Leontovych lived in Pokrovsk during the first years of the 20th century, and it was there he began to make a name for himself as a composer while teaching music and running a local choir.

And it was around that time that he repurposed a local folk tune to write Carol of the Bells — then called Shchedryk — and after World War I it became the anthem of Ukrainian nationalists hoping to gain independence from Russia, which had controlled the country’s people for centuries. //

“Shchedryk, which was a hit and always played as an encore, enchanted Europe and America, and helped Ukrainians to declare their nation and state to the world,” said author Anatoliy Paladiychuk.

But Leontovych paid dearly for his defiance of the Russian yoke.

After the Bolsheviks retook swaths of Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, he was tracked down by Soviet agents and murdered in a 1921 assassination that was covered up until the 1990s.

The targets were:

Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk Region
Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk Region
Ivanovo Air Base in the Ivanovo Region
Dyagilevo Air Base in the Ryazan Region
Severomorsk (Main Administrative Base of the Russian Northern Fleet) in the Murmansk Region //

The airbases are the home to Russia's fleet of Tu-22, Tu-95M, and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers as well as AS-50 battle management aircraft. They were located from the Siberian Far East to the Arctic Circle. The furthest target, Belaya Airbase in Irkutsk, is over 2700 miles from Ukraine.

Reports indicate that at least 41 aircraft were hit. The unofficial tally indicates 24 Tu-22, 8 Tu-95MS, and 5 Tu-16 were hit. MiG-31 fighters and Il-76 transports were also hit. To put this in context, open-source data says Russia's bomber inventory is about 58 Tu-22, 47 Tu-95MS, and 15 Tu-160. These planes are the ones used to launch most of the missiles fired at Ukrainian cities. //

When you consider the operational readiness rate, Russia probably has less than 50 aircraft capable of flying...on the bright side, they have plenty of aircraft to cannibalize for parts. The Tu-22 and Tu-95MS production lines are closed, and the Tu-160 production is one, yes, one per year. For all intents and purposes, this represents a permanent decrease in the size of the Russian strategic bomber fleet.

How did this come to be? The special forces operated by Ukraine's intelligence directorate, the SBU, used semi-trucks hauling trailers that were drone launch pods. //

This was a fire-and-forget attack. There was no need for Ukrainian drone operators to remain on the scene to manage the attacks. An autonomously targeted drone swarm hit each target. SBU operatives placed the trucks, and the rest of the operation, from first launch to the self-destruct of the transport, appears to have been carried out without a man in the loop. //

According to online reporting, the Russians were prepared for a night attack by large drones and got a daylight attack by quadcopters instead. China has access to some 43,000 container ships registered in either the People's Republic of China or Hong Kong (which is basically the same thing). Imagine a few hundred of them carrying containers modified for launching drones. I would submit that a similar attack by China on US Naval and Air Force bases throughout the world would render a crippling blow that would force us to either acknowledge a possible Chinese conquest of Taiwan as a fait accompli or go nuclear.

Many Americans, bathed in the myth of Zelensky as Ukraine’s George Washington, would be surprised to know that unlike Washington, who rejected the monarch’s crown at the end of the American Revolution, and who on his own accord returned to his farm after two terms as president, is now entering his second year after his term was supposed to expire.

Zelensky was sworn in on May 20, 2019, for a five-year term that should have expired 12 months ago. He signed a 90-day martial order Feb. 24, 2022, after it was passed by the Rada, our parliament, with provisions for almost automatic renewals. After Zelensky’s term expired, the Rada is now voting to renew martial law every 90 days.

We have had war in Ukraine since 2014, but there was never martial law until Zelensky and his crew took a chance and got away with it. //

Americans are told Zelensky’s term was extended by the Ukrainian Constitution because the country was at war, but the record shows that martial law is a legislative action, renewed every quarter with Zelensky’s signature.

