Donald Trump has had another one of his ‘good conversations’ with Vladimir Putin, this time to commiserate over Ukraine’s drone raid that destroyed dozens of Russian heavy bombers across four airfields on Sunday. Trump wrote on Truth Social that their 75-minute call was a ‘good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace’. Then, sounding more like the Kremlin’s press secretary than the President of the United States, Trump relayed Putin’s plan to retaliate against Ukraine.
‘We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides,’ Trump wrote, as though those very same planes hadn’t bombed Ukraine for the last three years. ‘President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,’ Trump continued, as if it were Kyiv who struck the first blow. Trump then abruptly pivoted to Iran, saying that Putin will help the US conclude its nuclear talks, as if Russia hasn’t been in an active partnership with Tehran, receiving drones and ballistic missiles to kill Ukrainian civilians.
For a brief moment, Trump’s post vanished from Truth Social. Ukrainians might have thought that he’d felt some shame only for it to reappear, unchanged. No follow-up messages about a ceasefire, no more ‘Vladimir, STOP!’ calls. The absence of any objection to Russia targeting Ukrainian cities ‘in response’ to Kyiv striking Russian military sites is remarkable. Instead of seizing on Putin’s vulnerability to extract concessions as a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet was just taken out, Trump is choosing to endorse Russian retaliation. As to confirm this, the US embassy has issued a warning today about the growing risk of large-scale Russian attacks, urging US citizens to be prepared to shelter.
This comes just days after Trump admitted to protecting Russia from ‘REALLY BAD’ things that, in his words, would have already happened if it weren’t for him. ‘Putin is playing with fire,’ Trump warned last week after the Kremlin once again rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine. It was a feeble threat, unworthy of an American president, and one that Putin clearly didn’t take seriously. Over the weekend, he launched more than 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine. Some of the bombers Ukraine destroyed on Sunday were loaded with cruise missiles, ready for another wave of strikes. More attacks are to follow, but the Russian military now has fewer jets to carry them out.
As if to water down his post, Trump soon reposted a Washington Post article suggesting that Congress could give him leverage by passing the Sanctioning Russia Act – a bipartisan bill with 82 co-sponsors. The problem is, senators have repeatedly said they are waiting for Trump’s approval to move it forward. That approval has never come. What Trump has attempted here is to shift responsibility for the deaths to come in Ukraine off his own shoulders and onto someone else’s. But this strategy won’t work forever. As Volodymyr Zelensky put it in his evening address: ‘If the powerful do not stop Putin, it means they share responsibility with him.’
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