The saving grace for humanity may be that he’s old.
I’m not talking about Donald Trump, although I could be. Rather, I’m talking about Vladimir Putin, who it’s safe to say wishes he didn’t waste so much time trying to feign assimilation into the world order he’s now bent on disrupting and, ultimately, destroying. Maybe it’s not too late for local adventurism, but compared to Putin, Adolph Hitler was a spring chicken when he set about conquering Europe.
A common misconception about Putin says he was always bent on his current trajectory. I don’t necessarily buy it. I think he started out thinking he’d be exactly the sort of leader he was until 2014, but was tempted by the amount of rope the West afforded. The more he got away with, the bolder he became. During the pandemic, Putin, perhaps suffering from some manner of delirium, had a “now or never” epiphany vis-à-vis a latent tsarist-imperial fantasy.
Right up until 2014 — and in some respects even after Crimea — the West looked the other way as it related to Putin’s myriad transgressions, convinced that head-on confrontation wasn’t inevitable. Very much contrary to his victimhood narrative, Putin was given enormous leeway in the interest of keeping the peace. The UK, for example, let him carry out a wildly brazen extra-territorial assassination campaign in London and its suburbs on the tacit notion that despite the theater, the Kremlin’s feud with Boris Berezovsky and his associates was actually an “internal” matter for Russia.
I could go on. Suffice to say the West went out of its way, and then some, to give Putin everything he wanted. He could’ve ruled Russia as a klepto-autocrat (nobody cared that his elections were farcical, nor that he claimed for the state the national wealth that rightfully belongs to the citizenry), assassinated all the dissidents he wanted (that wasn’t a big deal until he accidentally poisoned a couple of bystanders while trying to kill the Skripals), kept his pet warlords and private armies and even encroached occasionally in the internal affairs of regional backwaters in support of Russia-inclined separatists. Again: Nobody really cared. That was the cost of an in-the-fold Russia, and it was more than worth it. Or so everyone thought.
In the end, it wasn’t enough for Putin. About a decade ago, he started to push the boundaries. Meeting little in the way of serious resistance, he saw an opportunity to be “more” than the man he was during his first 15 years in power (despite being already plenty), and he began to stand up NATO as the fall guy for a bid to reconstitute an empire.
Of course, NATO never posed a threat to Russia’s territorial sovereignty. It’s the other way around, as evidenced by recent events. Of all the Kremlin’s absurdist narratives, that’s probably the silliest. For one thing, Russia’s impregnable. If readers will forgive the lapse into a colloquial cadence, ain’t nobody tryin’ to go in there and fight those hard-drinking, heavy smokers to the death in their villages and houses. For what? Why in the God’s name would comfortable, lazy, rich, hard currency-issuing nations want to drop everything and go invade Russia? What kind of sense does that make? That alone should dispense with Putin’s “NATO as a threat” charade.
Beyond that — and with apologies to everyday Russians — nobody wants that country, and especially not the US. Dear Russia: Your culture’s fantastic (sincerely, it is), we like your literature and your ballets are world-class. And sure, we’d take the gas, the nukes and the vodka if someone gave them to us. Other than that, the place is more or less useless, it’d cost a fortune to administer, even more to modernize and besides, we have plenty of gas, nukes and vodka, thank you very much.
With all that in mind, Putin’s playing Donald Trump and JD Vance for the saps and, frankly, the sympathizers, they are in a negotiated “peace” deal for Ukraine, which will very shortly be compelled to cede around 20% of its territory to the Kremlin.
Vance on Friday delivered what I can only call a disgracefully ridiculous speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he tacitly blamed — checks notes — social media censorship in Europe for the continent’s security crisis.
“The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” Vance said. “What I worry about is the threat from within.” That phrasing — the “threat from within” bit — is verbatim from Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail, where he branded Democrats, liberals more generally, America’s law enforcement apparatus, its intelligence services, the free press and academia, all traitors.
Vance went on to suggest that Europe’s efforts to counter Russian disinformation were an affront to free speech and represent a “retreat from [the] fundamental values shared with the United States of America.”
That’s so unbelievably insulting to Europe and to the democratic world more generally, that it’s difficult to find strong enough words to decry it. But more importantly, Vance’s speech, and specifically that part of it, could scarcely have been more friendly to the Kremlin if Putin wrote it himself.
