Homie Don’t Play That Game.

By Le Flâneur

(Introducing a new editorialist to Far East Currents. Welcome.)

Neither does Zelenskyy.

Axios reports that it’s “Strike Three” for Zelinskyy, as spun by White House officials after the democratically elected president of Ukraine was virtually booted out of the White House last Friday. They say that Zelinskyy was seen as “ungrateful” for America’s help and did not show enough “obeisance”. Really. But if we’re using a baseball analogy, Trump actually couldn’t get Zelinskyy to swing at the slider. Here’s the recap.

Strike One: No suit (Axios says Strike Two, but who’s really counting ?). Trump, Vance, and an erstwhile right wing podcaster who crashed the press corp., each implied Zelinskyy’s lack of a suit and tie in the Oval Office amounted to “Disrespectful Attire” ?  Oh, my !

Strike Two: More complicated. It has to do with Zelinskyy’s first acceptance of Trump’s mineral deal in Munich, in the presence of Maro Rubio, J.D. Vance and others, then balking after Trump said no security guarantees, even when Z pointed out Putin’s violation of every agreement Russia has ever signed.

Strike Three: Not saying “Thank You” ! (Yes, that was Trump’s final straw.) But let’s challenge that. Weren’t they supposed to negotiate a ceasefire, and a deal to mine Ukraine’s oil, gas, and mineral wealth to rebuild the country after the war ends ? Here’s where it went off the rails.

Trump, apparently a poker player, said Zelinskyy doesn’t have the cards (leverage), and called his bluff by accusing him of potentially starting World War III. Vance spun his own mythical yarns. Then Trump ended the meeting and the negotiations stopped. Opps ! Neither side now benefits from a minerals deal that could have made billions, paying U.S. expenditures for weapons, ammunition, training, and logistics over the last 3 years. Worse yet, Trump doesn’t get the win he craves.

But it seems that Big Daddy is really the one getting served. Zelinskyy’s has not only got the cards, but the EU’s cash, weapons, and technical skill, with more coming, all against Putin’s faltering army. If we are to believe the hundreds of YouTube videos from several sources in and outside Ukraine, Trump just picked the wrong side.   

Apparently, Ukraine’s drone, naval, and ground forces are defeating the Russkis quite handily, even with the addition of North Korean conscripts. I’ve seen very little of the same propaganda coming out of the Kremlin. They may be good hackers, but Ukraine has pretty much owned the Russians on social media and, what I’m calling YouTube’s “visualization of victory”. This has already scored multiple “runs” (audience views), consistently winning week after week, and maybe even tipping sentiment in Ukraine’s favor in the hearts and minds of the viewing/voting public. It’s worth watching.

Trump may have as much to lose as Zelinskyy, maybe more if you consider his outsize ego, having the temerity to reduce a war that has taken almost 1 million lives, and destroyed some of Europe’s cultural centers, by capitalizing on fossil fuels and minerals for EV’s and semi-conductors. Can we even compare it to “ethnic cleansing” in eastern Europe after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 ? Ukraine’s suffering could be much worse, and definitely more visible in 2025 than the war in the Balkans from 1992 – 1995.   

What if Zelinskyy joins the EU and NATO, elevated by 200 billion Euro of Russian wealth confiscated since 2014, and accepts the military and logistical support to defeat Russia. What’s the United States to do then ? Is the Trump administration really willing to throw their collective hands up by saying, “Hey, we tried to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine, but ya know, Zelinskyy didn’t dress very well, and he didn’t say thank you, really ….. So, we said we can’t help you.” Here’s the downside to that “strategy”.

Let’s imagine that within the next two years Zelinskyy and Ukraine win the war, a definite possibility. Russia’s economy hits rock bottom, and Putin is gone. What then ? All this is likely given the present state of the battlefield and Europe’s solidarity with Zelinskyy, but Trump just doesn’t see it.

He only sees “the deal”, and how much he or the U.S. could make, and will insist to Europe that he’s really going to pull the plug, any minute now…. But he probably won’t, because Trump and Putin know they will be isolated if they do, maybe even ghosted by China, and fall into irrelevancy. There’s always a chance Trump could claim a small “win” if the war ends on his watch. We’ll see.

Somewhere it must be written that Old Dictators often go unpunished and just fade away, like Franco, Salazar, Allende, and Marcos. Fading into history Trump surely will. But it will probably end like “Succession” and feel like you’re watching “Mean Girls”, only more naïve, vulgar, and a thousand times more dangerous.

Watch for the limited series streaming on Prime in the coming months.