Russia’s genocidal war.
Europe needs to be ready to play two rounds of poker.
OCT 20, 2025
Thank all the many different gods that the meeting between Trump and Zelensky happened behind closed doors. Like everything else in our global information space, the story will bend to whatever fragments can be pieced together. The full truth will only ever be known to President Zelensky and his team.
Still, I tend to believe the Financial Times version of events — that Trump brought his inner bully to the table, pressing Ukraine to yield to Putin’s demands. The pushback, at least, was clear enough for Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk to post afterward:
“After President Zelenskyy’s talks yesterday in the White House and with European leaders, one thing is absolutely clear: Europe’s solidarity with Ukraine against Russia’s aggression is today more important than ever before.”
That single line — “more important than ever before” — was a dead giveaway. The meeting didn’t go as planned. If anything, it went in the opposite direction.
The following day, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz addressed a crowd in Germany and said:
“This war could be ended within 24 hours if Ukraine stopped fighting and handed the country over to Russia. But then we can be quite certain that the next country would be attacked by Russia tomorrow. Moldova could be one of them, the Baltic states could be among them — and we ourselves here are not excluded.
Every day we see how Russia carries out cyberattacks, how it spreads disinformation, and many other things besides. I believe we will have to defend our freedom differently now than we thought we would in past decades.”
I wasn’t at all surprised that the Trump administration refused to clear the Tomahawk missiles. By the time Trump mused publicly about his call with President Putin — and even floated Budapest as the venue for the next round of talks — the signal was clear. Zero Tomahawks wasn’t a surprise. It was exactly on the expected line.
How did I reach that conclusion? Because right before the Alaska meeting with Putin, the administration had already asked Ukraine to go easy on refinery attacks. If that pattern held, the odds were close to a hundred percent that they’d try to repeat it this time.
The real surprise — and the confirmation that Trump’s inner bully had indeed shown itself — was that there was no movement on the PURL scheme. Not a single new weapons package got cleared.
My expectations from the Trump-Zelensky meeting were modest:
- 160 to 200 HIMARS launchers
- 500 to 1,000 ATACMS (missiles)
- 3,000 ERAM missiles
Maybe Zelensky’s team placed all their eggs in the Tomahawk basket and missed the window. Maybe they tried and it failed — I don’t know. But the odds are high that even if Ukraine had made the straightforward request outlined above, it still would have been denied.
The “bro gang” in Washington — the familiar inner circle that thrives on posturing — sprang into action as soon as Putin called. One photograph and one public gesture were all the evidence that we need. The protectorate re-emerged after taking some quiet damage, rushing back to the front in broad tie-light.
Did Trump not see the tie?
A man that hyper-aware of where the light ends and shadow begins never misses details like that. He knew. He always knows. He enjoys putting people into conflict — so he can play both sides when the dust settles.
Putin scored a major win in those 48 hours. But so did Zelensky. If Europe understands what the Ukrainian President just did — and has the courage to use it — Budapest could turn into the first real reversal for Putin. It won’t collapse his position in a day, but the irreversible erosion will begin.
Trump and someone on his team reportedly pushed President Zelensky to give up Donetsk in exchange for a few southern territories. Putin’s offer was worse — clearly defined land for Russia in exchange for vague promises for Ukraine. The Americans nudged Kyiv to accept.
Putin wants the entire Donetsk region — that part was made clear. In return, Ukraine will receive some territory in the south. What exactly that meant, no one knows, because Putin would never have defined it, and the Trump team likely passed the offer along verbatim to the Ukrainian delegation.
Zelensky refused. Flatly. And Trump, boxed in, agreed to freeze the frontline. He even used that exact term afterward. There is 0% chance Putin will ever accept it — which is precisely why Europe must repeat this over and over. This is the line they need to draw.
- Freeze the front.
- Freeze the front.
- Not an inch to the left. Not an inch to the right. Not an inch to the south. Not an inch to the north.
And yes — repeat this from every possible angle — President Trump is right: we need to freeze the front. But as part of any agreement, Ukraine must secure these guarantees before a single signature touches paper:
- 200 Tomahawk missiles — with 1000 publicly declared and deployed within six months.
- 1,000 ATACMS missiles and 160 HIMARS launchers — enough to lock every Russian logistics line from Crimea to Belgorod.
- 48 F-16 fighter jets delivered immediately, with another 100 provided by EU, UK and allied states over the next year.
Total cost: between fifteen to twenty billion dollars — a fraction of what delay will cost.
For France, the terms must include:
- 20 SAMP/T NG long-range air-defense systems, all delivered within one year. No delivery, no signature. The clause must be iron-clad.
For Germany and Norway:
- A four-year steady-state pipeline of IRIS-T air-defense systems (Germany)
- A four-year steady-state pipeline of NASAMS air-defense systems (Norway)
- Deliveries to match France in both volume and timing
Announce these deliveries as part of any agreement, and you already know how Putin will react. His leverage evaporates the moment Europe shows it can out-think and out-deliver his information machine.
As of now Putin is working to force Europe and the United States into a quarrel that leaves him free to rebuild and expand this war. He wants the U.S. reduced to a bystander, the intel taps turned off, sanctions lifted for him and tightened for Europe; he already has China nudging from the wings. Don’t let him set that table.
There’s already a healthy pushback across Europe to Trump’s posture — fine, let that be one part of the conversation — but it cannot become the whole thing. Busting Putin’s attempt to use Budapest as a wedge between Europe and the U.S. must be the top priority.
The solution is not exotic; Zelensky has handed Europe the play.
Freeze the front. Arm Ukraine so heavily that Moscow and the American isolationists end up squaring off in Budapest, not Europe and the United States. If you take that route, be ready to play two rounds of poker.
The first rule is absolute: freeze the front — not an inch forward, not an inch back. Putin will then try to choke the weapons deliveries. Hold the line. Name it: call him out for trying to keep Ukraine weak so he can attack again. Refuse to be baited into NATO or EU-accession debates; those are distractions Moscow loves.
He may accept a pause.
Fine — accept it if it comes, but only after you’ve armed Ukraine to the teeth and put iron-clad delivery guarantees on paper. The sequence is simple: freeze the front; deliver the weapons before a single signature is written; if a ceasefire is offered, take it; if it collapses, be ready to resume immediately.
Above all, do not let Moscow drag the U.S. and Europe into a fight with one another or let the PURL scheme stall. And for heaven’s sake — place the $10 billion order now. This slow drop is not working. One massive order for $10 billion and the rest can come in tranches. Not the other way around.
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Europe needs unity. Brussels needs urgency. Let’s keep pushing both