Zelensky is a wartime leader watching his people suffer and die under Russian attacks every day. To be lectured and lied to by Trump and Vance, as they defend the war criminal dictator committing these atrocities, is unimaginable agony. An everlasting shame for America.
All Ukraine advocates have tried to give the new Trump admin time in good faith despite the clear pro-Kremlin track record of Trump, Musk, and others. But today's performance demolished that hope. It could have been choreographed by Putin himself, and perhaps it was.
This was an ambush, but Trump isn't reliable so Vance got the task of provoking Zelensky. Zelensky could ignore personal attacks, but won't allow the suffering of Ukrainians to be diminished by the likes of Vance, who had no reason to be there other than to perform sabotage.
Zelensky's manner, clothes, language, etc. are just chaff to ignore. Trump is an old reality show host who is mostly concerned about keeping his personal ratings high, and his comment about this making "great TV'" confirm it. Vance was the antagonist, by design.
No US Russia or Ukraine policy was ever going to be made or changed today. That is the only conclusion if a buffoon like Vance is permitted to yap and derail a meeting between the US president and a world leader. The UN vote with Russia was the real signal; this was noise.
It was useful at least in beating that truth into the heads of deluded European leaders who were still hoping Trump hadn't joined forces with Putin's Russia. The excuses are over. NATO is over. Europe's race to unite & arm itself and Ukraine is truly begun.
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What is the red line for the Republican Senate at this point? Just keep voting with Trump where they have authority and complain about him on things where they don't? Bongino appt on same day as voting with Russia & North Korea on UN motion. And?
At some point, they will have to act if they actually believe in anything and if they want to have any say in stopping Trump's increasingly urgent and treasonous actions. Voting for all his nominees then whining on Twitter about his embracing Russia is pathetic.
Trump's politicization of the DOJ & Joint Chiefs increasingly looks more like Putinization. They couldn't find one qualified active general? Not one FBI veteran they could trust? It's a middle finger, a display of power and loyalty test. Congress is making itself irrelevant.
Lies are loyalty tests. Like when Trump says the 2020 election was stolen and his sycophants won't contradict him. Everyone knows Russia started this war and invaded Ukraine. Twice! But Trump bows his head to Putin like a whimpering dog and repeats his master's lies.
Trump attacks Zelensky, a heroic wartime leader defending his nation, by repeating bullshit and slander handed to him by a terrorist KGB dictator who has been turning Russia into a gulag and invading his neighbors for 25 years.
Let us hear from all the Republican Senators who are okay with this, who are happy about Trump throwing American allies and interests under a Russian bus for nothing.
I've been telling my European friends here in Munich, you can either write history or be in the dustbin of history. The outcome is unclear. The EU was designed to avoid making decisions and now must make critical ones quickly.
80 years ago, American power was needed to demilitarize Germany in order to defend the values of the free world. Today, German militarization is required to defend those same values from American power!
US policy is run by an old reality TV star who is having a good time getting attention and a billionaire making his own business deals. You almost feel sorry for Kellogg and other US officials here, having to check Twitter every 10 min to see if the official line has changed.
This is accurate. Understanding what Putin actually wants versus what his propaganda & puppets say is vital. He needs constant conflict to distract from his failed dictatorship. He wants to destroy the Ukrainian nation for its resources and Russian empire. Act accordingly.
Western so-called leaders spread refuted myths about Russia’s motivations and Putin’s "legitimate concerns" because otherwise they would have to face the reality that there’s no way he will stop unless they stop him. Which they don’t want to do because they are cowards.
The same dynamic happened with MH17 and every other blatant act of Russian terror and aggression. Litvinenko, Aleppo, Nemtsov, Bucha, Mariupol. Find excuses not to act; cover up Russian crimes better than Russia itself does. If you admit the truth, you would have to act.
How do you know Putin wants the war to continue? Because every day he chooses to continue the unprovoked war he started. Every day he chooses to kill more innocent Ukrainians. It’s that simple. He can stop it at any time, Zelensky cannot. Ukraine cannot.
Meeting a murderous aggressor halfway in the name of some half-baked "fairness" or deal is catastrophic. Don’t equate the attacker and the attacked. Don’t reward invasion unless you want to encourage more of it. The invader doesn’t deserve or need anything except punishment.
It’s a soft, failed idea from the soft, failed managers masquerading as Western leaders to say that both sides in such a situation should "give a little" or "be realistic". Fuck off. Defend yourselves by defending Ukraine.
Putin's speech in 2005 was the basis of my formulation that while routinely dictators lie about everything they have done, they are often forthright about what they want to do. A mistake people & free world leaders often make is they prefer not to believe them. My article:
"In Putin’s eyes–and we must now see it through his eyes, because we have allowed him to turn his vision into reality–we are currently fighting World War IV: the West against global authoritarianism. World War III was the Cold War, and Putin has not accepted that the USSR lost."
Putin laid out his geopolitical vision for expansion, adding the infamous line about the fall of the USSR being the worst catastrophe of the 20th century. He wallowed in the usual WWII glorification, omitting Stalin's collaboration with Hitler and subjugation of E Europe.