In addition to suspending elections, subsequent amendments to the martial order have put all media under the Kiev government’s control and the outlawing of nearly a dozen opposition parties, including the Opposition Platform-For Life Party, the second largest bloc in the Rada.
American presidents never suspended elections during war

The contrast with the American experience is instructive here. In the War of 1812, President James Madison saw the British burn the White House, among other humiliations, but he did not suspend elections, seize the printing presses or outlaw the Federalist Party.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln, fighting the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson, fighting World War I; and Franklin Roosevelt, fighting World War II, all curtailed civil rights and restricted the media.

Yet, the elections went forward, even with the government facilitating the ballots for millions of soldiers mobilized far away from home. //

The Ukrainian Civil War has brought death and destruction to my country, but for one man alone, it has brought glory and power.

Every day, Zelensky keeps the war going to preserve that glory and power, the suffering continues, and he mocks Washington as a fool for peacefully returning to Mount Vernon.

Sergii Nosenko was a 2019 candidate for Ukrainian president. He lives in the United States with his author wife Daria and their children to avoid the clampdown on President Volodymyr Zelensky's political critics. //

mdavt 3 minutes ago

And that election will be fraught with danger for Ukraine and Europe. Putin will be working hard to ensure that someone friendly to him gets elected. If that happens Ukraine will go right back to where it was headed before the Orange Revolution. Perhaps the near-inevitable removal of Donbass from the electorate will tilt things strongly to an independence-minded candidate, but I wouldn't count on it.

"The thing [Trump] was determined to do was to talk to Zelensky face to face, and talk about how we're going to get the largest land war in Europe to an end. Both sides have to want that," Waltz said. //

Waltz also elaborated on one of the administration's biggest frustrations while untangling the Russia-Ukraine mess--the truly disastrous and inept way the Biden national security team went about it:

If you go back--we're 100 days in...just 100 days ago, Biden and his team had no end in sight. This was an endless war. This was a meat-grinder of men and material and national treasure...He had never defined victory.

Russia does not provide medical assistance at the front to its own soldiers. So, if you get seriously wounded, too bad for you and your family.

I've seen drone videos of such Russian men writhing on the ground in filthy trenches littered with dead bodies. And they end up killing themselves with a rifle or grenade rather than die slowly alone in agony.

The thinking in news media is often that graphically detailed news coverage of such conflicts is too gruesome for viewers or readers back home. Often, they don't even show or describe dead bodies.

We should have provocative discussions about such unofficial censorship that sanitizes the horrors of war. Because that reduces the awful ongoing events basically to an imaginary game far away. Who's going to oppose war — or support it, for that matter — if they never see how bad it really is? I ran into some of this editorial opposition at the end of the Vietnam War. //

While Russian forces are killing Ukrainian men in combat at the front lines (and thousands of civilians in indiscriminate artillery, bombing, and missile attacks on cities), other Russians are kidnapping children from Ukrainian homes behind the front lines. They are simply seizing them from their families — I call that kidnapping — and shipping them off to Russia, never to be seen again.

There, they are punished if they don't speak Russian. The goal is to erase from the minds of these Ukrainian youngsters the national identity that Putin maintains does not exist. Hundreds of thousands of children stolen from their families.

EU member states bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), despite the efforts under way to kick the continent’s addiction to the fuels that fund Vladimir Putin’s war chest.

The amount is one-sixth greater than the €18.7bn the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024, according to a tracker from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

In observing the trajectory of Western civilization over the past 70 years, one is hard-pressed to honestly assess that the modern global order has truly been good for mankind. Rather than ending warfare, it has spread fighting far beyond the realms of land and sea combat to mass informational war and lawfare waged both internationally and domestically among our fellow citizens.

