Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking a Putin residence without any proof after Zelensky and Trump just met in Florida. What does this mean? Let’s decode this.
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So, Trump and Zelenskyy just met in Mar-a-Lago. It didn’t go badly. There was no catastrophe. Trump did what he usually does. Let’s phrase it generously. He acts with optimism towards what Putin may want and may not realize or does not express how Russia is actually acting against Ukraine.
I don’t want to speculate too much about what the motivations there may be. I’m living a calmer life for myself, just assuming that this is part of a negotiation position that has Trump locked into trying to appear neutral in a war where neutrality in my view does not seem correct. It’s coming from this position probably of being the negotiator, and as a negotiator, Trump may not think he can be tough on Putin and supportive of Zelenskyy without damaging this peace process.
Now, personally, all this diplomacy is a show. Putin does not want to stop the war. Proof is he keeps targeting Ukraine, attacking Ukraine and all of these things. And before the meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, Putin even appeared in military uniform, which makes it so much clearer. He has not expressed an iota of genuine desire to end this war.
However, no matter how much we may criticize what Trump said during a meeting or what he didn’t say, it is curious after already having spoken to Putin and then post-meeting speaking to Putin again. It seems Putin may not have felt it went the way he wanted it to, which is why this accusation now came. Putin may have felt it necessary to without any proof accuse Ukraine for attacking one of his residences.
Now whether that happened or not is not clear and it’s not clear because there’s not any proof. And all we’ve heard is there were 90-plus drones flying in that direction and they were shot down. Whether they were actually aimed at the residence or at another location there is not even said – otherwise they would say so. Ukraine of course denies this, probably rightfully so because again, no evidence.
So even if Ukraine wanted to attack that residence, what would be the problem? Putin is the aggressor which makes this residence a military target and thus legitimate. So there wouldn’t be any problem with it other than Trump believes that we are now in a negotiation phase in which we should not antagonize Putin unnecessarily while Putin antagonizes us all the time.
But from this very accusation, we can understand what this means. The war is not going well for Putin. He does not trust that Trump actually is in his corner. Otherwise, he wouldn’t do this. The economy is down. Listen to economists. They will tell you. Russia’s gains recently have been very marginal, even reversed. And if they capture anything, it’s some little village, a field. And mostly what Russia does is destruction.
Kupiansk, even though Putin announced it to be fully in control of Russia, has been recaptured by Ukraine. Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad have not yet fallen after three years of attack. Ukraine keeps destroying critical Russian infrastructure, and European allies are supporting Ukraine – just committed to two years of financing. Zelenskyy even secured financing from Canada and Japan, and they’re manufacturing their own weapons in Ukraine.
In addition to that, Trump’s position is increasingly becoming weaker. Why? Midterms are approaching. Every two years in the United States, the House of Representatives is reshuffled and part of the Senate. So now domestically, the Republican party knows that Trump can’t run again. That means he will now enter soon what is called the lame duck phase.
What is that? As we all know, it means that he will no longer represent the future of the Republican party. He will still be the president. The majorities in the House and Senate may or may not change against him, but Republicans are now positioning themselves for a post-Trump time. I don’t know what chances JD Vance has. JD Vance has changed his positions towards Trump in the past. I would not assume that Trumpism itself has that much of a future.
The Republicans had fought Trump tooth and nail. They lost. They had to give in. And now they may see the chance to undermine Trump’s ideas, which they’re already starting to do. Most Americans or the majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, support Ukraine. They know very well what Putin is doing. Don’t listen to Tucker Carlson or others who don’t know what’s going on or don’t want to know or whatever.
The main mistake Putin has made is American culture can easily fall back into seeing Russia as the enemy. It’s the easiest exercise in the world. There are all kinds of movies, television shows, books that portray the Russians or the Soviets as the enemy. This is the easiest fallback position. This is why this is so stupid on Russia’s part.
Russia is not winning. It’s looking at an economic scenario where the market share for oil and gas that it used to have is now in the hands of others. Russia is destroying its own civilian industry. Eventually, the war industry will also have a problem. This is not winning. This is losing. Putin may think he has won because he’s been elevated by Trump. But this is not a victory.
There is no real peace diplomacy either. This is all a show. And we see this show going on. We see this false accusation, probably false, of Ukraine attacking Putin’s residence because of the desperation on the Russian side. Their only card to play is to somehow convince some Western leaders, not just Trump, others too, that somehow Russia is too strong, that somehow Russia can’t be defeated. Although the proof of history shows that’s why Finland survived, Afghanistan drove out the Soviets. Ukraine has withstood more than 10 years of war. It survives.
How difficult any attempt by Trump to go against Ukraine could be. Here’s the final piece that I’ll offer you today. Bret Baier in his news show on Fox News Special Report interviewed Zelenskyy, and it was a nice interview. Zelenskyy got to speak about how he doesn’t trust Putin. He had good answers on questions of corruption.
This interview really showed that one of the most important people, the most serious news guy at Fox News, Bret Baier, how he supports Ukraine, how he supports Zelenskyy, how he believes Zelenskyy. Guess who else watches Fox News? Donald Trump cannot go too much against the majority opinion in the United States.
Putin’s attempts will eventually fail and Ukraine has the backing it needs at least from the Europeans and others and very probably also from the Americans. In any case, Russia is so weak right now that all it can do is lie, keep lying and destroying unnecessarily and losing its own people. Russia does not want to negotiate. It does not want peace. Well, Russians probably do, but Putin’s Russia doesn’t. But they will have to because they are not winning. That’s what this is about.
Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 