Tag Archives: Zelenskyy

media news

Pictures say everything

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Social media have become, for better or worse, contemporary society’s premier method of exhibiting what’s on people’s minds and in their hearts.

One social media image popped up on my Facebook feed today. They are very expressive. One image shows Donald Trump lecturing Volodymr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office; Trump’s image is stern and the text next to the picture tells you Zelenskyy’s country has been invaded by Russia in an illegal and immoral military action.

The second image shows Trump shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, the thug who runs Russia and the text notes that Putin was given a red-carpet welcome, a rare private meeting with the president of the U.S.A., a ride in a presidential limousine. This is the invader! The bad guy! The alleged war criminal!

What is wrong with this picture? Just about everything that might cross your mind.

Trump is trying to get Putin and Zelenskyy to talk directly to each other. I give Trump credit for that effort, even though it has been haphazard and slap-dash. I have trouble grasping, though, how he can treat the victim of an illegal military actiion with disdain and disrespect while showering the aggressor with all the niceties afforded to a head of state.

Let us remind ourselves of this reality: Vladimir Putin has been accused formally by international legal authorities of committing crimes against humanity by invading Ukraine. Zelenskyy deserves the red carpet. Putin deserves to be arrested, handcuffed and forced to stand trial.

International news

Who’s talking to whom?

At this moment, I am a confused old man, given that I cannot tell who is talking to whom regarding this bizarre trail many of hope leads to a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked to each other for a time in Anchorage. Volodymr Zelenskyy was nowhere near the conference room, but he damn sure should have been there.

Zelenskyy and Trump met in the Oval Office, along with several other European Union heads of state and government who were there to support the embattled Ukrainian president.

Trump is now insisting that Putin and Zelenskyy talk to each other, but only after dismissing the idea as a non-starter. Why? Because Putin didn’t want to talk to the man with whom he launched a war three years ago.

Trump now says he will seek an end to mail-in voting … because Putin thinks that kind of balloting is prone to fraud and corruption. What the hell? Putin is the godfather of electoral fraud, having emerged on top in numerous Russian presidential elections with an 80% majority.

Can you say and spell “r-i-g-g-e-d?”

The wild card in all of this, naturally, is Trump. Which is what I presume suits him just fine. He likes being unpredictable. Says it gives him an edge. Except that he hasn’t closed any deals to end the war, which he pledged to do on Day One of his second term in office.

I didn’t study foreign relations much in college and most of what I understand about it I learned during my nearly 37 years as a print journalist.

However, I am pretty sure this isn’t how international diplomacy is supposed to work.

Uncategorized

A chance for peace?

Donald Trump and his good buddy Vladimir Putin appear to be preparing for a bilateral summit to figure out a way to end Putin’s illegal, immoral war against Ukraine.

While I welcome an effort to end the bloodshed, I am troubled by the seeming absence of the third party to this horrible event: Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy. If there’s a hero among the three of them, it clearly is Zelenskyy and given that he has been leading the fight to preserve his democratic nation, he ought to be a party at whatever peace talks occur.

I am going to give Trump a measure of credit for at least calling Putin out on the way he has prosecuted this bloody war. It isn’t known how Putin has taken the open criticism. Nor is it known even if Trump will follow through on his threats of sanctions against Russia if Putin reneges on any portion of whatever agreement is found.

I have the fear expressed by many that Putin doesn’t take Trump seriously as a world leader. The Russian goon is the former head of the Soviet spy agency, the KGB. The guy is a killer, which makes him someone to be feared, even though he commands a third- or fourth-rate conventional military machine. He does possess those nukes.

The world will await the outcome of this summit. I only am left to express the hope that it is expanded to include a third chair at the negotiating table.

International news

World War III? Watch out!

All this brainless talk about the possibility of a World War III erupting, brings to mind a quote attributed to the great Albert Einstein, one of the men who developed the atomic bomb dropped on Japan near the end of World War II.

The brainlessness, of course, starts at the top, with Donald Trump warning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of that possibility during that hideous haranguing he and J.D. Vance delivered in the Oval Office.

Einstein put the potential of a third global conflict in graphic and ghastly perspective.

He said, “I have no idea how we’ll fight World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

International news, national news

Most unforgivable of all …

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Donald J. Trump has committed many politically unforgivable sins since riding down the Trump Tower escalator in July 2015 to announce his 2016 presidential campaign.

They are too numerous to mention here, but the last straw occurred just the other day and that’s the one on which I want to shed a bit of light.

It is the abject reversal of support for a wartime president and an allied nation that is fighting to preserve its democratic state against an invading army from Russia. Yes, it’s Ukraine.

Trump’s staged berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not come as a surprise. After all, Trump has been telegraphing his infatuation with Russian goon/thug/despot Vladimir Putin since he was elected to his first term as POTUS in 2016.

What was astounding, though, is doing so in the Oval Office, in front of the media and the public, berating Zelenskyy for not possesing a “winning hand” against the Russians. He hurled insults at a man who’s conducting a war against an illegal invader … at considerable risk of personal harm.

Stunning as it was to watch, we should remember that Trump is doing what he suggested he would do were he elected in 2024. He all but admitted his intention to turn the country’s back on Ukraine and sidle up to Putin.

