On the Flip Side of a Trump Flop – Ukraine Can Beat Russia?

 Russian Strike on Kyiv  

     Ukrainian strike on Russian navel vessel

On the Flip Side of a Trump Flop – Ukraine Can Beat Russia?

“Paper Tiger” or Fierce Cornered “Bear”

“You can’t make any deals without compromises… The problem is, I've empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don't think you'd be a tough guy without the United States… Your people are very brave. You're either going to make a deal, or we're out. And if we're out, you'll fight it out — I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out. But you don't have the cards.” 

Trump to Ukraine President Zelenskyy 6 months ago in the Oval Office

"Mr. President, do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?" A reporter asked after Trump’s post-UN speech meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. "Yes, I do," 

Trump said quickly on 9/23/25.

"In fact, it is very much making them look like “a paper tiger.” When the people living in Moscow, and all of the Great Cities, Towns, and Districts all throughout Russia, find out what is really going on with this War, the fact that it’s almost impossible for them to get Gasoline through the long lines that are being formed, and all of the other things that are taking place in their War Economy, where most of their money is being spent on fighting Ukraine, which has Great Spirit, and only getting better, Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act. In any event, I wish both Countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all! " 

 Trump on Social Media

“Russia isn’t a tiger, it’s more associated with a bear… There are no paper bears. Russia is a real bear.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov

“What remains important to us is not only Trump’s words, but also whether he fulfills the earlier promises regarding decisive sanctions [on Russia]” 

Oleksandr Merezhko, chair, Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation

Words. Babble. Double Down. Pull support. Trash Ukraine. Court Vladimir Putin like a hot date, as he plays you like marionette. Putin never waivers. Trump only waivers. But is Trump finally reaching the conclusion that Putin can never be trusted? Is he the last Republican or Democratic politician to realize that? And more importantly, does he realize that the Russian-Ukraine war is likely to linger for years unless the US releases its restrictions on Ukraine’s deeper strikes (with appropriate weapons on the US has) into Russia… and provides the necessary weapons and logistical support? Even as Trump uses Europe as a weapons conduit to Ukraine, will he finally fill that conduit with the longer-range, more powerful weapon systems that Ukraine needs to effect that victory? Or is all this more of Trump’s mercurial inconsistent lip flap?

Donald, why do you think Russians are waiting in long gasoline lines in a country that is one of the most oil rich nations on earth? Could it be the wisely focused Ukrainian missile strikes on Russia’s domestic oil storage and refinery facilities? And yes, Donald, you are right, too many NATO nations have been funding Russia’s war machine by relying on Russian fossil fuels. But even as most NATO countries are turning off the import valve, NATO’s recent dictators, Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, just aren’t on that page. Like earlier Trump, they are Putin bros in the fancy world of rising autocracies. And perhaps, after your humiliating August 15th meeting with Putin in a former-Russian territory that the United States purchased in the 19th century, does Putin’s massive ramp-up of drone strikes against Ukraine, which killed way too many but did not move Russia’s front lines at all, strike you as bravado born of desperation?

Russia’s big on testing limits and lying about it. Russian drone and fighter incursions against Poland, Baltic nations and Scandinavian airspace, too frequent and too numerous to be categorized as “accidental” as Russia claims, are indeed “tests,” just as joint Sino-Russian coordinated Arctic fleet exploration most definitely is. But pushback from NATO allies, now with Trump’s support of aggressive NATO responses, should send a shiver down Putin’s smarmy back… but Putin hates being humiliated even more than does Trump.

But as Russia announces that the current war in Russia is really a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, a “proxy” war that could trigger a much wider conflicts, I am reminded of a statement by State Department Secretary, Marco Rubio, to Fox News on March 6th: “President [Donald] Trump views this as a protracted, stalemated conflict, and frankly, it’s a proxy war between nuclear powers: the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia.”

But specifics are in short supply, even as Trump suggested that it would seem embarrassing for Russia to continue, unsuccessfully, to try to conquer a seemingly vastly less militarily sophisticated nation. “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote in his social media post on September 23rd, adding, “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win… This is not distinguishing Russia.”

Unproductive meetings between our diplomatic counter parts are still continuing as ABC News reported on September 24th: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met on Wednesday [9/24], one day after President Donald Trump called Moscow a ‘paper tiger’ and said Ukraine could win back its seized land… Rubio and Lavrov sat with their delegations on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz was also present… The meeting lasted roughly 50 minutes. Lavrov didn't respond to questions as he left, including whether he was concerned about the shift in tone from Trump or whether the U.S. president had turned his back on Russia.”

In the end, as Trump clearly failed to negotiate a “day one” settlement of this conflict, it does appear that the only way Trump can accelerate a ceasefire to this war and hopefully an enforceable peace is by amping up the pressures on Russia through truly severe sanctions plus a truly substantial US upgrade in the weapons furnished to Ukraine. Will Trump do this? Will congressional isolationists support this effort? Time will tell.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when and if is Donald Trump going to tell Putin, “You don’t have the cards” to defeat Ukraine.