What happens next?

Although I’m not a fan of Russian politics (because they usually kill dissidents) I sympathize with Putin because the West has provoked Russia from the time the wall fell.

Instead of inviting the new Russia into NATO at the time, they supplied all of Europe with arms and missiles  and offered NATO membership to all of the states  bordering the old soviet countries. In the meantime their main military base in Crimea ends up within the Ukraine  border and they need a special agreement to access it.

This was like having your next door neighbour  set up a machine gun aimed at your living room window over the fence.

“What would you do if your neighbour did that, and none of the local authorities made him stop?”

On Ukraine’s side, well they had a pipeline going through their country carrying gas/fuel from the Russian oilfields to Europe but guess what?

The amount of gas that came out at the European end was substantially less than the amount the Russians put in at their end, so they figured out that the Ukrainian Government was stealing it , using some of it for themselves and selling what they didn’t need to willing customers throughout that region. All of that money went into the Oligarch’s pockets and they paid off western politicians, not Russian ones. I’m not making this up, just look at the news reports of the day and you’ll see that it was a headline issue

So the Russians are pissed off and the Ukrainian Government is so corrupt that they don’t care, because they think that the West will protect them unconditionally, even though they’re not  yet members of NATO.

Putin said “enough is enough” and sent in the army.

All of those idiot politicians in Europe (including Boris Johnson of the UK) poured money and arms in trainloads to hold off the advance and then guilted the USA to do the same under the false morality of democracy.

All that led to was slaughter on both sides, but there was no real pressure on the USA because none of their soldiers were involved on the ground. Nonetheless they still sent billions of dollars over and still sent military supplies which made no difference to the fight, most of the equipment being destroyed within weeks of delivery.

The money, of course, disappeared, money that could have gone to cleaning up the atrocious state of the main streets of many US cities

Enter Donald Trump, who’s a businessman first and a politician second … he hates to see money wasted and he hates to be taken for a sucker.

He’s an old pro politician now and he sees that the only way to settle this fight is to find out what Putin wants, what he will settle for and see what has to be done to put this thing to bed. You can’t find that out without talking directly to him.

He has long known that Ukraine can’t win this war and he knows that Zelensky is the fly in the ointment.

How to get past him, no one knows at the moment, but it’s obvious he’s got to go. In power stakes reality, he’s peripheral to the discussions.

Putin already has one of his goals satisfied and that’s a statement from almost all parties that Ukraine won’t be getting NATO membership. Some  other things that he wants are

1.The unfreezing of Russian assets from Western banks around the world

2.A  new border, which will probably be drawn where his troops are now. (Just like Stalin and Truman did after the second world war.)

   Most of the occupied population is Russian speaking anyways as Ukraine is historically part of Russia. (he may want a bit more though, but I think he’d be wise to leave Kiev alone)

3. A return to the world trade order so that they can get back to the business of selling their oil and gas legitimately.

It could all be done in a day if people like Trudeau and Starmer didn’t interfere.

The statements from Starmer and Trudeau announcing that they will used seized Russian assets as security for loans to Ukraine so that they can buy more arms, is just so stupid and will infuriate not just Putin but all of the Russian population