Trump, Putin, and Ukraine: Now Comes the Hard Part

I have been writing about Ukraine since 2014 (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-ukraine-what-is-to-be-done.html ) and as recently as last March. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2025/03/shame.html ) Yesterday’s White House summit meeting with European leaders and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky reversed the very negative vibes set off by Friday’s Trump-Putin Alaska summit where it was feared that Trump was about to sell out Ukraine. The conversations were both serious and friendly and it seems that there was a real reproachment between Trump and Zelensky.

 

However, the hard part is now ahead of us. It remains to be seen whether or not Putin will actually meet with Zelensky. Today Switzerland offered up its good offices as a meeting site. Should that happen, it would open the way for a trilateral summit with Trump, Putin, and Zelensky.

 

What has to be ironed out is the precise border between Ukraine and the Russian held provinces. That border would have to be defensible, which means that the current Ukrainian position in the Donetsk region would have to be maintained, something that Russia is opposed to. Another question is what the European security guarantee would cover.  For example, would it include troops on ground, air support and rebuilding assistance? Perhaps more important what would be the modalities of the United States’ role as security coordinator. Would it include intelligence sharing, military hardware, and air support? Although Trump has ruled out combat troops, would it allow for support troops involved in training. And don’t forget Putin has a vote in all of this.

 

Nevertheless, for the first time since the war started over three years ago there is a pathway to a settlement. It certainly won’t be perfect because Putin’s aggression would be rewarded, but it will enable Ukraine to be a viable and prosperous state. Remember, diplomacy is the art of the possible.

Trump and the New Hitler-Stalin Pact

In the early morning hours of August 24th,1939 Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop entered into a pact that would ratify the division of Poland and the ceding of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Bessarabia to the Soviets. The press would soon call it the Hitler-Stalin Pact that enabled Germany to invade Poland on September 1st and Soviet Russia to invade three weeks later. 

Today President Trump, echoing Russian propaganda, called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" and accused him of starting the war in Ukraine, a complete lie. Put bluntly, Trump has thrown Ukraine under the bus. My guess is that Putin called in all his cronies and broke out the vodka in celebration of a new Hitler-Stalin Pact. And to put icing on the cake for Putin, Defense Secretary Hegseth announced substantial budget cuts for the Pentagon.  Instead of dividing Poland, Trump and Putin are setting the predicate for the division of Ukraine. The result in 1939 was a World War. I fear a Trump-Putin condominium will lead to a similar result. 

For previous posts on Ukraine, see for example: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-ukraine-what-is-to-be-done.html and https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2022/03/mr-zelinskyy-goes-to-washington-via-zoom.html.

My Review of Bob Woodward's "War"

Biden’s Wars

Washington Post writer Bob Woodward has chronicled every president since Bill Clinton. In this book he focuses on Biden’s three wars, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Gaza. Unfortunately, he fails to discuss the most electorally significant war that was a result of Biden’s open border policy. Although not characterized as a war, the invasion/arrival of 10 million illegal/undocumented immigrants at our southern border seemed like a war to those Americans living in the Southwest and later to those living in the cities where they were bussed to. 

Woodward glances over the debacle in Afghanistan where Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from that country permanently reduced his poll standing. I have yet to see who was fired for allowing this to happen.

Biden initially does much better with Ukraine. Here we witness the actions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin seamlessly performing as a team. Of course, it is my guess that those three were Woodward’s sources for what happened. Benefitting from excellent intelligence the team warns Putin and notifies Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia was about to invade. The public release of the intelligence was unprecedented, and it helped prepare Ukraine and the American people for what was to lie ahead.

Contrary to expectations in the West, Ukraine survived the initial Russian assault and then began a counter offensive aided by U.S. weaponry. It is here where the Biden team fails. Instead of going all-in with all kinds of offensive weapons, the team dilly-dallies preventing Ukraine from pressing its advantage. As a result, the stalemate we have now ensues. The Biden rationale for going slowly was the fear that Russia might introduce nuclear weapons into the conflict. Although plausible, we don’t have any Russian sources to back this conjecture up.

After the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, Biden goes all-in in support of Israel, and he visits the country a few weeks after. However, after the casualties start rising in Gaza the administration starts going soft. This is highlighted in the July 1924 meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris, now a presidential candidate, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While being supportive and diplomatic with Netanyahu in private, she stuns the Israelis with a very strong public statement critical about how Israel is fighting the war and the casualties in Gaza it is causing. That along with a slowdown in certain arms deliveries to Israel, highlighted the growing breach between the Biden White House and Netanyahu.

In all three cases it seems to me that Biden’s strategy was to “end wars” not to win them. (See:  https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2024/05/joe-no-win-biden.html) This strategy ended in disaster in Afghanistan, and it is certainly not helping in Ukraine and Gaza.

There were two widely reported scoops coming out of Woodward’s book. The first being that Trump supplied Putin with Covid testing kits when they were scarce in the U.S. and second Army Chief of Staff Milley calling Trump a fascist. There was third one, not so widely reported where Biden demonstrated significant mental decline at a Silicon Valley fundraiser in June 2023, a year before his disastrous debate performance. The country would have been saved a lot of anguish if this were reported earlier.

Woodward’s book is a helpful guide to understanding the Biden years, but it is far from definitive. We learn more as his staffers write their own memoirs in the years to come.

A Simple Way of Looking At the Trump/Ukraine Scandal

President Trump's and his administration's dealings with Prime Minister Zelensky can be characterized as an extortion plot that went awry. In exchange for allowing the congressionally authorized  $391 million of desperately needed military aid to go through, Trump requested that Zelensky announce and follow through on a corruption investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter. If Zelensky followed through the Trump campaign would have received a huge boost, literally worth millions of dollars, against his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

This sounds complicated, but it really isn't. Let's assume that instead of asking for "dirt" on the Bidens, Trump instead asked for a $5 million personal kickback. That would be extortion pure and simple as Trump would be skimming something off the top of the military aid package for his very own benefit. That is exactly what Trump tried to do with his attempted extortion of Zelensky. Instead of getting cash he was asking for an in-kind campaign contribution. If that is not impeachable, nothing is.

Only the Beginning in the Trump/Ukraine Scandal

Triggered by a whistle-blower complaint, all hell has broken loose over the past two weeks as President Trump's extortion of Ukraine President Zelensky was revealed. Trust me this is only the beginning. My guess is that in the coming weeks we will hear from two very senior officials. The first one being the bane of liberals, fired national security adviser and uber-hawk John Bolton. Recall that Bolton has already been publicly critical of Trump's North Korea policy. My guess is that his lawyers are already in discussion with House Intelligence Committee staffers.

The second figure will be Fiona Hill, who recently resigned from the National Security Council staff. There she ran the "Russia Desk" and earlier wrote a biography on Vladimir Putin entitled "Operative in the Kremlin" that was previously reviewed on these pages. (https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2019/07/my-amazon-review-of-fiona-hill-and.html) Bolton and Hill were in up to their eyeballs in Trump's dealings with both Russia and Ukraine. As they used to say in mob movies, they will sing arias before the congressional committees.

Their testimony will be important because if the House votes to impeach as it is likely to do, the Senate does not have to hold a trial. All it will take is 50 votes plus Vice President Mike Pence to acquit at the outset. Bolton, Hill and others will be necessary to make an air tight case that will force at least four Republican senators to vote with the Democrats to prevents an early acquittal.