In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.
1/24
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.
2/24
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
3/24
Former KGB chief of Kazakhstan Alnur Mussayev even claimed that Trump was recruited by the Soviet Union in 1987 under the codename “Krasnov.” No solid evidence has ever surfaced, but Trump’s actions do look odd given Russia’s relatively limited global influence and power.
4/24
The setup for the Alaska Summit was disastrous from the start. Trump’s favorite real estate agent, Steven Witkoff, went to Moscow with no expertise and not even a proper translator, only to get played again by Kremlin spies who shifted their demands right after the meeting.
5/24
Even the location of the Summit favored Russia, as the state was once part of Russia, sold to the US by a previous Tsar. Russians have been pushing the idea that Alaska should return under Moscow’s rule: welcoming Putin there handed the Kremlin yet another symbolic victory.
6/24
Despite this, some were optimistic, as Trump had promised Ukraine would get all the help needed to defend its civilians & warned there would be “very severe consequences” if Putin refused a ceasefire. Of course, this was a lie, just like the “I’ll end the war in 24 hours”…
7/24
…and the endless “two-week deadlines” he kept giving Putin for months. By now it’s obvious: Trump has no intention of punishing Russia or his dear Putin for their aggression against Ukraine. Russia got exactly what it wanted from the Summit: photo-ops of Putin with Trump…
8/24
…and a starring role on the world stage. But Russia got even more: US soldiers kneeling in front of the Russian plane, rolling out a red carpet for Putin, photos of Putin looking smug while Trump looked tired and defeated, and a press conference where Putin stole the show…
9/24
… as Trump refused to take a single question. The whole fiasco made the US look weak, and even Fox News, Trump’s favorite media outlet, admitted that Putin came to Alaska and “steamrolled” him. After the Summit, Trump went golfing and left Rubio to spin the fiasco.
10/24
Rubio claimed there would be no sanctions on Russia, arguing they’d “interfere” with peace talks and that Putin would just keep the war going if punished. Rubio refused to name any concessions Russia should make, claiming it would “collapse the negotiations.”
11/24
Less than 24 hours later, Trump himself named two, but for Ukraine: no NATO membership, and surrendering Crimea, as he’s been hinting at for two years.
Art of the Deal, or something.
But as always with Trump, one must look at his actions rather than at his words.
12/24
So far, he’s:
– Disbanded US sanctions enforcement
- Cut tracking of kidnapped children
– Blocked aid approved by Congress
– Opposed oil price cap at G7
- Paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine
- Made the US and allies vote against a UN resolution condemning the aggression
13/24
Ironically, the US in general has conversely shown strong support for Ukraine: 83 (out of 100) Senators backed a secondary sanctions bill targeting Russia’s energy sector, demonstrating rare bipartisan unity outside of Trump’s MAGA, and polls show support for Ukraine.
14/24
Trump’s cabinet is packed with vatniks who seem to despise Ukraine and cozy up to Russia: people like JD Vance, Tulsi, and RFK Jr. have refused to condemn the invasion. US foreign policy is hostage to Russia apologists who’d rather treat a brutal empire as ally than enemy.
15/24
And Trump himself can’t wait to start doing business with Russia again. In Alaska, Putin fed him the same old bullshit about the “stolen” 2020 election and downplayed Moscow’s role in 2016, when Trump first won office with a big helping hand from the Kremlin.
16/24
Today, the American president meets Zelenskyy, no red carpet. Several EU leaders will join, but Trump has already said he’ll meet Zelenskyy alone first. It remains to be seen whether the orange man will disrespect him the same way he did in their last White House meeting.
17/24
The real estate magnate Witkoff, meanwhile, suggested that Putin agreed to enact a law stating that Russia would not “go after any other European countries”. In Putin’s Russia, this means nothing and they actually already have such a law in place:
While Trump and European leaders are scrambling to come up with some security guarantees for Ukraine, Russia’s military production is intensifying at an incredible pace, out-producing NATO’s manifold. Russia doesn’t look like a country preparing for peace…
19/24
And we’ve already seen that security assurances or even guarantees mean absolutely nothing: in 1994 the UK, the US, Ukraine and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum & in 2004 Putin confirmed Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty, including Crimea.
All meaningless.
20/24
Trump has even challenged NATO’s Article 5, the cornerstone of the alliance. He’s said he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to allies who don’t spend enough on defense — an open invitation for Putin to test the West’s unity.
21/24
Putin’s goal hasn’t changed and he’s not hiding it: turn Ukraine into a Russian puppet state like Belarus. For him, “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the century” so of course he wants former Soviet states under his control again.
