It's The Trump/Putin Russia/Ukraine Farce, Alaska Edition!
They're going to carve up Ukraine, then make Ukraine say thank you.
Time for another episode of “As Putin’s Bitch Turns,” starring the President of the United States and star of stage and screen, Donald J. Trump!
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of becoming president, and 203 days later, Russia is bombing Ukraine as hard and dirty as ever, including targeting maternity wards of hospitals, and children on playgrounds. And now Putin and Trump are going to meet in Alaska on Friday, without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Or anyone from Europe. To do more “peace plan.” Day jah voo!
Dealmaking Arts would seem to require that all sides be present to negotiate and agree on a deal, but there those two are anyway, planning to carve up Ukraine and present it to Zelenskyy, like a done deal.
Even the Trump side seems unclear on what the goal is. Just less than a week ago, Trump’s golf buddy/envoy to everywhere Steve Witkoff was insisting to Putin that sitting down with both Trump AND Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenkskyy would be a condition of any talks, and Trump had been teasing sitting down with the two of them for months. But then Witkoff dined with Putin in Moscow last Wednesday, and suddenly that was no longer a requirement. Putin must be such a charmer! Especially if Witkoff is still not even bringing his own translator. And what Witkoff lost in translation apparently led to some confused debriefing, according to the WSJ. Maybe they should have texted each other emojis?
PREVIOUSLY!
On Wednesday, a “US official said Putin called for pausing the war at current lines in both regions. Russia would then negotiate land swaps with Ukraine, aiming for full Moscow control of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.”
The “swap” part being that Ukraine would get wishes in one hand and a turd in the other. It’s not a land “swap” if Ukraine is getting no Russian land, any more than it is a “bike swap” when somebody steals your bike off the rack.
And then on Friday, Witkoff told European officials that the agreement was something different, that instead Moscow had agreed that Ukraine would withdraw from Donetsk too, and then the battle lines would be frozen, and then there would be a “second phase, in which Putin and Trump would agree on a final peace plan that would later be negotiated with Zelenskyy.” And Putin and Russia will TOTALLY do a ceasefire then, you bet. And Putin has publicly demanded that Ukraine renounce NATO membership. So what would Ukraine get out of any of this? Shrug! “Assurances.” Ones that are really assuring this time, and not like the assurances Ukraine already had that Trump is now ignoring.
But the nyet saditsaya with Zelenskyy came through loud and clear.
And Matthew Whitaker, AKA Meatball McPeenerToilet, Trump’s former acting AG and current NATO ambassador, is opening his meatball-hole now, telling CNN, “No big chunks or sections are going to be just given that haven’t been fought for or earned on the battlefield.” Which sure sounds like the US thinks it can, and is planning to, give Russia some kind of Ukrainian territory. That it does not own.
It’s all a fantasy, because Zelenskyy will not agree to giving away any part of Ukraine. And is unable to, per the Ukrainian constitution.
But Trump sure wants to make some kind of land grab happen for Putin!
Reminder, Trump already cut off military aid to Ukraine, for Putin. (Though it’s confusing to figure out which parts are on again, off again each and every time.) Now the US will only sell weapons to European countries, who then give them to Ukraine, causing months of delay. Trump stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, for Putin. And Politico Europe even reported in March that the Trump administration had been having secret talks with Zelenskyy’s pro-Russia opponents, which sure smells like trying to do an entire coup in Ukraine. For Putin.
Also your reminder that in Trump 1.0’s “free” campaign manager was Paul Manafort, who helped install pro-Russian stooge Viktor Yanukovych in power in Ukraine in 2010, was tight as an asshair with corrupt pro-Russia Ukranians, and had always been pushing for exactly this kind of “peace plan” where Russia gets part of Ukraine, even before Putin invaded. And, of course, there were all of Trump’s other ties to Russia, confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was then chaired by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump’s nonstop kissing of Putin’s little pucker, which everyone can see with their own eyeballs. Trump’s supporters are more credulous than a golden retriever getting fake-thrown a tennis ball.
Not a thing has changed since our March explainer about what a farce these “peace plans for Ukraine” are, other than five more months of Trump playing a hokey-pokey of pretending to just discover Russia is killing people, pretending to be mad about it, stomping a cankle and saying, VLADIMIR, STOP! and then stalling and kicking the can down the road, all the while making it clear to Putin and everybody else that the US will do as little as possible to help Ukraine out, short of directly bombing Kyiv on Russia’s behalf.
MARCH!
The most recent left leg in and left leg out: July 14 Trump set another deadline for a ceasefire, this time giving Putin 50 days to make peace, or he would slap 100 percent tariffs on all of the matryoshka dolls, beets and kashka that we already don’t import from Russia, really for real this time. Then he shortened the deadline to 10 or 12 days, which have now also come and gone, utterly ignored by Putin, as always. Though Trump slapped a 50 percent tariff on Indian goods for buying Russian oil. But just India, not any other country that does. Türkiye, the largest buyer of Russian oil, is still tariffed at 15 percent. There is no strategy.
And then the Senate had a bipartisan bill all teed up ready to go, the Sanctioning Russia Act, with the embargoes Trump claimed he wanted. But Trump was like WHOA, oh no, HOLD UP, I need even more time to negotiate with Putin, and he arranged this Alaska thing.
It’s all pretty fucking embarrassing. And the actual point of this Alaska summit from a US-interests perspective is unclear. It looks like nothing but a victory lap for Putin: he got yet another ceasefire delay already, and gets to land in Russia’s former territory of Alaska and stand next to Trump like an equal instead of the wanted international war criminal he is, posing for a smiling photo op with his puppet. Meanwhile snubbed Zelenskyy sits over in Ukraine, still getting bombed. And they both get to say, see how much we hate you, Europe, and how little we value your opinion?
What other concessions will Putin sweet-talk Trump into making him this time in exchange for what they both know are hollow promises? The missiles the US sells to Europe will be made out of candy? If Putin ceasefires he can have a little bit of Bering Strait as a treat? Trump will do anything for a Klondike bar. Or no Klondike bar. He’ll just do anything. Because whatever kind of kompromat Putin must have on him that we don’t already know about must be a hell of a doozy.
This is some Suedetenland bullshit.
Long live Ukraine!
Yeah, no.
The non-human value of Ukraine and the reason it’s been conquered so many times is the warm-water port, the rich farmland and the mineral resources. That’s what’s on the table here.
Putin knows he isn’t winning and is a dead man if he loses, so he’s pretending he gets to pick and choose which good parts he paid with other people’s lives to keep. It’s delusional.