Trump’s Deal With Russia Inflames War He Vowed to Swiftly End

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Ukrainian president’s defiant decision to continue attacking Russian refineries underscores President Trump’s inability to end a war he had promised to resolve.

President Trump during a campaign stop in Alaska on Tuesday. He has not delivered on his promises to end the war in Ukraine, or to lower prices, and recent deals with Russia could complicate both issues. Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times
On the campaign trail in 2024, President Trump promised lower prices and a swift end to the war in Ukraine.

Two years on, neither has been accomplished. And in his scramble to ease fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections, Mr. Trump has wreaked further havoc in his efforts to make peace in Ukraine.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky, already strained after last week’s U.S. decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel, hit new headwinds on Thursday when the Ukrainian leader declared he would not abide by the U.S. plea not to attack Russian refineries. And with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia refusing Mr. Trump’s demand for a cease-fire, an end to the war appeared to recede even further.

The spat with Mr. Zelensky and the escalating conflict have combined to create a new liability for the White House, highlighting Mr. Trump’s remarkable friendliness toward Russia and his inability to end Europe’s biggest war in generations.

Russia is not known to have made any concession in exchange for Mr. Trump’s decision to lift diesel sanctions, and the move has not yet eased the pain at the pump. The average U.S. diesel price was around $6.32 a gallon on Thursday, compared to $6.29 a week earlier, according to the AAA. » | Anton Troianovski and Luke Broadwater | Reporting from Washington | Thursday, October 15, 2026

As I have written once today already, Trump is manifestly not up to the job of POTUS. So, if he were an honourable man, he’d resign posthaste.

Trump should have stuck with ‘reality TV’. He was well-suited to that work. Being POTUS requires more than just a modicum of intelligence; on the contrary, it requires a great abundance of it.

Another prerequisite for that position is a thorough and profound understanding of world geopolitics. Alas, Trump has neither an abundance of intelligence nor a good grasp of geopolitics. As a result, with Trump at the helm, world politics is spiralling out of control. We are now closer to World War III than ever before in my lifetime. — © Mark Alexander