Rubin: As Ukraine falters, Trump tries to hand country to Putin with shamefully pro-Russia peace plan

While America has been obsessing over Jeffrey Epstein Vladimir Putin has been making dangerous headway in Ukraine and expanding his war into Europe Under such circumstances genuine peace negotiations are impossible because Putin thinks he is winning America s top foreign guidelines priority should be to reverse the Russian leader s mindset by increasing military sales to Ukraine which the Europeans will pay for Instead the Trump gang and Russian functionaries together have drawn up a new -point peace plan without first consulting Ukraine or European allies This pro-Russian plan calls for major Ukrainian concessions and would leave the country naked to further Russian aggression The White House has already denied Ukraine the weapons that could still stop the Russians thereby effectively helping Putin slaughter Ukrainian civilians nightly with missiles and drones that target apartment buildings and heating systems In pursuit of his mythical Nobel Peace Prize Trump appears poised yet again to sell out Ukraine If so he will also be selling out our European allies and the United States Hybrid war Most of Americans don t realize Russia is already at war with Europe This new mode of hybrid warfare is carried out on land air and sea but without ground troops yet Moscow is frequently using drones to shut down airports in Germany Denmark Norway Belgium and Poland Russian hackers are attacking European networks Russian ships are cutting Europe s underwater cables its warplanes are invading European airspace and buzzing military planes and its saboteurs are carrying out assassinations and arson attacks including failed plans to bring down European airliners Because this war is unconventional and hitting individual countries in Europe the European Union and its members haven t yet figured out how to respond Putin seeks not only to frighten Europeans but to unnerve Americans as well U S intelligence agencies concluded last year that failed Russian arson attempts on planes were a test run for using similar devices on transatlantic cargo shipments according to the Washington Post And Putin frequently hints at nuclear war against the West Has Trump denounced such behavior or warned Putin to stop his attacks on U S allies Nyet Only occasional grumbling has been heard from the White House The president seemingly never even took briefings on Russian sabotage Anything negative about Putin is rebuffed as the Russia Russia Russia hoax Instead Trump has been busy misusing U S forces to threaten war on Venezuela which poses no military threat to America and contrary to Trump s indicates ships no fentanyl to U S shores Perhaps this wag-the-dog war is meant to scare a weak Nicol s Maduro But Trump has made clear he doesn t dare or want to stand up to Putin His new secondary sanctions on Russian oil sales haven t been seriously pursued against India or China which buy huge and increasing shares of Russian oil and gas Moreover as Moscow takes advantage of Ukraine s dire shortage of manpower air defenses and long-range missiles Trump refuses to help Even though Europe has pledged to pay for key weapons systems for Kyiv Trump won t sell them Although Ukraine makes an array of drones they can t shoot down ballistic missiles or cope with Russia s current mass production of drones helped by thousands of North Korean workers and endless shipments of parts from China Promised U S -made Patriot air defense systems which could take out the ballistic missiles have never arrived in Ukraine Only this week after a nine-month delay did Washington permit Kyiv to once again fire long-range U S -made ATACMS missiles Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had banned their use early this year And the bulk cowardly after hinting for months that he would send desperately needed long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine Trump in the end came out with a big No Tomahawks There s more Although Ukraine is a world champion producer of all varieties of drones and the United States lags far behind in unmanned warfare Trump has yet to conclude a much-discussed drone deal with Volodymyr Zelenskyy whereby Ukraine would swap drones mechanism and testing for U S weapons Such White House blindness and weakness convinces Putin he can get away with destroying Ukraine And so the Russian leader is doing with a disastrous plan pushed by Trump s supremely naive negotiator real estate mogul Steve Witkoff who has no grasp of Putin s history or goals and seems to swallow his lies whole Witkoff s draft plan would reportedly require Ukraine to give up the of the Donbas region it still controls and cut the size of its armed forces by half It would require Ukraine to abandon key categories of weapons endorse a permanent rollback of vital U S assistance including long-range weapons and ban foreign troops from basing on Ukrainian soil And the deal provides no U S guarantees except lip arrangement to protect against Putin s certain violations in the future Drop dead Trump might as well say publicly that he endorses Putin s dream of swallowing Ukraine He is effectively telling Ukraine and Zelenskyy Drop dead Putin isn t fighting for a piece of land He wants to absorb Ukraine back into the Russian empire Viktor Medvedchuk a Ukrainian traitor and close Putin ally whom the Russian president yearned to install in Zelenskyy s place after the invasion just now spelled out Kremlin goals to the official TASS newswire He explained that Ukraine will not survive as a state in the future and Moscow considers the reunification of Ukraine with Russia a strategic goal Trump clearly doesn t care The administration is pushing to strip language from an annual U N General Assembly Human Rights Committee resolution that recognizes Ukraine s territorial integrity and rights as a sovereign nation The U S delegation will vote against anything that condemns Putin Trump has made clear he believes Putin bears no blame for invading Ukraine it s all Zelenskyy s fault or even Joe Biden s He has crossed over totally to the Russian dictator s camp Unless he wakes up from his Putin-induced trance he is incapable of making peace Although things look bleak for Ukraine I believe its fighters will manage to hold back the Russians this winter but at a brutal cost to civilians and soldiers lives Trump will bear much blame for the suffering to come But after the Epstein-induced awakening of GOP members of Congress I hope particular Republican senators will find the courage to denounce Trump s attempt to hand over Ukraine to Russia They should recognize that the retort of Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene R -Ga after Trump called her a traitor also applies to his position on Ukraine Let me tell you what a traitor is A traitor is an American who serves foreign countries and themselves Greene commented With his heedless pursuit of Putin and a peace prize Trump is serving the Kremlin in operation to his ego as he attempts to sacrifice Ukraine Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial board member for The Philadelphia Inquirer The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Tribune Content Agency