Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Munich Security Conference this weekend said of President Donald Trump: “He has betrayed the West, he’s betrayed human values, he’s betrayed the NATO charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a lot of what has been done before to try to make sense of how difficult it is to restrain people who want unaccountable power.”
Clinton added, “And none of us in this room, including all of us on this panel, would choose to live under a regime that was so unaccountable that it could act with impunity the way that Putin does, except that’s who Trump is modeling himself as.”
Clinton also criticized Trump for scaling back U.S. support for Ukrainian troops in their fight against Russia, and shared two photos. One shows Clinton standing next to a shot-down Russian Shahed drone; the other shows “a much-smaller Ukrainian interceptor.”
Compare a shot-down Russian Shahed drone versus a much-smaller Ukrainian interceptor (with me and @ischinger alongside for scale). pic.twitter.com/S4hAulhrOV
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 16, 2026
She is standing with the Munich Security Conference leader Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany’s former State Secretary and Ambassador to the US and UK.
Clinton also shared the video below and wrote: “I was also moved by a video simulation that brings to life the conflict’s stakes for European sovereignty and security. We can’t allow Putin’s mania for control to determine our collective future.”
I was also moved by a video simulation that brings to life the conflict’s stakes for European sovereignty and security.
We can’t allow Putin’s mania for control to determine our collective future. pic.twitter.com/DGaUlA3Na2
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 16, 2026
The video ends with a quote by conservative British-American historian Niall Ferguson, who in December said of a potential Cold War 2.0: “I don’t think people are nearly worried enough. We have great difficulty imagining defeat.”
Ferguson, who supported Trump’s re-election campaign in 2024, got into a heated debate online with VP JD Vance after his speech at last year’s Munich Summit.
Although Ferguson told Vance that he agreed with “most of your criticisms of Europe at Munich,” he also warned of conceding too much to Russia. Ferguson wrote: “I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome.”
Well, thank God also for free and open debate.
Having visited Ukraine every year but one since 2011, I think I have an informed and realistic view.
I repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for its failure to deter Putin in 2021 and failure to end the war while Ukraine…— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) February 20, 2025
That “sorry outcome” is what Clinton sees as the current situation. Below she makes an unambiguous assertion that both Putin and Trump are making an effort to “profit off the misery and death of the Ukrainian people.”
I think the effort that Putin and Trump are making to profit off the misery and death of the Ukrainian people is a historic error and corrupt to the nth degree. https://t.co/TszZfNVj7Y
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 16, 2026