Cutting Through the Noise On Ukraine

The mineral rights deal with Ukraine Friday that turned out not quite yet to be is a Rorschach test. If you are an antagonistic world leader, an elected Democrat, or part of Never Trump, Inc., you already hated Donald Trump with the heat of a thousand suns before the meltdown in the Oval Office, and what unfolded confirmed and enhanced your priors. 

If you are a charter member of MAGA, and have been pining for someone in the Oval Office to finally put America First, you got everything you voted for last November, and then some, and you have been piling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy online ever since. 

Here’s the deal. Once you get past the rhetoric and look at the deal itself, the chronology of how it took shape, and events from over the weekend, it remains the best option on the table. Why? Because it’s the least worst option. 

When Vladimir Putin invaded Eastern and Southern Ukraine in order to have his land bridge to Crimea, he honestly figured it would be a relatively quick affair. All credit goes to the Ukrainian forces who put up a will to fight that was inspiring and impressive…for a while. 

While boasting a military between 880,000 and 980,000 forces, Ukraine has given Russia about as much as they can handle, albeit with a lot of money, weapons, and ammunition supplied from Western countries in Europe and the United States. It will never be able to win a protracted war against a Russian nation that can put millions in uniform if necessary, and import canon fodder from far-flung places like North Korea as well. Ukraine will ultimately lose the war of attrition if it goes on long enough. That’s just reality. 

The U.S. and NATO could certainly step up more, provide more tangible forces inside Ukraine and on the front lines, and engage Russian forces directly to tip the scales. Of course, you’re then in World War III and staring down the silo of nuclear weapons being used. There is no stomach for that on either side of the Atlantic. 

So without direct involvement from Western nations, just indirect support, bodies on both sides will continue to stack up, and eventually, the smaller country, Ukraine, will run out of bodies first. 

All sorts of criticism of Donald Trump by the above axis has been leveled, including that Trump is all but openly siding with Russia in this war. It’s utter nonsense. Trump is trying to get to a position of stasis where Putin has a face-saving move to cease hostilities, and Ukraine gets to live another day and rebuild. The deal for mineral rights has been accepted by Zelenskyy on at least three different occasions, passed by his own government in the most recent case, before reneging for the third time, infamously, at the White House Friday. 

Democrats in Congress, including Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, met with Zelenskyy before his Oval Office meeting with the Trump team, according to Michael Goodwin in the New York Post, who advised the Ukrainian leader to reject the deal. He then changed his story on CNN with Dana Bash.

🚨Chris Murphy’s attempt to propagandize the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting is desperate and incoherent:

First he says Z was “ready to sign the agreement” — but then says Z “had an obligation to discuss the disaster that would be wrought if he signed the agreement.”

WHAT?

“The back… pic.twitter.com/Za7uABXGzA

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 2, 2025

Here’s the problem with Murphy. He’s spinning so hard after getting caught sabotaging the deal he can’t keep his previous statements straight. 

Whoa.

Dems can’t get their story straight.

They came out of their Zelensky meeting trashing the deal – calling it “a fake peace agreement” giving Putin everything he wants.

When reported they pressured Z to not take the deal, Murphy calls it “a MAGA conspiracy” and they… pic.twitter.com/IpBbAsde4E

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) March 2, 2025

Kind looks bad when before the Oval Office meeting, Murphy calls the deal a bad one that gives Putin everything he wants, and then when he gets busted in a possible Logan Act violation, claims he told Zelenskyy to sign the deal, the same deal that he’s referred to as a bad deal giving Putin everything he wants. 

Again, this is all noise. Let’s look at what is going on right now. 

After antagonizing Trump and his entire foreign policy team, including Vice-President Vance, Trump pulled the plug on the meeting, calculating that he wasn’t a serious partner in these discussions, and scrapped it until Zelenskyy decides whether he’s putting his country’s interests first, or if he’s putting his own political livelihood ahead of everything else. 

There have not been elections scheduled in Ukraine for a very long time. Their version of Habeas Corpus has been suspended. Vance was right in that there are conscriptions of Ukrainian males taking place on the streets in Kyiv. The country is actually being run as a dictatorship so long as the war rages on. It’s impossible to hold elections without at least a ceasefire in place to stage polling places and election infrastructure, so Zelenskyy gets to be president for as long as the war lasts. When Trump asked him in the Oval Office about whether he wanted to see a ceasefire or not, the wheels were already flying off the wagon. But a ceasefire seemed to be the last thing Zelenskyy wanted. What he wanted was more money and weapons. He seemed to believe in the notion that his country could still be made whole prior to the invasion by Russia on Joe Biden’s watch, which is fantasy. Nobody can or will push Putin out of Crimea, or the land bridge to it, without triggering WWIII. That’s when Trump knew Zelenskyy was trying to roll him and ended it and booted him out of the White House. 

And it’s not just Trump and his team saying Zelenskyy’s fantasy outcome is nonsense. Zelenskyy himself essentially told Bret Baier that on his Fox News Special Report interview hours later after the Oval Office blow up.

Zelenskyy declares that he won’t negotiate an end to the war without security guarantees from the United States — And then admits that he doesn’t have enough weapons to push Russia out of Ukraine — And then demands more money from the U.S. pic.twitter.com/dRjq5I7hqK

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 28, 2025

So if you’re not going to push Russia completely out, you’re down to a land trade – Putin gets his land bridge and Ukraine out of NATO, and Ukraine gets most of Eastern Ukraine back, and with that, the ability to rebuild and create the infrastructure to eventually mine, and sell, rare earth minerals that could help bankroll their rebuilding effort. 

