How Trump Would End The Russian War Against Ukraine “In A Day”
Trump’s boast that he would end the Russian-Ukrainian “in 24 hours” has created headlines.
As if that were not enough reason to vote for him, he has since added that he would “get it done before even becoming president,” i.e. in the lame-duck period before an inauguration.
“I have a very exacting plan on how to stop Ukraine and Russia,” he stated. “And I have a certain idea, maybe not a plan, but an idea for China...But I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them. They’ll be unsuccessful. Part of it’s surprise.”
Those plans sound a bit his concept of an idea for healthcare reform; maybe even dicier.
Ukrainian President Zelensky may meet Trump during his coming visit to the US, and I doubt he will like Trump’s plan. If Trump wanted to avoid having reality rain on his parade, he would cancel whatever appointment he has with Zelensky.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance was a bit more forthcoming about the plan for peace.
The Russian objective is to keep the land that they now occupy, and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
Vance revealed that the Trump plan is to allow Russia to keep the land they now occupy, and prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
Do you see the subtle differences between them?
Me either.
But I would guess that it would indeed have Putin’s approval, so that part of it could be a sealed deal in a day.
Getting the Ukrainians onboard might take a bit longer. They want their land back, and they are even occupying Russian land.
It would be especially difficult to get the Ukrainians onboard considering the seismic shift that has happened in Russian public opinion against Putin’s war. According to Diane Francis a survey conducted with independent pollster ExtremeScan, found that almost half of Russians support the withdrawal of Russian troops. They want peace talks even if the aims of the war have not been met. This marks an increase of some ten percentage points since January of this year. The Russian citizens are upset with many things: the failure of the Russian military; the first-hand reports of displacement by the former inhabitants of Ukraine’s new slide of Russia; and the drastic fall of the Ruble – perhaps accelerated by the cancellation of the Mongolian pipelines. This is all news which Putin’s media cannot control. The invasion also made a joke out of Putin’s “red lines” and nuclear threats.
Trump’s timing of his plan to fully back the Russians could not have been worse.
Let’s take a fast look at the bargaining positions:
Ukraine has just put in play a new long-range missile that is capable of hitting targets in Russia. Thus far, they have destroyed a huge Russian ammunition stockpile in the town of Toropets, in western Russia 300 miles from Ukraine. Then they truck again four days later, landing a second blow on arsenals in Toropets while also triggering a massive blast from 2,000 tons of military explosives in Tikhoretsk, in southern Russia just 200 miles from the front line in Ukraine. Estimates are that some 40,000 tons of ammunition have been destroyed in four days.
The explosions are said to have resembled earthquakes.
The stockpiles evidently held small arms rounds, mortar shells, and long-range ballistic missiles.
The attacks may have involved more than one hundred missiles, by an inexpensive turbo-jet engine on a Ukrainian-built cruise missile called Palianytsia. Much of Russia’s space program had been based on rockets designed and built in Ukraine…and they have not forgotten how to make them.
These are major bases; there are only 13 of them in Russia. The dump in Tikhoretsk “is one of the three largest occupying ammunition storage bases and is one of the keys in the logistical system of Russian troops,” said a member of the Ukrainian general staff. Ukraine has now destroyed two of the 13. In two strikes they have destroyed 12-15% of Russia’s ability to make war. And the other bases are just as vulnerable. One eye-witness said the warehouses were "literally wiped off the face of the earth."
Russian media had called the Toropets base the most modern and attack-resistant munitions storage facility in all of the Russian Federation. Online posts have audio of jet engines skimming overhead at five- to ten-second intervals, followed by explosions in the distance. Photographs and videos depict huge fires lighting the night horizon and explosions breaking windows even 6 kilometers from the epicenter.
An earlier operation the week before saw the arrival of Ukrainian missiles at the Russian base in the Voronezh region. The depot served the Western military grouping of the Russian army and stored over five thousand tons of various munitions: including small arms ammunition, tank and artillery shells, and surface-to-air rockets.
The Ukrainian news service noted that the explosions were continuing with a “festive roar reaching the heavens."
The video shows the destruction of the Toropets munition depot by Neptune missiles.
At this rate, Putin will conquer all of Russian in a few more months.
And if Ukraine gets Western (read: US) permission to use their long-range missiles, then a huge expanse of Russian bases become targets:
Kiev has also been targeting Russian oil storage, with some success. It has declined by 10% because of the bombing of the oil storage tanks. This directly affects Russia’s railroad supply infrastructure; while two-thirds of the Russian rail system is electrified, one-third is not. Replacing storage tanks will take a lot of steel – which could have been used in military production.
The Ukrainian goal in making these deep strikes is to cripple Russia’s war-making ability, not to directly defend Ukraine. This is a war of strategic direction, beyond tactical success. The Western sanctions against Russian finance and trade, that started as soon as the war itself started, is an example of that long-range planning. It has impact beyond the war zone, into the heart of global commerce. The relatively restrained Chinese support for Russia comes partly from their observations about the scope of Western retaliation.
