The Ukraine delusions finally dissipate

While it’s premature to announce the end of hostilities in Ukraine, some important changes are afoot.

Trump has decided to reopen lines of communication with Russia given that it remains a nuclear power. In the bad old Cold War days, our leaders thought staying in touch to avoid ending life on earth was a prudent choice. That went out of style with Biden, but talking is back. Good.

Despite Trump’s usual gloating about his “highly productive” 90-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin—everything always goes great in Trumpland—, the two sides remain miles apart. Today’s preparatory meeting in Saudi Arabia will provide an opportunity shorten the distance. 

While the U.S. readout on the preceding phonecall highlighted Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine, the Russians’ version displayed no particular urgency on that topic and instead drew attention to what it called the root causes of the conflict.

While Russia welcomed the open channel of communication that ended 3 years of silence, its statement emphasized the barriers to healthy interstate relations inherited from the previous US administration with particular attention to the seizure of Russian diplomatic properties by Obama. For them, Ukraine is only one of several key international issues, including developments in Palestine. Ouch.

The Russians also made a point of noting that the call came at the initiative of the American side. This is a standard diplomatic signal to reflect frigidity that says, “You guys—not us—needed to talk. So, wazzup?”

The Russians also added a telling paragraph at the end of their statement: “The U.S. President assured the President of Russia of the American side’s commitment to fulfill all the agreements reached.” English translation: Why should we believe anything you say since you constantly renege on every promise? (Minsk I, Minsk II, the ABM treaty, the INF treaty, and—let’s go back further—the solemn assurances of no NATO expansion offered 3 decades ago).

What can we expect of the talks about Ukraine at this point? Much ink has been spilled over various statements and speeches by U.S. officials that included serious canings of the Europeans. Defense Secretary Hegseth dropped the first bomb at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, informing them that Ukraine’s eastern provinces are lost for good, that there would be no U.S. peacekeeping troops anywhere near the place, and that they could forget about adding Ukraine to NATO. 

Although Hegseth was contradicted by others, VP Vance then showed up to bat the EU’s top leadership around like a whiffle ball. Although Vance didn’t say much about Ukraine, he pointedly questioned whether defending “democracy” against Russia included overturning an election result (in Romania) because the winner wasn’t the EU’s favorite.

Russia isn’t a threat to Europe, Vance told them MAGA-style. You yourselves are, abortion, immigrants, blah blah. He then had a meeting with the right-wing party standing in Germany’s imminent elections, demonstrating once again that the U.S. will intervene in other people’s elections, but don’t interfere in ours.

Americans can indulge in arrogant sermons in front of their vassal subalterns like France and Germany, but chest-thrusting is not going to work so well in the upcoming chats with the Russkies. After 3 years of war and roughly 100,000 dead soldiers, the Russian diplomats will reflect their country’s mood, which is not a forgiving one. Talk of a ceasefire in place so that Ukraine can rearm and restart the fighting in a few years will go nowhere.

It's not at all clear whether the Trump people have access to accurate information about what has been happening on the ground in the Ukraine given the blockade of any dissident views on the topic in our media landscape and, presumably, within the walls of the state itself. Trump himself parroted some foolishness about casualty numbers, probably fed to him by professional liars at the CIA or even directly from Ukrainian cartoonists. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard will make sure he gets some facts.

EU poohbahs are hopping mad about being left out of the talks, which was pretty clearly a condition of the Russians for having a meeting at all. That’s the meaning of the RF ministry’s statement on the call about “key international issues,” of which Ukraine is merely one. The Russians want to see progress on how to restructure the security environment on their western border, and they want to discuss it with the only player that really matters: the USA. The Europeans are spoilers. 

Europe hitched its wagon to the neocon vision of dealing Russia a strategic defeat, getting Putin ousted, and then carving up the remaining Russian assets in a rerun of the great fun they had in the post-Soviet period when Russian life expectancy plummeted and the West got rich along with the oligarchs.

Alexander Mercouris pointed out on his YouTube channel that he witnessed the glee with which the Europeans and Americans both saw the Ukraine war coming and could hardly wait to launch their inevitable victory over the “gas station parading as a country,” “Nigeria with snow,” etc.

We Americans are experts at selling a narrative, peddling emotionally persuasive versions of reality to sell products. Our politics are advertising battles to get people to feel good about a convincing story line, and we’re damn good at it. However, relying on expert messaging at the expense of facts has deeply corrupted our politics and our leadership.

We do such a good job at propaganda that we eventually convince ourselves that our visions have taken physical form. A future Ph.D. history student should dig into the archives and document how deeply convinced everyone was that the Ukrainians would make short work of the incompetent, backward, unmotivated, etc., Russian armed forces while the all-out assault on Russia’s economy would “turn the ruble into rubble” in Joe Biden’s memorable phrase. 

Reality is a bitch. Even Trump will have to deal with it.