Marc Champion, Columnist

Ukraine Is Having a Surprisingly Good Iran War

April 1, 2026 at 4:00 AM UTC

Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.

Finding the silver lining
Photographer: Borja B. Hojas/Getty Images Europe

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Donald Trump’s decision to go to war in the Middle East has dealt a huge blow to Ukraine. It rescued Russia from a budget crisis, strained Kyiv’s debt-laden benefactors in Europe, ripped through stocks of critical US weapons that Ukraine’s now less likely to receive and prompted the White House to — yet again — press Volodymyr Zelenskiy to accept Russia’s territorial demands.

So, why does Ukraine’s embattled president seem so unfazed?