By Jim Geraghty, National Review, February 19, 2025 - On the menu today: Regarding the war, President Donald Trump says to the Ukrainians, “You should have never started it!” Somewhere in Moscow, Vladimir Putin must be grinning from ear to ear. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledges that the U.S. will cooperate with Russia on “matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities,” despite the fact that those mutual geopolitical interests don’t exist, and here in Kyiv, a report of cartel thugs from Brazil signing up to fight on behalf of the Russians.
Trump Blames the Victim
Kyiv, Ukraine — There’s still time for President Trump to turn it around. But so far in his second term, regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump has offered to Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will not retake all its annexed and occupied sovereign territory, that Ukraine will not join NATO, that there will be no U.S. troops on Ukrainian soil after the war, and that the U.S. will lift sanctions on Russia. And Trump might even throw in a withdrawal of the extra 20,000 U.S. troops that Joe Biden sent to NATO’s eastern flank after the invasion of Ukraine.
... Trump’s approach in his tirade yesterday was to blame the victim and offer greater and greater concessions to the aggressor.
“Today I heard, ‘Oh well, we weren’t invited’ — well, you’ve been there for three years! You should have ended it three years — you should have never started it! You could have made a deal,” Trump said of the Ukrainians, either oblivious to or in denial of the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, not the other way around.
“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law,” Trump fumed yesterday. I would urge him to look up what “martial law” means. ... The Ukrainian constitution does not allow elections to be held when martial law is in effect.
Roughly 20 percent of Ukraine is occupied by Russian forces; obviously, those regions cannot participate in any Ukrainian election. (Russian forces allowing them to participate in the election would be de facto admission that they are Ukrainian citizens residing on Ukrainian territory.) This would be akin to running an American presidential election with only 40 of the 50 states able to participate. Distributing and collecting ballots from the troops in the field, under fire, would represent its own slew of logistical challenges. (read it all)
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