Editor’s note: With the intense drama surrounding last week’s fiery meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump, and how Trump on Monday doubled down on criticism of Zelenskyy, we’re running two columns – the one that follows by Washington Post foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius and the other by conservative Marc Thiessen – taking opposing viewpoints on what happens next.

“This is going to be great television,” said President Donald Trump at the end of his shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday. Thus is the fate of nations decided in this administration’s cage-fighting version of diplomacy.

As someone who has visited Ukraine multiple times since the war began, watching Friday’s car wreck was sickening. I think of the horribly wounded Ukrainian soldiers I’ve met, or the civilians I’ve seen in shelters waiting for the all-clear. The idea of an American president extorting Kyiv in exchange for maintaining a lifeline to help it resist Russian aggression seems to me a betrayal of what the United States should stand for.

But as Gen. George C. Marshall liked to say, “Don’t fight the problem.” Meaning, put your emotions aside and solve the problem. So, here’s an attempt to think dispassionately about how to end this terrible war in a way that doesn’t reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and punish his Ukrainian victims.

Friday’s White House blowup was stomach churning, but it didn’t change the fundamentals in this war. Russia’s manpower and military might is slowly grinding down Ukraine. The United States, under Trump, has moved from supporting Kyiv to being a peace broker - “demander” might be a better word - with a growing sympathy for Russia.

Trump’s tilt is bad news for our European allies, nearly all of whom expressed support for Zelenskyy after his verbal pummeling from Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The Europeans can help Zelenskyy stay in the fight, but they can’t give him victory. Trump was unfortunately correct in admonishing the Ukrainian leader, “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.”

What the Europeans can do, however, is bolster Ukraine enough to get a more fair deal - and deter Russia from further aggression after a ceasefire is agreed. Europe could start by giving Ukraine the Russian assets it has seized - and putting that money to work in Ukraine’s growing defense industry. This is Europe’s moment to draw some red lines for Putin.

“Even the cleaning ladies in Kyiv know firsthand that Russia does not honor a ceasefire unless there are troops enforcing it,” observed Kevin Revin, a retired army brigadier general now teaching a national security course in Ukraine, in an email Saturday. “Trump’s threat to stop military aid has lost its shock value here because most Ukrainians gave up that hope in November,” when Trump was elected, he noted.

For all Zelenskyy’s difficulties, the truth is that Putin has failed in his basic war aims. He didn’t seize Ukraine; he didn’t topple its government; he didn’t redraw the security map of Europe in his favor. At a cost of more than 700,000 Russian dead and wounded, he has captured about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. In three years, he hasn’t even managed to take all of the Donetsk region. Further, he has triggered European rearmament and NATO membership for previously neutral Sweden and Finland. Some victory.

Trump, bizarrely, seems to want to rescue Moscow from its mistakes. On Friday, he expressed an eerie kinship with Putin as a fellow victim of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.” Ah, poor Vlad!

Friday’s fracas wasn’t all Trump’s fault, to be fair. Zelensky’s pugnacity, which served him so brilliantly in the first days after Russia’s 2022 invasion, was his enemy here. Trump had been a fairly congenial host and said “one last question” to the assembled press corps, when Zelensky launched into a recitation of Putin’s perfidy. This was like waving a red flag at a bull. He then admonished Trump that “you have nice ocean and don’t feel [Putin] now, but you will feel in the future.” And then: Hoo, boy!

Zelenskyy should have studied the theatrical performance of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had masterfully flattered Trump the day before. Starmer had rehearsed his presentation, down to the handwritten, royal-stamped invitation letter from King Charles III that he handed Trump before facing the cameras. Starmer’s reward was that Trump said out loud that he supported NATO’s cornerstone Article 5.

I wish it could be said that Trump is a unique example of a powerful democratic leader muscling other nations. But Harvard Kennedy School professor Graham Allison reminded me that Winston Churchill, whose bust loomed behind Trump in the Oval Office on Friday, joined President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Yalta to carve up postwar Europe. And President Dwight D. Eisenhower bluntly told South Korean President Syngman Rhee in June 1953 that if Rhee kept fighting the North, the United States would withdraw all military aid.

Trump doesn’t like Zelensky, but he does want to conclude a Ukraine deal. His last word, in a social media post after the Oval Office crack-up, was that Zelensky “can come back when he is ready for Peace.” Zelensky resents Trump’s bullying, but he, too, needs the deal. Ukrainian sources tell me that Zelensky was ready to sign the deal giving the U.S. an interest in Ukraine’s critical minerals on Friday - and that he wants to resume talks as soon as Trump is ready.