ByPaul Wallis
EDITOR AT LARGE
DIGITAL JOURNAL
August 14, 2025
US President Donald Trump (L) has grown increasingly frustrated with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over Ukraine - Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB, Pavel Bednyakov
The much hyped meeting of Trump and Putin to decide the future of the war in Ukraine is unlikely to do much. Headlines are full of spin, but not much substance.
For those under 40, this is old-style diplomacy, and it doesn’t work. In this case, it can’t work at all.
Ukraine has already said it won’t cede territory. Putin remains committed to his original failed position. Trump has so far achieved nothing at all after months of blather and useless talk.
There’s much more at stake:
For Putin, this is very much “his” war. His name is on it. The fate of Russia is at stake. Militarily, total failure has been achieved at a horrific cost.
The US is actually losing this war. Trump’s constant denigration and undermining of longstanding US alliances puts the US in a much more difficult position. Trump is creating his personal obstacle course for the future.
Europe has been pushed into a new military role that it didn’t want, upgrading NATO capabilities at great expense.
Ukraine knows it has support from Europe and elsewhere. Things are tough, but not impossible.
It’s the long-term damage that will decide. It will also define this war as a human reality. This is where history starts sneering.
This is no longer 2014. The geopolitical realities in the region have changed forever. The situation is so clear that the future will wonder why nobody saw the obvious.
A boy walks past a destroyed tank at an open air exhibition of destroyed Russian military equipment in Kyiv on August 13, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine – Copyright AFP Sergei SUPINSKY
Donetsk and Luhansk are devastated and severely contaminated with the chemistry of war. They have been war zones for many years. They will be a gigantic economic burden on Russia, even if Russia can hold them.
Crimea is now a barely supportable Russian outpost. Lack of water and continual exposure to increasingly penetrant Ukrainian attacks have made it more of a liability to Russia than an asset.
This is the physical reality that the Trump-Putin summit is supposed to “solve”?
The US can’t actually commit Ukraine to anything. Russia can’t force terms on Ukraine.
The military reality is that despite all the flailing away with drone strikes, the damage is comparatively superficial. Critically, the Ukrainians simply don’t believe Russia intends to end the war. This “summit of the senile” is therefore dead in the water before it starts.
Historically, the scenario is unambiguous to put it politely. The US is definitely not what it was. Russia is not the USSR. They no longer have the international roles they had. The world just doesn’t believe in them anymore.
The US isn’t seen as the leader of the free world, largely thanks to Trump. Russia isn’t considered the Red Menace anymore, just an aggressor.
Russia and the US also aren’t in anything like great shape themselves. Both economies are under tremendous self-inflicted stress. This doesn’t help credibility. Why would anyone believe these two meandering disaster areas can solve anything?
When history sneers, it’s for a reason.
Donetsk and Luhansk are devastated and severely contaminated with the chemistry of war. They have been war zones for many years. They will be a gigantic economic burden on Russia, even if Russia can hold them.
Crimea is now a barely supportable Russian outpost. Lack of water and continual exposure to increasingly penetrant Ukrainian attacks have made it more of a liability to Russia than an asset.
This is the physical reality that the Trump-Putin summit is supposed to “solve”?
The US can’t actually commit Ukraine to anything. Russia can’t force terms on Ukraine.
The military reality is that despite all the flailing away with drone strikes, the damage is comparatively superficial. Critically, the Ukrainians simply don’t believe Russia intends to end the war. This “summit of the senile” is therefore dead in the water before it starts.
Historically, the scenario is unambiguous to put it politely. The US is definitely not what it was. Russia is not the USSR. They no longer have the international roles they had. The world just doesn’t believe in them anymore.
The US isn’t seen as the leader of the free world, largely thanks to Trump. Russia isn’t considered the Red Menace anymore, just an aggressor.
Russia and the US also aren’t in anything like great shape themselves. Both economies are under tremendous self-inflicted stress. This doesn’t help credibility. Why would anyone believe these two meandering disaster areas can solve anything?
When history sneers, it’s for a reason.
'Road to hell': NYT columnist warns Trump may get 'fleeced' with 'half-baked' plan
Daniel Hampton
August 12, 2025
RAW STORY
U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump ought to give the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots a call ahead of his "half-baked" plan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a New York Times opinion columnist suggested Tuesday.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting will focus mainly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a ceasefire.
Bret Stephens, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist for the Times who writes about foreign policy and domestic politics, gave Trump a piece of advice: ask Robert Kraft how a meeting with Putin can go south. Kraft, he said, "knows what it’s like to be fleeced by the Russian president."
Kraft showed Putin one of his $25,000 Super Bowl rings during a 2005 trip with other American business leaders. And Putin never gave it back.
“And he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said in 2013. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”
Kraft said the Bush administration urged him to pretend the ring was a gift, Stephens said.
"Putin later mocked Kraft’s complaint and suggested that the ring was embarrassingly cheap," Stephens added.
Trump is an admirer of Putin's "gangsterism," he added, but "he won’t want to emerge from the meeting as Putin’s poodle." Stephens warned there are many avenues in which Trump's summit could go awry, but there's also an opportunity to accomplish something "useful." Namely, he said, by giving a "good-faith" effort to allow Russia to cut its losses and end its invasion, even if the country will likely rebuff the offer.
Stephens said Trump ought to work with Europe to seize $300 billion in frozen Russian government assets to fund Ukraine's purchases of Western arms, and sign a bill that would implement steep 500% tariffs on all goods and services imported from countries that buy Russian oil and uranium. Stephens also called on Trump to supply Ukraine with F-16s and other weapons.
"The choice between these two sets of options — the off-ramp versus the road to hell — should be Putin’s to make," Stephens said. "Though public opinion counts for almost nothing in Putin’s Russia, Russians should still know that their president was offered an honorable peace and refused it."
Daniel Hampton
August 12, 2025
RAW STORY
U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump ought to give the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots a call ahead of his "half-baked" plan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a New York Times opinion columnist suggested Tuesday.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting will focus mainly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a ceasefire.
Bret Stephens, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist for the Times who writes about foreign policy and domestic politics, gave Trump a piece of advice: ask Robert Kraft how a meeting with Putin can go south. Kraft, he said, "knows what it’s like to be fleeced by the Russian president."
Kraft showed Putin one of his $25,000 Super Bowl rings during a 2005 trip with other American business leaders. And Putin never gave it back.
“And he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said in 2013. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”
Kraft said the Bush administration urged him to pretend the ring was a gift, Stephens said.
"Putin later mocked Kraft’s complaint and suggested that the ring was embarrassingly cheap," Stephens added.
Trump is an admirer of Putin's "gangsterism," he added, but "he won’t want to emerge from the meeting as Putin’s poodle." Stephens warned there are many avenues in which Trump's summit could go awry, but there's also an opportunity to accomplish something "useful." Namely, he said, by giving a "good-faith" effort to allow Russia to cut its losses and end its invasion, even if the country will likely rebuff the offer.
Stephens said Trump ought to work with Europe to seize $300 billion in frozen Russian government assets to fund Ukraine's purchases of Western arms, and sign a bill that would implement steep 500% tariffs on all goods and services imported from countries that buy Russian oil and uranium. Stephens also called on Trump to supply Ukraine with F-16s and other weapons.
"The choice between these two sets of options — the off-ramp versus the road to hell — should be Putin’s to make," Stephens said. "Though public opinion counts for almost nothing in Putin’s Russia, Russians should still know that their president was offered an honorable peace and refused it."
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