I feel very sad for Ukraine.
When Russia first invaded that country in 2022, Americans were massively sympathetic. Everyone had that blue and yellow Ukrainan flag all over our timelines, remember? The moral imperative seemed so obvious. Russia had invaded them after all, and we were sticking up for the little guy.
That was back when we saw what we saw with our own eyes, and believed it. Back before social media posts and podcasters started telling us what to think. On both Right and Left, apologists for Putin soon started popping up with their revisionist history of the conflict. Even our President stated the astounding lie that Ukraine had started the war.
Leaders all over Europe are grasping their head in their hands today, as the United States has unveiled a 28-point peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war. The plan was hashed out between Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s envoy, and Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff during a meeting in Miami. Europe and Ukraine were excluded from the discussions. The President would like Zelensky to sign the deal by Thanksgiving.
The plan calls for Ukraine to give up the eastern Donbas region, even areas it currently controls. It also demands Ukraine shrink the size of its army by 25%. It prohibits the deployment of European peacekeepers, and demands that Kyiv relinquish long-range weapons. Oh yes, and it must not join Nato. So there’s an insistence that Nato not move East, but nothing but weak “security guarantees” to assure Russia will not move West. What is Russia asked to give up in the plan? Basically nothing. The deal is little more than its own talking points.
There has been a major corruption scandal in Ukraine recently. It doesn’t touch Zelensky personally, but still weakens him given that it involves those around him. That is nothing, however, compared to the corruption which defines every aspect of Putin’s world. War is dirty business, and it can definitely be argued that there needed to be a deal. But it didn’t need to be this deal. It didn’t need to be cake and candy for Russia and a cup of poison for Ukraine. With this move, America has definitively severed our moral if not political allegiance to the interests of the Western Alliance.
Trump doesn’t like Zelensky. Trump likes Putin, and they’re been sitting under a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g for quite a few years now. Putin thinks the break up of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In essence, and as usual, Trump stands behind him yelling, “Yeah! Yeah!”
“Oh Donald you, you drive me crazy when you touch me that way.” There I go again, fantasizing the Kremlin’s reaction to the President’s plan. In fact, it was probably something far more sober. More like, “Thank you, Donald. Well done.”
After reading its details, Zelensky gave a speech to his nation. He said it was the most difficult moment in the country’s history, with Ukraine having to now decide between keeping its national dignity or risk the United States giving Moscow full support for ending the war on its terms. The choice is brutal. While Zelensky claims the deal leaves Ukraine “without freedom, dignity and justice,” Trump threatens to cut vital intelligence sharing and weapons supplies if he fails to agree to it. What appalled Ukrainian and European leaders call “capitulation” and “outrageous,” Trump calls the art of the deal.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, warned that the deal rewards invasion and sets “a very dangerous global precedent.“ She pointed out, “If you just give in to the aggression, then you invite more aggression,” and countries from Poland to the Baltic states are asking, “My God, what do we do now?”
Putin could be seen salivating from afar.
Trump most assuredly will not change his mind. He wants to get this war over with and principles never stand in his way. The never-ending mystery of Trump’s relationship with Putin is something none of us can decipher, but one thing we can know for sure is that for the people of Ukraine it’s going to be an extremely dark and painful winter. The Ukrainian people didn’t deserve this. Russian soldiers didn’t deserve this. Nor did Americans deserve a President who abandons the West, so that those who oppose us can have their way.
This is, or at least should be, painful for us all.
Does anyone else want to lose their shit just as soon as they see/read/hear that the United States and whatever other country they are making decisions about, is a country that is not their own? That those in the countries, such as Palestine or Ukraine, are left out of the decision-making and governing process, because why?? it’s just astonishing, if not mind-boggling, but this is an everyday worldly practice. I’m sorry… It’s archaic and has to stop. Colonization by supposed “world leaders “needs to come to an end. I’m ready for the meekest of leaders in the world to become the decision makers of the world. It’s time to put the oligarchs out of business.
The hideous 28-Point Capitulation Plan needs to be opposed with the same vigor that the American people have shown for opposing the Gaza travesty and for opposing the move towards autocracy in this country. Putin will not stop at the border with Moldova and Poland, any more than Hitler stopped after Sudentenland and Gdansk. That Putin is in the winter of his life makes the situation that much more dire-He is desperate to fulfill what he sees as a legacy-and mark my words, Berlin is in his sights.