President Trump is angry with Vladimir Putin. Over the weekend, Trump said, “I’m not happy with what Putin’s doing. He’s killing a lot of people. I don’t know what the Hell happened to Putin…I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him. But he’s sending rockets into cities and I don’t like it at all.
Further, Trump posted on Truth Social, “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”
It’s about time. Putin has indeed been “tapping” the president along. I believe in “Peace Through Strength”; kowtowing or bending to the world’s greatest bully and trouble-maker doesn’t look like strength and certainly does not appear to be leading to peace.
The recent prisoner exchanges were a positive sign, and maybe it signals more behind-the-scenes progress in peace talks than we know. I certainly hope so but am not holding my breath.
President Trump has gone to great lengths to bring Putin to the peace table. He has publicly rowed with and distanced himself from President Zelenski, even blaming Ukraine’s leader for starting the war, which is nonsense, tolerated Putin’s stubbornness and has been seemingly ready to reward Russia for its war of aggression.
Partly Trump is operating out of realpolitik, knowing that Putin cannot stand down easily, having lost half a million young Russian men killed or wounded to this war of attrition. Also, it has been clear for more than a year that Ukraine cannot win this war; at best they can hold off Russian troops at great financial and human cost. Meanwhile, their country is being destroyed.
Trump is right to blame Joe Biden for this mess. It infuriates me that even as the U.S. was sending enormous amounts of arms etc to Ukraine, no Democrat ever pressed either the incompetent Biden or his equally inept foreign policy team on their strategic plan. What was the objective? Biden used to say the US would stand with Ukraine “as long as it took.” As long as it took to do what, exactly? Win? Nobody ever laid out a vision of how Ukraine would win this war, even the military.
Trump’s mineral rights deal was a stroke of genius, aligning our interests with those of Ukraine and establishing a U.S. presence in the country that should serve as a deterrent to Russian aggression. Though the concept is excellent, it will take some time to move forward with substantial investments and activities; it is not a short-term solution to the war.
It is maddening that Putin can make outrageous demands and that neither the U.S. nor EU pushes back aggressively. Russia wants ownership of lands they haven’t even won militarily; why would anyone agree to that? They also demand that Ukraine never be allowed membership in NATO and that no peacekeeping troops will be allowed into the country to prevent another assault by Russia.
It is also beyond maddening that the EU continues to fund Putin’s aggression by buying oil and gas from Russia; last year 19% of EU’s natural gas consumption was supplied by Russia. EU countries have made a religion of climate change and ridding their own nations of fossil fuels. Their dependence on unreliable renewables like wind and solar is stupid and costly, especially when they have to rely on Russian oil and gas to make up for periods when the wind doesn’t blow. This is what comes of bowing to progressive minorities in your country – US beware!
My view: it’s past time for Trump to threaten secondary sanctions on Russia. Putin and his oligarch enablers should be paying a much higher price for his adventurism. Maybe Trump is now furious enough to lower the boom. Having Putin orchestrate the biggest-ever drone attack on Ukraine on the eve of peace talks was a slap in Trump’s face; Putin’s intransigence and further attacks are more of the same.
U.S. voters elected Trump not because he promised to end the war in Ukraine, though we hoped that might happen, but because, after 4 years of misguided globalist foolishness, we wanted a strong foreign policy to reassert U.S. dominance. Allowing Putin to continue his aggression was not part of the deal.
