Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and all modern civilization!
- Trump remains Trump
- New escalation between Iran and the USA
▶ Trump remains Trump. He can’t be any other way. All speculation about whether he can change his views on something, his attitude towards something or someone, is completely meaningless. He cannot.
Senator Adam Schiff, during his time as a member of the House of Representatives, chairman of its intelligence committee, and chief prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment, said in February 2020 during the first impeachment trial in the Senate: “He will not change. He will do this again. And you know it.” Schiff repeated these words several times and was absolutely right.
Scandal after scandal, chaotic decisions, chaotic actions, multiplied by an absolutely excessive ego, boundless self-admiration, self-confidence, ignorance, a thirst for unlimited power, enrichment, and a lack of understanding of what and why is happening in the world – all this was, is, and will continue exactly as long as Donald Trump holds power in the country and the Republican party.
In the last three days, it seems, the whole world discussed his calls to FIFA President Infantino demanding to cancel the disqualification of the leading striker of the U.S. national football team Balogun for the red card he received.
Everyone – from football figures to hundreds of millions around the world who watch football or follow political news, unanimously expressed outrage.
But what’s surprising about Trump calling Infantino with such a demand? If he called Zelensky in June 2019, demanding fabricated evidence against Biden and blocked the military aid allocated by Congress to Ukraine until he received this fabricated evidence. If he called Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger in January 2021, demanding to falsify the presidential election results in the state in his favor, creating almost 12,000 votes for him.
Why can’t he call the FIFA president and demand the cancellation of the American footballer’s disqualification? He can. And he did. He is sure that he can call anyone and demand anything. Apparently, the only two people in the world from whom he demands nothing and, as he believes, cannot afford to demand anything are Putin and Xi. From everyone else, he can demand anything. And he regularly proves this with his actions.
Therefore, there’s nothing surprising about his call to Infantino. Moreover, the head of the corrupt FIFA, Infantino, is a person dependent on Trump. When Infantino needed to arrange a representative office in New York in connection with the World Cup, guess where he found an office in the city with possibly the largest number of office spaces available for rent? For those who haven’t figured it out yet – he found this office in Trump Tower on 5th Avenue. Apparently, by sheer “coincidence.” Or were there no other vacancies? So, Infantino pays rent to Trump. And then the landlord calls and demands something. How can you not comply? What if he raises the rent?
This is called corruption. But this is not new for the most corrupt president in US history or for the corrupt FIFA.
Trump remains Trump. He demonstrated this by flying to Ankara for the NATO summit on a plane gifted to him by the emir of Qatar worth $400 million, converted into a temporary Air Force One at the expense of American taxpayers (Trump will take the plane with him when he leaves the White House, and taxpayers will have to pay for another conversion, since a privately-owned plane cannot have, for example, various government communication systems).
The 47th president stated upon arrival in Turkey that:
– Maybe he wouldn’t have come to the NATO summit at all if it weren’t held in Turkey and hosted by his friend Erdoğan (who would doubt that participating in G7 and NATO summits is extremely unpleasant and burdensome for him – not his circle. Some people leading some democracies interfere and don’t want to listen to him). All this has happened before. And it will happen again.
– He had a “wonderful conversation with Putin and a conversation with Zelensky,” that “they both want peace,” and that the war will soon end. If Trump talks to Putin, the conversation can only be “wonderful,” and after each such conversation, Putin “wants peace,” and Trump is always “immensely sorry” for the monthly disposal of thirty thousand of Putin’s thugs. And “this war does not concern US interests.” “It’s far from us. We have an ocean.” “It concerns Europe, not us.” “We have an ocean.” And there is absolutely nothing new about this. And it’s all been said. Many times already. And it will happen again. Many times.
– He needs to govern Greenland because only he can “protect this piece of ice.” And this has all happened before. And it will happen again.
– NATO countries are bad because they didn’t join him in waging war against Iran. He spends “billions” on them, but they didn’t go. And he’s not sure that NATO countries will defend the US if needed. This has already happened. And will happen again. He didn’t inform any NATO country that he was planning to go to war with Iran (which, by the way, violates Article 8 of the Washington Treaty). And he’s unaware that Article 5 of the same treaty on collective defense was invoked only once in history, when there was an attack on the US, and all other NATO countries participated in the fight against the terrorist army of Al-Qaeda, which attacked the US. He’s also unaware that NATO is a defensive alliance, and its members pledged to collectively defend each other in case of an attack on any of them, but were not obligated to collectively attack other countries.
– He might “withdraw all American troops from Europe” because “Europe is no longer Europe” as it allows immigrants and develops green energy. Therefore, he might consider withdrawing troops. And this has already happened. Starting with “Project-2025”. And will happen again.
– War with Iran is not a war. It’s a military operation (did Putin teach him that war is not a war but a “special military operation”?). “A military operation for the denuclearization of Iran.” It’s worth reminding that Iran has and still possesses 11 tons of enriched uranium, which it enriched after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA agreement in 2018. Including having 500 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, from which Iran can make several nuclear charges.
What the 47th will say on Wednesday after the NATO summit and meeting with Zelensky, we’ll see. But expecting something new from him is difficult.
What we definitely can’t expect from him is that he will “stop the war” of Russia against Ukraine. He can’t stop it. He has no levers to force Putin to stop immediately.
He has two potential levers that could seriously accelerate the end or stoppage of the war. But he doesn’t use these levers.
This is military aid to Ukraine, its renewal and increase, and strict, comprehensive sanctions against the Russian economy. But he does not use these levers. He halted military aid to Ukraine as soon as he crossed the threshold of the Oval Office on January 20, 2025. He imposed sanctions only on two Russian oil companies. Sanctions against one of them (Lukoil) were partially suspended literally a few days after they came into force, regarding the company’s foreign assets. The sanctions that the Biden administration had introduced against Russian oil trading were recently stopped for four months, which allowed Putin to replenish his bloody budget by billions of dollars.
A bill to support Ukraine, passed by the House of Representatives, has been sitting in the Senate for the second month. It provides for the resumption of military aid to Ukraine, the provision of a loan to purchase American weapons, and obliges the administration to introduce total sanctions against the Russian oil and gas and financial sectors of the economy. The bill remains because Senate Republican majority leader Thune only puts in the agenda those bills that Trump approves. Without a signal from the White House to consider the bill – it is not being considered.
▶ Iran fired at three tankers on Tuesday that were passing through the Strait of Hormuz along the channel near the Omani, not Iranian, shore. In response, the US struck Iranian targets, including a port in the strait area, and canceled the halting of sanctions against Iranian oil.
The oil market responded to this news with price increases. A barrel of Brent rose by 2.68% to $76.15, and a barrel of American WTI oil increased by 2.75% to $72.38.
There are 928 days left until the end of the story called “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (title of Bob Woodward’s book, published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight evil, whether we do Good, or remain mere observers, passively waiting and believing that someone somewhere will decide something for us, or we fight evil and do everything possible to ensure Good prevails.
We must not allow evil to prevail. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world in which we live. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian friends, I embrace and love you all. Please take care of each other, I ask you very much.
Ukraine is and will always be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And this is inevitable.
