movements during World War II, was embraced nationwide, even in regions where nationalism had been controversial.

“But in 2025, extreme nationalist fervor has waned. This could be a temporary lull before another eruption of unrest, provoked by post-war trauma, hardship and disillusionment. That, combined with an armed population and a generation of young men forged in war could threaten Ukraine as much as Russian aggression has.”

And now, for the rest of the week in Opinion ...

The problem with JD Vance’s theology of mass deportation. Father Gregory Boyle, the national treasure who founded L.A.’s Homeboy Industries, takes issue with using the doctrine of ordo amoris, cited by the Catholic vice president, to justify mass deportation: “I suspect we need to fire the god who thinks there isn’t enough love to go around.”

The state lags on fire safety rules, but even common sense should limit combustibles near homes. Back in 2020, California passed a bill requiring property owners in fire-prone areas to create a zone of defensible space around their homes of five feet. There’s just one problem, says The Times’ editorial board: The state is two years past the deadline for writing and enacting rules. That’s unacceptable, says the board: “Why the holdup? How long does it take to decide that homeowners really shouldn’t have wooden fences or combustible shrubs within five feet of their homes?”

Extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to promote growth but cut spending too. Researcher Veronique de Rugy calls for making the 2017 cut to individual tax rates and the expensing of businesses’ capital investment permanent because those provisions result in the most economic growth. Political reality requires temporarily extending other tax breaks that are popular but may be less pro-growth, such as the Child Tax Credit expansion and larger standard deduction. De Rugy also says raising revenue to keep the deficit from ballooning is important, so Congress should eliminate other tax breaks.

The reported costs of the Los Angeles fires are staggering. The hidden costs are worse. Augusto Gonzalez-Bonorino, an economics instructor at Pomona College, points out that the recent fires destroyed much more than homes and livelihoods: “As the ashes settle, the region faces an invisible threat beneath the charred remains: compromised soil structures, contaminated watersheds and ecosystems stripped of their natural defenses — wounds that will bleed for years to come.”

More from opinion

From our columnists

• Robin Abcarian: Elon Musk’s “shoot first, aim later” style requires a fact check
• Jonah Goldberg: Is Trump’s Napoleon quote just idle trolling? This context suggests otherwise

From guest contributors

• Vance is right that Europe’s values are no longer the same as America’s
• Trump wants the Supreme Court to let him fire officials despite the law. That’s unprecedented
• California’s housing problems require a better solution than densify, densify, densify

Letters to the editor

• If Trump says it’s the Gulf of America, I can call my hometown Disneyland
• Stop Monday-morning quarterbacking Karen Bass’ fire response
• My father helped build USAID. We can’t let one billionaire destroy it