FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
European officials briefed on the meeting by their Ukrainian counterparts said the angry US president threw maps of Ukraine to one side, told Zelensky he had to accept Putin's terms for peace or the Russians would "destroy" his country, and insisted the Kremlin's economy was "doing very well"...
Vladimir Putin appears to have pulled it off again. Amid reports that Donald Trump's meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday spiraled out of control as soon as the cameras rolled out of the White House Cabinet Room, the Russian leader can be sure that he played his American counterpart like a fiddle.
Putin’s decision to lure the US president into a two-hour phone call on Thursday was designed to set conditions for the outcome of Friday’s meeting with Zelensky. The strategy worked perfectly. By ensuring that his voice was the last in Trump’s ear before the Ukrainian leader arrived in Washington, the Russian president could be sure that the Kremlin’s stance on the war in Ukraine would dominate the next day’s conversations.
As a result, by the time Trump and Zelensky shook hands, there was no chance that the Ukrainian leader would secure Trump’s promise of Tomahawk missiles that would allow Kiev’s armed forces to strike deep into Russian territory. Gone from Trump’s account of the war were his latest suggestions that Ukraine could win it.
Less than a month earlier, on September 23, after meeting with Zelensky on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trump attacked Putin as a “paper tiger” and claimed that Kiev was “in a position to fight back and reclaim all of Ukraine in its original form.” The U-turn was music to the ears of European leaders, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had rushed to Washington to join Zelensky on his August 18 visit to the White House after Trump’s failed Alaska summit with Putin.
But on Friday, there was no European encirclement to support Zelensky and keep Trump on track. The result: a Trump fury. European officials briefed on the meeting by their Ukrainian counterparts said the furious U.S. president tossed maps of Ukraine to one side, told Zelensky he had to accept Putin’s terms for peace or the Russians would “destroy” his country, and insisted that the Kremlin’s economy was “doing very well.”
Zelensky left the White House in disappointment. Trump then expressed his latest views in an interview with Fox News that aired over the weekend. “They’re bleeding a lot,” he complained of the two warring leaders. But describing his call with Putin as “a very good conversation,” he indicated that Russia deserves to “get significant ownership of Ukraine” in any peace settlement.
"They fought and Putin has conquered a lot of land. He has gained a certain amount of space," Trump declared, in a complete reversal of his stance in late September.
By Sunday evening, as he flew to Washington from Mar-a-Lago, Trump was telling reporters that Ukraine should be prepared to “tear up” its territory in order to secure peace. “Let it be cut up as it is… leave it as it is now,” he proposed, signaling an eagerness to put the conflict behind him. He did not mention his proposal just last week to create a “victory fund” for Ukraine by imposing tariffs on China for its purchases of Russian oil, suggesting that the hastily conceived idea has been abandoned just as quickly.
The President’s comments suggest that he favors ceding the Crimean Peninsula and Donbas from Ukraine to Russia, potentially allowing Russian forces to overrun Ukraine’s current defense lines. Taking his remarks to their logical conclusion, the southern city of Kherson would remain in Ukrainian hands and Russia would also be forced to abandon its ongoing efforts to control Zaporizhzhia, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
But Trump doesn't pay attention to detail and, at Friday's meeting, reportedly got angry about maps of Ukraine that showed red lines favored by Kiev in any solution.
"This red line, I don't even know where it is. I've never been there," Trump said, after describing himself as "tired" of the repeated presentation of the map of the current positioning of forces.
For European leaders, Trump’s latest vacillation poses a major problem, revealing that urgent muscular action is required to override Putin’s arguments in Trump’s mind. Even more worrying is the prospect of another summit between Trump and Putin that could take place in two weeks in Budapest. There, Prime Minister Victor Orban is poised to further tilt the American leader’s mind in Moscow’s direction.
On Friday, Trump said Hungary was specifically chosen because of Orban's friendly relationship with both him and Putin. Orban is "a leader that we like. He likes him. I like him... he's been a very good leader," Trump said. Orban, who has expressed consistent opposition to NATO support for Ukraine, said on Friday that he leads "the only country that has consistently, openly, loudly and actively advocated for peace," a claim that Zelensky would dispute.
For Kiev and anxious European governments, the coming weeks will be critical. The prime minister and his colleagues are back at ground zero in their talks with the White House and will try again to overcome Putin’s proven ability to twist Trump around his little finger. / Adapted from The i Paper /
Po bëhet i pa besueshëm Tramp ç'far thotë tani nuk pastaj shumë e çuditshme se mendonim kurrë që S H B A të harrinte deri këtu nga Demokraci e pa harritshëm në Autokracia .