You can’t dismiss Ukraine’s fabled corruption as a motive for both European and American politicians’ desire to keep the Ukraine-Russia war going. From Martin Jay at strategic-culture.su:
Team Trump now knows that the Europeans are more transfixed with keeping the war going than finding a solution.
The Ukraine war continues to be a kaleidoscope of half-truths and deception with, in particular, the West doing more than its fair share to stir the pot and fan the flames of more smokescreens each day. Trump is perhaps the biggest bluffer here with his recent role of playing chief negotiator with both his Alaska meeting with Putin followed by his ‘round table’ of EU leaders. The former was logical, rational and productive as it was a starter’s pistol for a closer dialogue with Russia, acknowledging Moscow’s power and prestige; the latter was really a charade carried out by Trump to continue to pretend to be the most powerful person in the whole circus, demonstrating to the whole world what a pathetic new low Europe has become in the shake-up of the new multipolar world order. Was Trump playing the Europeans like a fiddle? More than most can understand. He masterly creates a forum of dialogue with his Oscar-winning performance of a mediator who listens earnestly to their views. But the objective from Trump was clear: make it look like a real process of discussion and diplomacy is underway while all along the bigger plan is for Trump to do absolutely nothing to get a peace deal – or at least one which he can take the credit for.
Trump does want a peace deal, but he is rapidly becoming wiser to the realities that the two sides are so far apart on the key issues, that the chances of it happening are even more remote than in April 2022. Since the Alaska meeting, Team Trump has shifted. It now knows that the Europeans are more transfixed with keeping the war going than finding a solution to break the cycle of conflict which, without a shadow of doubt, is going Russia’s way. There may be some division within the camp of EU leaders but ultimately, the Europeans still believe they have a chance to turn the tables around and gain ground on the battlefield. They are banking on nothing major happening in the next 7 or 8 weeks when the rain comes and tanks and armoured trucks cannot move so easily. Of course they are anxious to buy time which is why the German chancellor pushed for the ceasefire option, which is not fooling the Kremlin one bit.
The interesting thing is that Trump is humouring them. It’s as though he believes the outcome for peace will come much faster when the battlefield landscape has changed once again in Russia’s favour (when Pokrovsk falls) and that it is better to position himself closer to Putin than to America’s traditional allies. He has told them that security guaranties that they would insist upon which need to be there from the U.S. could be provided, but in reality this is just an illusion as Trump knows full well it is unlikely that Putin would agree to this and even more unlikely that Trump would put U.S. boots on the ground given the problems he is having with his MAGA base – who voted for him to do precisely the opposite with U.S. soldiers around the world. His advisors might well have even told him that U.S. soldiers in Ukraine could be a liability and too dangerous an option. They might go from being a tripwire to actually being a catalyst to start a war with Russian forces and the idea that Trump would gamble with this is far-fetched at best.
Asking Ursula to leave was a Boss move.
Vintage Cracker Jacks box for that Nobel Prize that bathhouse Barry got.
Meloni? Oh so lovely.