Posted on 04/26/2025 7:49:25 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
President Trump on Saturday said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin may be stringing him along after the latest deadly strikes on Ukraine, as the U.S. seeks to bring an end to the war in Eastern Europe.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump posted Saturday on Truth Social. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
His post came as the president was traveling back to the U.S. following Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome and after he met briefly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The two leaders spoke ahead of the funeral, their first face-to-face interaction since the contentious Oval Office meeting earlier this year.
The White House has not yet released details on what was discussed during the roughly 15-minute meeting.
Trump’s latest remarks also come in contrast to what he said week ago, when the president insisted “nobody’s playing me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“When you take a bullet for America, tlmabey then I will care what you have to say.”
How have you served? Have you taken a bullet for America so we should care what you say?
Despite the battering of Ukraine’s cities with drone attacks, the Russian military is not able to generate enough new combat power to defeat and occupy Ukraine. And as much as Putin resists making a deal, there is reason to think that Russia’s economy and state finances are approaching a crisis that will result in Putin’s ouster by the end of the year. Trump’s hint at applying more stringent sanctions against Russia suggests that he will soon turn to that approach and hope for a deal with new leadership after Putin.
Trump is the one who did, and you aregoing after him.
The only deals that Russia has been offering up to now have total surrender. There demands have always been more than just the disputed provinces. Acceptance of the Russian terms would have been the end of Ukraine as an independent country and the end of the Ukrainians as a distinct people.
I do not believe that the evidence of the Soros and Western Intelligence Agency influence resulting in the “Ukrainian Color Revolution of 2014” is even contested. Soros himself bragged that no one in the world had more influence in Ukraine than he did at that time. What followed was a chain of events that were fairly predictable. Zelensky ran on a platform of making peace with Russia but after winning the election he almost immediately changed his tune. And no, his popularity in Ukraine is surprisingly low considering that only state approved pollsters are allowed to collect data. Even Western based journalists have been imprisoned and murdered while in custody and many others assassinated. The list is long because the Ukrainian government is more like an underworld entity rather than how most of regard legitimate governments.
I make no defense of Putin and how he came to be the strong man in Russia. And yes, pollsters and the media are manipulated in Russia and since the communists took over in 1917 many were imprisoned and murdered while in custody. But this has not been as prevalent in recent years as it has been in the same time period in Ukraine.
It is difficult to make an informed assessment because propaganda has been a hallmark on information coming from both sides in recent years. You can easily choose to believe what you do by ignoring vast amounts of historical evidence and many choose to do this. The only real problem for you is that much of how you expect things to turn out will not go in the direction that you believe that they will. For us living in safety in the United States it does not matter much. For acquaintances who live abroad and have relatives in less safe locales it is more important to look more closely at what is actually going on.
Your posting history demonstrates that you are a person who obsesses over this conflict and has very strong feelings about it. You appear to be completely incapable of looking at this from an objective point of view. Your pseudonym indicates that you probably have some sort of Eastern European connections. I would be interested in hearing about this.
Ukraine has been strongly aligned with Russia since around 900 AD. It has only been in the last 11 years that they have had a government that was not closely aligned with Russia and has tried to push the new "Western" ideals on them.
The cause of this conflict has largely because factions sponsored, aligned and controlled by the West managed to get control of the country in 2014 mostly through nefarious means. Once they achieved control they were never going to let the other side get it back ever. The current government is more of a threat to the end of Ukrainians as a “distinct people” than the Russians have been as the last 1200 years and the last 11 years of history have clearly demonstrated. Traditional churches and institutions have been shut down while "Zelensky" played the piano with his penis in a skit on TV and aggrandized the homosexual lifestyle.
I have study the question and do not agree with your assessment. Everyone making the claim that the Maidan uprising was an orchestrated coup leave out that the EU economic agreement was extremely popular, approved by parliament, and even initially supported by Yanukovych. That there would be spontaneous popular demonstrations in response to his reneging on that deal and seeking to bind Ukraine to Russia should not come as a surprise nor does it need the influence of nefarious outside forces to explain it.
It is also false to try to personalize this on Zelensky. The Ukrainian people have been seeking independence from Russia for over a hundred years. Zelensky could go tomorrow but that would not change Ukraine’s opposition to Russian domination. You would fight for the freedom of your country. Why would you think that the Ukrainians would not do the same?
We also need to keep in mind that Russia’s goals are not just a few border provinces. Putin’s repeated demands would end Ukraine as an independent country and lead to the elimination of a separate Ukrainian identity. This is not just some hyperbole or paranoia; it is the stated goal that is taught in Russian military academies.
As for my pseudonym, it has nothing to do with eastern Europe. As I have pointed out many times before, I am of Italian heritage. My screen name is a Latin Roman style name referring to the town my grandfather came from, Castelpetroso.
That is like saying that Ireland has been strongly aligned with England. Contrary to the ideas of Russian nationalists, Ukraine has its own distinct identity. This is not diminished by the fact that that they have been ruled by various foreign powers, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. They came under Russian control because they were seeking support in their struggle against Poland. Unfortunately, Russia went beyond being a protecting power to being a dominating one. The struggle for Ukrainian independence goes back to the 19th century.
The cause of this conflict is because Russian nationalists will not accept Ukrainian independence. They see Ukraine at best as a part of Russia, or at least under an exclusive Russian sphere of influence. Negotiations for the EU economic agreement started well before 2014 and was widely supported. It was not supported, however, in Moscow. Putin started this conflict when he pressured Yanukovych to pull out of that agreement.
