Weekend Update #122: Trump Opens His Mouth and Putin Comes Out
Also, The Ukrainian Military Is In Better Shape Than Reported: European Immediate Reactions--Still Mixed
Hello All,
In some ways something completely expected (or something that should have been completely expected) happened this week and everyone acted shocked. Donald Trump revealed that he was entirely in lock-step with Vladimir Putin during his Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Trump shared Putin’s thoughts, spoke Putin’s words, made Putin’s clumsy threats—all as if Putin was speaking from him. It was in some ways the most predictable thing in the world—the more shocking thing was that people seemed shocked.
This update will concentrate on just how Trump was speaking Putin’s words, to make it (I hope) finally clear just how completely the US President is aligned with the Russian dictator. It will show that he speaks those words even when the situation in the war itself shows that they are deeply compromised. It will also provide the final possible test for Europe to move forward and look after itself. If people start talking about trying to change Trump’s mind to make Zelensky try to patch up his relationship with Trump—it is a sign that they have no idea of the real state of play.
Trump Opens His Mouth and Putin Comes Out
Trump’s backers like to claim that he is a shrewd and tough negotiator—art of the deal, New York City property developer stuff. They have used this excuse to explain away his pre-negotiations concessions to Putin—they were supposedly some brilliant step to try and ease the way to a deal.
However, what we say in the Oval Office was Trump actually not negotiating with Zelensky, but actually speaking Putin’s case with Putin’s outlook. Moreover, Trump got upset when Zelensky refused to agree with his Putin-aligned arguments, as if he was offended that anyone might not side with him and Vladimir.
I put together this free piece yesterday which has the whole video of the encounter and a transcript of the key remarks. I will only show a few examples here but you can see/read everything in this post (which is free for all)
If you go into the transcript a little more closely you will see just how Trump identifies with Putin and shares his world-view. Indeed, the Trump-Putin agreement has three main elements.
First: what is the key point that Trump stresses over and over—that Ukraine is weak, Ukraine is losing the war, or in his mind-numbingly stupid phrase, that Ukraine has “no cards”. It is remarkable how obsessive Trump is about this. Just some examples
Trump: You right now are not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having the cards.
Trump: …Your country is in big trouble. No, no, you’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.
Trump: You’re not winning this.
Trump: You’re buried there. Your people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers. No, listen … And then you tell us, ‘I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire. I want to go and I want this.’
Trump has adopted the Russian talking point that Ukraine is on the ropes and cant win. Now, admittedly that has been a huge part of the western reporting over the past year (shamefully as I tried to say in this piece released last week).
However, that narrative is finally being challenged. Russian advances have slowed markedly, their casualties are enormous, and the Ukrainian military seems to be making some better choices on how to fight attritional warfare against the less efficient Russian military. However if Trump is being fed that information (and its hard to say because he pays little attention to the details of the job), he has chosen to ignore it in favor of the Putin-inspired narrative of Ukraine being on the ropes.
Second: US support for Ukraine is beneficence for which Ukraine should prostrate itself in thanks. Now the Biden administration did (revoltingly) say a few times that Ukraine should show more gratitude for the aid that the US has bestowed to it. However, Trump and Vance took this to the pathological level in the White House. The comments about this were incessant.
Trump, speaking over Zelenskyy: You haven’t been alone … We gave you military equipment. Your men are brave, but they had our military. If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
Trump: You’re not acting at all thankful. And that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest, that’s not a nice thing.
And Vance actually combined the false Ukraine is losing narrative with the call for more obeisance from Zelensky.
Vance: Mr President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the frontlines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president.
Vance: Just say thank you.
So basically these kinds of demands feed two Russian talking points. The first is that Ukraine is not strong enough to survive without US aid. The second is that Ukraine has basically been a proxy for the west in its war. Its also a key element in the Putin-attempt to drive a wedge between MAGA and Ukraine. They want Ukraine to be seen as some aid scrounger that is sucking up US money and being ungrateful (this is a regular Trump talking point straight from Moscow). It ignores the points that the vast percentage of US aid is spent in the US helping the US military.
Third: Putin is the reasonable person in the negotiations who wants a deal, its the Ukrainians who are obstructionist. This is a regular talking point—it happened during the exchange with Zelensky in other parts of the press conference (see these excerpts).
Trump (responding to a reporter): …You see the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred. And I understand that. But I can tell you the other side isn’t exactly in love with him either.
Vice President JD Vance: I will respond to this. So look, for four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin. And then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy
So in a very short period of time—just a few minutes, the US President and Vice-President basically rained down a litany of (deliberately dishonest) Putin talking points on Zelensky to try and bully the Ukrainian into doing something Zelensky clearly did not. The were not “negotiating” they were litigating for Putin.
One final thing (will write more about this later)—this disagreement was not about the minerals deal, nor was it some accident. It was concocted by the Trump administration to try and show up Zelensky (who Trump has been trying hard to get rid of for a while) and the Ukrainian president refused. That it was far more than the mineral deal was admitted by Trump in the quote where he shows anger that Zelensky was not agreeing to the cease fire terms. Its this one (sorry for the repetition).
Trump: You’re buried there. Your people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers. No, listen … And then you tell us, ‘I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire. I want to go and I want this.’
And there we have it. The US government which was always going to align with Putin once Trump became president, has shown exactly where it stands. It is basically an institution for regurgitating Putin’s talking points.
Can people please, please, stop trying to force Ukraine to somehow try to work things out with Trump. He wishes ill on Ukraine and will do everything he can to help Putin.
Please face facts.
The Ukrainian Military is in Better Shape Than Reported.
