Free Republic

President Trump’s dramatic pronouncement Tuesday that Russia is a “paper tiger” is based on new US intelligence that shows the Kremlin is spiraling toward economic ruin and battlefield defeat as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Trump’s insistence in the same statement that Ukraine can regain all the land currently occupied by Russia is the president’s latest “strategic move” to try and bring Russia to the negotiating table, sources inside and outside the White House told The Post Wednesday. -snip- “The president is making it very clear that Russia is in a very weak position,” White House press...

A half-year ago in the Oval Office, President Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards” in the war with Russia. On Tuesday at the United Nations, Trump lauded the performance of Ukraine’s army and poured scorn on Russia’s military efforts. “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump said on Truth Social after meeting with Zelensky. “Why not?” U.S. officials said that Trump issued the statement in part to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to make...