Can you hear it? The applause coming from the Kremlin? Because Ukraine and our allies certainly can. Tim Mak joins Jen from Kyiv, Ukraine, to react to the latest in Ukraine, Europe at large, and Venezuela.
The U.S.’ 2025 National Security Strategy is out and demonstrates, as Tim Mak says, that the Trump Administration is “quite hostile towards Europe.” Mak and Jen discuss the deepening fracture between the US and its allies, Ukraine’s stronghold on their territory, and Trump’s seemingly pro-Russian strategic approach to a peace deal. Mak also touches on Venezuela, providing an insightful, leveled analysis on the country’s governance and the wider ramifications on US-Latin American relations.
Tim Mak is an international journalist and the founder of Counteroffensive.News — a Kyiv-based publication that uses human interest stories to relay the news of the war in Ukraine. Their journalism tells the personal stories of individuals threatened by authoritarianism.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. Where in the world is Tim Mack? I think he might be in Kyiv. Tim, welcome!
Tim Mak
Thanks so much. This is, like, the two and a half hour period where we have power, so,
Jen Rubin
Give me the tender. Oh, my. Well, that speaks volumes about where we are, doesn’t it? Let’s start with where we are. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio had floated this plan, which appeared to be that it was really written by the Russians. That would, in essence, have given Russia just about everything they wanted. Zelensky made an announcement, the other day. Talk to us about what that was, and if this plan is going anywhere.
Tim Mak
Well, look, the Ukrainian position has been that they’re not going to give up territory they haven’t lost on the battlefield, and they’re not going to lose at the table diplomacy what they haven’t lost on the front lines. And that’s what the Trump administration and Russia really are seemingly working together in order to try to push on Ukraine. Now, this is… now we’re getting into the area of analysis here, not fact, and not reporting, but I’ve always been of the view that we might as well just skip to the inevitable, Trumpian betrayal of Ukraine, which we’re seeing in slow motion. We might as well skip to the end of that and save a lot of wasted time. Because I think I know where this is going. some people still have, optimistic flashes of how this is going to develop, but my, my personal view is, is that, hey, look, we, we should avoid this whole… this whole, you know, so-called peace process, which is just about… just mostly about peace at any cost for a, you know, so that the Americans can say they brokered something, as opposed to a wise, considered mediation, In which both sides are asked to make sacrifices in order to achieve a peace, which should be in everyone’s interest.
Jen Rubin
Now, Zelensky, as you said, isn’t going to accept this, so the entire piece process, which I use in air quotes, is a farce. It is going nowhere. Will he now be able to sustain, the fight? And to what degree is the European military support sufficient to sustain it if, in fact, Donald Trump Cuts off all support whatsoever.
Tim Mak
Well, Donald Trump has essentially cut off all humanitarian military aid, direct military and humanitarian aid, and what we’ve seen from studies by European institutions, like the Kiel Institute, is that the Europeans have been able to make up the dollar amount That, that America has provided to Ukraine in the past. And so Europe’s really stepped up, to help Ukraine. That said, there’s things that, that the Europeans don’t have to give. There’s this… there’s this program by which European states purchase American weaponry for Ukraine. I can imagine the Trump administration, if they’re not successful, may want to cut that off. There’s, intelligence sharing, which the United States currently cooperates with Ukraine on, that, that the Trump White House may want to curtail even further. There are things that the Americans have that are uniquely useful to Ukraine that might be lost. But at a top-line level, the Europeans have been… have been really stepping up, to provide what it can to Ukraine.
Jen Rubin
And presumably, the Trump regime could also go about undermining, not enforcing the sanctions against Russia, and let money begin flowing back, at least from the U.S, if not from Europe, so that Russia would not be under, really, as much economic pressure to end the war, as they are now.
