What a big game Volodymyr Zelensky talked before his latest little while in the Oval Office last Friday.
The Ukrainian president (who is no longer legitimately the Ukrainian president) arrived for another summit with President Trump with a shopping list of air defense and weapons systems worth $90 billion.
Yes, $90 billion. This compares with $128 billion the United States has already given Ukraine since the Russian intervention began in February 2022, according to a Council on Foreign Relations report dated July 15, 2025.
Playing to Trump’s penchant for keeping everything business, Zelensky said Ukraine would purchase all the new hardware in what he called “a mega deal.” What nonsense. Kiev is flat broke. How could the regime possibly pay for new weapons and matériel?
Would Kiev write Washington a check out of funds Washington has previously sent? Or does Zelensky mean NATO, which is supposed to buy American weaponry to pass on to Ukraine, will finance his shopping list? Zelensky now speaks for the European end of the Atlantic alliance, is it?
The only other thought I have is that the Zelensky regime intends to pay for the new gear with the billions of euros the Europeans promise to send Kiev — the billions, that is, the Europeans now plan to steal from Russia’s frozen assets. But that money is supposed to keep Kiev in pencils and paper clips for a short while longer.
Oh, what tangled webs these people weave. Or propose to weave.
But the hopelessly corrupt Zelensky had more than a 70 percent raise on his mind when he arrived in Washington. The master importunist also wanted an unstated number — let’s just say a lot — of Tomahawk missiles atop this.
Tomahawks, long-range missiles capable of a nuclear payload, go for $2 million to $2.5 million apiece, and by the reporting I have seen the idea was Trump would send these gratis. Reflecting Zelensky’s confidence that the Trumpster would oblige him, he, Zelensky, actually visited Raytheon, the Tomahawk’s maker, before his session at the White House.
This is a crook with nerve: You have to give Volodymyr this much.
More weapons, fewer talks: This was the Kiev regime’s clever-sounding but very stupid formula as Zelensky prepared to shake the bowl once again. Time to start hitting Russian targets relentlessly. It is the only way to get Moscow seriously to negotiate an end to the war. This is the latest line.
In the event, Zelensky’s time in the Oval Office was not as awkward as that mess he made when he first met Trump last February. But it was in that direction. The protocol people seated Vlod so his back was to the journalists covering the event — a subtle but unmistakable dis, this. And when Zelensky briefed media afterward, they made him do so outside the White House.
Trump Axes the Tomahawks
Trump eyes reporters suspiciously as he ushers Zelensky into the White House on Friday.
No Tomahawks for Volod, then, at least none now. Trump made this clear before, during and after his time with the Ukrainian mooch. The fate of the rest on Zelensky’s list is unclear, but my guess is Kiev will get what the Europeans buy from U.S. weapons makers and send south across the Polish border.
The decisive moment in this — the decisive two hours, this is to say — came a day before Zelensky’s White House visit, when Trump took a call from Vladimir Putin and spent as many hours talking to the Russian president. By all accounts Trump’s then-pending decision on the Tomahawks question took up a considerable part of the exchange.
Trump’s comments afterward testify to this. “Tomahawk is a vicious, offensive, incredibly destructive weapon,” he said immediately following the call. “Nobody wants Tomahawks shot at them.”
Speaking just as he began talks with Zelensky, Trump remarked, “Hopefully we will be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks.”
The argument is commonly made that Donald Trump thinks and believes what the last person he has spoken to tells him is so. And fair enough: Trump is plainly a man of shallow intellect and has no sound judgment in matters of state.
The easy out for this kind of person is to repeat with faux-conviction the views of anyone whose judgments, whatever they may be, are respected. But to suggest that Putin has an easy time “playing” Trump in this fashion, as do mainstream media and those whose views these media faithfully reflect, is a cynical dodge.
You get cast into the darkness for saying this, but never mind that: Vladimir Putin is a demonstrably accomplished statesman, and he is the only principal in the Ukraine crisis who makes a credible case for an enduring settlement — this not only between Moscow and Kiev but between Russia and the West.
The security of one nation cannot be established at the expense of the security of any other nation: This is basic to sound diplomacy and is the core of Moscow’s case. This is what Putin and those in his national security circle mean when they insist on addressing root causes.
As the late Stephen F. Cohen taught me years ago, Russia’s position vis-à-vis the West is not about spheres of influence, which we can count a 19th century anachronism: It is about spheres of security, and you cannot name a nation that does not shape its foreign policies with this as an objective.
Tomahawks & Perilous Escalation
A Raytheon Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile during flight test at NAWS China Lake, California, 2002.
As to the Tomahawks, Putin, as well-reported, advised Trump that shipping Tomahawks to a regime as irresponsible as Kiev would fundamentally damage any prospect of a restoration in U.S.–Russian relations and force an escalation of the war.
This is so, not least but not only because the Russians would not be able to tell if an incoming missile bore a nuclear warhead. It would take Americans, equally, to operate them as the Ukrainians cannot do so on their own.
Tell me, was it sensible of Putin to urge Trump not to send the Ukrainians Tomahawks, or are we supposed to think of this some other way?
It is very tiresome at this point to read the mainstream press describe the Russian position. “Monotonous” may be my better word.
The Washington Post: Russia manipulates Trump “by continually dangling hopes of peace deal while it ramps up attacks.” And: “Russia rules out a ceasefire so that fighting can continue.” And: “Putin has refused to offer concessions.”
The New York Times: “Russia rebuffs President Trump’s diplomatic push.” And: “… Moscow’s decision to spurn negotiations while ramping up deadly attacks.”
None of this is true, of course — not an f–ing word of it. All this repetitive language is deployed merely to avoid stating Moscow’s true position. It is too sound for that — too much in the cause of a peace to the benefit of all sides.
I do not like the sound of that $90 billion number Zelensky and his people put about before the Oval Office encounter last week. The extravagance of it suggests that the Zelensky regime and the Europeans — and the Euros serve as his North Star now, given they are mutually delusional — intend the war with Russia to go on indefinitely, never mind Ukraine and its Western sponsors lost it a long time back.
Life on Desperation Row, let’s call this.
Trump is now scheduled to meet Putin for another summit in two weeks’ time, this one in Budapest. I see little coming of it.
In my read, the Trumpster may have grasped the validity of the Russian view of the war and its resolution as far back as the Alaska summit in mid–August. There is no knowing this, of course.
The grim reality is that it is unlikely to matter either way: There are too many constituencies with an interest in keeping the Ukraine conflict going.
It is one of those cases wherein it would be a very good thing to be wrong.
Source: Consortium News.
