LOS ANGELES.–President Donald Trump, 78, said that Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky should “get together” with 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin but there’s no rush to get the Ukrainian leader involved. While it’s true that Ukraine sustains massive losses of soldier, civilians, in infrastructure and sovereign land, it’s also true that he’s been an obstacle to peace over the last three years. Zelensky opted for war with the Kremlin Feb. 24, 2022, the date Putin moved some 200,000 troops into Ukraine. Former President Joe Biden, 82, called Putin’s move an “unprovoked and unjustified” naked land grap, when he armed Ukraine to the teeth against Kremlin objections for the last two years. U.S. started arming Ukraine after the Feb. 22, 2014 coup during the Obama administration that toppled the Krelin-backed Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych is only a footnote in a CIA-backed coup, AKA the Maiden Revolution, that brought chocolate baron Petrol Poroshenko to power in 2014. Ukraine got what it thought was a pro-Western coup, antagonizing the Kremlin because of its military bases on the Crimean Peninsula. Putin seized Crimea March 1, 2014, only days after he finished hosting the Sochi Winter Olympics. From 2014 to the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, the U.S. flooded Ukraine with weapons so it could eventually take back Crimea. Well, Putin made sure that when Biden kept arming Ukraine over his objections, Ukraine would have to pay a big price, moving some 200,000 troops into Ukraine. Trump is 100% right that if he were still in office, he would have listened to Putin and stopped arming Ukraine for the purpose of attacking the Kremlin. So, Putin felt provoked by Biden arming Ukraine.
Biden repeated his talking points that the Ukraine War was “unprovoked and unjustified,” but if you were in Putin’s shoes you would disagree. Trump would have never armed Ukraine to fight to take back Crimea or clear Russian troops out of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin offered to pull back his troops in March 2022 if Zelensky recognized Russian sovereignty over Crimean and independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Three years later he’s left Ukraine demolished and lost the best sovereign territory on the Black Sea coast. Now that Trump works with Putin to end the war, Zelensky accuses Trump of selling Ukraine down the river. With Zelensky losing so much territory, what does he expect now: Putin to give it back? Zelensky expects more than that, he wants Putin prosecuted as a war criminal, all Russian troops out of Ukraine and the Kremlin to pay war reparations.
So, when Trump says Zelensky isn’t really needed in peace talks, he actually being polite because he’d do everything possible to sabotage the talks. Thinking the EU would have better luck with Putin is complete wishful thinking, not basis in reality. Brussels burnt it bridges for now with the Russian Federation by blindly going along with all of Biden’s sanctions but, at no time, did the EU say it wanted to fund war against the Kremlin. EU countries have far more business ties to Russia than the U.S. Germany’s 71-year-old former Chancellor Angela Merkel spent $12 billion building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to assure affordable shipments of natural gas from Russia to Germany. After the Ukraine War, Germany was pressured to go along with EU sanctions, cancelling the Nord Stream 2 deal. Trump knows that in any peace deal, Putin is holding the cards, not Zelensky.
Zelensky’s idea of war with the Kremlin is the U.S. footing the billing into the foreseeable future. Trump figured out long ago that Ukraine has lost the war and was not going do anything in the future but destroy the country. Trump’s decision to back immediate peace talks is to stop the destruction and carnage on both sides of the border. Zelensky can’t get over the fact that Biden gave him a blank check and Trump won’t. But more important that Trump won’t fund the war with the Kremlin because he wants normal diplomatic relations with Moscow for the purposes of resuming historic work by both countries to work together to solve world problems. Putin wants to return to prominence on the world stage. Somehow Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman redeemed himself after the apparent Oct. 18, 2018 assassination in Isranbul of Washington Post columnist.com Jamal Khashoggi.
Trump met with Russian officials Feb. 18 to discuss normalizing diplomatic relations and ending the war in Ukraine with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was considered a scoundrel for the apparent role he played in Khashoggi’s death. So, when it comes to Putin, he could go to pariah to hero in record time, considering he’s only guilty of defending his country. “I have very good talks with Putin, and I’ve had not such good talks with Ukraine. They don’t have any cards,” Trump said, disputing Biden’s claim that arming Ukraine has improved Zelensky’s bargaining position. Trump says Zelensky has no cards because he’s lost the war with the Kremlin. Zelensky hasn’t admitted publicly that he’s lost the war because he’s afraid of the consequences with the Ukrainian people. Zelensky recently released a fake approval rating of 67% to shut Trump up.
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.
