Two days ago, while I was moving this website, President Donald Trump made some rather ridiculous comment (emphasis added):
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – Sep 23, 2025, 18:55 utc
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. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not? 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. 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!
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Some people claimed that this uttering showed that Trump had changed his mind over Ukraine.
It was far from that. Trump was in fact mocking the delusional assessments General Keith Kellogg and General Dan Caine had given him:
Special Presidential Envoy Keith Kellogg on Monday said he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently advised President Trump that Russia is losing its war on Ukraine — as Moscow has seen more than 1 million casualties while taking less than 1% of Ukrainian territory since November 2022.
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“If Putin thinks Russia is winning, his definition of winning and my definition of winning are absolutely two different things,” Kellogg said. “If he was winning, he’d be in Kyiv. If he’s winning, he’d be west of the Dnipro River. If he was winning, he’d be on Odessa. If he was winning, he would have changed the government.“Russia is, in fact, losing this war,” he added.
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The two military experts gave their assessment in response to Trump’s then-prodding as to whether Putin’s grandstanding of supposed success in Ukraine was true, Kellogg said, giving a rare glimpse into private discussions at the White House.
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“I responded quite forcefully, and I finally said, ‘Mr. President, don’t just listen to me. Your chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Caine, is outside. He’s out in the hall, bring him in and ask him that question. He’s your senior, he’s your principal military adviser,’” Kellogg said.“And he did, and Dan said the same thing. He went, ‘Nope, not winning.’”
When Trump repeated the implausible propaganda claims Kellogg had made it was pure sarcasm. Trump knows that “seeking a decisive Russian defeat is a virtually impossible goal that presents serious and unwarranted risks“.
He used the sarcasm to wash his hand over further action about Ukraine. It is also relieving him of pressure to continue talks with Russia.
It took two days for the New York Times to acknowledge this (archived):
But scratch the surface, and a deeper desire seemed buried in Mr. Trump’s reversal of position during the U.N. meetings in New York this week. Mr. Trump appears to want to wash his hands of the Ukraine conflict, after having no success bringing President Vladimir V. Putin to the negotiating table, and a dwindling chance of acting as mediator between the two warring parties.
Trump’s statement was not, as the NY Times claims, a “reversal of position”. At the essence he is saying that he will continue to sell weapons to Europe but that is all that he is going to do – at least openly. There will be no new U.S. aid for Ukraine and no U.S. forces riding to its rescue.
Behind the scene the U.S. will of course do its best to stay in control of the conflict. NATO, under full U.S. control, will continue to push the European dimwits towards a ever deeper involvement in the war. U.S. intelligence will continue to help Ukraine to target Russian troops and maybe even targets in Russia (machine translation):
US President Donald Trump has received information about a” planned offensive ” by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which will require intelligence from the United States.
This is reported by the American business newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
At the same time, the publication notes that, despite the change in rhetoric regarding Russia, the American president still refuses to allow strikes with his country’s weapons deep into the territory of the Russian Federation.
Nothing is new in this policy. The U.S., under Trump, had always planned to drop the responsibility and burden of the war in Ukraine, which it had instigate, onto Europe. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had announced that plan on February 12 during a military summit in Bruxelles:
Hegseth also told Nato’s European members that they would need to provide the lion’s share of future aid for Kyiv, warning that Washington “will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship” with its allies.
“Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of Nato,” Hegseth said. “Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.”
Trump’s “reversal of position” isn’t one. His announcement is a continuation of his policy. In today’s Washington Post a ‘senior White House official’ confirms as much (archived):
President Donald Trump’s furious rhetoric toward Russia is “a negotiating tactic” intended to pressure the Kremlin, a senior White House official said Wednesday, a day after the president stunned global policymakers and delighted Ukrainian leaders by embracing Kyiv’s ambitions for a decisive defeat of Russia.
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Trump was not signaling a major shift in U.S. policy toward Kyiv during a day at the U.N. General Assembly in which he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the official said, ..
Russia seems to have understood Trump’s uttering better than Western journalists did. The former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented the events in New York in his usual manner:
And Trump? Once again he slipped into an alternative reality, reciting a fresh set of political incantations about “Russia’s weakness.”
After meeting with the clowns from Kiev and Paris, he posted a flamboyant message: final victory for Kiev, a return to old borders, Russia’s collapsing war economy, gas lines, and the image of a “paper tiger.”
In that reality everything is different: Kiev is winning, Russia is torn to pieces, and Bandera’s Ukraine is thriving on its own resources. In that same fantasy, Trump’s predecessors Obama and Biden still live happily ever after.
But Trump is not like them. No doubt—he’ll be back. He always comes back. In a few days he’ll probably propose that the green pianist sign a capitulation. Or maybe fly to Mars with his pardoned Musk. Or come up with something else “historic” to claim a Nobel Prize.
The key, after all, is to keep drastically changing your position on every major issue. That’s what makes for “successful” governance through social media.
And, as they say—thank you for your attention to this matter!”