NATO jets scrambled as Putin launches largest drone attack yet on Ukraine just hours after Trump ripped Russian prez for his ‘bulls

NATO jets were scrambled early Wednesday as Russia launched a record attack on Ukraine overnight — just hours after President Trump ripped Russian President Vladimir Putin for his “bulls–t.”

Moscow fired 728 Shahed and decoy drones along with 13 cruise and ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said Wednesday.

That was more than 200 over the previous record fired on Friday, July Fourth — itself just a week after the previous largest air assault.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took aim at enemy air bases and that “all the designated targets have been hit.”

However, Ukraine claimed that it successfully downed almost all of the drones, with only some of the hypersonic missiles getting through and hitting targets, the air force said, without detailing the damage caused.

The city of Lutsk — home to key Ukraine military airfields — was the hardest hit, though 10 other regions were also struck, Ukraine said.

The major escalation came a day after after Trump ripped Putin while threatening tougher new sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on countries which buy its oil, gas, uranium and other exports.

“We get a lot of bulls–t thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said bluntly. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” the president told a cabinet meeting.

The overnight onslaught also came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet US envoy Keith Kellogg in Rome on Wednesday.

Clearly Ukraine is coming to the end of its resources and, likely, Putin is too but on a different scale and in different ways.

There are many indications that Putin is desperately operating under increased domestic pressure. The inflation rate, the fall of the currency, the increasing shortages to the consumer, the banking crisis, the interest rates, the abandonment of Russia by Iran and to a lesser extent China, the need to hire mercenaries from North Korea, the massive battlefield casualties approaching a thousand a day, the exhaustion of the massive Soviet equipment stockpile evidenced by the use of antiquated tanks and vehicles converted into stationary artillery pieces, the equipment of soldiers with bicycles and motorcycles, the murder of Putin's own apparatchiks, the removal of his generals, the liquidation of oligarchs, and now Trump's threats of massive sanctions and renewal of arms shipments, all suggest Putin's options are narrowing at an accelerating rate.

So the question becomes, is Putin attempting to improve a negotiating position or is he really trying with a massive aerial blitz against military and civilian targets to win the war? Attacks against civilian targets are certainly well documented in Putin's playbook.

But civilian targeting rarely succeeds in winning wars. Military targets and infrastructure are far more productive. The observation is commonplace that the Ukraine war is similar to World War I in its static trench warfare but it is well to remember that that war began and ended as a war of maneuver. Indeed, the Germans found a way to penetrate Allied lines in a lastgasp effort and the allies in their turn subsequently found a way to roll through German defenses to bring the war to an end.

It is difficult to make judgments from the popular press about the relative success or likelihood of success of either party; it is even more difficult to make sense, much less an intelligent judgment, out of the sweeping conclusionary but unsupported statements made on these threads, usually about the imminent defeat of Ukraine.

It is possible that Trump's about-face is not the result solely of his frustrating conversation with Putin, it might well be that he has been thoroughly briefed by our intelligence agencies who informed him of the likelihood of a disintegration within Russia either domestically or simply of its power to wage war. So Trump has now opportunistically decided to get on the right side of history and support Ukraine.

One can speculate that it is some other factor that has motivated Trump. For example, he might actually be motivated by the loss of life which no doubt is accelerating under these attacks. This long stated concern of Trump's might conceivably now cause him to incur resistance in his own base and some embarrassment internationally for his flip-flop, simply because it is the right and humanitarian thing to do. One must observe, however, that the facts on the ground there have not changed, except perhaps in degree, since he took office a second time. More likely, intelligences advise Trump that the matter in Ukraine cannot much longer hang in the balance, one side or the other must crack and relatively soon.

If the parties are exhausted enough to negotiate a real cease-fire, it might be that Trump, equally with Putin, are making moves now to improve negotiating positions. Putin with his increased attacks, Trump with his about-face, no and ended sanctions, and resumption of arms deliveries.

Very interesting point!

But consider the implications for the credibility and integrity of America first?

Are we covering up the Epstein scandal to protect Israel? Is that putting America first? Are we compromising our integrity for the sake of a foreign entity, even an ally? What does that do for our reputation for transparency?

Is there something in the Epstein scandal that reflects equally badly on American intelligence agencies such as the CIA? If so, why are we defending and covering for the deep state? Are we covering for Israel, for ourselves?

Who controls American foreign policy? Have we virtually denuded ourselves of patriot missiles on behalf of Israel? If so, how does that square with America first? With abandoning Ukraine?

It might well be that there are sound strategic reasons to support Israel at the cost of supporting Ukraine. Let's hear those reasons, and let's acknowledge that that is in fact what we are doing – if in fact that is the case.

In other words, broad shibboleths generally decrying American involvement in foreign wars, one that has been invoked to inhibit support for Ukraine, are only for popular consumption because they were not applied to Israel.

Foreign policy by the selective application of maxims that are supposed to be of general applicability is no policy.

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