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During a dramatic Oval Office meeting last Friday, US president Donald Trump confronted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a move that upended the long-established narrative of Russia as the aggressor and Ukraine as the victim.
In the conversation, which quickly escalated into a tense exchange, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war with Russia by refusing to engage in peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin. His rhetoric suggested that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for escalating the conflict and that the US had unfairly borne the burden of Ukraine’s resistance. Trump constructed a new hierarchy of suffering, one in which the US emerged as the primary victim, Ukraine as the source of its burdens and Russia as innocent of blame.
This reversal of victimhood was not just a matter of rhetoric – it was a calculated political manoeuvre. Until that moment, the war in Ukraine had been widely seen as a struggle between an imperialist aggressor and a smaller nation fighting for its sovereignty. Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 – preceded by its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 – was broadly recognised by the international community as a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and an act of aggression. The country was viewed as the defiant victim resisting a formidable adversary. Western nations, including the US, provided billions in military and economic aid to bolster Kyiv’s defence.
Trump’s reproach upended this narrative. He accused Ukraine of being the true obstacle to peace, dismissing its refusal to negotiate with Putin as reckless and unnecessary. Rather than recognising Russia as the aggressor, he blamed Ukraine for prolonging the war and accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with world war three”.
His reframing not only weakened the western stance to support Ukraine and provided political cover for the suspension of military aid, but also emboldens Russia. In effect, it shifts the moral calculus of the war, providing certain political actors with a stronger case for peace on Russia’s terms over continued support for Ukraine.
If Ukraine is no longer seen as the victim – an invaded and violated nation – then the urgency to defend it dissipates. If Russia is no longer viewed as the aggressor, the rationale for sanctions and diplomatic pressure weakens. And if the US is instead cast as the unwilling victim of this war, Trump’s isolationist policies gain newfound legitimacy.
On the domestic front, Trump’s casting of the US as the victim helped him amplify American grievances – a potent political tactic in a country where economic concerns dominate voter priorities. He, at the same time, emerges as a real leader who speaks “the truth”: his nation is exploited by costly foreign entanglements while its own citizens’ struggles go ignored.
Far-right leaders have long understood the power of victimhood narratives, and Trump has weaponised those throughout his political career. His claims of a “rigged” 2020 election painted both himself and his supporters as casualties of a conspiracy, fuelling a grievance-driven movement that ultimately culminated in the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. His impeachment proceedings were framed as “witch-hunts” planned by corrupt elites, an attempt to silence a president who dared to challenge the establishment. Even his legal troubles – from criminal indictments to social media bans – have been cast as tales of persecution, positioning Trump as the ultimate martyr of a broken system. Each of these instances reinforces the core message that his movement, and by extension the American people themselves, are under siege.
Trump’s rhetoric is part of a broader pattern among far-right populists worldwide. Viktor Orbán in Hungary casts his nation as a besieged fortress under assault by Brussels bureaucrats and liberal elites. Marine Le Pen in France frames the country’s economic struggles as the result of globalist elites. And here in the UK, Nigel Farage used a similar strategy, portraying Brexit as a battle between an oppressed British public and an out-of-touch European elite determined to undermine national sovereignty. The playbook is simple but effective: paint the people as victims, externalise blame and consolidate power by positioning oneself as the people’s sole guardian.
Victimhood is never just about suffering; it is about power. The question now is whether the world will accept such an unabashed rewriting of history or resist this cynical recasting of suffering. Last weekend’s European summit on Ukraine in London may mark the beginning of a response by reaffirming that defending Ukraine is not an act of charity but a political stance against the weaponisation of victimhood by the far right. What is needed is not just rhetoric but a coherent, strategic and actionable plan – one that reclaims the political initiative rather than ceding ground to reactionary opportunism.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. For every shift in who we recognise as the victim is simultaneously a shift in who we believe deserves justice.
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Lilie Chouliaraki is professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the author of Wronged: The Weaponization of Victimhood
