Trump continues to justify Putin after Russia's rejection of any peace plan

The apparent distancing between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in recent days appears to have been a mirage or worse.

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Trump asked for a 30-day ceasefire and Putin rejected it

A week ago, in a post on his Truth Social account, Trump called for a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and warned, "If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions." Ukraine accepted that proposal, but the Kremlin rejected it. Despite this, Trump did not keep his word and did not implement new sanctions against Russia.

Putin summoned Ukraine to a meeting today in Turkey

Buying time and avoiding new sanctions after rejecting Trump's 30-day ceasefire, Putin summoned Ukraine to a meeting in Istanbul on May 11. Instead of reacting as he had announced, Trump justified Putin with a new message:

Este mensaje se publicó el 11 de mayo. Ese mismo día, Zelenski se mostró dispuesto a reunirse con Putin en Turquía. Al día siguiente, Trump mostró su confianza en que Putin y Zelenski viajarían a Turquía para participar en esa reunión. Ayer, Trump ya no se mostró seguro de si Putin acudiría. El Kremlin no quiso confirmar si Putin viajaría a Turquía hasta este mismo jueves. Finalmente, ni Putin ni Trump han viajado a la cumbre de Turquía. Rusia envió una delegación de tercer nivel en la que ni siquiera está su ministro de Exteriores, Sergey Lavrov.

Trump sigue justificando y regalando tiempo a Putin

Despite his messages of the last few days, today Trump has once again justified Putin, and he has done so by refuting his own words when a journalist asked him if he was disappointed by Putin's absence in Turkey:

No... I actually said, why would he go if I'm not going? Because I wasn't going to go. I wasn't planning to go. I would go, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he's going to go if I don't go. And that's turned out to be right.. but I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go if I'm not there.

Now, Trump's excuse to continue justifying Putin is: "Nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together", words of the US president on Air Force One shortly before landing in Dubai.

Thus, Putin continues to buy time to continue the war, while wasting Zelensky's time on a trip to Turkey proposed by the Russian dictator, which he himself has boycotted. Despite this farce, Trump continues to justify Putin and continues to break his word to approve new sanctions against Russia, giving the Russian dictator more time to continue mocking the West.

Has Putin mocked Trump or did he agree on this with him?

Looking back at the events of the past week, one might ask: Has Putin also mocked Trump and Trump refuses to admit it, or was it a farce agreed upon by the two? In the first scenario, we have a US president who is showing weakness and is incapable of carrying out his threats against a thug like Putin, who is mocking the United States without Trump being able to act on it. The second scenario would be much worse: the US president acting in coordination with a war criminal who is carrying out all kinds of atrocities against the Ukrainian people and who only accepts one "peace" plan: the defeat of Ukraine.

A display of weakness on the part of the United States

During his election campaigns, Trump used the slogan "Make America Great Again", a phrase he has repeated ad nauseam, but which, in practice, has given way to a policy of weakness toward a dictator like Putin, giving in to his wishes and appearing lukewarm toward him while heaping all kinds of contempt on America's allies. There is no greatness in this, Mr. Trump. What there is is pathetic weakness, the same one that his predecessor in office, Joe Biden, repeatedly expressed.

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Photo: Yuri Kadobnov. A meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018.