Mykola Bielieskov and I do discuss this in more detail in the podcast, so instead of simply repeating that, I thought I would refer to one situation to show just how the situation is far better today than the analytical community and press was assuming in early 2024. They is is the situation at Chasiv Yar.
Chasiv Yar reveals the terrible hypocrisy in war reporting and analysis that we have seen. Here was the reporting in the Spring of 2024—Chasiv Yar was strategically important and on the verge of being captured by Russia (which would be a Ukrainian disaster). The following Washington Post story was prophesying doom.
Putin is riding high after a March election decried by Western governments as flawed that delivered him at least six more years in power and the battlefield advances in Ukraine, and he is brimming with confidence ahead of his inauguration on Tuesday and the Victory Day parade two days after.
With Ukraine still hampered by weapons and personnel shortages, Russian forces are besieging the strategically important town of Chasiv Yar, an elevated location that could open the way to further advances.
Well, guess what, here we are 9 months later, and Ukraine still controls a great deal of Chasiv Yar (and of course the media is strangely silent about the town). Here was the map on the day that story was published in May 2024.
Since then Russian forces have advanced fewer than 3 miles (again at massive cost). Here is the map today and I put a ruler from Chasiv Yar to Bakhmut (from which the Ukrainians withdrew in March 2023). In two years the Russians have advanced fewer than 10 miles in this front.
That the Ukrainians have held here well and exacted such a toll on the Russians is an indication that they are in better shape than certainly Trump and Vance are saying-and the media let on in 2024. Are they in great shape?No. They need weapons and support—but the Ukrainians are holding well for now and its the Russians who are suffering casualties at a rate that is damaging their operations.
Ukraine can win the war—as always the question is whether we want it to. Sadly, in this case Europe without the USA is the only “we” in town.
Europe Responds To the Trump Ambush
Up until the moment that Trump and Vance tried to humilitate Zelensky in the Oval Office, much of the general European narrative was about how best to find a way to work with Trump to support Ukraine—to “build bridges” as it was said.
This has always been a delusion—though cleverly Trump/Putin always gave it enough false hope to lead Europeans down the garden path enough into thinking it was possible. With the dressing down in the White House, however, you would hope the most optimistic voices about working with Trump will come to their senses.
So far, its too early to say.
I was not entirely pleased with UK Prime Minister Starmer’s phrase yesterday that the UK will stick with Ukraine “for as long as it may take”. Not only is this an eerie echo of the already deeply discredited Biden Administration policy of supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes”, the Starmer position crucially does not define “it”. Its still too mealy-mouthed.
Of course it was better than NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (and former Dutch PM) who spoke about Zelensky needing to try and “restore” his relationship with Trump. Its a terrible choice of words. Now, I know that as NATO SG, he has different perspectives—but to put the onus on Zelensky, gets this completely wrong. Trump is a stand-in for Putin, and Rutte would sound ridiculous asking Zelensky to restore his relationship with the Russian dictator. We can only hope it wont be repeated.
Now there are other positive signs from those who understand the stakes involved. On February 28, EU Foreign Affairs head Kaja Kallas made the obvious yet hopefully stinging point for Americans, that Europe needs a new “leader of the free world” as Trump is clearly not that.
Note—I wonder if Kallas reads this substack as I made that point on Feb 21—and meant every word of it.
So we are getting mixed signs. In the end, I have a hunch that much will be determined by what the new German government does. If Friedrich Merz can be as good as his rhetoric, Europe might actually come together in a coherent way. If not, Europe will fail and go out with a whimper not a bang.
Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.
Politico eu had an important article a couple of days ago about the house of cards that is the russian economy. We'll worth a read. Ukraine needs to stay strong this year. The end for russias war is closer than people realize.
PS watch their gold reserves shrink!
Phillips, another useful analysis, thank you.
I agree that Starmer needs to up his game and make it clear that UK support will continue until Ukraine defeats Russia in battle and restores its 1991 International borders. However, the UK has been so integrated with the US since WWII, disconnecting our security links will take time but I do fear that Starmer's view is that the UK will act as a bridge to the US and so he will be cautious. Unfortunately, Starmer needs to accept that the US is now unreliable and we need to start forging closer links with Europe and that may start this afternoon in London when the heavy hitters arrive. Merz and Germany are key and I hope that Starmer finds his spine amongst like minded leaders but I will note that Macron also contacted Trump after the Oval Office ambush.
I agree Trump is now just a mouthpiece for Putin and both Ukraine and Europe need to plan for no more US assistance and even making contingencies for the US actively joining the axes of evil. If that does happen that could be the lightening rod which finally shows Europe how far Trump is willing to descend to the dark side. Sadly we are not there yet.
Merz has the potential to really impact Europe's future approach and I hope that he grasps the enormity of this very unstable situation and puts the full economic might of Germany behind Ukraine and provides the necessary leadership to inspire other nations to up their support.
Pres Z was very inspiring in the Oval Office. Stoic, resilient and was not backing down which seemed to wind Trump up further but just showed how thin-skinned that mofo is. The coordination with the media was quite something and unless they really are that stupid it was clear that this was a set up and they were not even trying to hide it. Pres Z has throughout this maintained his decorum but I'm sure he is fuming and will prepare Ukraine to continue the fight without the US and as you say it's now over to Europe. Will they step up?
I know you are sceptical that Europe will do the right thing, but I am confident that they will. Whether they disconnect from the US is another matter but I think Trump will help them when he introduces tarrifs to not only the EU but also the UK which I think Vance is pushing. Look for a statement in the House from Starmer on Monday, that may give us an idea as to his current line of thinking.