On February 26, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, “Der Führer” former President Donald Trump predicted “a major war in Europe” would erupt. Trump called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “an atrocity that should have never been allowed to occur” and then put the blame on President Joe Biden’s administration. “Der Führer” Trump mentioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as if an afterthought calling him “a brave man” Trump told the audience of 5,000:
“The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he’s smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb.”
As Russia was beginning to invade Ukraine and the United States was rushing to defend neighboring allies in Europe, Der Führer Trump expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. Trump said at a Florida fund-raiser:
“Putin’s pretty smart! He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. … taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”
“Der Führer” Trump praised Putin’s aggressive moves against Ukraine as “genius” and “very savvy” in an earlier podcast interview with conservative podcaster Buck Sexton. Trump said in part:
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force…. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.”
“DER FÜHRER” TRUMP ON THE PROWEL
During the February 26 the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, Trump, made the strongest suggestion yet that he is going to run for president again in 2024 and he said this:
“[Democrats] are going to find out the hard way starting on November 8, and then again even more so on November 2024. They will find out like never before. We did it twice. We will do it again. We are going to be doing it again a third time.”
Trump, who has already endorsed over 120 local and federal Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-cpac-ukraine-russia-major-war-in-europe-2024/
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY THE “BRAVE MAN” DER FÜHRER TRUMP ORDERED $400 MILLION IN AIDE WITHHELD
Trump was impeached for the first time for trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. The effort included holding up nearly $400 million in U.S. security aid to Ukraine and leveraging an Oval Office visit that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been requesting. Trump also pushed discredited claims that Ukraine, not Russia, had meddled in the 2016 election, repeatedly siding with Putin over his own national intelligence agencies.
Retired U.S. Army lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the former national security council whistleblower who raised alarms about Trump’s pressure tactics said this:
“Putin is the critical agent, but certainly Trump contributed to it with his scheme back then and continued to contribute it by undermining national security. … Ultimately the president undermined U.S. foreign policy because he weakened Ukraine.”
It was on September 23, 2019 that the Washington Post and other national news outlets reported that President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine. According to three Trump senior administration officials, Trump issued the order at least a week before a phone call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.
According to Trump officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July. They explained that Trump had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent. The Trump Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information. It was a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.
Trump’s order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky raised questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage Joe Biden. The revelation occurred as lawmakers clash with the White House over a related whistleblower complaint made by an intelligence official alarmed by Trump’s actions.
Republican senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee said that the aid to Ukraine had been held up while the Trump administration explored whether Zelensky, then the country’s new president, was pro-Russian or pro-Western. They said the White House decided to release the aid after Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) threatened to freeze $5 billion in Pentagon funding unless the money was distributed.
A Trump senior administration official said that Trump’s decision to hold back the funds was based on his concerns about there being “a lot of corruption in Ukraine” and that the determination to release the money was motivated by the fiscal year’s looming closure.
There was concern within the Trump administration that if they did not spend the money, they would run afoul of the law. Eventually, Trump gave the OMB’s acting director, Russell Vought, permission to release the money. Trump officials emphatically denied that there was any link between blocking the aid and pressing Zelensky into investigating the Bidens, stating: “It had nothing to do with a quid pro quo.”
Trump repeatedly denied doing anything improper and insisted that his July 25, 2019 conversation with Zelensky was “a perfect phone call.” He also hinted that he may release a transcript of it, but he never did.
Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy said at the time that Ukrain President Zelensky’s “entire” administration was concerned that the aid that was being cut off to Ukraine by Trump was a consequence for their unwillingness, at the time, to investigate the Bidens. Murphy cited his interactions with numerous Ukrainian officials during an early September trip there. Murphy said he heard “directly” from Zelensky about “his concern about why the aid was being cut off to Ukraine,” though the Ukraine’s new president did not specifically broach the subject of a quid pro quo.
What “Der Führer” TRUMP did in ordering $400 million in aide withheld from Ukrain can only be described as an extortion that failed. It was done by Trump to reshape American foreign policy and to advance his personal and political goals.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) at the time had this to say:
“I don’t think it really matters . . . whether the president explicitly told the Ukrainians that they wouldn’t get their security aid if they didn’t interfere in the 2020 elections … There is an implicit threat in every demand that a United States president makes of a foreign power. . . . That foreign country knows that if they don’t do it, there are likely to be consequences.”
TRUMP HAS HISTORY OF SIDING WITH PUTIN ON UKRAIN
Trump has a long history of siding with Putin when it comes to Ukraine to the point that saying Putin would never invade the country.
It was on August 1, 2016 that Trump in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week ” that Russian President Vladimir Putin would never make a military move into Ukraine, even though Putin already had done just that, seizing the country’s Crimean Peninsula:
“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.”
Stephanopoulos responded with a reference to Crimea, which Putin took from Ukraine in early 2014:
“Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?”