Decades of American involvement in wars overseas have desensitized Westerners and their militaries. In the U.S., we hear choruses about willingness to die for freedom. Yet when tyrants violate the freedoms of U.S. citizens on American soil, the allegedly brave roll over. “To the guns for Ukraine,” we hear… though we never see those who sport "I stand with Ukraine" iconography deploy to the fight. //

In a just world, Vladimir Putin would be driven from office and sent to the gallows. But his evil nature does not by default bequeath the character of George Washington on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. //

Unlike much of the current "Give war a chance"/Ukraine flag as social media banner mob, I went to war. It's not pleasant. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman rightly described combat as a cruelty that cannot be refined. Thus, it is right that we should seek the option of armed conflict as a last resort—that if war must be waged, we should fully commit to overwhelming force to bring it to an end and work to expeditiously restore peace and ordered liberty. Those who insist on the necessity of a prolonged conflict to "defeat Russia" often fail to recognize the moral costs of such an approach. War should always be a last resort, and when it is waged, it should aim for an expedient resolution. Yet, in the case of Ukraine, many are advocating for a war of attrition that sacrifices human lives—on both sides—in the hope of a political outcome that seems increasingly distant.

Russia was unjustified in starting this war. The U.S. has been unjustified in merely prolonging it. If lawmakers want to argue that American interests are at stake and that destiny demands that the U.S. fight in Ukraine, let them make the case to the public and follow the constitutional rules for committing America to the fight. Otherwise, the choices are to sit this one out, or use the other instruments of national power to help negotiate a lasting peace. But waging proxy war of attrition against fellow human beings who have not lifted a finger against Americans—without a clear victory strategy—does not place us on the moral high ground.

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy (CT) and presumably others encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reject the prospect of a peace deal without so-called "security guarantees" (a euphemism for American military commitments) just before the now-infamous Oval Office blow-out. //

One of the big questions was how we even arrived at that point. What caused Zelensky to walk into the White House with the sense that he could bully Trump in front of the press and scoff at any diplomatic negotiations? A post made by Murphy gives the game away.

Chris Murphy 🟧

@ChrisMurphyCT
·
Follow
Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine.
4:15 PM · Feb 28, 2025. //

Chris Murphy isn't going to be writing Ukraine a check. All he and his cohorts can do is virtue-signal, and that's not winning any battles against Russia. If things are going to be patched up with the Trump White House, Zelensky has to accept that reality and stop believing that he can bully his way to American military commitments by appealing to the press and Democrats.

Trump will only recoil further at that, and he is never going to set up any "security guarantees" that result in U.S. troops fighting Russia. There's still a path for Zelensky to get much-needed aid for his country, but he has to stop operating like it's still 2022, and the first step in that is to stop listening to Democrats who can not help him. //

Soundwave
2 hours ago
The Democrats are vile. Willing to sacrifice the Ukrainians to the Russian meat grinder just to “embarrass” Trump. They disgust me.

As for the Europeans. Feel free to fund the war without us. Let’s see how long you losers last without us paying for your defense. //

Political-Paige
2 hours ago
My question is: what was the end-goal of the Dem interference?
Was it just to create an embarrassment for Trump? If so, that failed. Trump isn't at all embarrassed, and Zelensky was unceremoniously kicked out of the White House.
Was it to assure WW III for their donors? If so, that failed. We aren't engaging.
Was it to get even more freebies for Ukraine? Why? And if so, wow: was that ever a failure.
Or was it simply to interfere for the sake of interference, because they've been rendered irrelevant and need some pretense to power?
I think the last one is most likely.

RedStater In a Blue Apocalypse Political-Paige
9 minutes ago edited
...to interfere for the sake of throwing mud at the wall at every thing they see as an opportunity to oppose. Undermine any successes that Trump could achieve, whether they miscalculate or not.

...because this is what a panicked crew does on a rapidly sinking ship.

They have nothing left to lose.

So this really could have been and should have been a positive moment for Ukraine. And then we go to further negotiating with the Russians, bring this war to an end, and, and move the world forward, stop the death and destruction.