As for security, although not being eligible to join NATO, signing a financial incentive deal where the United States has a national security interest in Eastern Ukraine would force Putin to think long and hard before another invasion, unless the United States has the misfortune to elect another brain-dead Democratic president. Short of that, any further incursion into Ukraine by Russia would essentially be received as an attack directly on U.S. interests. In the meantime, France and other European allies would step with peacekeeping forces to work as a buffer. That’s an actual security guarantee, the best one that Zelenskyy is ever going to get. 

The Ukrainian leader went to the UK on Saturday, and has toured many NATO partner nations this weekend, trying to drum up as much support and back pressure against the United States as possible. His visit with Prime Minister Kier Starmer resulted in a much-touted 100-year deal, billions of dollars on British weapons and British military, including soldiers, to help inside Ukraine, keeping the war effort going. Stinging rebuke to Trump, right? Wrong. 

There’s a little contingency to Starmer’s deal. It only happens if the United States plays an active role in feeding the Ukrainian war effort, something Trump is unwilling to do. He’s not going to go along with stringing this war along and playing second fiddle to Europe as billions of dollars get spent maintaining the stalemate. Without U.S. backing, the deal with the Brits is window dressing. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who met with Zelenskyy and got his first agreement to the deal before Zelenskyy welched on it, explained exactly what is going on, and why Trump’s deal is still the only real deal that remains on the table, with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation.

🚨Wow: Sec Bessent calmly and methodically schools CBS propagandist and internet meme Margaret Brennan on Zelenskyy —

“We were already set up to sign to sign the deal.”

“President Zelensky came into the Oval Office and tried to relitigate in front of the world the deal.” pic.twitter.com/AKih6QZYRn

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 2, 2025

National Security Advisor Michael Waltz appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash.

“It was not clear Zelenskyy was going to go to negotiations at all — that he would ever be able to negotiate with Putin and whether he shared our goal of ending this war,” says @MikeWaltz47.

“This was a huge missed opportunity for him and for his country.” pic.twitter.com/BKvGmZTJhq

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 2, 2025

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on Fox with Maria Bartiromo.

.@howardlutnick: “Zelenskyy was not there to make peace. He was there to strike some sort of make-believe bargain he had in his mind, and… @POTUS made it crystal clear. He’s the peacemaker — and if Zelenskyy’s not interested in peace, he should go home and think about it.” pic.twitter.com/HCetclCDZY

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 2, 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over This Week with George Stephanopoulos and cut to the chase. 

Marco Rubio just schooled George Stephanopoulos. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/E6IjAAeY12

— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) March 2, 2025

Even UK Ambassador to the United States, Lord Peter Mandelson, said Trump’s deal is the best deal out there to get this war over, and Zelenskyy needs to take it while it’s still out there. 

British Ambassador to the U.S. Lord Peter Mandelson: President Zelenskyy needs to give “his unequivocal backing to the initiative that President Trump is taking to END the war and to bring a just and lasting PEACE.” pic.twitter.com/ZWLasg6tNc

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 2, 2025

As for President Trump, he made a video from Mar-A-Lago this weekend, and it doesn’t sound like he’s biting on Zelenskyy’s Hail Mary plan with Starmer and the Brits. 

🚨 President Trump: I refuse to bend the knee to their next endless war in Ukraine. I want peace. They want money, and they want conflict. Even if it means walking us to the brink of world war 3.

Do you support Trump or Zelenskyy? pic.twitter.com/vcNiJJ9t2v

— The British Patriot (@TheBritLad) March 2, 2025

Military historian and classicist, Victor Davis Hanson, posted ten bad takes Zelenskyy took into the Oval Office, and why it all backfired on him. It’s well worth the read. 

Ten bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up

1. Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those with whom he…

— Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) March 1, 2025

The bottom line is Trump’s deal remains the best deal out there. It’s the best for Ukraine, it’s the best for Europe, and it’s the best for us. Why is it the best deal? There isn’t another one out there that gets to a resolution of the war. The only other plan is to keep ponying up money and weapons to keep the charade going until Russia ends up getting the upper hand over time, threatening actual NATO allies. 

I get the counter that you wouldn’t be able to trust Vladimir Putin to keep his word on anything. Putin is a cold-blooded killer who lies like you and I breathe. I understand that. With us having a financial stake, plus European NATO countries there as a buffer, he’s going to have bigger fish to fry for a while before taking all that on. 

As for Zelenskyy, if he’s truly the hero he was when he arrived on the scene three-plus years ago, how is he doing in the trust department right now? He has reneged on promises to sign the deal three times. All the way through this process, he’s alienated the very people he’s going to need to survive this war, all the while grifting his way along, believing he can still tug on America’s heartstrings like he’s always done. 

That’s not going to work anymore. After Friday’s debacle, I went back and replayed Marco Rubio’s interview with Catherine Herridge from last week. It’s just as prescient now as it was then, because he explains why everyone on Trump’s foreign policy team is so ticked off at Zelenskyy – because he will sit down and agree to a deal, handshake on it, then leave the room, go find a TV camera, and lie about what was just agreed upon and beg more money and resources. 

Kinda hard to paint Putin as the black hat he is (and he is) when Zelenskyy is behaving, at best, like a gray hat. 

Sign the deal, Volodymyr, while you still can.