This will be short and simple — Donald Trump’s reported threat to expand sanctions on Russia if it does not halt attacks on Ukraine is empty and meaningless. As you will see in the following videos, I am currently in Moscow and participating in some public diplomacy seminars. What I have gleaned as a result of conversations with some well-informed Russian analysts is that the era of the United States being able to bully or coerce Russia is over. Donald Trump now confronts a Russia, with a government, an economy and a military, that does not need a single thing from the United States beyond mutual respect. The Russian people are prepared to live a comfortable, productive life without having to deal with the United States. That is a truth that Donald Trump needs to grasp.

If U.S. President Donald Trump were to join the leaders of Russia and China at the Kremlin on May 9, 2025, his name could be consigned to history as that of a “great peacemaker, both for America and for the whole world.”

“Peace throught strength”

‘I did not vote for him and have been critical of most of his moves. But in regard to the war…I believe he is on the right track’

In a moment of candor shortly after the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s President Zelensky told The Economist, “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this meant the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives.” His government was then involved in peace negotiations with Russia, but under pressure from the West, those promising negotiations were abandoned. Since then, the ongoing war—tragically unfolding in lives lost and people displaced (but profits gained from arms sales!)—may be viewed as a fulfillment of Zelensky’s chilling prediction.

‘I did not vote for him and have been critical of most of his moves. But in regard to the war…I believe he is on the right track’

The president did not just confront Zelensky, but the entire American foreign-policy establishment.

Ukrainian leader boxed himself — and his country — in with petulent White House display

The United States has used two very different methods for discarding foreign clients that no longer seem to serve Washington’s policy objectives. One is to arrange a genteel retirement or exile in the United States or another friendly country. The alternative method is to eliminate the no longer useful client with extreme prejudice (imprisonment or death). There have been multiple examples of both solutions over the decades.

Zelensky should’ve walked into that room with one phrase on his lips: “Thank you.”