Trump responded:
“OK – well, he’s there in a certain way. But I’m not there. … And frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess … with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of NATO and all of this. In the meantime, he’s going away. He takes Crimea.”
https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/politics/donald-trump-russia-ukraine-crimea-putin/
A link to a related blog article entitled in part “Trump: The Once And Future Fascist Who Wants To Be President Again” is here:
PUTIN INVADES UKRAIN
On Wednesday, February 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the evasion of Ukraine and said that a “special military operation” would begin. Before the announcement, Putin had amassed upwards of 150,000 troops along its border. President Joe Biden said repeatedly weeks prior that Putin would invade the European democracy.
Multiple news organizations reported explosions in multiple cities and evidence of large-scale military operations across Ukraine have now been going on for a full week with no end in sight. Putin has made it clear that his goal is to overthrow the Ukraine Government The full invasion of Ukraine by Russia is on a scale Europe has not seen since World War II and since Adolph Hitler began invasions. The Russian invasion is a bloody and devastating conflict for Russians and Ukrainians alike.
Putin’s clearest answer for the invasion was revealed on Monday, February 21, in a speech he delivered. Putin proclaimed that Ukraine is an illegitimate country that exists on land that’s historically and rightfully Russian and he said: “Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. ” For the past few years, Ukraine has made overtures to the West and wanting to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) of European Country.
NATO provides that war on one member country is a declaration of war on all. Putin believes the Ukraine democracy is anti-Russian regime in what Putin views as rightfully Russian territory populated by rightfully Russian people and it is totally unacceptable to him. The Russian invasion is yet another step of his to recreating the Soviet Union. Putin’s expressed beliefs about Ukraine goes back since the USSR dissolved and the 20 years he has been the Russian President. In a 2005 speech Putin proclaimed:
“The collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster [in which] tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.”
The central contention of Putin’s speech on February 21 is that Ukraine and Russia are essentially inseparable from a historical standpoint. Putin said this:
“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. … Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians. … [ Ukraine] was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik Communist Russia.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-cpac-ukraine-russia-major-war-in-europe-2024/
You can read more on Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine in the postscript to this blog article.
BIDEN CALLS UKRAIN “PUTIN’S WAR OF CHOICE”
President Joe Biden vowed in his first State of the Union address delivered on March 1 check Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, tame soaring U.S. inflation and deal with the fading but still dangerous coronavirus. Biden declared that he and all members of Congress, whatever their political differences, are joined “with an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.” He asked lawmakers to stand and salute the Ukrainians as he began his speech. They stood and cheered. It was a notable show of unity after a long year of bitter acrimony between Biden’s Democratic coalition and the Republican opposition.
https://www.abqjournal.com/2474721/biden-steps-to-state-of-the-union-lectern-at-fraught-moment.html
In his first State of the Union address, President Biden had this to say about the Ukraine invasion:
“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated.
He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.
From President Zelenskyy to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, inspires the world. Groups of citizens blocking tanks with their bodies. Everyone from students to retirees teachers turned soldiers defending their homeland.
In this struggle as President Zelenskyy said in his speech to the European Parliament “Light will win over darkness.” The Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States is here tonight.
Let each of us here tonight in this Chamber send an unmistakable signal to Ukraine and to the world. Please rise if you are able and show that, Yes, we the United States of America stand with the Ukrainian people. EDITOR’S NOTE: the entire chamber rose and applauded.
Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And the costs and the threats to America and the world keep rising. That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to secure peace and stability in Europe after World War 2.
The United States is a member along with 29 other nations. It matters. American diplomacy matters. American resolve matters.
Putin’s latest attack on Ukraine was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected repeated efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And he thought he could divide us at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready.
Here is what we did. We prepared extensively and carefully.
We spent months building a coalition of other freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront Putin. I spent countless hours unifying our European allies. We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning and precisely how he would try to falsely justify his aggression.
We countered Russia’s lies with truth. And now that he has acted the free world is holding him accountable.
Along with twenty-seven members of the European Union including France, Germany, Italy, as well as countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and many others, even Switzerland. We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine. Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever.
Together with our allies –we are right now enforcing powerful economic sanctions. We are cutting off Russia’s largest banks from the international financial system. Preventing Russia’s central bank from defending the Russian Ruble making Putin’s $630 Billion “war fund” worthless.
We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come. Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime no more.
The U.S. Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs. We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts your luxury apartments your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.
And tonight I am announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American air space to all Russian flights – further isolating Russia – and adding an additional squeeze –on their economy. The Ruble has lost 30% of its value. The Russian stock market has lost 40% of its value and trading remains suspended. Russia’s economy is reeling and Putin alone is to blame.
Together with our allies we are providing support to the Ukrainians in their fight for freedom. Military assistance. Economic assistance. Humanitarian assistance. We are giving more than $1 Billion in direct assistance to Ukraine. And we will continue to aid the Ukrainian people as they defend their country and to help ease their suffering.
Let me be clear, our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine. Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine, but to defend our NATO Allies – in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west. For that purpose we’ve mobilized American ground forces, air squadrons, and ship deployments to protect NATO countries including Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
As I have made crystal clear the United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory of NATO countries with the full force of our collective power. And we remain clear-eyed. The Ukrainians are fighting back with pure courage. But the next few days weeks, months, will be hard on them.
