Lindsay Graham has it right

“There will come a point where if it’s clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do. And the best way to do it is to have congressional blessing.”

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat in support of Graham’s bill, has warned against excessive optimism regarding the prospects of a peace deal, given that the Russian leader emerged from his Alaska summit with Trump last week without making any definite commitments, suggesting he could be employing “rope-a-dope” tactics.

“The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,” Blumenthal told the AP.

“What Putin understands is force and pressure.”

“What Putin understands is force and pressure.”

Yes, but when all other avenues have been tried, which is mostly what Trump has done up until this point, besides the secondary sanctions.

Trump has been polite, and he has also been patient, but he has also been very frustrated with Putin.

As a world leader, Trump has treated Putin the correct way, the political way, even if most of us don't like it

If Trump came out immediately insulting Putin and denigrading Putin and trying to bully him straight away in front of the world's media, it would be incredibly naive and stupid to think or believe that Putin would then want to ever sit down and have talks with someone like Trump at any point after that.

I hate Putin, he's a monster who should have been assassinated a long time ago, but you may need to stroke his ego to get something out of him instead of attacking him from the get go.

It may never work, I agree....but attacking or bullying Putin from the outset would never ever be the right option to try and get results with someone like him.

The way liberals achieve their perception is a mystery for simple minded people. It seems there are walls in their minds that allow them to compartmentalize and host various conflicted thoughts with ease. Contradictions do not hit them at all.

There could be value if DJT has displayed a similar behaviour to other leaders in the world and it was no constant other than DJT behaves as a person who only speak the language of force and coercion. He is mean with people he can coerce and docile with people he can not. Obsequious with the strong and cruel with the weak.

Beside, there is a gap between polite, firm and the show that DJT gave for the Alaska meeting. Trump is likely to be more frustrated with himself than with Putin. He goes nowhere with Putin and as DJT pictures himself as a master negotiator, this severely assaults his self esteem.

I agree with DA in this case. Lets look at the issue professionally.-

But lets go back to the Ukraine elecion of 2019. In the said elecion there was a run-of elecion of the 2 top candidate and on his run-off campaign Zeienskyy promised the electorate that he would stop the Civil War in Eastern Ukriane through negotiations with Russia - but the civil war just got worse after he election as he did nothing about the prois about the election and one wders why that happened.

In his first meeting with Trump in 2019 the issue was raised - but at that stage but he continued wih Miltay A id grants of military Aid grants to Ukraine amounting to $1 bllion a year as approved by Congress. However, in January 2020 a report reached Trump in which was mentioned that the US foreign aid grants were riddled ith corruption and kick backs and Trump ordered that the State Department freeze all payments of grant funding temporarily and instructed The State and Trasury Deparmets to submit procedures to stop the alleged kick-back system, In May 2020 there was a telephonc discussion beween Trump and Zelenskyy during which Trump asked Zelenskyy about two issues - which caused a political storm in the USA afterwards. The one was a request about the issue of the Biden's involvement in Burisma and he ther one about the operaions of Crowdstrike - a company registered n Ukraine and specifically about its role in the 2016 Russian Hoax scandal. The latter relates to a major problem stemming from the 2016 elecions, namely alleged hacking by Russia of he DNC computer system. For some reason or other the FBI did not investigaion of what happened iro the allegeled hacking of he DNC computers and the FBI stated that they were never asked to investigate the hacking - but the hackng was conduce by Crowdstrike. Incindentally it came out only this year that Crowdstrike was in fact an FBI operation wih headquarters in Kiev. Zellenskyy did not want to get volved in the ugly political scams in the USA. and did not provide any info on the 2 issues r aised by Trump. In fact in documents release his year it tuned out that Crodstrie s an FBI operaion wih Headquarters in Kiev, .

The furore of he Russian Hoax was in full flight despite the findings that the Mueller Special Council and Horowitz Ispector Gneral report as Justic Departnent independent investigaion found glaring problems with the Russan Hoax investigation and the Foreign Intelligence Security Court was proided wth false informaion when he FBI asked for Court approal to spy on Page a maj figure in the Trump elecion campaign in 2016. What was revealed in recent document releases were a plot by the Obama Administration to get rid of impeachment of Trump throgh impeachment.

The report of major fraud abd corrutption attached to US Foreign Aid grants reached Tump n January 2020 and he isntructed the State Department to freeze all payment and instructed the State and Treasury Department to reeze any payment and submit a report to him on measures to eb aken to stop fraudulent conduct and ensure proper supervision of projets fr which uding was provided, Wh ile tis was on the go Tump had a telephone conersatio in which he asked Zelenkyy abot info on the Burima activities Biden and his son and Crowdstrie, A whisteleblower report was compiled by Schumer's office abo ut the issues raised by Trump in his telephonic convesation with Zelenskyy. This report was neve factual and the Democats claine it was aimed at undermning Biden/s Administration - but it also would ht them in the pocket of a few Senaors harshly. So the whistleblower report was used by Pelosi and Shiff to aly impeachment charges aganst Trump. However Trump at that stage arranged that the S Givernment would not pay any cash transfers o Ukraine and buy the weaponry in the SA and deliver it to Ukraine. Te so-called whistleblower's identity was never revealed and it as later found that it was a sc hoff employee that ws used o sumit the report.

Trump was under otal attack by the Democats during the period he President and all o it relates o Russia and Ukraine and he enver dealt with the sisue o stopping the Ukraine Civil War - since anything like hat would add further aleaions by the Democrats against him.