And yet, that’s the guy — Vance — who, along with Marco Rubio, will be negotiating Ukraine’s future with Putin’s emissaries including Sergei Naryshkin, a KGB spy who, three months before the beginning of Putin’s “special military operation,” called the suggestion that Russia might invade Ukraine “malicious propaganda by the US State Department.”
As regular readers are well apprised, I’m a pathologically distant individual whose personal affect is chilly on warm days. And yet, I don’t understand the coldness it takes for Trump and Vance to do what they’re about to do to Ukraine.
Have other presidents and VPs done worse? Yes. Absolutely. Far worse, in fact. Just ask an Iraqi, living or dead. But the overt duplicity on display here — the witting acquiescence to a tyrant’s bloody conquest and the attendant disrespect for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who died defending their right to self-determination — is nothing short of unconscionable. And Vance has the nerve to preach to Europe about “fundamental democratic values.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Vance is, after all, a man who exploited the socioeconomic tragedy of his own “hillbilly” culture for personal gain, parlaying the unfortunate tale of Rust Belt decline and Appalachian impecunity into a best-seller and a Netflix movie.
As negotiations unfold over the next few weeks and months, don’t let the reality of this be lost on you: America, under Trump and Vance, is kowtowing to a dictator in pursuit of peace. History strongly suggests that’s the wrong approach.
Well put, sir.
If you noticed any typos in this on a first read, refresh the page. I think there were three in the original, and I think I fixed them all.
It’s hard to say whether this speech or his attempts to lecture the Pope on Catholic principles is more laughably absurd.
Hard for me to laugh at the religious lectures from the MAGA leaders, they are not so subtly setting up a Christian nationalism authority. That deeply troubles me.
If history is any guide this will be extremely expensive to fix. Events such as these have drained all the treasure from some of the deepest pockets we have ever known.
Hasn’t the Trump/Putin call become meaningless? How can Trump “do a deal” with Putin without Ukraine or Europe agreeing to it? Maybe the US will stop sending aid to Ukraine, but that seemed like a given back in November.
Well, in theory anyway, Trump could force a deal on them by saying “Keep fighting if you want, but if he nukes you, you’re on your own,” or, more likely, “Keep fighting if you want, but you’re going to lose eventually, and if he takes Kyiv, it’s his.” i.e., “This is your chance to keep 80% of your country, you should take it.” He could also intimate to Brussels that the US won’t honor its NATO commitments if Ukraine doesn’t stop fighting, thereby forcing Europe to cut off its own aid to Kyiv. I think something like four in 10 Ukrainians now supports ceding some (let’s call it 10%) of lost territory to Russia to stop the fighting. Bottom line: Trump can force a “deal,” and it’ll save a lot of lives in the near-term. The question is whether it ends up costing more lives in the medium- to long-term, and we shouldn’t forget that this’ll mean abandoning cities and towns where the locals are currently living under Russian occupation. Those places will be settled by Russians. It’s not as if Moscow’s going to — you know — call them conquered and then just leave them to whatever locals are left. These will be Russian localities going forward.
This is exactly right. We could not just opt to not honor NATO commitments, we can relax sanctions (posed by us) meaningfully. We can play hard ball in numerous ways with Europe, including with sanctions, if they opt to ignore whatever “deal” is coming, etc. That doesn’t mean it’s over for Ukraine as it currently is known, but there are a range of variables still at play.
I write this sitting in Krakow, and will be heading to Kyiv tomorrow. Mostly to listen to some old friends, as I often do. And keep thinking about ways to get through this to whatever outcomes are as just as possible given the circumstances. Circumstances which at least politically seem to have deteriorated this week. Or perhaps it’s just that the truth was laid bare this week, despite the several “walk backs” which seem a bit forced to me, mostly focused on a thin-skinned autocrat who still wants so bad to be seen as an equal by an aging kleptocratic gangster with a persistent fever dream of imperialism.
Putin finally on the ropes and the US newly elected fascists throw yet another gritty, hard-fighting, freedom loving ally under the bus.
Me thinks that “…kowtowing to a dictator in pursuit of peace.” might be a wee bit overgenerous when the Pumpkinführer obviously lives for quid pro quo. But maybe that’s just the unjustified bias of this grumpy old guy.