Putin has unleashed violence and chaos. But while he may make gains on the battlefield – he will pay a continuing high price over the long run. And a proud Ukrainian people, who have known 30 years of independence, have repeatedly shown that they will not tolerate anyone who tries to take their country backwards.
To all Americans, I will be honest with you, as I’ve always promised. A Russian dictator, invading a foreign country, has costs around the world.
And I’m taking robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia’s economy. And I will use every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers. Tonight, I can announce that the United States has worked with 30 other countries to release 60 Million barrels of oil from reserves around the world.
America will lead that effort, releasing 30 Million barrels from our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And we stand ready to do more if necessary, unified with our allies. These steps will help blunt gas prices here at home. And I know the news about what’s happening can seem alarming.
But I want you to know that we are going to be okay. When the history of this era is written Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger.
While it shouldn’t have taken something so terrible for people around the world to see what’s at stake now everyone sees it clearly. We see the unity among leaders of nations and a more unified Europe a more unified West. And we see unity among the people who are gathering in cities in large crowds around the world even in Russia to demonstrate their support for Ukraine.
In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security. This is a real test. It’s going to take time. So let us continue to draw inspiration from the iron will of the Ukrainian people.
To our fellow Ukrainian Americans who forge a deep bond that connects our two nations we stand with you. Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people.
He will never extinguish their love of freedom. He will never weaken the resolve of the free world.
A link to the entire Biden State of the Union address is here:
COMMENTARY
President Trump is no better than the dictators he praises and admires such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean President Kim Jung Un and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia who the CIA say personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashogge.
One thing is for certain is that both Trump and Putin are definitely on the prowel. One fascist invades and wages war on peaceful Ukraine Democracy while the other runs around essentially plotting to return to power feeding bitterness and hatred where ever he can to his cult like followers formerly known as the Republican Party now know as the “Der Führer” Trump Party.
__________________________
POSTSCRIPT
WHY PUTIN INVADED UKRAIN
“Putin’s clearest answer for the invasion was revealed on Monday, February 21, in a speech he delivered. Putin proclaimed that Ukraine is an illegitimate country that exists on land that’s historically and rightfully Russian and he said: “Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. ” For the past few years, Ukraine has made overtures to the West and wanting to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) of European Country.
NATO provides that war on one member country is a declaration of war on all. Putin believes the Ukraine democracy is anti-Russian regime in what Putin views as rightfully Russian territory populated by rightfully Russian people and it is totally unacceptable to him. The Russian invasion is yet another step of recreating the Soviet Union. Putin’s expressed belief’s about Ukraine goes back since the USSR dissolved and the 20 years he has been the Russian President. In a 2005 speech Putin proclaimed:
“The collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster [in which] tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.”
The central contention of Putin’s speech on February 21 is that Ukraine and Russia are essentially inseparable from a historical standpoint. Putin said this:
“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. … Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians. … [ Ukraine] was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik Communist Russia.”
The history according to Putin is that the early Soviet leaders of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev carved land away from Russia and several nearby nations to create a distinct and ahistorical republic called Ukraine. The creation of Ukraine and the other Soviet republics was an attempt to win the support of “the most zealous nationalists” across the Soviet Union at the expense of the historical idea of Russia.
Putin proclaimed that Ukraine represents “the virus of nationalism.” In his view Ukraine is an infection introduced to the Russian host by the Bolsheviks. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and republics from Ukraine to Estonia to Georgia declared independence, the virus killed its host.”
In reality, these countries have longstanding ethnonational identities distinct from Russia. But Putin does not accept this as reality, treating the former Soviet republics and, above all, Ukraine as parts of Russia stolen from the motherland as a result of communist machinations. According to Putin:
“Radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. … The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of Bolshevik and Soviet leaders … the collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.”
Putin does not see post-Soviet Ukraine as a real country. He sees it as having no real history nor national tradition to unite it. Instead, he sees it as a playground for oligarchs who deploy anti-Russian demagoguery as a smokescreen for their corruption. Putin said:
“The Ukrainian authorities, I would like to emphasize this, began by building their statehood on the negation of everything that united us.”
Russian control over Ukraine, he argues, has been replaced by a different kind of foreign rule: that of the West. After the 2013 Euromaidan protests, which toppled pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych, “Ukraine itself was placed under external control … a colony with a puppet regime.”
The ominous implication of this historical narrative is that the Ukrainian government, in its current form, is both illegitimate and intolerable. Putin warned in his February 21 that a Western-backed government Ukraine threatens the very survival of the Russian state. In the speech’s most paranoid passages, Putin warned of Ukraine acquiring nuclear weapons with Western assistance, joining NATO, and ultimately serving as a launching pad for an American assault on Russia. Putin said:
“This is the source of America’s traditional policy towards Russia.”
Links to quoted source material are here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/why-putin-invaded-ukraine-russia-war-explained-rcna16028
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-russia-invading-ukraine-11645570205
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-russia-invading-ukraine-11645570205
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/trump-putin-russia-ukraine.html