The fact is that the way in which the matter of ending of the Ukraine War started off left much of the actions and conduct of the Autopen Presidency of Biden in serious doubt,

1. Biden met Putin in Geneva in October 2021 and Putin asked Biden o arrange a peacemaking conferene on the issue - which Bien neve want it to happen.
2. In January 2022 Macron visited Moscow and Kiev to try and prevent the threatened invasion by Russia in Ukraine. Both Putin signed an agreement on the issue based on he decisions reached at Minsk in 2015 and that was followed a week later by the arrest in Kiev of all Russian speaking members of the Ukraine Parliament and Putin regaded it as a breach of the Macon agreement and ordered the Russian Army to attack Ukraine
3. In Mrach 2022 Turkey offered to mediate a ceasefire agreement in Istanbul to deal with the issue, The Ukraine Government st a demand that all Russian troops be wthdrawn fom Ukrane teritory - ich was done and the meeing started in Istanbul and lasted for days.- it wa a vey diffcul issue to settle. In a statement made by the C hairman of the meeting - the Turkish Foreign Minister on the evening of the thirdd day an agreement as reached and the three Foreig Ministers involved would initial the draft arement the enxt day. Before that could happen an instruction from Blinen was tht the Ukraine Foreign Minister must eave Istanbul immedately and not initial anything. Tis was cnfirmed by both the Turkish Gvernemnt and the Ukraine Ambassador in Turkey.

That was the alst effort by anybody to preventaggravation of the Ukraine War during the Autopen Presidency and both Ukraine and Russa moved their armies to the Donbas Region. Tht is where the battles and slaugter started and the War got much worse tha t as before.

Trump's first efforts to stop the slaughter and massive damage caused by the War were not received well by boh Russia and Ukraine and the Russian Hoax BS got raised in vicious media reporting. - Trump was in the Putin pocket - which was a lie in itself. In h e end Trump lost his patince with both Putin and Zelenskyy and threatened Russia wth effective sanctions - the farce sanctions introduced by Biden ws broken totally by all countries - inclusive of the USA. Trump theatened to introduced tottal and effective sanctions in Russia and ordered 2 nucler driven dn armed to eh Baltic Sea. That caused Putin to ask for a meeting with Trump in Alaska and at te emeting t was agreed that Trump would meet wih the NATO EU leaxders and Zelensy on the issue in Washington. That meeting tok pace on Monday and during the meeting it was agreed that a meeting btween Zelenskyy would be arranged - whcich meetig would be attended by the participants n the Washgton meeting if at least an agrement be tween Ptin and Zelenskyy was reached to continue with negotiations. That meeng arranagments were not fianlized

I think te situation remains very trcky and distrust on both sdes bedevil the issue - but at least some progress have been made in the process and Trump will have the backing of Congress toa ct harshly against Russa of they fai to negotiate properly. I thin there is about a 50% chance of reaching a final peace agreement and it will only happen f Russia made concessions thatc ould serve a a basis fo a sound peace agreement and if Ukraine stop making demands n teh ssue of the Crme and the aprt of the onbas region that was never adminsitered byte Ukraine Government sicne 2014.

I tink we will know by the middle September if there will be a peace agreement possible in Ukraine. In the iterst of wrld stability I hope for one at least.

.

I see the Ukrainian's have been showing off tests of their new long range missile the Flamingo which has more than a little resemblance to Germany's V1 rockets. They claim it's mass producible, has a range of 3,000km and has a payload of 1,150kg. They also stated it has been used successfully in a military strike already on the Russians. Their aim is to be producing 7 of them a day by the end of the year. It's possible the Ukrainian's are overstating it's capabilities, Ukraine's ability to make or both, but even if they can only produce relatively few of them, looks like it has the capacity to cause Russia significant headaches.

My brain actually hurts after reading the tons of utter nonsense on this thread.

Fair play, i got through about two sentences or Trad's rubbish.

Just so you know, if any alien race ever reads this thread, they'll instantly hit the "Kill All Humans" button.

Hell, show me the button, I'll hit it right now!

We have a bunch of anti Trump posters who desperately want the peace to fail so they can attack Trump. Anybody who thinks Hysteria would be happy if the war ends is delusional….the joy that every set back affords him is so obvious.

Just so you know, if any alien race ever reads this thread, they'll instantly hit the "Kill All Humans" button.

Hell, show me the button, I'll hit it right now!

Well I often thought if an Alien space ship was approaching Earth, one of the Alien bridge officers would tap a more senior member of the alien crew on the shoulder and go "Emm....Sir according to our scans all this planets missile defence systems are pointing at the planet!" To which the response would be "Ehhh..lets not stop here, lets just keep going!"

Gosh Anger is that a bit of humor?

No ways .....can't be

DA I’m convinced there’s some humor somewhere…..I think the ‘emm’ and the ‘ehh’ are actually code for ‘I’m about to say something hilarious’

Just so you know, if any alien race ever reads this thread, they'll instantly hit the "Kill All Humans" button.

At least, they will not behave as liberals who have divided the human population in categories like humanity, sub humanity and non humanity. They will consider human beings as human beings. There will be a step forward.

Go look in the mirror Turdhole.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/21/russia-ukraine-war-childbirth-demographics-targeting-attacks-maternity-hospitals-kharkiv-sloviansk-khersonbirth-crisis

& Batshit2 gives the monster a red carpet .................

We'll see what he does when the peace process fails.

& Batshit2 gives the monster a red carpet .................

Liberals play all the sides. When children were abducted, it was because Russia had a demographic problem and wanted to expand this way. Now they are killing children to trigger a child birth crisis.

In the meantime, Israel liberals have been targeting children deliberately without no doubt children were the target. It is consistent though this time as it fits a plan to get rid of the Palestinians.

Putin is scum but he is saved by liberals who outperform him. Liberals have had a history of saving the worst scum from damnation as liberals do worse.