But instead, what became clear, and I think what has the president so, uh, so frustrated, and frankly angry, is that it's not clear that Zelensky truly wants to stop the fighting. And he came in, even though he was warned not to, determined to litigate all that in front of the entire world. And the vice president said enough is enough, the president said enough is enough, and I gotta tell you, this was the wrong approach, wrong time in history, and definitely, the wrong president to try to do this kind of thing. This was not Joe Biden, this was Donald J. Trump. I think the entire world saw that, crystal clear. //

If President Zelensky did, for some indecipherable reason, wish to prolong this conflict, what would he have done differently on Friday? //

anon-fht2
9 hours ago edited
If Molly Hemingway is correct, it WAS an ambush, for Trump. Zelensky has supposedly been in communication wth a Democrat/Deep State team that included Rice, Blinken, and others inluding “somoness” from CIA, DHS, and DoD. According to Hemingway, the operative assumption was that Zelensky would embarass Trump. Trump, anxious to save the deal, would capitulate to Zelensky in the public broadcast, destroying his credibility.

If true, this is treason on the part of Rice, Blinken, and the other Obama gang of idiots involved.

It also proves that a massacre in all the agencies is going to be required to root out resisrance collaborators, with sugnificant penitentiary time placed on some worthy exampples to encourage others to turn. This is a war and to lose is to put Americans in place as no longer citizens , but subjects of the bureaucracy. 2 million plus in th4 government bureaucracy; if a quarter of that still exists a year from now the Deep State will just keep coming back.

Now here we are, he's trying to bring an end to this conflict, we've explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to the negotiating table, we want to explore whether peace is possible.

They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which to me, as I've explained it, I think the president alluded to today, is a security guarantee in its own way, because we're now involved, it's us, it's our interests. //

I've asked people, what is the European plan to end this war? I can tell you of one foreign minister told me, I'm not going to say who it was, but I can tell you what one of them told me, and that is that the war goes on for another year, and at that point Russia will feel so weakened, that they'll beg for a peace. That's another year of killing, another year of dying, another year of destruction, and by the way, not a very realistic plan in my point of view. //

It takes two sides to end a war, but only one side to perpetuate one. Ending this affair will require both Ukraine and Russia to come to the table. Once the shooting stops, then the parties involved can start talking about how to prevent a recurrence in a year, a decade, or a century hence. But first, the shooting has to stop.

OrneryCoot
4 hours ago
Zelensky failed to realize that Trump WAS giving him a real, tangible security guarantee. He was promising American shoes (not boots) on the ground in the form of American workers and executives to work the mineral deal. I think he doesn't realize just how far Trump would take that responsibility to protect those American workers. The first time Putin endangered those citizens would have brought him a whole lot of pain. Putin knows this about Trump, which would have stopped him from trying it. No, they weren't soldiers. With our country, it didn't need to be. Zelensky had what he wanted but couldn't realize it due to his arrogance and basic misunderstanding of American culture. Now, he's left to either squeeze blood out of Europe's turnip of military might, or be replaced by a less narcissistic Ukrainian leader.

The basic gist of Trump's remarks was this: The U.S. wants to broker peace, but Zelensky wants to keep fighting with assistance from the U.S.

High-ranking White House officials confirmed to CBS News that President Trump is unwilling to talk to Zelensky at this point because of Zelensky's disinterest in peace. //

High-level Trump sources tell me the White House is now uncertain if they can get the Russians and Ukrainians to stop fighting because this episode with @ZelenskyyUa raised questions about whether he can move forward toward a peace deal. It also raises questions about whether US will pause aid to Ukraine. But Trump is NOT seeking regime change in Ukraine. No discussions about who in Ukraine might be a better leader than Zelenskyy.

Ukrainian officials have reached out this afternoon to senior White House officials desperate to get the deal back on track. But that will not happen today, I'm told. Trump is unwilling to talk to Zelenskyy further today.