22/24
The Russians were eagerly waiting for Trump’s presidency to hand them the parts of Ukraine they couldn’t seize after three years of fierce fighting. Now Trump wants to give Putin the whole Donbas — a region that would take Russia years to conquer by conventional means.
23/24
So, what will happen? Trump’s so-called “peace plan” is really just Putin’s wish list. The terms will be unbearable for Ukraine, Zelenskyy will refuse, Trump will blame him, the US will sell weapons through NATO, and Trump will quietly start lifting sanctions on Russia.
24/24
The 2nd edition of Vatnik Soup — The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation is out now! 🎉 Use discount code PutinSucks for 20% off.
In this 5th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss something that sounds great in theory, but was completely turned upside-down by the tankie kind of vatnik: anti-imperialism. More consistent anti-imperialists call this the “anti-imperialism of idiots”. 1/5
“Anti-imperialism” was popularized by Lenin, who saw imperialism as the ultimate stage of capitalism. Ironically, the largest empire is now… Putin’s Russia, proud heir to both Lenin’s Soviet Union and to the Tsarist Empire. 2/5
Indeed, Russia is an empire that is still ruled by a de facto all-powerful Tsar, that still proudly flies its imperial flag, that still dreams of expanding its already huge territory through brutal conquest and colonization. 3/5
In this 4th Debunk of the Day, we’ll refute an absolute classic of vatnik BS, the crown jewel of peak dishonesty: whataboutism.
Now, not everything that looks like whataboutism is wrong. Seeking consistency or comparing actions or responses is normal. 1/5
But when someone pulls some completely unrelated event, that happened to completely different people, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, you know what you’re dealing with: a crass denial of the problem at hand, a bad-faith attempt to derail the topic. 2/5
Logic or chronology plays no role here, nor your opinion on these other topics. You could be the staunchest critic or supporter of these other actions thrown into the discussion, it doesn’t matter. It is irrelevant whether these other things are true or not, or bad or not. 3/5
In this 3rd Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about… “ending” the war by surrendering or ceding territory.
Nearing four years of the 2-day “special military operation”, Russia is desperate to obtain through other means what they failed to conquer on the battlefield. 1/5
An endless army of vatniks therefore tries to demoralize both Ukrainians and supporters.
They sound noble: “anti-war” or concerned about the fate of Ukraine’s civilians, soldiers and cities. They claim that if we just stop fighting or helping, this horror would magically end. 2/5
What they never mention is… WHO started the war, WHO murders Ukrainians, WHO destroys Ukrainian cities: the same monsters they suggest Ukrainians be at the mercy of. Surrendering wouldn’t end the atrocities of the occupation, it would enable them. Surrendering wouldn’t even…3/5
In today’s Debunk of the Day (2), we’ll look at… nuclear blackmail. Vatniks love using Russia’s nuclear threats as a reason for surrendering or for not lifting a finger to help Ukraine: “see, they have nukes, we have to give them whatever they want”.
The argument is absurd: 1/5
Nuclear deterrence has been a reality for decades. Both the US and Russia have lost wars without resorting to nukes. We are not submitting to the whims of Pakistan or North Korea either. For vatniks, it’s just an insidious way of siding with Putin. 2/5
We can’t just give in to the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail, to the threats their officials and propagandists make five times a day to scare us into letting them have something they know perfectly well is not theirs, with no limit to their appetite. 3/5 vatniksoup.com/en/nuclear-thr…
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce a Ukrainian “scholar” and social media activist, Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta). She’s best known for spreading anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin narratives online, along with a habit of spotting neo-Nazis everywhere in Ukraine.
1/20
Marta hails from Ukraine, where she studied history at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. She received her PhD in history in 2010. Her academic work focused on gender-based violence and wartime atrocities, including publications on sexual crimes in occupied Ukraine.
2/20
She is currently working as a visiting Assistant Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Clark University in the US. According to the center’s website, Marta teaches courses on antisemitism, racism, and gender-based violence in armed conflicts.
In today’s (first) Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about… “realistic expectations”.
Russia has the GDP of Italy. NATO — which Russia claims to be fighting — has 20 times their GDP, and a much stronger and more modern military. 1/5
Russia’s full scale invasion was supposed to take 2 days, but we’re nearing 4 years. They’ve lost a million men. Their economy is in shambles.
And yet we're letting them set their red lines instead of massive sanctions, strong support for Ukraine, and an immediate sky shield. 2/5
Russia thought their war was “realistic” because we’d let them get away with it. It wouldn’t be “realistic” to invade a European nation and redraw borders by force if the West had a strong and united response.
What’s “realistic” is what public opinion tolerates and accepts. 3/5