The reasons escape me, given that Russia is now a third-rate conventional military power and a fourth- or fifth-rate economic power with an economy that is roughly the size of Italy’s.

The dipsh** in chief, though, loves dictators. He adheres to strongman tactics, even though in reality he is weak and cowardly.

Donald Trump has essentially thrown into the crapper this nation’s 80-year-old alliance with NATO, formed after World War II to serve as a hedge against Soviet aggression. The Soviet Union is gone, but Russia remains … and the Russians are now seeking to advance into a neighboring sovereign nation.

And all this is with Donald Trump’s blessing! Absolutely despicable — and unforgivable.

national news

Hero gets bum’s rush

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a hero to the people he serves as their preisident and is a hero to many Americans who have watched him stand his ground quite literally against the Russsian armed forces who invaded his country three years ago.

So, for the Ukrainian president to be bullied, harassed and humiiated by the president and vice president of the United States offends many Americans of both political parties, not to mention our allies in Europe who are standing behind the wartime Ukrainian leader.

The side show put on in the White House now appears to have been a deliberate effort by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to humiliate Zelenskyy on the world stage. They said out loud in the White House meeting that Zelenskyy is fighting a lost cause against Russia and that without U.S. aid his forces would have been defeated long ago.

We cannot know any of that. Indeed, Zelenskyy only has shown himself to be much more of a man than either Trump or Vance. He stood his ground against their berating.

New York Times columnist David Brooks, who is billed as a conservative, said Friday that he felt “nauseated” by the disrespect that Trump and Vance displayed in the White House. He said that U.S. mistakes in the past usually were from “naivete or arrogance.” The POTUS and VPOTUS, Brooks said, are deliberately favoring a dictator over his foe who is fighting to preserve the democratic nation he governs.

The “gangsters” won the White House fight, according to Brooks.

And the fight for freedom against a force of tyranny took it squarely on the chin.

International news

What could go wrong?

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the White House today supposedly to cement a deal over some mineral rights with the United States.

It didn’t end with anything signed. It ended instead with Zelenskyy storming out a shouting match with Donald Trump, who along with Vice President J.D. Vance, managed to insult the beleaguered Zelenskyy to the point of immense frustration.

This man is our ally, or at least he was our ally when Russian forces attacked Ukraine three years ago while Joe Biden was president of the United States.

It’s all changed now that Biden has retired and Trump has returned to power. Trump has buddied up to Russian goon Vladimir Putin, taking up where he left off when he lost his re-election bid to Biden in 2020.

That a meeting with Zelenskyy would crater as it did today should have surprised no one, given Trump’s propensity for saying the wrong things at the wrong time.

International news, military news

Trump betrays our ally

Donald J. Trump has made history in a sickening sort of way by being the first American president to pivot away from an ally at war with an aggressor nation.

The United States, led by President Joe Biden, went all in to defend Ukraine against the Russian invaders. The former president rallied our NATO and EU allies and mustered considerable support in the United Nations. The result has been a stiffening of resistance by Ukraine against Russia.

Now we hear Trump parroting Vladimir Putin dogma, and then Trump blames Ukraine for starting a war that began when Russian troops and tanks crossed into Ukraine.

Putin is a war criminal. He has violated multiple provisions lined out in the Geneva Accords that dictate the conduct of a land war.

Trump and Putin are seeking to negotiate an end to the three-year war without any input from Volodymr Zelenskyy.

Sickening.

International news, military news

Trump blames Ukraine for war … seriously

Donald J. Trump put his depravity on full display with a bizarre social media message that blames Ukraine for starting the war that began when Russia invaded its sovereign neighbor.

According to The Independent: In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump accused Zelensky, who he called a “modestly successful comedian” in a reference to his previous career as a sitcom star and entertainer, of having “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.”

I am utterly speechless. This guy’s incessant enfatuation with a known killer and goon — Vladimir Putin — is simply beyond description.

Geez, Louise! This clown has turned his back on a dependable ally in Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. He has stood up to Russia’s immoral and illegal invasion for three years. Ukraine has inflicted stunning casualties against an enemy force that sought to enter Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, just days after crossing the border.

President Joe Biden pledged financial support. He mustered full-throated NATO and EU support for Ukraine’s defense of its territory.

Now we have Donald Trump siding with his pal Putin.

Absolutely disgraceful for the new president to forsake our national pledge to help an ally defend itself against a tinhorn dictator.

military news

Cluster bombs: Too much, too deadly?

President Biden’s decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine to aid the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian aggressors sends a slight chill up my spine.

I say “slight” because the president easily could place some restrictions on their use by Ukrainian armed forces.

Cluster munitions are the types of bombs break apart, sending explosives over a vast target area. They inflict astonishing damage on targets they hit. They also are known to inflict tragic collateral damage. Indeed, the Russians are using them against Ukrainians in their effort to conquer that sovereign state.

Joe Biden has accused Russians of committing war crimes in using cluster munitions, given the damage they have done to schools, hospitals and houses of worship.

It sounds like Ukraine could be sliding down that proverbial slippery slope if they use this ordnance against Russians, unless …

They are able to inflict the intended damage only to military targets.

President Biden’s decision to send these munitions to Ukraine comes at the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon brass. Fine, Mr. President.

Please, though, tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to use them judiciously to avoid falling into the same category of “war criminal” as the madman who seeks to take control of your country.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com