It was just yesterday — Saturday, May 17th — when Donald Trump announced that he and Vladimir Putin were scheduled to speak by phone on Monday, May 19th, at 10:00 a.m. EST (4:00 p.m. CET):

“The subject of the call will be … stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade. Hopefully it will be a productive day, a cease-fire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should never have happened, will end.” [RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, May 17, 2025.]

That’s what he said.

And what did Vladimir Putin say in response? Well . . . nothing. Not immediately.

Instead, he launched Russia’s biggest drone attack against Ukraine since the beginning of the war more than three years ago. Several aeas were hit, including the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in the east, and the capital city of Kyiv, where one woman was killed and at least three others injured, including a four-year-old child.

On the same day, Putin — through his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov — finally spoke . . . but not about the upcoming conference call with Trump. Instead, he said that Putin might meet with Ukraine’s President Zelensky, but only if “certain agreements” were reached. Without specifying what those agreements would entail, Peskov went on to say that such a meeting would only be possible if the two sides were to “achieve certain results in the form of agreements.”

He then added: “At the same time, when signing documents that the delegations are to agree upon, the main and fundamental thing for us remains who exactly will sign these documents from the Ukrainian side.” [Dmitry Antonov and Mark Trevelyan, Reuters, May 17, 2025.]

And there it is: yet another gigantic monkey wrench thrown into the diplomatic machinery. In addition to his hard-and-fast demands that Ukraine sacrifice its territory, its security, and its independence, Putin has thrown down the gauntlet in respect of his allegations that Volodymyr Zelensky is not the legitimate president of Ukraine.

This is nothing new . . . he has brought it up before, insisting that Zelensky’s term ended a year ago and that new elections must be held. He of course ignores the fact that Ukraine has been under martial law throughout the war that he, Putin, started . . . and that Ukraine’s constitution provides that no election may be held during times of martial law.

But Putin wants a new election in Ukraine in order to install someone of his own choosing — someone subservient to him, much like Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus. And in addition, he has instituted another delaying tactic by which he can continue to batter the Ukrainian people until (he hopes) they can fight no longer.

So while the first “he” (Trump, in unity with a coalition of European allies) continues to press for serious negotiations, the second “he” (Putin) stalls, dissembles, promises, breaks promises, and lies his face off in order to attain his ultimate goal: reabsorption of Ukraine into a new, revitalized Soviet Union.

*. *. *

Will the promised phone call take place tomorrow? Only Vladimir Putin can answer that.

I, for one, can hardly wait to find out.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
5/18/25