Tim Mak
I suspect that the Zelensky administration is acting not because it sees this… this process as a serious peace process, but is acting in a way to minimize damage, that might come about from them not agreeing to all of America’s pretty coercive terms and methods. Their worry is not that America will cut off funding. America’s already cut off funding. Their worry is that America will become explicitly pro-Russian. In this conflict. The war will go on, and the United States will say, forget this war. Let’s just re-engage with Russia regardless. of what, what’s happening in Ukraine. Let’s make these business deals with or without, the cessation of hostilities. Let’s lift the sanctions anyways, and let’s welcome the Russians back into the fold, and enforce this on European countries who are not ready to do that, without actual, substantive, changed actions from the Russians.
Jen Rubin
And that is the perfect segue into another horror show, known as the National Security Strategy, which is a document, every administration puts out, which is supposed to, in broad terms, set forth our strategic objectives, our goals, and talk in some, level of detail about how we aim to achieve them. This one represents a complete about-face, put aside For a fact, the… Rhetoric and kind of the childish, writing, and the lack of detail, and the lack of explanation of how we’re going to achieve these. But essentially, it reflects that we no longer consider Russia an ally, and worse, that we’re much more concerned Yes, that we no longer consider Russia a, adversary, Freudians lived there. And that, in fact, our biggest concern was that European civilization might be extinguished by mass immigration. Vladimir Putin, literally applauded this. He was excited, he could have written it himself, perhaps he did. What was the reaction of the Europeans?
Tim Mak
I think there have been a lot of signals from the Trump White House. They’re quite hostile towards Europe. It’s one thing to kind of divine this through, you know, a speech by J.D. Vance in Munich here, and an action there, and an endorsement for Viktor Orban here, and then to see it on the page, in a formal strategy document, a strategy that’s not just hostile towards Europe, but hostile towards American allies throughout the world. One in which there’s this kind of seething, bitterness towards Europe. one in which there’s this very… it’s very thinly baled. and emphasize on thin the racism that suffuses the document. There’s the claim that migration into Europe will make Europe not European anymore. As if European-ness was not a sense of… citizenship, or civics, or mindset, and it was more about skin color. It’s a real, it’s a real, It’s a real… hostile document. It’s a very hostile.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Tim Mak
towards, towards the people that Americans have considered friends for so long. And I think if… I think it will be actually a pretty historical one, because I think historians love documents and proclamations and strategies that they can point to as the start of something, the end of something. And what this document really shows is the end of the transatlantic alliance that has kept the world safe over the last 80 years. It’s very hard to look at this, and see, that the administration is not outright declaring its opposition to the trajectory of Europe. By the way, all of the lecturing towards Europe criticizing its supposed, issues. Not a word of obligation for Russia and how it ought to change. not a word of condemnation about Russia’s many crimes. There’s criticisms of European democracy, but none of Russia’s clear autocracy. I mean, the hypocrisy in this document is just overwhelming. The United States says in it that it will not. It will not, permit, other countries to interfere with its affairs. But then the document also says that it will, help, help stir up so-called resistance in Europe with so-called patriotic parties. Now, they didn’t specify the parties, but we know that, the Viktor Orbans of the world And other far-right, groups in Europe are probably reading this document with some amount of plea. it’s just a… I mean, we could go on and on with this document, but it is just a… it’s a total betrayal of… American values.
Jen Rubin
And the reaction was very explicit. A number of European countries, spoke out, denounced this, said this was unacceptable. To what degree, do you think this is going to affect, now, how they interact with the administration? They’ve already learned that they have to look after themselves from a defense standpoint, but is this going to increase their reluctance to share intelligence, to cooperate on other matters, that we might… that might be in the United States’ interest?
Tim Mak
I think there’s been some reporting already that countries are increasingly reluctant to share intelligence with the United States. you know, we have to start imagining… we used to have… we used to have this term about the democratic world, and we need to understand whether this European plus Canada plus Australia plus Japan sort of world, and there are other countries in there as well, I don’t mean to omit anyone, but, whether this democratic world minus the U.S. needs to find some way to band together. Yes. In order to uphold shared… shared values. But this was an unthinkable conversation just a year ago, I think. Right.
