Trump Would Back Ukraine If Putin Was Black, by Terrell Jermaine Starr – 25 October 2025

From Terrell J Starr Official

There’s only one reason Donald Trump isn’t supporting Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s invasion: the race of their oppressor.

Virtually all foreign affairs analysts miss this key detail. Both Trump and Vladimir Putin traffic in racism, Christian nationalism, xenophobia, sexism, exploitation, and authoritarian violence. Both are building societies to reflect their preferred supremacist hierarchies. The Kremlin backs far-right groups in Europe; Trump aligns with Germany’s AfD, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and the UK’s Nigel Farage. All protect whiteness at the expense of others.

So why would Trump see Putin as an adversary when he’s functioning as an authoritarian peer?

Now, let’s put Ukrainians in context.

Putin has killed thousands of Ukrainians since 2014, displaced millions, and subjected countless others to occupation and suffering. You’d think, because they’re “white,” Trump would protect them, right? But there’s a problem: Putin isn’t someone Trump or his base fears. When Ukrainians fled Russian bombing in February 2022, media coverage framed them as sympathetic victims — sometimes framing them as “civilized,” suggesting that Black and brown peoples aren’t. Even senior White House officials in the Biden Administration cried on television over the abuses Ukrainians suffered.

(Neither Republicans nor Democrats cry for Black and brown victims of war crimes and abuse, but that is another story)

To be clear, if you know anything about me, you know I don’t frame Ukrainians existence as a binary white experience. There isn’t anything privileged about Russian colonialism. That said, outside of this part of the world, Ukrainians function as white—even while being victims of a Russian genocidal invasion. To truly understand how Trump thinks —especially about Ukraine—and how race informs foreign policy in general, we have to consider Ukrainians’ dual relationship to whiteness.

For Trump, whiteness only matters when it contrasts with a group his base fears.

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Terrell Jermaine Starr is a foreign correspondent who reports and speaks on the intersection of authoritarianism in the U.S. and abroad, connecting race, democracy, and freedom. His website is at https://terrellstarr.com/

Trump Would Back Ukraine If Putin Was Black, by Terrell Jermaine Starr – 25 October 2025

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