On Thursday European leaders and Canada met in Paris to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine.
Each day it becomes clearer that the U.S. is effectively emboldening Putin with promises of lifting sanctions and reopening markets from which they were excluded, following their illegal invasion of Ukraine. Putin has achieved this win in return for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Indeed, the fantasy ceasefire in the Black Sea, is far more beneficial to Russia than to Ukraine. The Trump administration is by it’s calculated actions attempting to render Ukraine impotent when it comes to punishing Russia on their own soil. Let’s be clear Russia currently control 20% or Ukrainian territory. At the begining of 2025 they controlled 18% this was a 1% increase from 2024. So for trump to claim as he did that Putin could take “the whole country”, is nonsense. This is a war of attrition and the Ukrainians have bravely held their ground against the alleged great Russian Bear, despite being starved of ammunition and military aid by the very man now wanting to carve up his country for profit.
Trump NEVER wanted to support Ukraine at any point during the war. He ensured that Republican lawmakers choked off aid in 2024. He did the same while in office in 2019, when he was trying to blackmail Zelenskyy into digging up dirt on Joe Biden. In Trump’s vengeful little mind, this whole thing is about retribution and rest assured Putin will be reminding him daily of the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia hoax they went through TOGETHER’. Trump has even mentioned it in recent press conferences. Trump’s vengeful actions have even extended to cutting funding to Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab which has been compiling a database of Russian war crimes during the conflict. Crimes which include the abduction of around 35,000 children from Russian occupied territories. Thankfully indications are, this funding was temporarily restored just two days ago.
It is no surprise then, the Kremlin is delighted with progress so far. In their words, “The U.S. will help restore access for Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports to the world market, reduce the cost of marine insurance, and expand access to ports and payment systems to conduct such transactions.” While it’s difficult to get details on exactly how far the US has gone with these steps, this enables Russia’s shadow fleet of vessels to further trade oil on the black market, avoiding detection and further sanctions. Putin is doing what he always does, exploit weakness. He sees Trump as being in a weak position, because he is desperate to be seen as the guy who delivered peace in Ukraine.
The result? Russians are being rewarded for their persistent bad behaviour. I’m really not sure what it’s going to take for Europe to understand that Trump now views them simply as an obstacle to letting Putin off the naughty step, while allowing him to profit from his extortion plan. European leaders can gather all they like, but until someone steps forward and says ENOUGH of this secretive bilateral negotiating, the situation will continue and Putin will continue to push the envelope. His latest preposterous proposal to place Ukraine under temporary administration to oversea new elections, is yet another example of him chancing his hand to slow things down, while driving a further wedge between the US and Europe. There’s no question he is achieving his objectives, because in addition to fracturing transatlantic trust, cracks are now also appearing within the European alliance. This is a masterclass in geopolitical disruption from Putin and it’s paying off. He and Trump are tag teaming Europe and it’s exposing weakness the pair of them intend to exploit. All the while, Putin is able to delay and not face attacks on his oil refineries. In addition, he’s working to slowly loosen the financial impact of the war on the Russian economy. Delays are his friend, it gives him the opportunity to regroup and prepare for his next push.
The reality is, Russia is suffering economically, despite claims to the contrary. However, more pressure needs to be applied, but Europe can’t rely on Trump to do play ball. It’s going to come down to the UK, Europe and other partners to apply further sanctions. For me, the big problem here is, while on the surface Europe has reduced its dependence on Russian oil and pipeline gas substantially. Many countries are still importing LNG from Russia. In 2024, EU countries imported around €7 billion of Russian LNG, this was up around 18% on 2023 imports. It represents the largest import of LNG from Russia, making them the second largest supplier of LNG to the block. Germany imported 58 cargoes of Russian LNG from the French port of Dunkirk in the same year. This was six times more than they imported in 2023.
To put this into context. since the beginning of the war, the EU has spent €30 billion on Russian LNG. It never ceases to amaze me how much deflection and obfuscation eats like a cancer in the halls of power. Jan-Eric Fähnrich, a gas analyst at Rystad Energy, said LNG flows were not only on the rise but “at record levels”. The graphic below courtesy of The Guardian shows the level of Russian LNG supplied to Europe.
It appears the reason for this rise is simple, Russia offers discounted LNG to alternative suppliers. As there are no sanctions on that supply, commercial self interest takes over and large volumes are purchased at lower cost. At best it’s disingenuous, at worst it’s deliberate obfuscation of the truth, which in turn perpetuates a war they want to bring an end to.
Ukrainian activists are not wrong when they say big loopholes are enabling Russia to finance a war machine that is killing innocent civilians. The European purchase of Russian fossil fuels is unquestionably enabling a convicted war criminal to continue to murder innocent Ukrainians. This is simply unacceptable.
In part 2 tomorrow, we examine the proposed US peace plan in forensic detail along with the newly proposed deal on rare earth minerals and now oil and gas.
Trump's gift to Putin for engineering his Get Out of Jail Free card.
This proves that Trump is a Russian asset