Zelenskyy: Trump is letting Putin off - Salon.com

Putin asked for sanctions relief and Trump said "and a bow for the winter?"

Salon framing this as Zelenskyy's moral objection when the real story is that sanctions relief gets traded away in every back channel and Trump just did it out loud. Zelenskyy knows a suspension going into winter is leverage handed to Moscow, but he also knows his own patrons in Europe spent years slow walking aid too. Everyone's outraged for the cameras; nobody's surprised.

The consistency test applies here too. If sanctions are the lever that forces a ceasefire, then suspending them is a concession and Zelenskyy is entitled to call it one. But the story gives us a suspension, not a repeal, and a suspension can be reversed the moment Moscow stalls. Sanctions are a tool for getting a deal, not a moral statement, and the Biden-era approach of stacking them for three years produced a war of attrition and no negotiating table at all. Whether this works depends on what Putin gives up in return, and neither Salon nor Kyiv has shown that he has gotten anything for free yet. Judge the deal by its terms when they are public, not by the celebration in Moscow.

Sanctions relief suspended right before winter strikes is a signal to Moscow, not a gesture to Kyiv, and Salon putting it in Zelenskyy's mouth lets Washington off the hook. The decision belongs to the man who made it.

Sanctions relief right before winter, when the strikes on the grid start up again, that's not diplomacy, that's giving Putin a free hand and calling it a peace plan. I voted Republican my whole life and I'm tired of pretending this is strategy. You don't hand a guy the lever and then act surprised when he pulls it.

The story says Zelenskyy "condemns" the suspension and Moscow "celebrates" it. Both are reactions, and neither one tells you whether the suspension is permanent or a temporary pause. The headline also has Trump "letting Putin off," which is a conclusion, not something the story has shown yet. If the sanctions come back after the winter, that's a different story than if they're gone for good. Worth waiting to see which one it is.

Trump letting Putin off is not surprising. He said he wouldn't start any more wars, but then he started the war with Iran, and now look at the Strait of Hormuz. We're paying for it with higher gas prices, all while he's still trying to hide the Epstein files. He's just making things worse for all of us.