By Rich Kozlovich Tags: My Russo/Ukrainian War Series, Putin, Russo/Ukraine War, P&D Geopolitics Edition: Russo/Ukrainian War, and Donald Trump, Putin
I subscribe to Geopolitical Futures, which I highly recommend, and there's always a lot of analysis on the Russo/Ukrainian War, and this piece is predicated on some of that analysis.
On August 15th Presidents Trump and Putin will be meeting in Alaska to discuss bringing an end to the Russo/Ukrainian war, which NATO thinks he's "broken the deadlock". Yeah, right, that's a real confidence builder.
Russia's pushing even harder into Ukraine with drone attacks, Zelenskyy is insisting they will never give up any territory to Russia and doesn't care what Trump and Putin agree to, and Western Europe wants Russia punished for it's aggression, but they're broke and need Trump to step up to defend Ukraine.
While it seems reasonable that Trump actually believes something worthwhile will come out of this meeting, otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to it, and since he forced the meeting to be on American soil instead of the United Arab Emirates as Putin wanted, that's telling, but not all that telling as Trump has had a lot of trouble reading Putin's real intentions in the past, which has been a typical Russian stalling misdirection strategy for decades. Trump's negotiating skills are amazing, but in business negotiations are between people who want a deal. That's not always true in geopolitics, which Russia, Iran, China, and Hamas have demonstrated.
Trump's tariffs have hurt Putin, but he's managed to skirt some tariffs via trade with other countries. However, Trump has had it with that scheme and is introducing serious tariffs on any country doing business with Russia, especially on Russian's biggest export, oil and natural gas. And that includes India with Trump willing to impose a 50% tariff on India, which shocked both India and Russia. And since India typically has a good relationship with the U.S. it sends a startling message to smaller nations. Don't mess with Trump.
I do wish people would abandon this "depth of defense against NATO" nonsense as an excuse for Putin's aggression. After all that’s come out that’s an untenable point of view. It's revanche, period, an irrational desire to re-create the Russian empire. Russia has been in a perpetual state of war forever, that's it's history and that history is incontestable.
Putin believes Ukraine belongs to Russia, and has acted accordingly, but his three year invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster. The world's twenty second military has thwarted the world's second military for three years, it's devastated Russia's demography losing over one million young Russian men, it's economy is a mess, and it's military has been exposed as something far less that the fabled "Russian Bear" we all thought it was, and has demonstrated just how incompetent Russia's leaders are.
And if they'd won what was their long range plan for Ukraine. Slavery? Confiscation of all resources? This article in American Thinker, Perpetual Russian Wars, is in my view extremely insightful saying:
The Russian Empire, the USSR, and today’s Russia are all built in a military mold. Yet, the only thing an army truly exists for, the only thing it is supposed to do—at least in theory — is fight wars. An army, and a state modeled after an army, cannot create anything. .........The U.S., Ukraine, and all European countries call on Russia to come to the negotiating table and end this senseless war. Unfortunately, they don’t understand—or prefer not to understand—that Russia doesn’t need Ukraine. Russia doesn’t even want victory! Russia needs war! Only war.
Without war, Russia cannot exist. Peace—even temporary peace—will inevitably lead to internal tensions,........the very existence of the Russian state as a single entity would be threatened. Moreover, the end of the war would require an inevitable transformation of a military economy into a civilian one. But with Russia’s current legal and political structure, this is impossible.
After WWII, the U.S. industries were able to quickly switch to peacetime, something its democratic system made possible. The USSR, however, did not want to, and even if it had, it couldn’t. The Soviet experience showed that state-run industry is inefficient, while private enterprise requires freedom of choice and, most importantly, the rule of law, something Russian history has never had.
Any attempt to shift Russia onto peaceful tracks would cause the collapse of the centralized power and the loss of vast fortunes amassed by the ruling class through illicit means. Therefore, neither the top of the power structure nor the privileged layers of Russian society have any interest in peace.
Putin’s new goal is to stay alive, and he cannot stop his invasion and survive. But if he continues, he will further destroy his economy, his military, his demography, and Russia’s standing in the world. And it’s my view his own people are going to kill him anyway.
He’s already lost influence in the Caucuses, and Turkey is becoming ascendant as a result. I think his meeting with Trump is nothing more than a delaying tactic with false promises in order to get Trump to back away from his new tariff plan, and that may be because there was internal Russian politics forcing him into this meeting.
I believe any hope for ending this war with this meeting is wishful thinking. Nothing short of Putin’s removal from power will bring peace.
Update, 8/13/25:
- Trump Issues New Warning to Putin Ahead of High Stakes Meeting - Speaking to reporters from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the war against Ukraine. "There will be very severe consequences," Trump said if Putin refuses to follow through with some kind of peace agreement. ..........
- This Week: World Watches Trump-Putin Summit…EU Meddling Intensifies -European leaders laid out their conditions for any progress on peace in Ukraine in bilateral talks between Russia and the U.S. due this Friday after a call with President Donald Trump........
Editor's Note: I've written a great deal about this. Here are 21 of my commentaries on this issue.
- Putin is Between a Rock and a Hard Place
- P&D Geopolitics Edition, Russia, Ukraine, and Donald Trump, Part III
- P&D Geopolitics Edition: Russo/Ukrainian War, and Donald Trump, Part II
- P&D Geopolitics Edition: Russo/Ukrainian War, and Donald Trump
- This Game Has a New Dealer
- Let's Try and Get This Right, Just Once, Please! The Russo/Ukrainian War is All Putin's Fault!
- Thank You Tucker Carlson!
- This Russo/Ukrainian War is About Revanche, not World Conquest
- P&D Geopolitical Edition: Russo/Ukrainian War, Strategy
- Economics and the Russo/Ukrainian War
- P&D Geopolitical Edition
- Ukraine Isn't Our Fault, Nor is it Our Responsibility!
- Decisions Clouded by the Fog of Misdirection, Misinformation and Ideology
- P&D Today, November 12, 2022
- P&D Today, September 22, 2022
- Russia, and Putin are in Trouble: Get Over It!
- Russia Was Scared So They Had to Attack Ukraine, Part II
- Russia Was Scared, So They Had to Attack Ukraine! Part I
- Russo/Ukrainian War, Part 2 (b): President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
- Russo/Ukrainian War, Part 2 (a): President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
- Russo/Ukrainian War: Part One, President Joe Biden
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