LOS ANGELES (OC).–Kremlin authorities warned President Donald Trump about supplying Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to Ukraine, saying it would mark a major escalation in the war. Trump said he was nearing a decision on letting NATO buy Tomahawk Cruise Missile to supply Ukraine, looking like he was against selling the missiles to NATO. Trump wants to see the Ukraine War end at the earliest possible time but has seen road blocks from Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky and the European Union, essentially scuttling Trump’s peace plans. Then, yesterday, Zelensky said he wants Trump to bring peace to Ukraine like he did with Gaza. Yet Zelensky refuses to compromise on any land swaps with the Russian Federation to end the war. Putin would not end the three-and-a-half year war unless he gets his spoils from a costly and bloody conflict.
Zelensky has been pressing Trump on Tomahawk Cruise Missiles thinking he can hit Moscow’s energy infrastructure thousands of miles from the Ukraine battlefront. Zelensky thinks he can force Putin into leaving Ukraine if his attacks target Russia’s energy infrastructer, the main economic driver to the war. “The topic of Tomahawks is of extreme concern,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV report Pavel Zarubin. “Now is really a very dramatic moment in terms of the fact that tensions are escalating from all sides. If Zelensky really wants to end the war, why would he seek the most lethal long-terms weapons in the arsenal? Trump must think carefully about giving Zelensky anything that would break U.S.-Russian relations at a time that they have a chance restoring the global partnership that maintained the post WW II world order.
Peskov wanted the U.S. to know the severity to supplying Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to Ukraine in terms of U.S.-Russian relations. “Just imagine, a long-range missle is launched and is flying and we know that it could be nuclear. What should the Russian Federation think? Just how should Russia react? Military experts overseas should understand this,” Peskov said, giving the U.S. the logic for declining Zelensky request for long-range missiles. Putin said a few weeks ago that it would be impossible for the U.S. to supply NATO with Cruise Missiles without direct U.S. military involvement. Putin said it would trigger a “qualitatively new stage of escalation,” damaging U.S.-Russian relations. Trump, since taking office, has done everything possible to improve U.S.-Russian relations, hitting a snag when he realized that getting a peace deal involved cooperation from Zelensky.
If Trump wants to deescalate the war, he needs to stop supplying lethal weapons to Zelensky, knowing that he wants to keep the war going. Zelensky has not gone along with Trump’s peace plans, doing everything possible with the EU to sabotage Trump’s peace plans. Whether Putin makes unreasonable demands in terms of land swaps to end the Ukraine War or not, escalating the war makes no sense. Trump got frustrated with Putin but actually it was Zelensky and the EU that made peacemaking with Putin impossible. Trump had a peace formula based on numerous conversations and meeting with Putin to determine the minimum conditions for ending the Ukraine War. Zelensky and the EU called Putin’s conditions “blackmail,” rejecting the basic premise of trading land-for-peace. Now Zelensky says he wants to resume his peacemaking activities.
Sending Ukraine Tomahawk Cruise Missiles at this point would be a big mistake in terms to looking to end the war, but, more importantly, continuing to improve U.S.-Russian relations. Getting back to a global partnership with Russia opens the door for future arms control agreements and global cooperation on a variety of mutually beneficial security issues. Putin no longer sees the Ukraine conflict as a war with Kiev but a war with the U.S. and NATO. Trump has worked on Ukraine peace for months only to find resistance by Zelensky and the EU. Brussels sees Russia as a threat to the European Union, seeking a some future point to seize land from the Baltic States or Poland, possibly Finland and Sweden. Zelensky has been pushing the idea that if Russia gets territorial concessions in Ukraine, it’s only a matter of time before he seeks to seize European territory.
Trump needs to redouble efforts to bring about an end to the Ukraine War, certainly not supply Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to NATO to give to Ukraine. Zelensky would continue to hit Russia’s oil infrastructure, esealating the war to the point it could spread to the European Continent. No matter what weapons are supplied to Ukraine, they can’t dispatch the Russian Federation that has a clear advantage in the war. Trump knows that keeping the war going only kills more Ukrainians and damages more infrastructure. Tump told Zelensky Feb. 28 in the Oval Offices to cut his losses and end the war. Zelensky rejected Trump’s peace plans to cede Ukrainian land to Russia, keeping the war going for the foreseeable future. Ending the Ukraine War requires Trump to get the EU to buy into his plan to cede Ukrainian land-for-peace to end the war with the Kremlin.
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.
