Decoding Trump’s Ukraine policy - with Christopher Atwood

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of Donald Trump's Ukraine policy and its impact on the ongoing conflict with Russia.

Since Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency, Russia has drastically escalated its missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities. In January 2026, launches exceeded 6,000—a sharp increase from approximately 2,000 in January 2025. The use of guided aerial bombs (KABs) also reached a record high of almost 6,000 per month. With the Trump administration significantly cutting military aid to Kyiv, Ukraine now finds itself in an increasingly vulnerable position. What are the underlying causes of this policy shift, and what does it reveal about Trump’s vision for global order and human rights? *** Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media outlet covering Ukraine. Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko—Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine. Guest: Christopher Atwood, an American human rights and communications expert and Head of Ukraїner International—the international branch of the popular Ukrainian media platform, Ukraїner. *** Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en *** SUPPORT: You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld…

People in this episode

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko

Guest: Christopher Atwood

Topics covered

• Trump's Ukraine policy
• military aid
• Russia-Ukraine conflict
• global order
• human rights

Keywords

• Trump
• Ukraine
• military aid
• Russia
• human rights
• global order
• missile strikes

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UkraineWorld

Places: Ukraine, U.S., Russia

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