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Ukraine, Putin, and Us

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Rescuers carry the body of a victim on a stretcher as they work at the site of a Russian missile strike in Sumy, Ukraine, April 13, 2025. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout via Reuters)

On Friday, April 11, Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin in Russia. They talked for four hours. Witkoff is President Trump’s envoy. Witkoff has expressed great warmth toward Putin (as I discussed in a post last month, here). On the 11th, Witkoff put his hand on his heart as Putin approached him, to shake his hand.

Watch it here.

Let me ask you: From everything that has come from the Trump administration, from the president on down, what could possibly make Putin think that there would be any consequences from the United States? Any consequences for any atrocity? What could possibly arouse our administration against him?

On Sunday, April 13 — Palm Sunday — Putin’s forces committed a massacre in Sumy, Ukraine. They killed at least 36 people and wounded 119. The Russians struck just as people were going to church.

Naturally, condemnations of Putin poured in, from the various democracies — but not from Trump. Not from the president of the United States.

Finally, when questioned, Trump said, “I think it was terrible, and I was told they made a mistake.”

A mistake. He was told.

Later, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said, “Excuse me, but this is a murder. This strike went to the center, it did not go to the front line. We cannot find excuses when you hit the city center with missiles.”

I agree.

What does Donald Trump do when Vladimir Putin commits a massacre in broad daylight? He wheels on Zelensky and Joe Biden, naturally — with nary a cross word for Putin.

“President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin,” he wrote.

Over and over, Trump blames Zelensky and the Ukrainians for starting the war. (Russia, of course, invaded Ukraine in 2014, partially, and then launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.)

After the massacre in Sumy, Zelensky expressed the desire to purchase $15 billion in missile-defense systems from the United States. He did not ask that the U.S. give Ukraine these weapons. He asked to purchase them. The Ukrainians are desperate to defend themselves against mass murder.

Our president’s response: “He’s always looking to purchase missiles, you know? Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know that you can win the war, right? You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

They must be purring in the Kremlin.

Trump perpetually dumps on Zelensky, offering nothing but praise for Putin, or excuses of him. “If you’re smart, you don’t get involved in wars,” said Trump, knocking Zelensky, again. “I’m not a big fan.”

I am. And I think Putin is a murderous, expansionist tyrant, cursing the earth.

As you recall, Trump labeled Zelensky a “dictator.” He has no such words for the dictator, Putin.

Long ago, there was a rap song: “Things That Make You Go ‘Hmmm.’” I wonder whether Republicans, in the quiet of the night, ever go “hmmm.” Do they ever wonder why Trump is so sweet on Putin and so hostile to Ukraine?

John Bolton, one of Trump’s former national security advisers, said,

It’s very clear that Donald Trump’s sympathies are with the Russians. The idea that Ukraine started the war is total nonsense. Putin continues to ignore Trump and treat him like an easy mark.

• Here is some typical — now-typical — news:

On April 16, the UN General Assembly backed a draft resolution that referenced Russian aggression against Ukraine. However, the United States, along with Russia and Belarus, voted against it . . .

Yes, and Nicaragua, too. What a coalition! (To read the article I have quoted, go here.)

• For the New York Times, Jonathan Mahler has written a piece headed “How the G.O.P. Fell in Love With Putin’s Russia.” Its subheading: “What explains the Trump administration’s radical reversal toward Moscow?”

• The Washington Post has a long, amazing article on Ed Martin — amazing but not surprising, if such a thing is possible. Headline: “Trump’s D.C. U.S. attorney pick appeared on Russian state media over 150 times.”

• Don Bacon is a different kind of Republican. A congressman from Nebraska, he understands exactly who Putin is and what the Ukraine war means. A sample:

Brian Fitzpatrick is a congressman from Pennsylvania. He, too, is a different kind of Republican — a throwback. Looks like there’s room for a few more around that table:

• How should the West — how should the Free World — have responded to Putin’s Palm Sunday massacre? Well, here’s the prime minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson:

And here’s the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, Jan Lipavský:

As you can see, these leaders are very different from ours. Europe and America, it seems, have switched places. “Trump officials ‘fed up’ with Europe’s efforts to strengthen Ukraine, Economist reports.” (Go here.)

• For many years, I have heard that Vladimir Putin is a champion of Christianity. A guardian of Christian civilization. Consider President Trump’s liaison to the Justice Department. In April 2023, he tweeted, “Without Trump, Putin is the most powerful leader in the international arena standing up for traditional Christianity and Western values — and it’s not even close.”

Someone responded to him, “He is a butcher!” President Trump’s man responded, “Yes, a butcher of globohomo.”

Let me ask you: Those men, women, and children going to church on Palm Sunday in Sumy — were they “globohomo”? What is “globohomo” anyway? And what exactly is Christian about the tyrant, butcher, and warmaker in the Kremlin?

• It is important to know the names and faces, or at least a few of them — otherwise, the dead are mere statistics, mere abstractions.

And here is a family:

I recall something that Lincoln Díaz-Balart, the Cuban-American congressman, said to me in the late 1990s: “For the life of me, I just don’t know how Castro can seem cute after 40 years of torturing people.” How can people admire Putin, given what he does, in Russia and abroad? They certainly do. I know many such people. Some are victims — “victims” — of the media they consume. Others: they’re just on Putin’s side. It’s what they like.

• The heroism in Ukraine is astounding, for those who care to see it.

Here is Pavlo Martsenyuk:

I admire these people tremendously. They are setting an example of courage, patriotism, and determination for the whole world. If they succeed — everyone will say, “I supported them all along, you know.” If they do not succeed — they deserve to.

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