When Rubio and Waltz went into the Roosevelt Room to ask Zelenskyy to leave, Rubio made it clear that any further engagements today would be counterproductive. Waltz told Zelenskyy he had made a tremendous mistake, and it was a grave disservice to Ukraine and to Americans, both.

No phone calls between Trump and Putin have been scheduled. But multiple European officials have called top Trump officials since Zelenskyy left asking how the minerals deal can be salvaged.

Trump fully intended to sign the minerals deal today. Two official binders were prepared -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Ukrainian counterpart and the two presidents were going to sit at a conference table in the East Room and then trumpet their success at podiums.

But there were suspicions before Zelenskyy arrived today that it might fall apart. Because the Trump admin had been pushing for weeks for a minerals deal signing at the ministerial level, and Ukraine had refused. Zelenskyy wanted security guarantees.

US officials thought negotiations would be much harder with Putin so today have been been in disbelief that it has been Zelenskyy who has been more difficult, making maximalist demands, sources told me. //

Greg Price
@greg_price11
·
Follow
Zelenskyy declares that he won't negotiate an end to the war without security guarantees from the United States -- And then admits that he doesn't have enough weapons to push Russia out of Ukraine -- And then demands more money from the U.S.

Last edited
11:56 PM · Feb 28, 2025. //

RedDog_FLA
an hour ago
Zelesky forgot the he's dealing with the Producer of the Apprentice.

Zelensky thought he could manage an on-camera negotiation with the dealmaker. 🤔

He might not get another chance... it's possible he has been FIRED.

Bob Smalser
an hour ago
"If it’s true that Blinken, Rice, Nuland, and Vindman conference called with Zelensky on the flight to DC advising him to "stand strong" and "be tough" and "don't let Trump bully you" it seems to have backfired. Perhaps FBI Director Patel should meet with those clowns for a debriefing (and Logan Act discussion) after talking with a foreign head of state.". //

Slappy
an hour ago edited
The way Zelenskyy bombed this meeting publically like that, I think he isn't stupid, he did it because he wanted to torpedo any ceasefire deal and he's unwilling to settle for peace. The Europeans are all that's left, so maybe he thinks that's who he played up to here. I wish them and Ukraine luck, because blowing up what's left of the relationship with the U.S. is one hell of a risky move.

Slappy
an hour ago edited
The way Zelenskyy bombed this meeting publically like that, I think he isn't stupid, he did it because he wanted to torpedo any ceasefire deal and he's unwilling to settle for peace. The Europeans are all that's left, so maybe he thinks that's who he played up to here. I wish them and Ukraine luck, because blowing up what's left of the relationship with the U.S. is one hell of a risky move.

Sean Davisb@seanmdav
·
Trump doesn’t bad mouth anyone who comes to the negotiating table in good faith. Ever. It’s a near-cardinal rule of negotiations for him, and a major reason he’s been such a successful dealmaker. 

If you refuse to negotiate, he will trash you. If you lie or negotiate in bad faith, he will trash you. He has zero interest in allowing empty moralizing to get in the way of a deal that he wants.  

He has done this his entire career, in business and in politics, and it’s fascinating to me how many people who think of themselves as smart and savvy are incapable of seeing or understanding this dynamic.

Christian Datoc @TocRadio
TRUMP: "You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, 'hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?' It doesn't work that way. I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world."
8:05 PM · Feb 28, 2025. //

The key here isn't just that Trump is holding the cards and that Zelensky needs him — not the other way around — it's that Trump is negotiating from a fortified position of "America first." Everything at the table is subject to that one point, and if anything drifts away from that, then Trump pushes back and pushes back until he's all the way gone from the table.

Zelensky acted like a petulant child who showed no respect to the country that had given him the money for his war while trying to secure more, and Trump saw no value, not in the war, and not in Zelensky's disrespect. As such, there was no deal. Moreover, Zelensky attempted to pressure Trump into capitulation through our own media, which was a costly mistake. Trump is not beholden to the American media as other leaders are.

