How Trump’s Silence Became Putin’s Strategy

Europe’s moment of truth as Trump fumbles Ukraine.

All over the goddamn place.

I mean the goddamn White House. Which feels about right, given how it's responding to Putin’s latest barrage of missiles and Iranian drones slamming into Kyiv. Trump, meanwhile, is furious. Not just at Putin — but at Zelensky too. Apparently, he wants Zelensky to talk better.

Next time someone breaks into my house and puts a gun to my head, I’ll make sure to reread The Art of the Deal. Maybe if I talk better, the robber will feel inspired to steal less and walk away on his own.

Trump posted a glorious rant online, attacking both Ukraine and Russia — as if that makes him the only grown-up in the room.

Classic bothsides-ism:

I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.

I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!

Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop. This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not “Trump’s,” I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.

And as long as he keeps doing this — pushing Ukraine around, pushing its president around, and refusing to lift a single damn sanction — why would Putin act any differently? He has zero incentive to.

It was Trump and his team who set the stage for this. They encouraged the behavior by always choosing to look away whenever Putin escalated. Every meeting, every phone call, every smug exchange with the Kremlin — like clockwork, a few more missiles and drones followed. Deliberate. Calculated. And they did nothing.

Just look at the data.

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And it’s not hard to see why.

Putin tested the waters with Trump. He let him settle into his usual domestic circus. And once Trump started calcifying around a particular position, Putin escalated. You can see it clearly in the chart — a lull after Trump takes office, then a steady, deliberate climb.

And Trump thinks he has nothing to do with this? That Putin’s air war — his missile strategy — is unfolding in a vacuum? It has everything to do with how Trump talks. It has everything to do with how he acts.

Even now, by lashing out at Zelensky and Ukraine, Trump is sending a message to Putin: KEEP GOING.

But there was something else he did yesterday — he said he was “absolutely” considering new sanctions against Russia. The comment came while speaking to reporters in New Jersey, just before boarding Air Force One. Of course, this isn’t the first time Trump has dangled sanctions in front of the press, only to look the other way when the moment came to act.

And now we’re here again.

If Trump — and the GOP Senators who’ve been murmuring about sanctions since early April — fail to follow through this time, after three straight days of Putin’s missiles and drones, they’ll hand him a blank check to escalate.

On May 22, 2025, Senate Majority Leader John Thune issued a warning: if Russia doesn’t “make a serious proposal for an immediate ceasefire,” the U.S. Senate is prepared to impose new sanctions.

Putin just delivered his answer — not with words, but with three nights of missile strikes, drone swarms, and a flaming middle finger aimed squarely at Washington.

Why? Because things are not going well for him. His economy is buckling. His ground forces are stalled. He can’t afford global attention on that — on failure. He’d rather the world talk about fireballs, chaos, and how “crazy” he is.

This escalation didn’t come out of nowhere. It has two clear drivers.

First, the outcome of Trump’s two-and-a-half-hour phone call with Putin. Despite Putin rejecting Trump’s ceasefire proposal, Trump came out calling the meeting “excellent” — and announced he wouldn’t impose sanctions on Russia because he wanted to “give peace a chance.” That wasn’t diplomacy. That was a green light.

Second, Russia is lashing out in response to Ukraine’s deep strikes. Ukrainian forces have started taking real bites out of Russian logistics — hitting fuel depots, ammo dumps, and critical supply lines well behind the front. Putin wants to shift the spotlight from those battlefield losses to headline-grabbing chaos in Kyiv.

As the Institute for the Study of War put it earlier today:

“Russian President Vladimir Putin is leveraging long-range strikes against Ukrainian cities, aggressive rhetorical campaigns, and excessive pessimism in the West about the battlefield situation in Ukraine in a multi-pronged effort to degrade Ukrainian morale and convince the West that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and that supporting Ukraine is futile.”

Putin will keep going in this direction — as long as Trump keeps handing him permission slips. Maybe Trump will eventually go through with sanctions. Maybe. But there’s no guarantee.

What can Europe do about this?

Exactly what it’s been doing since March — but faster, louder, and with more teeth.

Europe’s push to ramp up artillery shell production and delivers since January is one of the main reasons Ukrainian ground forces are holding the line. That has to continue. So does the steady investment into Ukraine’s domestic weapons manufacturing — another long-term gamechanger.

And we’ve seen the pattern: every time Putin escalated with missile strikes over the last three winters, President Biden did respond. Long-range air defense systems were promised — and delivered. Not always fast enough, but they came.

This time, with Donald Trump back in the White House, Europe can’t afford to sit around trying to persuade him.

They need to act.

Take a few Patriot systems from their own stocks and send them now. Trump has the executive authority to push replacement orders to the front of the queue. Use that. Move a few batteries and a few hundred interceptors. Get it done. And as they do that, accelerate the long-delayed F-16 deliveries. Stop waiting. There’s a lot Europe can do on its own — without relying on Donald Trump to suddenly develop a backbone.

There has been some movment on the F16 front. “The final batch of F-16s will be officially delivered to Ukraine on Monday,” said Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans on May 25, 2025, during an interview with Dutch broadcaster WNL. “This means all 24 promised fighters will soon be in Ukraine’s possession.”

The Netherlands’ decision to fulfill its entire F-16 pledge marks a turning point. But it should be just the beginning.

Ukraine’s biggest vulnerability isn’t manpower — it’s airspace. Russian missiles and Iranian drones continue to terrorize cities, cripple energy infrastructure, and kill civilians. Kyiv’s air defenses, while growing, are still stretched thin. Patriots and IRIS-Ts are intercepting many threats, but the sheer volume of incoming fire is overwhelming. F-16s can help change that equation.

They’re not just symbolic upgrades. They bring active radar-guided missiles, high-speed response capability, and far greater flexibility than Soviet-era MiGs. They can intercept drones before they reach power plants. They can engage cruise missiles earlier in their trajectory. And with modern Western integration, they give Ukraine a serious edge in battlefield coordination.

The faster Europe and its allies accelerate deliveries — not just of jets, but of spare parts, maintenance crews, and the logistical backbone that keeps them flying — the greater Ukraine’s chances of winning the battle for the skies. There’s little public detail on the state of pilot training, but one can only hope Europe has built a steady, scalable pipeline — because without trained pilots, these jets are just expensive runway ornaments.

I’m starting to think the time has come to stop whispering about Rafales and Eurofighters — and start putting them on the table. If Ukraine is going to secure its skies long-term, F-16s won’t be enough. They’re American — and these days, that’s a liability.

This isn’t about diplomacy. It’s about deterrence. And if the West can’t read that by now, Putin will be more than happy to keep rewriting it — in fire.

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