“Trump is the one who did, and you aregoing after him.”
I asked you. I did not refer to Trump.
Your criteria. Answer up.
I don’t wan’t to say because I would be promoting myself. YESHUA is King of America, and all glory goes to him. And President Trump just proclaimed so.
And I can tell you that the state that I have lived in for early 70 years has been completely invaded from people from other areas. It is uncommon to meet others who were actually born here when we go to the grocery store or other places where we come into contact with the public.
Cultures change and the young people who should have the most concern have typically have no apparent recognition that it is even happening. The 19th century might as well be the 17th century as far as most are concerned.
You are intentionally omitting that “Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage that dates back to the medieval state of Kievan Rus’ (862-1242). This state, centered in present-day Kyiv (Ukraine's capital), is considered the birthplace of both nations.” “ Ukrainian and Russian share about 62% of their vocabulary.”
France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal also share a common heritage and share much the same vocabulary. They are, however, distinct cultures and languages. Ukraine and Russia two separate nations derived from a common source.
“… Why did Trump apply sanctions and threat of sanctions against his ally Ukraine…”
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I hate to break it to you but WE ARE NOT IN AN ALLIANCE WITH UKRAINE.
We owe NOTHING to Ukraine.
When the president of the United States, in concert with the Congress of the United States, lawfully appropriates and expends funds in aid of another country's war, that makes it our ally.
When we fund another country's war, when we supply it with weapons to fight that war, when we give vital satellite intelligence to wage that war, when we furnish satellite equipment to communicate, that makes it our ally.
When we pass resolutions, Republicans and Democrats alike, in favor of that country's struggle, that makes it our ally.
When Republicans and Democrats alike, sitting in Joint Session of Congress, rise in unanimous applause of the head of state of that nation, praise him to the moon, assure him of support in the war, that makes that country our ally.
Trump is trying to evade the responsibility he inherited in the normal and constitutional course of transfer of power in our Republic. Every president without exception has inherited problems, sometimes wars, upon assuming office. History seldom excuses a president who fails the test. Rather, history puts the new president to the test of rising to meet the challenge of history.
This is a war that Trump, seeking election, told us he could and would solve in one day yet now it has become intractable, entirely the fault of Joe Biden, not Trump's own party fault, not his nation's problem, certainly not Donald Trump's failure, but solely the fault of Joe Biden.
Donald Trump told us to put him in office because he was the man to solve that problem. He carefully did not say that if it didn't go his way, he would walk away from the problem.
It is unseemly to shirk responsibility in this fashion.
Sorry but you are just going to have to accept that neither Trump nor America have obligations to Ukraine. Sunk costs and past mistakes are not the basis of wise decisions… no matter how much you wrap them in flowery language and the American flag.
I suggest we owe Ukraine, when we presume without authorization to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf, the duty of a faithful fiduciary. We owe Ukraine the duty to refrain from self-dealing, the duty to refrain from extorting mineral rights.
We owe a duty to refrain from damaging Ukraine's standing in the family of nations by humiliating its President. We owe the duty to refrain from lying and asserting that Ukraine and its president "started" the war. We owe the duty not to exaggerate the extent of our monetary contributions.
When we assumed the role to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf, we owed Ukraine the basic duty not to sell them out before the negotiations had even begun by acceding to Putin's every demand.
We owe Ukraine the duty to refrain from blaming them alone for the very war we encouraged them to fight.
We owe Ukraine the duty to acknowledge and respect the very sovereignty we urged and aided them to fight for.
We owe them the duty to avoid hypocrisy but to honestly appraise our own shameful role.
Sorry, wrap whatever you want but WE OWE UKRAINE NOTHING. The wind has ceased blowing in your desired Neocon/globalist direction and has reversed its direction. You’ll just have to live with that. Of course, you can always take your personal wealth and your personal services and devote them to Ukraine. Just don’t expect the great bulk of Americans to be joining you.
Query: have you taken your personal wealth and your personal services and devoted them to Israel? Are you willing to do so and join in an attack on Iran? Or are you waiting for Donald Trump tell you what to think about that?
Yes, that remark is snarky and uncalled for but, coming in the wake of accusing me of being a "Neocon/globalist," not entirely out of place.
Suppose I concede that there is a balance concerning the risks of attacking Iran that are not easily struck. It would be terrible if they got the bomb, and equally terrible if we get sucked into a quagmire. Therefore, a supporter of Trump, an American patriot, can rationally take both sides of the issue without betraying himself to be a neocon/globalist.
Equally, perhaps you can concede that there is a difference between initiating America endlessly in mid eastern wars against a fanatic Islamic foe on the one hand and extracting ourselves from a difficult war, where we are not suffering casualties because we are not on the ground, a war that was initiated by invasion against a Western nation?
Perhaps you can admit there are rational arguments that our posture and behavior toward Ukraine does not make America safer but more insecure because it undermines our credibility that we desperately need on the Pacific rim to contain China? Further, because it prompts European nations who feel abandoned and feel the need, therefore, to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, thus encouraging proliferation? Because we have so damaged our relationship with our allies, especially European allies, that it hampers our important plan to even the playing field with tariffs?
One can oppose our conduct toward Ukraine for reasons that go beyond moral dismay, reasons quite consistent with a felt need to make America great again that are indeed free of "globalists" taint.
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