Slava Ukraini!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump only had one debate during the 2024 election cycle because, after Harris kicked his flabby butt all over the debate stage, Trump refused to submit to another.  One of Trump's sketchier promises during that debate was that he would end Russia's war on Ukraine after his election but BEFORE he even took office.

The war began when Russia launched a full-scale, unprovoked assault on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.  Russia's leader,Vladimir Putin, seemed to believe that Ukraine would quickly fold, surrender, and return to its position of subservience to Russia that it had once held.  (Putin wants to re-establish the old Soviet Union, and capturing Ukraine would be a key element in that process.). But Ukraine did not fall apart on the battlefield as Putin had hoped - and instead its young and dynamic leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. donned a uniform and marched off to fight in the defense of his homeland.

Putin's miscalculation was much like Trump's when he helped Netanyahu (with our troops, weapons, and treasury) to attack Iran four years later.  Trump, whose only experience in uniform had been at a prep school in the 1950's, thought he would have Iran mopped up in a few hours - then in thirty days.  Eight months later, and we're still at it, but in a much worse position now than we were when we helped start the war.

Putin and Trump both quickly proved to be buffoons when it came to military planning and directing wars, and both are wallowing in their failures today.

But let's keep the focus on Ukraine, at least for today.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, but in that debate with Kamala, the wind generator from Mar-a-Lago, shortened his deadline.  Trump told America and the world:

"That is a war that's dying to be settled.  I will get it settled even before I become President.  If I win, when I'm president-elect and what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other, I'll get them together.  I know Zelenskyy very well, I know Putin very well, and they respect your president, okay, they respect me, they don't respect Biden."

Sound familiar?  In the end it's always laced with gibberish and about Trump.

After the United States disgraced itself, for a second time, and elected the convicted felon to the presidency, and after his inauguration came and went, Russia's war on Ukraine still raged on.

It began to become apparent that Trump's secret plan to end the war consisted on pulling support away from Ukraine and pressuring Zelenskyy to surrender to the Russian Bear.  On February 28, one month and a week after his inauguration, Trump and his co-conspiratorial clown, JD Vance, invited Zelenskyy to the White House for a meeting that was ostensibly to sign a mineral rights deal - Trump wanted to see some physical payment for US support of a democratic nation's fight to survive an assault by an invading, autocratic nation - his old "What's in it for me?" philosophy.

But after the meeting to sign the agreement ended (with the agreement unsigned), Trump invited the press in for an informal briefing, and in that impromptu press conference, Trump and JD executed a well-rehearsed verbal attack on the Ukrainian leader in which they publicly criticized Zelenskyy to his face - in front of the press -  over his war management, lack of gratitude (failure to say thank you), and his attire - the fact that he wore combat camos to conduct his nation's business instead of a suit.  It was a shit show from start to finish, an embarrassment  for Trump and JD that stains their administration to this day,  and a clear signal to Ukraine and the world that the United States was no longer a reliable partner in the fight to preserve and spread democracy and human rights.  Zelenskyy walked away from that meeting with the full knowledge that America no long had the backs of him and his beleaguered people.

Now, a year-and-a-half further on down the road of war, Zelenskyy, the actual warrior who fights along side of his troops, persists - and Trump still stands yelling on the sidelines demanding that Zelensskyy fight that war on his (Trump's) terms.

The Ukrainians have built a mighty drone force and they are using the new age technology to their strong advantage by blowing up Russian oil refineries and data centers.   (Some of the data centers are supposedly involved in producing propaganda meant to interfere in US elections.   Neither of those military objectives pleases Trump who is trying desperately to bring down the price of fuel before the mid-term elections, and who has personally benefitted from Russian election interference in multiple election cycles.  Fuel costs went through the roof after Trump sent US bombers to attack Iran, and now he is trying to blame those high prices at the pump on Zelenskyy and his freedom fighters in Ukraine.  

Less that a week ago, Trump announced an "energy ceasefire" in Russia's war on Ukraine, meaning that both sides would lay off of hitting energy resources - such as oil and gas refineries.  He made that announcement without agreements with either warring party, and while both talked as though they would honor it, Russia immediately resumed full scale bombing - and Ukraine followed suit yesterday.  Nobody was listening to Trump as he tried desperately to fix the gas price crisis that he had caused.

Putin was wrong about Ukraine - he could not just waltz in and take it.  Trump was wrong about Ukraine - he could not use economic pressure to force it to submit to his pal in Russia.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukranian freedom fighters stood tall and resolute, in their camos, and, against all odds, they and their people are winning!

And for that, the entire free world should be saying "thank you!"

Slava Ukraini!

(The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.  Support the good work of the International Criminal Court!)