An example of the strategic value of long-range bombardment can be seen in the two recent attacks. Putin has called up another 180,000 men. He has been having a hard time filling up the quotas he already established. Last year only 345,400 people joined the army — significantly fewer than the 540,000 claimed by the government. He doubled the financial incentive, which did increase recruitment, but not by enough.
Russia’s front lines have expanded due to operations in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia’s Kursk region. The casualty rate has nearly doubled in the first half of 2024, compared to a year earlier. Russia is losing some 200 soldiers KIA a day. And people are avoiding the draft. One potential recruit explained that “Despite the totalitarian nature of this system, it does not work well, and it lacks the resources to force everyone to become a slave.”
Putin’s efforts to boost troop numbers are hindered by equipment shortages…and this is where the strategic significance of the missile strikes against Toropets and Krasnodar come in. The equipment that was destroyed in the Ukrainian missile attacks cannot be easily or quickly replaced. Putin was already using equipment salvaged from the Cold War era; as this dries up his new recruits will be as ragged a group of soldiers as those who marched in the Tsar’s armies in 1917.
Attempts to manufacture a new generation of weapons in Russia are having less success than Ukraine has had. The previous Russian liquid fueled heavy ICBM, commonly known as "Satan" was engineered and produced by the Ukrainian design bureau "Yuzhnoye" (Uzhmash). It was absolute success, it was robust, worked well and was able to properly start even after 20+ years staying dormant in the silo. The new Russian-made ICBM RS-28 Sarmat test was a complete failure. The missile detonated in the silo leaving a massive crater and destroying the test site:
This is all coming to a proving-point in Crimea, which many people believe is the key to the war. It was, of course, Russia’s seizure of Crimea in February 2014 that marked the formal start to the war. US General Ben Hodges, formerly head of US forces in Europe, said that “Crimea … is sovereign Ukraine, and there will be no US tapping the brakes if they take down that Kerch Bridge – which I do predict is going to happen this year.”
The bridge that he refers to is the sole ground link remaining between Russia and Crimea that is out of direct range of Ukrainian fire. And Russia has been unable to defend it effectively. As a base of operations, Crimea is definitely threatened.
At the moment, the rail link over the bridge is down, so supplies have to be ferried across to Crimea.
If Crimea goes to Ukraine, that segment of the Russian population that are in favor of a settlement will grow quickly. There are some realities that even an oligarch has to face. The Tsar’s rule came to an end when the mothers of the soldiers held a protest…which became a revolution.
There are real pressures on Ukraine to take back Crimea. Ukraine has to ensure that it is never invaded again by Russia. It will be terribly vulnerable if Crimea remains in Russian hands. For the same reason, Ukraine must be able to join NATO.
Neither move will be acceptable to Putin.
No matter what Trump thinks about being able to end this in one day, Crimea is the most vulnerable of the territories captured by Russia. It is being ‘fed’ now by a single road-and-rail connection through southern Ukraine. The bridge is fragile and the ferries are being sunk.
Ukraine is winning. It is backed by the world’s largest economies and manufacturing centres. Putin’s allies in China and India are hesitant and have other non-Russian objectives in Central Asia. His generals are rumored to be restive, and purges are a monthly occurrence.
One of Trump’s problems, and a reason he was such a bad businessman, is that he never does any research. That would be work, something he is not good at.
Trump has nailed a solution for the war, if you only consider one side (Russia).
Looking at both sides (research) shows everyone but Trump that his plan is a vacuous fantasy.
It reflects one element of reality, however. The Russians did mount a clandestine scheme to boost Trump in 2016. And the Trump campaign—in a meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a Moscow emissary—signaled to the Kremlin that it welcomed this intervention. It was partly or perhaps even wholly because of this intervention that Trump became president.
Putin must be panicking now. His servant is unlikely to see the inside of any Federal facility other than a jail cell. Putin, BTW, has admitted that his support for Harris was “a joke”. No kidding.
What is not a joke is the implosion of Russia and of Donald Trump.
Maybe one day they will share the same facility. Perhaps in North Korea, the only country bit-spit crazy enough to be a refuge for them. They can cooperate on their memoires.
Of course, Russian oligarchs who are out of favor do not tend to have time to write memoires. There is not a lot of time on the way down from an apartment window, as Putin’s opponents have already found.
Trump’s fantasy solution is more than a mistake. It is a symbol of the kind of resistance-free reasoning that both he and Putin have always used - to the great tragedy of the world.
It should be an object lesson in the need for democracies and the kind of push-back they provide against insanity. Democracies inflict compromise – and that is a good thing.
Solutions, Donald and Vlad, need two parties to agree. If they do not, you have a fantasy…and one that could cost blood and pain and destruction.
And not having their approval on this message is a gold star for its verity.