I wanted to take a few moments today to do a short post to talk about the outcome following Trump’s disastrous summit in Alaska on Friday. As ever, Trump did his best to roll a turd in glitter and try to portray an event where an indicted war criminal took him out for a walk, and left without having dinner, as in his words, “A big success”.
I can’t think of a summit in which a US president has been more humiliated than Trump was on Friday. Undaunted, though, he thought it would be a simple matter of summoning Zelensky to the White House tomorrow and forcing him to hand over the Dombas to Putin in return for some half ass nothingburger, allowing Putin to come back and take the rest later. Think again. Trump has now weakened himself so much in the eyes of the coalition of the willing that Zelensky’s coalition partners will be travelling to Washington to support him at the meeting.
David L. Stern and Anastacia Galouchka are reporting in the Washington Post that:
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb confirmed Sunday that they will join Zelensky.
While I respect the reporting in the Washington Post, I’m not sure that Zelensky should go into the meeting in fear. With respect, yes, but not fearful. Russia is the aggressor, and the world respects that no aggressor should be rewarded for their invasion of a sovereign country.
I feel confident there will be no tantrums in the Oval Office this time. We can safely assume that all the tantrums will play out behind closed doors. There will be, I’m sure, Trump tantrums, as he’s informed that territorial concessions of the scale proposed are not on the table. It’s time for the coalition to take a central role in trying to secure a commitment from Trump on security guarantees. Everyone agrees that this situation must be brought to a conclusion so that if the US is out, steps can be taken to place the coalition in the driving seat to bring this war to a close. Rest assured, this is absolutely what Putin does not want right now.
I’m pretty sure that following the meeting or even before the meeting, Putin will roll out the threat of nuclear conflict, because he knows that’s what presses Trump’s button. Negotiations are all about leverage, and Trump has shown time and time again that he’s not prepared to take action against Putin. We are already seeing the right in advance of the meeting trotting out the Ukraine corruption card, which is pretty rich coming from allies of the most corrupt US government in history.
European leaders need to take a firm position that asks a straightforward question of Trump. “Are you with us or with Putin?” It’s time to put Trump on the record for the world to see where he stands and not allow him to dance on the head of a pin as he further attempts to buy Putin time to achieve his objectives. To be clear, in the last year, Russian troops have advanced half the distance of the Allied lines in the Battle of the Somme. They are not in the driving seat as Putin claims. Does anyone think that if he could take the remaining 30% of the region, he would be bleeding men and armour like he is?
The only way Putin can and has been able to advance at all is with the help of Trump, who has frustrated the Ukrainian army by withholding military aid. Let’s not forget he has form too; he withheld military aid to Ukraine in 2019 because he wanted the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Had the US continued to supply arms in the current conflict, there is no question that Trump would have been in a much better position to bring this war to an end and maybe get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, he has chosen to align US policy with Russia, which screams to me Kompromat. It is simply not normal for a US president to abandon US allies to the benefit of a longstanding adversary who poses no threat whatsoever to national security, while at the same time posing a significant threat to US foreign interests in Europe.
This is a Russian army that has been severely incapacitated by a US ally at nominal cost to the DOD budget and without the loss of a single US soldier. This is a US military strategist's wet dream. Yet here we are, Trump is propping up a minor league nation with a decimated economy that was insignificant even before the war began. It has an Army living on a reputation from decades ago, whose only card is nuclear weapons, the state of which nobody knows.. Russia has lost an estimated 300,000 troops, with a further 600,000+ casualties. Further sanctions linked to secondary sanctions could sign the death warrant on the Russian economy. The current impasse is heaven-sent for China, because they are more than happy for this to drag on indefinitely. It keeps the US military focus away from them and Taiwan.
As reported by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies:
Russia has lost substantial quantities of equipment across the land, air, and sea domains, highlighting the sharp matériel toll of its attrition campaign. Since January 2024, for example, Russia has lost roughly 1,149 armored fighting vehicles, 3,098 infantry fighting vehicles, 300 self-propelled artillery, and 1,865 tanks. Even more noteworthy, Russian equipment losses have been significantly higher than Ukrainian losses, varying between a ratio of 5:1 and 2:1 in Ukraine’s favor.
This is not an army marching to victory; this is an army hanging on with its fingertips, praying that the US does not supply any more military hardware to Ukraine. Trump could end this tomorrow by simply saying the US and NATO are going to surge military aid to Ukraine to force the Russian army back to the pre-war lines of contact. This is why you have to ask yourself some serious questions as to why Trump has decided to help Putin. There has to be some level of him being compromised; there is no other logical conclusion one can draw from where we are.
If he went to Congress and allowed a free vote, he would pass a military aid package tomorrow. Of course, there would be MAGA objections, but not enough to defeat a vote on the floor. It’s time to stop pussyfooting around and to investigate to what level the GRU has infiltrated the US government, because Trump’s actions make absolutely no sense.
Trump is purely transactional; he sees economic opportunities and nothing else. As I stated previously, the loss of civilian lives and abduction of Ukrainian children mean nothing to Trump; they are all just an inconvenience. What some fail to recognise is that when Russia takes over territory, the people living there are forced to abandon their heritage, drop their language and subjugate themselves to Russian rule. They instantly become second-class citizens with no rights.
Ukrainians have historically suffered time and time again at the hands of Russian occupation. The Holodomor (1932-1933) saw Stalin's forced collectivisation and grain requisition policies, which led to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in an act of genocide. Again and again, they have suppressed the Ukrainian language, culture, and national identity. Russification saw the replacement of Ukrainian culture with Russian, including banning publications and public performances in Ukrainian and suppressing the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. This is a history that drives the Ukrainian people to be so fierce in defence of their nation.
This is not about a ‘land swap’ as Trump glibly presents it. It’s about cultural suffocation and subjugation of a proud people. It is despicable that Trump has reduced it to the cost of survival. The Ukrainian people deserve better, and it is incumbent on us all not to become complicit in the cultural destruction of an innocent sovereign nation. We can and must do better. The Ukrainian people are not a commodity; the abducted children should not be forgotten. They should not be left to be indoctrinated into a nation in which they were not born citizens.
It’s finally time for NATO to step forward in partnership with the coalition of the willing to say ‘enough is enough’ and flex some muscle against an army projecting strength that does not exist. It’s time to call Putin’s bluff and free the people of Ukraine. It’s time to liquidate all Russian assets held in partner nation banks and use that money to finance Ukraine’s defence. Stop playing by the rules because Putin treats them with disdain. As a collective, we have a moral obligation to bring this war to an end, even if it means through overwhelming force. A short ultimatum should be set for Russia’s withdrawal to its own boundaries. It should be made clear that NATO has no intention of breaching Russian territorial boundaries, other than those imposed in Ukraine. If Putin fails to withdraw, any military units in Ukraine will be crushed. Equally, any firing points within recognised Russian territory should represent a legitimate target for advanced weapons provided to the Ukrainian military, in defence of their country. Ukraine should be guaranteed NATO and EU Membership. This would truly be peace through strength. It’s time to stop fearing the ageing Russian bear and welcome it to a new theatre of war.
I am thrilled that all of the European leaders are coming to Washington to support Zelenskyy! What a message that is!
trump is shit