In November of 2013 Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych rejected the agreement for a political association and trade agreement with the European Union that had been overwhelmingly passed by the Ukrainian parliament. Instead he opted for closer ties with Russia. Many Ukrainians were also upset with the lopsided favoring of the eastern provinces and the widespread corruption attributed to the “Yanukovych Families” that raided thousands of companies and extorted payments.A huge protest centered in Kyiv against the Azarov (prime minister) government.

On February 22 of 2014 the Ukrainian parliament, including Azarov himself voted to remove Yanukovich on the grounds that he had neglected his constitutional duties. At the time Barack Obama was President, and Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State. Two days later a warrant was issued for Yanukovich’s arrest. He fled to Russia. A provisional government was formed and elections were eventually held. Russia did not recognize any of these governments.

In late February Russia seized Crimea, which had been ceded to Ukraine in 1994, and surreptitiously sent troops in plain uniforms to fight in the eastern provinces.A low-scale war continued in that area until Ukrainian troops withdrew in February 2015. The situation was more or less “frozen” from that time until Russia launched an invasion on February 24. 2022.

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Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky, a big star on Ukrainian television and something of a media mogul, became the sixth president of Ukraine on May 20, 2019, with 73.23 percent of the vote in the second round. For the next year or so he was learning the ropes of the job that he had only pretended to hold on a television show.

Meanwhile Trump had dispatched “operatives” to go to Ukraine dig up dirt on, of all people, the surviving son of his opponent in the 2020 election, Hunter.¹ Congress had appropriated $400 million in military aid for Ukraine, but it was not immediately sent. On July 25 Trump had a phone call with Zelensky². Trump asked for a “favor”. He wanted assurance that Zelensky would help Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr in their investigations in Ukraine. Zelensky described how he intended to reform his company’s prosecutorial functions. A couple of hours after the call the Pentagon was told ny the budget office not to release the aid.

The administration’s activities were not widely known until September, when an anonymous “whistleblower” complained that Trump was using his executive powers to coerce a foreign country into intervening in the election. Several administration officials said that Trump had expressly asked them to use the aid money to persuade Zelensky to announce an official investigation into Biden’s role and the hacking of the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

The House of Representative launched investigations of whether Trump had abused his authority. The administration did not cooperate, but on October 17, Trump’s chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in response to a reporter’s allegation of quid pro quo, “We do that all the time with foreign policy. Get over it.” Several current and former administration officials likewise testified that a great deal of effort was being directed toward foreign countries with the apparent goal of denigrating Biden or the evidence that Russia had tried to influence the election in Trump’s favor.

Two charges were leveled: abuse of power (including bribery and wire fraud) and obstruction of Congress. The votes in the committees and the House as a whole were almost completely along party lines.

The Senate at the time was controlled by the Republicans. Mitch McConnell said that the trial of the president was a political event, and he would not act as an impartial juror. He also would not allow any testimony or presentation of documentary evidence. Mitt Romney voted in favor of the abuse of power charge. Otherwise, voting was along party lines. Trump was acquitted.

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1. I don’t think like a Republican, and so I cannot explain what they hoped to find. It mystifies me that they thought that something that the 50-year-old Hunter did would be so heinous that Biden’s supporters would abandon him and turn to Trump, not exactly the patron saint of family relations. Hunter was convicted in 2024 of—get this!—lying on an application for a pistol that he kept for eleven days. Biden had another son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

2. CNN has posted a “transcript” of this conversation here. It is not the “perfect” call that Trump described, but neither is there an obvious “quid pro quo” unless you remember what “favor” really means from Don Corleone’s use of the word. Although Zelensky has said that he did not feel pressured, he surely knew about the $400 million that Congress had passed but the Pentagon had never delivered.