Jen Rubin
And even for the first Trump term, as bad as that was, we never saw something this.
Tim Mak
There were guardrails. There were guardrails in the first Trump term, right? There were people who would say, okay, you can’t shoot protesters, you can’t pull out of NATO, you shouldn’t torture people. These, these were the… these, you know, and I’m… by the way, each of those three incidents, that’s pointing to a specific government official who has come out and said that they gave that advice to Trump to change his mind on… His… his preferred course of action. We don’t see those kinds of adults in the room. Right now, we don’t have a General Mattis. Who would say, Mr. President, I think you’re wrong, and here’s why. That’s gone. And so we should presume that, whereas in the first Trump term, Trump would say something outrageous, and everyone would scramble to try to fix it. This time. Trump is gonna say something outrageous, and then the people around him are going to unquestionably, go out to execute on these ridiculous policies. And I guess maybe ridiculous is not the right word for it, because of how dangerous and damaging these policies are likely to become. Absolutely. But, they, they are… I’m at a loss for words to find the right terminology to express, how, how wrong. these… how morally repugnant these, these policies and the strategy is. I’ll add just one more point, in that I think that the national security strategy with regards to Europe and Ukraine, Is, exhortation to forget. To just say, don’t worry about the war crimes. Don’t worry about the invasion of a sovereign country. Don’t worry about the killings. Don’t worry about the looting and the rape and the torture. We are going to try as much as we can to reintegrate Russia with no change in behavior, no accountability at all. Let’s just forget about that. And everything will be fine. Of course, everything will not be fine.
Jen Rubin
People who engage in bad behavior, if they’re not punished for it.
Tim Mak
We’ll be incentivized to do more bad behavior.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. And what we’re setting ourselves up for.
Tim Mak
is more war in Europe.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, and I think that’s the corollary to what you just said, which is it’s not only morally repugnant, but it renounces a structure in the world that prevented World War and prevented war in Europe, for 70, 80 years since the end of World War II, and largely benefited the United States, allowing it to become the most dominant political, economic, military power. The flip side of the NSS is, of course, what it says about our own hemisphere, and this fits in with what we have talked about, which is this military Build-up, and now what we have come to notice are, really extrajudicial killings, in our own hemisphere. This seems to be a restatement of something out of the 19th century, or maybe the 18th century, that we are going to dominate in our region, and contrary to the notion that we don’t want people interfering with us, that we’re going to dominate and decide, leadership, decide direction, decide policy. for those countries in our region. And that sounds like a formula for war and regime change, which many suspect is underlying this Caribbean military venture. What was your reaction when you read that part of the… national security strategy.
Tim Mak
Well, it’s one of those situations where people like you and I, Jen, who have had this long background of trying to promote democracy in various places around the world, we come to this very kind of difficult juncture, right? Because if you look at Venezuela, Maduro is just Objectively, a bad person. who’s an autocrat, who doesn’t deserve to be in power, and who’s… and who Venezuelans have voted out, of power.
Jen Rubin
Correct.
