President Donald Trump‘s effort to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the right thing to do. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and wreaked havoc on millions more. However, as the president seeks to secure peace, he should remain focused on the fundamentals required for that peace to be meaningful and lasting.

Unfortunately, theatrics have, on the surface at least, taken precedence over substance during the past week, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shares the blame for this. He deserves great credit for his courageous leadership against great odds over three years of war, but he has repeatedly been both arrogant and dismissive about the vast levels of aid his country has been given. It was not helpful, although not inaccurate, for him to accuse Trump of living in a Russian “disinformation” space. Trump did speak falsely when he blamed Ukraine for starting the war and declared Zelensky a “dictator.”