Ukraine-Russia War Still Going Despite Hallucinations Running Through Trump's Demented Brain

Shockingly, we're no closer to a resolution than we were last week.

Look at those happy punims.

Imagine a nation, a major world power, where people are being persecuted, erased, snatched off the street and dumped in faraway countries to which they have no connection, because the nation is run by bigoted nationalists who are led by a dementia-addled ball of shrieking, hot rage. Where open corruption flourishes at the highest levels of a government stocked soup to nuts with some of the most feral, vicious, incompetent dipwads that nation has ever produced

And yet you are stuck pretending those are the good guys, because the bad guys have spent almost four years bombing your nation to smithereens while displacing and murdering hundreds of thousands of your citizens, and you need the dipwads’ help to get them to stop.

Such is the plight of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president came to Florida this weekend, to Donald Trump’s bargain-basement Xanadu that he thinks is on par with the greatest buildings ever created by Western civilization, to present a 20-point peace plan for ending Russia’s invasion of his country. This was a counter to the 28-point plan that the US floated a few weeks ago that read as if it had been dictated by Vladimir Putin himself. Which it probably was.

Remember back in August, when Trump flew to Alaska to meet Putin, going so far as to have a red carpet rolled out when Putin deplaned so that his fancy-soled shoes would not have to suffer the indignity of touching an airport tarmac? The two leaders met on that carpet and shook hands while grinning broadly, Trump because there is nothing he admires more than a ruthless dictator he can suck up to, Putin because Donald Trump is such a sucker.

Putin Invades Alaska

There was none of that for Zelenskyy. There was not a single American official waiting on the tarmac to greet him, just Ukraine’s ambassador and some other personnel. Trump could not be bothered, even though the Miami airport is slightly closer to Mar-a-Lago than Alaska. This struck us as quite the diplomatic snub, one that sent a message that very clearly told the Ukrainians who America finds important and worth listening to here.

Trump couldn’t even be bothered to send JD Vance to greet Zelenskyy, even though meaningless appearances is pretty much a vice president’s entire job description. On the other hand, Zelenskyy was probably relieved Vance wasn’t there to lecture him again about his ingratitude.

So then it was on to Mar-a-Lago, where the Ukrainian contingent found itself sitting across a negotiating table from dollar-store Nosferatu Stephen Miller and luckiest dipshit alive Jared Kushner, which must have inspired all sorts of confidence in how things were going to go.

Pete Hegseth was there too, presumably in case kegstands were on the meeting’s agenda.

The outcome was predictable. Russia continues to demand Ukraine give up 20 percent of its land, even parts that Russia has not conquered. Ukraine still will not give up its own territory. But Zelenskyy countered, as part of his 20-point plan, with a suggestion of a demilitarized zone between the two nations’ armies, possibly patrolled by peacekeeping troops.

Trump nixed that eminently reasonable idea, presumably because it doesn’t help Putin accomplish his goal of total conquest.

Ukraine also wants strong security guarantees from the United States in case Russia decides it would like to take another crack at invading. Zelenskyy suggested a 50-year pact. Trump said maybe he’d go for 15 years. Our guess is Russia will land on zero years, since this would postpone Putin’s vision of being able to string Trump along until Ukraine’s army collapses.

Nonetheless, Trump claimed the two sides were “maybe very close” to a deal, which is what he says every time anyone asks him about the state of negotiations. This was after Putin spent two hours before the meeting snowballing Trump like he always does:

No one thinks Putin wants to see Ukraine “succeed,” unless you mean “succeed in capitulating totally to Russia and agreeing to become a vassal state or even a province of the larger nation, thus erasing its borders and national identity, because Vladimir Putin read some tract Peter the Great wrote when he was in the throes of food poisoning from bad lynx meat in 1722.”

Trump also said he thinks Putin is serious about peace this time — insert cliché about Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football here — despite the fact that not 24 hours earlier, Putin told reporters while wearing a military uniform (which he rarely does), “If the Kyiv authorities do not want to end the matter peacefully, we will resolve all the tasks facing us in the course of the special military operation using armed force.” Russia has also stepped up its attacks in Ukraine in recent days, lobbing missiles at civilian targets in Kyiv.

Trump and Zelenskyy’s press conference is here if you can suppress your breakfast long enough:

To sum up the state of the Ukraine-Russia war: this weekend the president of the United States facilitated yet another round of Kabuki negotiation theater that let him claim, again, that a peace deal is in reach, and also that it wouldn’t be necessary if Sleepy Joe Biden hadn’t RIGGED and STOLEN the 2020 election.

On the other hand, Trump does not seem to have said or done anything that will make the situation worse. With him, that counts as a triumph. Maybe FIFA will give him another peace prize.

[WSJ / The Guardian]

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