But Zelensky's error came from a habit he never should have never been allowed to develop. The Democrats — and too many Republicans — taught Zelensky that he was in charge. They caved to him constantly because the last thing they wanted was for our own media, who fawn and worship the ground Zelensky walks on, to turn on them. That would result in massive blowback from Democrat supporters, including their donors. //

Ultimately, the Democrat at the negotiating table asks, "what's expedient for me politically right now?" When the question that they should be asking themselves — and Trump clearly understands — is "how does this put America and Americans in the best position possible?"

The answer is sometimes not to make a deal at all. It's not sexy to come back and say negotiations fell apart, especially to a bloodthirsty media who makes everything sound like every failed deal moves us closer to doomsday, but again, Trump isn't concerned with the media, he's concerned with America.

And Democrats just can't seem to wrap their heads around that. //

TexasVeteran
3 hours ago edited
"The answer is sometimes not to make a deal at all."

Trump is channeling his inner Ronnie! Remember when Reagan walked away from a nuke deal with Gorbachev in Iceland? It lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union!🤔. //

anon-m0b0
2 hours ago
The war with Putin is a gigantic money-laundering operation that Zelensky and Democrats (and some Republicans) are getting rich from. Trump knows this. He wants to end the war and end the corruption. Zelensky is not ready for peace because a lot of people are getting rich. The mineral rights are some repayment to U.S. taxpayers for tax dollars sitting in oligarchs bank accounts.

Zelensky is counting on the U.S. press to do his dirty work to Trump. He doesn't realize Trump doesn't care.

Zelensky will be back at the table when the money is gone. He made his own bargaining position worse and he still doesn't realize yet.

A Statement from President Donald J. Trump

“We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”. //

Cletus Maximus
5 hours ago
The tone of this meeting needed to happen. How long has it been since someone literally got their ass kicked out of the Oval Office? This video should be in the curriculum for every business school. //

Skibum
5 hours ago
I suspect that Zelenskyy agreed to things in private and then tried to play tough in public for his home crowd. Boy did that prove to be a mistake.

Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱
@marcthiessen
·
Follow
This is entirely Zelensky’s fault. Trump greeted him graciously, was ready to turn the page. Just said he wanted to get help Ukraine get it’s territory back. And Z comes in and gets into a fight in public? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
TV News Now
@TVNewsNow
🚨 WATCH: Here’s the FULL exchange of President Trump and VP Vance EXCORIATING Zelenskyy
Embedded video
6:14 PM · Feb 28, 2025

Jacqui Heinrich
@JacquiHeinrich
·
WH OFFICIALS TELL FOX:-

TRUMP KICKED OUT ZELENSKYY – HE DID NOT WALK OFF ON HIS OWN

-RARE MINERALS DEAL WAS NOT SIGNED.

• WH SAYS “UKRAINANS WERE BEGGING TO RESET” BUT RUBIO AND WALTZ INFORMED THEM ZELENSKYY NEEDS TO LEAVE WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS, RETURN WHEN HE’S READY FOR PEACE

-THE PRESIDENT AND US OFFICIALS FELT DISRESPECTED BY ZELENSKYY’S RHETORIC AND DEMEANOR

– CITED THAT HE WAS “SHRUGGING AND ROLLING HIS EYES” DURING THE CONVERSATION

**WHEN I WENT TO UPPER PRESS TO ASK WHAT WAS GOING ON, THE LUNCH THAT TRUMP AND ZELENSKYY WERE SUPPOSED TO DINE ON AND TALK OVER WAS SITTING IN THE HALLWAY. I’M TOLD WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE STAFFERS WILL BE EATING IT.
6:52 PM · Feb 28, 2025

This was a colossal miscalculation by Zelensky. Trump has never accepted the idea that Ukraine is doing the United States a favor by fighting Russia as a way of justifying unlimited aid. Perhaps Joe Biden found that argument persuasive, but Joe Biden is not in office anymore. Russia is not going to invade the United States or any NATO country (if for no other reason than a lack of capability), and using that as a type of blackmail for support was never going to play.

