I don’t expect thoughtfulness from Donald Trump when it comes to foreign policy (or anything for that matter), but his recent remarks about Ukraine’s audacious Operation Spiderweb were highly unhelpful.
Speaking on Air Force One, Trump told media that Russia launched its aggressive air strike against Ukraine June 5 in response to Ukraine’s drone attack that damaged more than 30 percent of its strategic carriers.
"They gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night, he said in response to a reporter’s question about the recent Russian strikes. That's the thing I didn't like about it. When I saw it I said 'Here we go, now it's going to be a strike'."
Well, that doesn’t make much sense. According to The New York Times, Russia has attacked Ukraine with thousands of bombs and drones and hundreds of ballistic missiles since the start of the year. What was Putin’s excuse then? The reality is that Russia has fired thousands of different types of missiles and drones and dropped thousands of bombs on Ukraine since 2022. When Russia hit a children’s hospital in July of 2024 as part of a larger scale attack that left more than 40 dead, was that retaliatory?
In my latest voice message from Ukraine, I talk about why using the term escalation only provides cover for war crimes and how Trump’s response only justifies Putin’s occupation.
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