Andrew L. Urban
The failure to conclude Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Donald Trump’s first really big boo-boo. The failure fuse was lit even before November 2024, when Trump won the US election. That was the day he could have set the ground rules under his upcoming Presidency, the day he should not have boasted about getting it done in a day but declared Russia’s invasion illegal and contrary to its obligations under international laws – and the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
He couldn’t – because it was during the election campaign that he lit that fuse boasting about his ability to stop the war in a day. A phone call or two was all it would take. Of all his boasts, this was the most misguided, self delusional, ill-advised and reckless. I say that as a supporter of Trump in most policy matters. And I say it with a heavy heart, as the killing continues.
Instead of putting Putin figuratively behind bars and treating his invasion as the criminal act that it is, his lackadaisical, almost flirty relationship with the former KGB agent, Trump elevated Putin to equal status. As if this was a war between two nations which had declared war. That did not happen. The Russian Federation stormed into Ukraine guns blazing without any legitimacy.
Instead of denouncing the invasion and calling for Europe to join the US in physically and legally pushing Putin out of Ukraine, Trump is treating Putin not as Shakespeare’s “rugged Russian bear” but as a cuddly teddy bear. Don’t be a wimp, Mr President.
Instead of acting, Trump talked.
Trump keeps repeating that it wouldn’t have happened had he been President at the time of the invasion (February 2024). If his status as President would have enabled him to stop Putin, why can’t it now? Well, we know why. Putin has trumped Trump with his wily strategies and Trump has failed to grasp the realpolitik of Putin’s mindset. He is ruthless and determined. Putin is a gangster. Trump has failed to grasp this.
“If you want to win, then you have to fight to the finish in every fight, as if it was the last and decisive battle, Putin once said. You need to assume that there is no retreat.” That’s how Putin has always fought, and it’s been his strategy since the beginning of this conflict, observes Rebekah Koffler, President Of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) Intelligence Officer and author of Putin’s Playbook – Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America (Wilkinson Publishing).
Russia has already crossed the cyber Rubicon by temporarily shutting down Ukraine’s power grid in a crippling operation during Christmas 2015, causing a blackout for 250,000 people in freezing temperatures. This was the first recorded cyberattack on a power grid outside a military conflict.
Is it too late for tough action? Trump keeps talking, Putin keeps shooting.
The missile attacks on Ukrainian hospitals and apartment blocks, kidnapping children and atrocious war crimes against civilians call for more than diplomacy. After the failed negotiations to date, Trump should be in no doubt that Putin should be stopped by military means. Peace through strength, remember?
Andrew L. Urban is the author of two books on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (Wilkinson Publishing).
