Dodgy Dealings

Trump dances to Kremlin tunes

(Trump envoy Witkoff meeting ‘Putin’ yesterday; Kremlin foreign policy advisor Ushakov, who revealed details of the next ‘summit’, is in the middle.)

God knows there have been strategic miscues in US-Russian relations.

Bush Sr’s ill-timed Chicken Kyiv speech. Soviet spying on the Manhattan project. Obama’s disastrous reset.

Did anyone ever dream a US President would join Moscow’s informal Politburo?

By agreeing to meet ‘Putin’ next week, Trump has effectively done just that.

Details are sketchy, but this sordid arrangement has all the marks of another betrayal.

Allies including Biden were boycotting the Kremlin; Trump decided to court it.

Ukraine & its partners were tightening sanctions; Trump proposed easing them.

Ukraine & allies agreed that Russia would not relent until defeated; since February, Trump has used a faux ‘peace process’ to distract from this military task.