For release: 03/18/25
Putin on the blitz
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Content Agency
The cliché has been that the ball is now in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court. Not any longer. Putin has responded to U.S. appeals for a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine with a strong backhand, rejecting a ceasefire in his unprovoked invasion. Now the ball is in President Trump’s court. What will he do?
On “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Ambassador Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, said Putin and President Trump will hold a phone call this week. Witkoff said he met in Moscow with Putin for more than three hours. He called it a “positive momentum” that the two presidents will be talking to each other, but gave no indication of where that “momentum” might lead.
Witkoff declined to answer a question by host Margaret Brennan about comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron that Putin is not genuinely seeking peace. He said he didn’t know what Macron had said (easy enough to Google) and so would not comment.
On the same program, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “It’s hard to negotiate an enduring end of a war as long as they’re shooting at each other, and so the president wants a ceasefire. That’s what we’re working on, assuming we can get that done.”
Putin has laid down heavy conditions for a ceasefire and has claimed reaching one might only give Ukraine time to re-arm.
Let’s not forget who the real villain is and it’s not Ukraine. Russia now occupies about 20 percent of that country. Given Putin’s stated goal of reclaiming all the former Soviet territories, it’s unlikely he will cede a foot to Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly bragged about the personal relationships he has with Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un and China’s Xi Jinping. In a forthcoming column for the publication Independent Arabia, Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton – a frequent critic of the president – writes: “Personal relations have a place in international affairs, as in all things, but they are not decisive factors in national-security decision-making, especially for the world’s hard men. … These authoritarians are cold-blooded and clear-eyed in knowing what their national interests are, and they pursue those interests unhesitatingly.”
In the disastrous meeting two weeks ago in the Oval Office with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said to Zelenskyy: “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.” It would appear that Putin not only has the cards, but the entire deck and he’s the dealer. Putin is not likely to give up much, if anything, by appeals to his ego. That might work in some cases with Trump, but dictators are different. Even a cursory look at history proves the point.
The problem all along is that under former President Biden the objective was never clear. Biden provided just enough arms to Ukraine to create a stalemate with Russia, but not enough for victory. Putin apparently believed he could wait out Biden, even while thousands of his soldiers were slaughtered, thinking he might get a better deal with Trump.
After watching the film “A Complete Unknown” about the life of Bob Dylan, I was reminded of when in 1963 Dylan and Joan Baez performed a version of the Pete Seeger song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one.
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
That sentiment appears to be of great concern to President Trump, though his goal of a ceasefire looks remote without conceding victory to Putin. As for the Russian dictator, graveyards for his soldiers appear to be of no concern at all.
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I voted for Trump three times. I think he’s exactly what we need. But on Ukraine, his approach leaves me baffled. He believes in Peace through Strength, yet he is not projecting strength. He is a master negotiator, yet he is giving away the farm. I don’t expect him to rant and call Putin names—that would do nothing but excite the U.S. Left—but I also don’t expect him to treat Zelensky with such palpable disrespect.
Frankly, I blame Trump and J.D. Vance for the chaos in the Oval Office. They failed to prepare Zelensky for the meeting, assuming he would simply kneel and kiss the ring. That’s a grave miscalculation. Worse, their ignorance of Russian and Ukrainian history is both offensive and unacceptable. Kyiv was a thriving city long before Moscow even existed. Ukraine has long sought to join the West, and they bring much to the table. If anyone didn’t understand that before February 24, 2022, they sure as hell should now.
And where is the historical awareness that Crimea was Tatar land before Russia ethnically cleansed the region? Russia forcibly moved ethnic Russians into Crimea and the Donbas in an attempt to fabricate a “Russian-speaking majority.” That fact alone obliterates Putin’s grotesque claim that Russian-speaking populations somehow justify his war of aggression. By that logic, Mexico could justify invading Texas and California tomorrow. It’s absurd.
Another Trump-Vance argument that enrages me is the NATO excuse—the idea that NATO expansion somehow “provoked” Russia. That claim is total bullshit. Even with two IQ points, anyone can see through it. Right now, there are five NATO countries that border Russia:
Finland
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland (via Kaliningrad)
Adding Ukraine changes nothing except stopping Russian imperial expansion. The idea that Ukraine should have been some neutral “buffer” is pure European weakness, the same gutless appeasement that encouraged Putin in the first place. Europe has every right to support Ukraine’s NATO aspirations—far more right than Russia has to object. Why? Because Russia is not just another player in global affairs. Russia is a known rapist, murderer, and imperialist aggressor. Pretending otherwise is morally bankrupt.
I do not want U.S. troops on the ground. But barring that, we should give Ukraine everything it needs to win. This is not charity. Ukraine can pay back that investment over the next 20 years. And those will be good years—with a diminished Russia, unable to keep salivating over its imperial conquests.
The West has the power to put an end to Putin’s ambitions. The only question is whether it has the will.
Well said. Thanks for writing this.