Disillusion sets in with regard to Trump on Ukraine
20250616
Professor Gerdes captures my view of Trump’s waffling on Ukraine. Like him, I had had hopes that Trump would allow sanctions and weapons deliveries. It appears he will not. The reasons make no sense. His Secretary of Defense totally waffles. The longtime assertion that Trump is Putin’s bitch does not seem to be off-target.
I sense that Russia is running out of gas and that Ukraine will prevail despite Trump. It could not, however, be that Trump is so confident that he is willing to stand by and let it happen without him. The guys whose analysis seems most accurate at the moment are longtime Trump critics Jason Jay Smart and Denys Davidov. The Russian Dude, who seldom mentions Trump, has some useful insights. Note – these are simply these guys’ latest posts. You subscribe to them to appreciate the breadth of their insights.
My own take is that Russia’s summer offensive will be a non-starter and that Russia will collapse of its own weight, leaving Trump looking rather foolish and irrelevant. But recognize that I’ve been wrong before. A couple of months back I wrote that I expected he would be useful in resolving our situation. He has done nothing but make excuses for Putin.
Here is the view from my bunker in Kyiv. Putin was throwing hundreds of Shaheeds at Ukraine every night, a goodly percentage at Kyiv. His objective is to kill civilians. He is not effective even at that. Though he does a lot of property damage, the number of deaths, heinous as they are, is low relative to the vast amount of munitions he is wasting.
Last night there were two sharp explosions. None of the machine gun fire used to bring down drones. I read in the paper that there is a crater about half a mile from our house. Amazing, they write, nobody was hurt. Coincidentally, Jason Jay Smart writes that Ukraine took out the primary plant at which Russia assembled Shaheed drones from parts imported from Iran, and Israel obliterated the Iranian plants that made the parts as well as the factories at which they are assembled. It may be that we will hear less of them. I expect, given how loud the explosions were and that there was no anti-drone fire, to read that the two loud explosions last night were cruise missiles.
My bottom line is that thanks to Ukraine’s ingenuity, our European allies, and Russia’s blundering we will come through OK. But no thanks to the Donald.
Graham
Eddie bicycled to take a look at the crater in our neighborhood. About as wide as his outstretched arms. The masonry house behind the fence it it remains intact. The wood frame house across the street was blown in a bit.
My take is that it was a KH101 or Iskander cruise missile. A Shaheed warhead would not have left such a big crater and there would have been PPO (anti-aircraft/anti-drone) machine gun fire. The missile was probably hit by PPO or thrown off-target by electronic countermeasures. They would not target our neighborhood.
Very sensible analysis. I share it.
But I never had any expectations as for Trump helping Ukraine against the butcher of Moscow.
Trump shows more and more his disinterest for Ukraine.
He just doesn't care, he wanted a quick solution, for his own personal glory, was ready to implement a profoundly unjust "peace" for the Ukrainian people.
Putin keeps him in his palm, we don't know why but that's what everyone thinks.
For the collapse of his army (and his murderous regime), I would like to believe that it's inevitable. That's the best thing that could happen.