Time for Trump to pull the plug on Ukraine!

No sane person wants war and all the loss of life it represents and President Trump has done more than most to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But I think it’s becoming increasingly obvious that this is futile and he should step back.

We have Zelensky, backed by the Europeans, who desperately needs the war to continue. He understands that should it end, so will his political career, and maybe his life. He has recklessly sacrificed the youth of Ukraine to achieve precisely nothing. How much must he be hated by his own people, by the next of kin of the soldiers he has sacrificed only to keep losing?

Russia, meanwhile, is largely winning and does not need the war to end either. Putin has achieved his geographical objectives and around 20% of what WAS Ukraine is now Russia, and will stay that way in the future. The side that is winning is not the side to make concessions.

None of this invalidates President Trump’s best efforts but just think about what happened on Sunday. This was the day before the “peace talks” in Istanbul.

Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on at least 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases. President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called "Spider's Web" operation by the SBU security service, striking "34% of [Russia's] strategic cruise missile carriers". SBU sources told BBC News it took a year and a half to organise the strikes. Russia confirmed Ukrainian attacks in five regions, calling them a "terrorist act".

Now Russia has disputed the figures and I see no reason to believe either side BUT clearly Russia’a tactics nuclear aircrafts suffered some damage as we can see from this video clip…

Now there is simply no way this operation could have happened without NATO knowledge. The question is did it happen with the knowledge of President Trump? If it didn’t know then THAT is a huge problem. If he did know THAT is an even bigger problem. At this point, I am unsure.

We had Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal meeting with Zelensky the day before the attack which sends a signal that at least the Washington war machine wants things to carry on regardless.

I can’t believe that Trump goes along with this. I think this was a premeditated attempt to cajole Trump into going with these warmongers.

So what to do now? I think Trump should pull all US military and intelligence support and watch the Zelensky regime crumble. The Europeans cannot support it to scale and much of their talk is hollowed out bravado. It seems to me that NATO/EU want a continental war and they want to drag Russia into more robust action. After the attacks on Sunday, this seems unavoidable.

You can only prod the Russia bear for so long before it bites.

What do you think - should Trump continue to persevere OR should he stand back and let it collapse?

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