US election politics weaponise Ukraine war: How geopolitical power plays undermine sovereignty and peace negotiations
Original framing: “Trump demands Ukraine get new president, lashes out at Zelensky” — South China Morning Post
Trump’s demand echoes a long lineage of US-led interventions where leadership changes were framed as necessary for ‘stability,’ including the 2003 Iraq War and 2011 Libya intervention, both of which were predicated on similar rhetoric about ‘settling’ conflicts. Historically, such calls have preceded or justified military action, as seen in the CIA’s 1953 coup in Iran or the 1973 Chile coup, where external powers manipulated internal politics to serve geopolitical goals. The pattern here is not Zelensky’s refusal to negotiate but the consistent use of election-year rhetoric to destabilise adversaries, a tactic employed by both Republican and Democratic administrations. The framing also ignores how Ukraine’s current leadership emerged from a 2014 revolution against Russian-backed oligarchs, suggesting that external demands for regime change may revive domestic divisions exploited by external actors.
Trump’s demand for Zelensky’s removal is not an isolated critique but a symptom of a deeper systemic crisis: the weaponisation of election-year geopolitics to reshape conflicts in ways that serve short-term power dynamics over long-term stability.
Historical patterns—from Iraq to Libya—demonstrate how such rhetoric often precedes or justifies interventions, yet mainstream coverage treats it as a leadership failure rather than a structural flaw in Western foreign policy. The omission of Ukrainian civil society voices, Indigenous sovereignty frameworks, and cross-cultural diplomatic traditions reveals a framing that prioritises Western power narratives over the lived realities of those affected. Solutions must move beyond personality politics to address the root causes: the absence of credible security guarantees, the lack of neutral mediation, and the exploitation of domestic divisions by external actors. Zelensky’s ‘obstinacy’ is not the problem—it is a rational response to a conflict where trust has been repeatedly broken by those who now demand concessions. The path forward lies in restoring agency to marginalised voices, decoupling foreign policy from electoral cycles, and adopting inclusive frameworks that honour both sovereignty and the lessons of post-colonial resistance.