LOS ANGELES.–NATO’s 57-year-old new Secretary-General said publicly he thought criticism by 46-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of 66-year-old German Chancellor Olaf SchoLz was unfair. Zelensky has been hammering Scholz, whose government collapsed Nov. 18, to send Germany’s long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Scholz has not gone along with 82-year-old President Joe Biden’s Nov. 17 decision to allow Zelensky to use ATACMs long-range missiles to strike deep in Russia, primarily hitting Russian military bases and arms depots. Rutte disagreed with Zelensky’s criticism not because he doesn’t agree with Zelensky on using long-range weapons to attack inside Russia but because but because Scholz has been a generous European ally to Zelensky’s war with the Kremlin. President-elect Donald Trump disagrees with Biden’s Nov. 17 decision to attack Russia.
Biden has operated under the false belief that the more Ukraine escalates the war with Moscow, the better Ukrine would do in any future peace negotiation. Zelensky has battled the Kremlin for the last three years, only to lose 20-25% of Ukraine’s best sovereign territory along the Black Sea coast. Any future peace negotiation would have Zelensky ceding territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire and peace talks. Zelensky and Biden thought the more they battled Putin, the more Zelensky would get back in any future talks. Trump sees the utter futility to Ukraine and Russia of continuing the bloody WW I-type trench warfare that decimated Ukraine’s infrastructure killing thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. Fake news questions whether Trump wants Ukraine to win the war. Trump tells the press he wants the war to stop because of the damage done to Russia and Ukraine.
When reporters asks Trump who does he want to win the Ukraine War, they try to show that Trump is on Putin’s side of the conflict. Politically biased reporters agree with Biden that since Putin started the war, he has no right how to finish it. Trump wants the war to end because it’s destructive to Ukraine and costs the U.S. Treasury untold billions to keep the war going. When it comes to Zelensky, he still holds Biden’s defunct mindset that with U.S. weapons, Ukraine can drive Russia out of Ukraine. But the question is at what cost to Ukraine and the United States to complete the mission of ousting all Russian troops. Trump doesn’t believe that will happen, only wishful thinking for Zelensky who know his three-year war with the Kremlin has failed. Zelensky moved Aug. 8 10,000 Ukrainian troops into the Russian Kursk border region to make a point to the Kremlin.
Before 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022, he asked Biden for months to discuss a new security arrangement for Ukraine. Putin told U.S. officials that if the U.S. continued to ignore Russian concerns about arming Ukraine, he would be forced to implement a “special military operation” to demilitarize Ukraine. Zelensky kept talking to Biden about fast-track NATO membership that if gotten, would have threatened the Kremlin with war with NATO. Zelensky kept pressing for NATO membership but, after the invasion, Biden decided to fund Ukraine’s war with the Kremlin. Never before had any post-WW II president gone to war with the Kremlin. Biden ended decades of U.S. diplomacy, détente and arms control with the Russian Federation. Russia became a mortal enemy of the United States, no longer a cooperative global partner.
Zelensky kept slamming Germany’s Olaf Scholz for refusing to supply long-range Taurus missiles, realizing the Scholz’s government was already collapsing. “I have often told Zelensky that he should stop criticizing Olaf Scholz, because I think it is unfair,” Rutte told DPA, German wire service. Zelensky has been slamming Scholz since his phone call with Putin in November, reassuring him that Germany would not follow Biden’s lead. “I general, we know that such capabilities are very important for Ukraine,” Rutte said, saying it was not up to him how to push allies to respond to Zelensky. Zelensky doesn’t want to admit the three-year war with the Kremlin has gone badly, losing so much sovereign territory. Trump recognizes that Biden’s proxy war with Ukraine has failed, only serves to destroy more Ukrainian territory and destabilize the European Continent.
Taking over from 65-year-old former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Rutte is still learning the ropes, sometimes making incendiary statements. Rutte knows that come Jan. 20, 2025, he’ll be dealing with Trump who has a very different approach to the Ukraine War than Biden. Trump recognized that no matter how much cash-and-weapons Biden gave Ukraine, he was not going to vanquish the Russian Federation. Zelensky’s war with the Kremlin cost Ukraine 20-25% of its sovereign territory, beyond territory before the war began. So, if Zelensky continued the war, he would only lose more territory, no matter how his long-range missiles attack into Russia. So, when Zelensky criticizes Scholz, he has no one to blame but himself for making a horrific decision to battle the Kremlin. Zelensky will have to admit soon to Ukraine that he lost the war and precious Ukrainian territory.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