Here's the deal. Fairness or being "right" doesn't factor into a situation like this. Zelensky is in a desperate spot, and Trump had largely acquiesced to a very Ukraine-friendly deal over the last few days (including lowering the repayment amount to just $90 billion). The negotiations were over. All the Ukrainian president had to do was show up, shake hands, smile for the cameras, and sign the deal. His attempt to lecture Trump and Vance for the cameras was an ego move that he didn't have the leverage to pull off.

Trump does not care about the press. You aren't going to bully him into a certain point of view by appealing to CNN or any other legacy news outlet. Whether that's fair or not is irrelevant. What's relevant is the reality of the moment, and Zelensky chose to pick a fight with Vance when it was completely unnecessary. Liz Cheney and David Frum may do performative outrage online, but they are not going to cut a check to Ukraine. Zelensky needed this deal and chose to blow it up for no good reason. What was the point of him even coming to the White House if he was going to publicly denounce any possible ceasefire?

What this really comes down to is how Zelensky handled this. If he has issues with Trump negotiating a deal with Putin, then he should express those behind closed doors, which is something Vance pointed out during the exchange. By trying to embarrass and undermine the U.S. president in public, he destroyed an already frayed relationship. In doing so, he might have cost his country its war. //

Claudius54
3 hours ago
"What the Heck Was Zelensky Thinking?"

Simple. He was thinking that he had leverage. ... he was mistaken. //

etba_ss anon-6tg1
2 hours ago
When you can't get along with Vance and Rubio either, the problem is pointing toward Zelenskyy. //

etba_ss
4 hours ago
Keep in mind, that Rubio has already pointed out that they reached a deal with Zelenskyy before. Then he left the meeting and went to the press and claimed he told them "no" and he isn't signing any mineral rights. Rubio called him a liar in public over the whole deal. Now they agree to a deal and instead of signing it, Zelenskyy pulls this stunt.

What an idiot.

Baker would have his readers believe that Putin woke up one morning and said it looked like a nice day to start a war. That’s not what happened. //

The timeline is clear. Biden comes into office, Zelensky feels emboldened to antagonize a much bigger and more powerful country under the belief that Ukraine will be protected by NATO (other nations’ armies and money), Russia reacts, and we end up funding Ukraine’s defense. //

As for Zelensky being a “dictator,” it’s not like he outlawed political opposition, shut down places of worship that had traditional ties to Russia, forced the closure of media outlets critical of his administration, and indefinitely suspended elections to keep himself in power. Wait, let me re-check my notes. Never mind. He did do all of that in a process known in permanent Washington as “democracy and freedom.”

When people like Peter Baker claim that it’s “rewriting” history to acknowledge the truth, what they really mean is that the propaganda they prefer has been a failure.

I don't think talking means that you're weak. I think talking is a tactic in order to get to a goal [...] We need to be able to have these conversations with the Russians.

[...]

Again, I go back to the fact that we had it perfect in terms of peace. We were handed a war, and now we're being criticized of, "well how do you dig us out of a war, and you're not doing it fast enough and you're not doing it fair enough." So we're a little frustrated. //

We articulate very clearly under Donald Trump: We don't do regime change. We are going to deal with the countries that are in front of us. And our criteria is, not how do we make that country better, how do we make America better, stronger, more prosperous for the people here. //

Burns' final question was whether Grenell had plans to run for California Governor in 2026. The audience cheered in approval.

Honestly, it's not in my plans unless Kamala Harris runs for governor. If Kamala runs... If Kamala runs...

You're jumping in? Burns interjected.

I mean, here's the thing: we already know who she is. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to define who Kamala Harris is. If she's going to run, a Republican is going to win and I may not be able to resist trying to run against her.