Tim Mak
where the national security strategy and where the Trump White House land on this is to say, we have the right then, therefore, to engage in whatever activities we deem necessary. Extrajudicial killings, covert operations. Even invasion if necessary. In order to change the government there. I’m not gonna shed any tears for the Venezuelan autocrat who would be removed from office. But I think if we have… we should have learned anything over the last 25 years, it’s that… we need to be very… we need to embrace some humility with the power that Americans have in the world, and our power to change things by force, even if it’s for the right reasons. What I look at this strategy, and I see it not as a strategy of creating mutually beneficial prospering democracies in the same hemisphere. I see it as a strategy of humiliation, domination. coercion, and bullying. I see it as extractive, I see it as, what can we get for us, financially? Not how do we create a more secure, more prosperous, and more mutually prosperous. Not just invading Venezuela so we can take over, the oil supply and that, energy companies that we Are tight with, get good deals, but actually have a better future for the people actually involved. I don’t think that’s the Trump administration’s priority. And so I very worry… I worry, I worry very deeply that this is not a serious group of people. who, when things go wrong, and they will go wrong in one way or another in ways that we can’t foresee right now, whether they have the expertise or the patience or the understanding to take care of that crisis. And I just… I don’t see it. I think that they think that violence, you press a button, and you solve a problem. And, What I worry is that they’ll press a button, they’ll create 10 new problems, and… They won’t have… the knowledge or the relationships. By the way, we’ve burned all sorts of relationships all throughout Latin America with the way that we’ve kind of bumbled from side to side like a, you know, like a drunken sailor throughout the hemisphere, making demands and shouting at various people. We’ve alienated a lot of people. So when we need… when we need these, other officials, we need their support, we won’t have it.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. This also is a case of, horrific historical amnesia. We went through a period of time where we tried changing regimes in our hemisphere and abroad, and often with oil as the motivation. Those turned out badly. And more recently. Donald Trump was the one who ran against regime change in, in this case it was the Middle East, who deplored Republicans, who got America enmeshed in foreign wars. And suddenly, it makes you kind of, nostalgic for the notion that we might be, non-interventionists, that we might be isolationists. This isn’t isolationism, this is colonialism. This is, a aggressive, policy. which, when you look at it in the biggest picture, it appears that Donald Trump is saying to Putin, you take Europe. we’re going to take our own hemisphere. And that is both unsustainable, immoral, impractical, and will open up a world of hurt, both in Europe and in our own hemisphere. I also want to ask, as we wrap up our time, Tim. We depend upon allies for lots of things, and somehow that gets entirely obliterated. One of the ways we control immigration in our hemisphere is working with Central and South American governments. One of the ways we interdict drugs. We had great success with Colombia, in shutting down narco-terrorists there. We cooperate with Europe on everything from, when the United States was attacked, on 9-11, to trade, to, protection of, national security secrets and, information. Donald Trump seems to have no appreciation for any of that. What’s the potential damage if we tell all of those allies who do all of those things for us to, in essence, get lost? And we don’t care, and we’re gonna tell you what to do. It’s our way or the highway, and in fact, you’re in the way, because we want to make some deals that will benefit Donald Trump financially, and his… Autocratic allies around the world.
Tim Mak
From an economic standpoint, from a diplomatic standpoint, from an intelligence standpoint, we need partners. Absolutely. America can’t go it alone in the world. And I fear that at this time of relative peace and prosperity for the United States, we can pull off these hijinks, but at a time of crisis when we need friends, we’re going to discover we have none. Because we’ve acted so poorly towards everyone who held out their hand in friendship to us. And that’s… and it’s gonna lead to devastating results.
Jen Rubin
Well, that is a very sober, but I fear very accurate analysis, and this year, we… It used to be that Republicans, remember, railed about choosing decline. Remember that phrase that you… it’s up to us whether we choose to be, supportive of our military, supportive of our values, and it certainly seems that these folks have chosen, a very perilous, way to decline, with all kinds of implications for war, for economic tension. And we haven’t even gotten to what they’ve done on climate change and a whole range of other issues. But Tim, we cannot thank you enough for being with us throughout our first year at The Contrarian. You have been a unique source of information and analysis. We continually think of your safety and your well-being as you travel the world, and we so appreciate you. And we look forward to, the new year, and Finding where in the world you are, and hearing from you.
Tim Mak
Thanks, Jen. I’m grateful for your kind words, and I’m so glad to see what you and your team at The Contrarian have been able to build, and looking forward to 2026. Not really in the world of news, maybe, but maybe in the world of us being able to Get together and exchange some thoughts and have a smile from time to time where warranted.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Well, it is a pleasure to be in the battle for worldwide democracy with you. Have a wonderful holiday season, and we will look forward to seeing you soon.
