Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during their phone call, March 18, 2025 (Drew Angerer/Gavriil Grigorov/Getty/AFP)
Ukraine War, Day 1,208: Zelensky — Kremlin “Spits in the Face of International Community”
Ukraine War, Day 1,207: Putin’s Birthday Call to Trump
I joined Poland’s TVP World on Monday for a 13-minute analysis of Donald Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Putin continues to reject a ceasefire and insists on his ultimata for Kyiv’s capitulation, I explain why Trump is refusing to put pressure on the Kremlin.
The Trump Administration has some officials, the adults in the room, who are talking about how you can get a ceasefire and how you can get security guarantees for Kyiv.
But Trump is involved in this not for a policy of American security, let alone Ukrainian security, but on a personal level: how can he look good? How can he be the peacemaker or, alternatively, the supporter of war?
We need to be clear-eyed about this. But Trump is not interested in being clear-eyed.
I break down Trump’s phone call with Putin on Saturday. I ask if the “adults in the room”, as well as Republican legislators, can bypass him to obtain tougher sanctions on Russia and support for Ukraine’s resistance.
Hello Scott Lucas,
What’s the leverage over Trump? Trump has 40+ years of Russian mafia-oligarchy dirt under his fingernails.
Media has speculated for years, Clinton & Co. has accused, but the only human being with the absolute power to destroy Trump Inc, Trump’s legacy and to put his dark associations on global public display without dispute..is Putin.
Throw Paul Manaforte in the mixing bowl, with his Russia-Yanukovich-Maidan dirt, his employ under Trump.
Throw in Trump’s cash deals with Russians laundering dirty cash in American real estate, or the oligarchs bailing him out of bankruptcy.
Putin has the “receipts”, as the Kremlin is famous for.
Trump’s life stretched out on an internet petri dish by his buddy Vlad, should Donny piss him off by helping Zelenskiy defeat Putin would be something that Trump couldn’t bury in sarcasm, Russia! Russia! Russia! jokes on Hillary, etc.
He would be nailed ethically, morally, his empire would collapse, and MAGA would have their noses rubbed in it.
Trump is a textbook narcissist. At 79, he would never recover from Putin’s revenge.
DT is throwing Ukraine under the Kremlin’s bus to save his own hide.
The IRS would love to reconcile Trump’s declarations with Putler’s numbers as well. Mostly in cash, by the way.
Just a theory, but something smells rotten in this Putin-Trump bromance.
I think DT has become Putin’s concubine. He’s a sitting US President with a business history involving a member of the Axis of Evil. Forty years!
Wayne,
Many thanks for these thoughts.
S.