In the end it’s always about money for Trumpkin. Musk aims to be the first trillionaire and has promised his puppet to cut him in for half a trillion (of course he reversed those figures when he let Trump in on the plan). Like the old NY radio ad ‘money talks nobody walks’. I’m sure that’s on the mens’ room wall at Camp Mar-a-lago. Musk’s idea of putting the Treasury on blockchain is a keystone for his master plan. Trump and Melania can’t wait for their meme coins to be coins of the realm. Revenge is the sweetener in Trump’s diet coke.
Without significant U.S. support, Ukraine has little to no chance of regaining its lost territory. Their best hope for a secure future would be a strong treaty to protect what remains of their country, one that includes membership in NATO. I am not certain that all existing NATO countries would agree to this, as another attack against Ukraine would essentially force them all into a direct conflict with Russia. This would include the U.S. I would assume that NATO membership is a deal-breaker for Putin, and we know that Donnie is not a big fan of NATO either.
Will Trump even tacitly commit to defending Ukraine directly should Russia violate Ukrainian territory again (and could Ukraine and Europe actually trust such a pledge?) Perhaps some new sort of European-based defense pact is in order then, but with Vance and Rubio negotiating in Ukraine’s stead it is hard to see that happening. The nations of Europe would also have to be at the table. Perhaps Europe will step-up when they see what a raw deal Ukraine is getting, and realize that their future is also potentially at stake. A mutual-defense deal in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions against Russia might be workable at a later date. Otherwise, Putin gains territory, weakens Ukraine, and does not have anything like NATO to deal with.
Putin’s going to negotiate a ‘peace of the pie’ deal and Trump has done his bidding by cutting Europe out before the talks begin. If Europe wants to keep their democracy, they better forget the US and take the reins firmly in hand. Zelensky spoke of millitary force size and Ukraine + Europe still falls woefully short of Russia. And when it comes to losing soldiers Putin could care less, which seems to be in the DNA of all Russian leaders.
It’s ironic that the America First MAGA Mob (AFMM) fails to notice that US policies are now being run by two men born in South Africa and Germany (Vance’s puppet master Theil). As well as the Mag 7 mostly run by Taiwanese and Indians. Talk about a Globalist Conspiracy!
Poor Donald is now a figurehead with little power. as evidenced by his walk-backs from his tariff announcements. At least they are still letting him run the mass deportation side of things.
Two thoughts on what is happening.
Either Trump and the right-wingers are very sympathetic to Russkiy Mir, Putin, Dugin etc. We remember, Maria Butina. And here we have it, in Orban-style: they make deals with Putin, make a buck and proliferate right-wing thought.
Or it is the administration’s plan is to split Russia from China, leave Russia intact, keep it from civil war and integrate it into a some kind of framework, all of these things can be read here in Kissingers Economist interview from 2023: https://www.economist.com/kissinger-transcript or on the Economist-Podcast from Mai 2023.
(note: Kissinger also thought a Ukraine NATO membership would make the world safer)
It seems like it definitely comes at opportune time: Russia reportedly lost just over 5,000 tanks and armored vehicles during 2024 compared with 3,000 in 2023. (…) IISS assessed that Russia’s ongoing effort to expand the Russian military and create new units is exacerbating equipment shortages and noted that Russia may also be suffering from a shortage of spare parts to refurbish tanks and armored vehicles. (…) Russia may struggle to adequately equip its units with materiel in the long-term if the Russian military continues to burn through Soviet-era vehicle stocks without significantly increasing Russia’s ability to produce new tanks and armored vehicles. (ISW, https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-13-2025)
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid . . .
Why does djt want to cut budget, save money from foreign allies, etc? Create a bigger pot to grift off? Dead stop yes!
Isn’t this Europe’s wake-up call? They’ve essentially outsourced their security and defense to the United States since 1945. Can they really trust that the US is going to be there if Putin decides to make the Warsaw Pact great again?
I guess I could have read the next article before commenting on this one.
Just another example of Trumps ignorance and incompetence. You didn’t even bring up the reprehensible $500 million dollar bribe that Trump asked for. Ukraine is unfortunately screwed. They will end up ceding territory, it may end the hot war. But I don’t really see any peaceful solution.