“So many wars, so many shapes of crime …
Unholy Mars bends all to his mad will;
The world is like a chariot run wild.”
– Virgil

On the very first day after the much-touted phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which Trump hailed as a successful step toward the immediate beginning of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Putin’s forces launched more than 100 drones into Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force reported damage on the ground in four regions. [David Brennan, GMA, May 20, 2025.]

I initially called that phone conversation to be, at best, a tie between the two. Trump had said direct talks between Russia and Ukraine would begin immediately, but waffled when he said it was time for the U.S. to step back and leave the negotiations to the two warring parties; Putin had promised nothing but a memorandum of talking points to be prepared for presentation to Ukraine; and Trump had optimistically predicted that limitless, mutually-beneficial trade relations would soon be resumed between the U.S. and Russia — which was what the lifelong deal-maker really wanted in the first place.

But even that limited result turned out to be illusory. Without a single day’s relief, Putin — who had taken the call, not from the Kremlin, but from the lovely Russian resort of Sochi on the Black Sea — returned to business as usual: blasting the life out of the Ukrainian people.

Trump had spoken recently of the possibility that Putin might have been “tripping” him all along, and threatened more severe sanctions if he felt that still to be the case after their one-on-one talk. But once again, he failed to follow through, accepting Putin’s terms without receiving so much as a promise of a temporary ceasefire.

I was wrong: that call did not end in a tie. It was yet another total embarrassment for Trump.

And this is what I’d like to know:

When will Donald Trump get it through his thick skull that Vladimir Putin is by far the shrewder politician, and has not only been “tripping” him for years, but nailing his hide to the wall? Will he ever realize that Putin does nothing without a self-serving reason and a fool-proof end game already worked out? And if Trump does figure it out, will he have the guts to admit it and follow through with appropriate action?

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
– Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

But this is not a chess game; the future of the world rests on a final resolution. And the world is running out of time.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
5/20/25