Trump’s Withdrawal Benefits Ukraine

When you know where you stand, it makes it easier to go forward. Now that tRump has flamed out, they can make a plan for the future instead of living in limbo. Ukraine now knows what it needs to do. They are working on doing just that. From the Kyiv Post:

While counterintuitive, the withdrawal by President Donald Trump of the United States from peace negotiations – and even from materially supporting Ukraine – may be beneficial to Ukraine and its allies. That is a conclusion many senior decision-makers and policy analysts in Ukraine have come to and it has several reasons. It’s also a position that challenges the mistaken legacy tendency of seeing Ukraine and the war through Western eyes still fixated on Russia as some great power, which it no longer is

We are no longer a superpower, and it’s tariffs that have finally brought us down. Rising, not lowering, costs in the economy are worrying everyone. Inflation is increasing. Stock markets are crashing. And there’s so much going on with tariffs that we are driving our allies and business partners away. The 145% tariff in China means the holidays are going to be lacking this year, and that’s just one thing of many. There’s a LOT more, and it may drive small businesses to go bankrupt.

But, back to Ukraine. In terms of how Ukraine benefits from American withdrawal at the policy and, potentially, military operational levels, the first way is that it creates strategic clarity. It removes any lingering illusion about where the United States under Trump stands with regard to the war. Ukraine and its political and military leaders now know exactly where they are in support, and therefore how to proceed on all fronts of the war. They no longer need to make any substantive or symbolic investment in American-led so-called peace talks, which have, at times, sounded and looked like a standover racket and a Presidential Ponzi scheme. Good grief!

I miss Joe Biden. He did what he could. Agent Orange is the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He wants to show his power, yet there are signs everywhere that this is Not Working. (See previous paragraph.)

Ukraine can now unconditionally focus on its own self-determined strategic goal: ending the war by making it untenable for Russia to keep fighting it. Expressed another way, Ukraine no longer has to meaningfully engage with an erratic American President who increasingly seems to be a Russian dupe or worse.

Ukraine has ramped up their defense production, especially drones, which are wreaking havoc on the Russian oil industry. They have prevented Russians from taking part of *their* country, dealing large losses in manpower and military equipment. I think we all remember the pictures of when this war was in its infancy. Russian tanks and transport vehicles were abandoned. The Russian men pulled out and left a whole lot behind. It may not be that dramatic now, as fewer and fewer pictures have surfaced, but I’m sure it’s kept going. There is a lot of difference between the attitude of Ukraine and the attitude of the Russian forces. Russia is running out of fighters, and it didn’t expect this. Ukraine is fighting for its homeland.

Secondly, it puts Europe’s position and role with regard to Ukraine into sharp relief, including the scale of its support, engagement and coordination. European leaders can no longer hide behind previous American support for Ukraine. If for no reason but their own forward defense, they now have to make greater military investments via Ukraine. That is now rapidly occurring via new unilateral and multilateral packages of military and other support for Kyiv. The latest tranche of military aid is worth $24 billion, with half coming from Germany, which has at previous times been ambivalent about support. Europe has now overtaken the US as the largest contributor to Ukraine’s cause.

The change of tRump, WHO PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE, and his defection to Russia has given Ukraine exactly what it needed. For one, it can’t depend on allies. But that’s now known and accounted for. For another, they are stronger than they thought they were. They are now in control of their future. They’re focused. They’re ready. I wish we were.

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