Donald Trump doesn’t stop personally attacking the President of Ukraine. The climax came last Friday with unprecedented outburst inside the White House and it is now clear that for Donald Trump the President of Ukraine is an “obstacle” that must be immediately removed in order for his own US to promote what they mean by a peace plan.

It is no coincidence that, a few hours ago, Trump ordered that there be a cessation of US military aid to Ukraine, a White House official said Monday night. “We are pausing and will review our assistance to ensure it contributes to the search for a solution” to the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “The president made it clear that he is focused on peace. We need partners who are also committed to achieving that goal,” he added.

The decision was revealed following a meeting at the White House earlier yesterday involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and advisers to President Trump.

The difficult scenario of replacing the Ukrainian president

Volodymyr Zelensky made it clear yesterday as he left London that it would not be easy for anyone to “remove” him from the equation for his country, and declining to comment meaningfully that “the only way I will lose the election, whenever it is held, is if I am not a candidate.”

Trump retorted – in a “ping pong game” that is escalating dangerously and rapidly – that “Zelensky is someone who doesn’t want Peace and he won’t be in office for very long” to again give dimensions the likes of which we have only seen from the lips of an American President against Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and by the previous administration about Vladimir Putin.

But how quick and easy is it for Zelensky to hold an election?

Volodymyr Zelensky, in order to go ahead with elections in his country, has basically three hurdles to overcome. The first has to do with the constitutional revision required as the local constitution clearly states that elections cannot be held with martial law in force, the second is purely for reasons of objective difficulty, as even if everything is ready in record time only 75% of the Ukrainian territory can go to the polls and elect a president based on the electoral lists of the 2019 elections, and the third has to do with the fact that it is impossible for a president to take his country out of martial law in wartime, trusting that the invader will not retaliate in the midst of the election process. Analysts note that whatever the choice – always taking as a starting point the hypothetical scenario that Ukraine goes to elections – there is no way they can be held and produce a result less than six months after they are called. The question that reasonably arises is how does the country proceed during these six months?

Trump’s messages that tend to become a Cold War-era threat

The White House’s targeting of the President of Ukraine and firing on him at every possible opportunity has become commonplace. That the US President is escalating further after last Friday’s diversion is “strange” but that speech is being articulated that has as a fait accompli that a country will not have that President and indeed soon brings back memories of Cold War. Back then, of course, the two greats of the planet were facing off in an unprecedented period of competition for control of the world.

Today this “game” pits the US against the country that until 60 days ago was its most important partner in Eastern Europe, the country it has helped more and more substantially than any other in the 21st century. A 180-degree change of posture on such key foreign policy issues is not a given something common and given also does not create easy-to-read results.

The US President has drawn and has imposed on his Administration and his Administration a line in which Russia does not exist as an enemy, invader and aggressor anywhere and the narrative is currently based on the complete deconstruction of the Ukrainian President which is being deconstructed with arguments that are flimsy to say the least and data for internal consumption only.