Disappointment: This Week in Ukraine
Trump’s plan for peace, Secretary Sycophant, the coming nuclear storm, fake lasers, and more!

1. The Surprising Sanity of Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan
When I read a recent WaPo article reporting that “people familiar with the plan” leaked Trump’s proposal for ending the war, I could barely contain my giddiness. I couldn’t wait to skewer whatever Trumpshit-crazy idea emerged from his pontification sessions on his gilded toilet made from the bones of his enemies. Perhaps the plan would be to build a Trump Tower in Kyiv and Moscow and call them the “John McCain Memorial Twin Towers.” Trump has been trying to do this since at least 2013—read the unbelievable story from Forbes here. Or perhaps, he would build a wall between the two countries and make Mexico pay for it. Imagine my disappointment when I read that he wants to give Crimea and the Donbas to Russia in a land-for-peace deal. Void of his usual lunacy, this plan actually has some basis in reality. The problem is, it won’t work.
A land-for-peace deal has flawed foundations. First, neither side is ready to negotiate. Russia, even after recently crossing the 450,000-casualty mark, is content with the slow, incremental progress of the war. Oil prices are high, and sanctions don’t seem to hurt Russia’s military complex. For Ukraine, they are killing a lot of Russians. They are sure that any day now the Russian proletariat will finally have had enough and rise up against Putin (an assumption that seems to have driven much of the Ukrainian military’s operational thinking in places like Bakhmut and Avdiivka—we are losing men, but they are losing a lot of men). Also, the US or EU will soon continue the flow of materiel, and plans for a new offensive will begin (even though that Ukrainian assault couldn’t possibly occur before May 2025). Both sides still hold out hopes for their maximal objectives.
Second, and this is of the most confounding issues with any peace plan, is that Russia (meaning Putin or his successor) is not interested in simply a portion of Ukraine. Russia wants to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus. Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, Russia has had its tentacles deep inside the Ukrainian political system, its military, its intelligence apparatus, its economy, and its society. Putin probably felt comfortable with the steady progress of his grey-warfare influence operations in Ukraine until the Maidan of 2014. Throughout the following years, Putin continued to pressure Ukraine until it was obvious the only pathway to subjugating the country was to invade. Putin doesn’t want the Donbas, he wants the whole country.
So we wait, understanding the eventual peace plan will probably include land-for-peace at some level. The negotiation will probably depend on who has the momentum on the battlefield. Right now, advantage Russia. Hopefully, Ukraine can rally, and get on the offensive before 2025. Regardless, when the time comes for negotiation, the Ukrainians must, as Trump says, “Take the deal. It’s a really good deal.”

2. A Good Company Man
This week US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified to Congress that he believes Ukraine should not attack Russian refineries. Austin said, “Certainly, those attacks could have a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation, and, quite frankly, I think Ukraine is better served by going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight." [Emphasis my own].
It doesn’t take a military strategist to know this political posturing is complete horseshit. This is the most disingenuous justification for a policy of laxness toward the Russians I have heard since October when Austin flip-flopped on sending ATACMS (long-range missiles) to Ukraine. Strategic attacks might be the only way Ukraine will have a chance to “win” this war, or at least bring Putin to the negotiating table. Attacks inside Russia—refineries, airfields, military production facilities—are some of the only military successes Ukraine has had in the past six months. Austin’s recommendation has nothing to do with Ukraine defeating Russia and everything to do with Biden defeating Trump.
Purportedly, Austin was a four-star general who spent 41 years in the Army. He clearly knows the huge positive impacts of these strategic attacks on Ukraine’s war effort. He also knows the administration is worried about gas price escalation in an election year. People expect this poppycock from politicians (for an absolute cringe-worthy display of disingenuity from Biden, see this video) but not from former generals who were, at least at one time, charged with keeping the free world safe for democracy.
Clearly, it’s a conflict of interest when the Secretary of Defense puts loyalty to the administration over the security of the free world. Austin should follow the example of other general officers and limit his democracy-eroding conflict of interest to joining the boards of military-industrial firms like Raytheon.
3. Boring, Old Nuclear Nightmare
The most catastrophically dangerous, earth-burning, cancer-causing, fire-and-brimstone shit-storm to spawn from this war is the one that everyone would apparently rather ignore. This week the Russians hit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) with First Person View drones in a black flag attempt to discredit the Ukrainians. Keep in mind that the Russians have occupied the zone around the plant since the beginning of the war. They have used the plant to store weapons and artillery. They have fired artillery from the plant. They were suspected of placing mines around the plant. In short, they have not respected the possible destructive potential of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Also this week, all six reactors at the ZNPP are now, finally, in “cold shutdown mode,” which reduces (but does not eliminate) the threat of nuclear meltdown. The plant has been in danger since the beginning of the war. Before the war, the ZNPP had around 11,500 employees—now down to around 3,000 to 4,500, most of whom are reeling from the effects of two years under Russian occupation.
Coincidently, the WSJ reported this week that Putin wants to restart the plant. Western governments have been basically ignoring the threat to ZNPP since the beginning of the war. I think If they realized how close we could be to another Chernobyl, they might have a renewed sense of urgency toward defeating Russia.
4. Always Just 5 Years Away
This week, the UK government announced that it is considering sending its very Arthurian-named prototype laser system, the DragonFire, to Ukraine to help fill the shortcomings in the country’s air defense. The system won’t be there for at least three years, if ever, and who knows if it will even work. The old joke regarding operational lasers on the battlefield is that they are always “just five years away.” My experience with testing cutting-edge technology, like missile defense systems, is that the testing is so simplified and contrived that it has no basis in reality.
But hey, kudos to the UK for having the confidence in their unbattle-tested laser system to “consider” putting one in Ukraine. It was inevitable that the West would be unable to supply Ukraine with sufficient air defense capability. Strategic air defense is inherently unsustainable—it is lopsidedly more expensive to defend than attack. So the UK’s response is to say they will someday soon provide a laser beam that will shoot down incoming drones and missiles. Soon. Probably in five years.
5. Today, the Ukrainians Repelled 1,200,000 Attacks
It appears the Russians are on the verge of taking the town of Chasiv Yar next to Bakhmut on the eastern front. If the Russians take Chasiv Yar, they could be poised to next flatten the city of Kramatorsk in the same manner as Bakhmut. I remember trying to get into Chasiv Yar in May of 2023. It was the week before the Russians officially took Bakhmut, and the shelling in that area was too intense. I was denied. That same week, though, I was conducting interviews in a coffee shop in Kramatorsk when I heard someone speaking perfect English. I turned around to find a small Amish girl (I think she was Amish; I remember she was from Pennsylvania—so obviously all Amish). She told me she was a volunteer ambulance driver located in Chasiv Yar. She was incredibly brave to be there, and I hope that the risks she took daily to evacuate the wounded from Bakhmut, at the time the most dangerous place in the world, won’t be in vain.
6. [Video] Take it off, Baby!
If you’re a Russian soldier here are your options: 1. Charge that trench and get shot by the Ukrainians, 2. Don’t charge that trench and get shot by the Russians, 3. Shoot yourself, 4. Take off all your clothes. I’ll pick number four every time. In this video, a Russian soldier shows us the sexiest way to surrender (video suitable for work, as suitable as any of my videos, that is).