Trump’s Ignorance and Stupidity Shocked Putin; Trump Now Backtracks

21 August 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

U.S. President Donald Trump, in his meeting on August 15th with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, totally misinterpreted Putin to be welcoming an outcome that Putin has vociferously and repeatedly opposed ever since at least 2007, which is that under no circumstances will Russia ever accept troops from any NATO country being stationed on the territory of Ukraine (whose border reaches closer to Russia’s central command in The Kremlin than any other nation’s border does — which is the reason why Putin put his foot down on the Ukraine-in-NATO matter). For example, on the very day when Russia invaded Ukraine, 24 February 2022, Putin delivered to the Russian people a speech explaining why, which opened:

I will begin with what I said in my address on February 21, 2022. I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.

Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?

What is he referring to by “military infrastructure?” Obviously, it includes all military equipment, and also any support for, or coordination by, any NATO nation, regarding the operation of such weapons from, any NATO nation. Putin has never made any distinction between an official NATO presence in Ukraine versus an unofficial such presence by a member-nation of NATO. He has, indeed, and many times, warned all NATO member nations, that if it will supply troops to Ukraine that then participate in attacking Russia’s forces, Russia will promptly treat such a nation as being Russia’s enemy and will be directly at war against that nation, and respond accordingly — this would be World War Three. He has repeatedly made this clear. But, quite evdently, Donald Trump doesn’t know any of this; he is (or pretends to be) entirely ignorant of it.

On August 17th, I headlined “Witkoff Says Russia Virtually Surrendered to U.S. in Aug. 15th Summit” and opened:

Steve Witkoff, who was one of the six persons in the room when Trump met Putin at the Summit in Alaska, told Jake Tapper, on CNN’s Sunday “State of the Nation” show — and repeated it there several times — that Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively reversed his longstanding No-Ukraine-in-NATO position. Witkoff said that Putin said that Putin had quit his emphatic position, ever since Putin had started as Russia’s leader on 1 January 2000, that under no circumstances could or would Russia ever agree to Ukraine ever becoming a member of NATO and thus subject to the NATO treaty’s Article 5 protection by the United States Government: that the U.S. would be responsible for protecting Ukraine in the event that Ukraine is attacked. Putin had been saying that he will always reject that, but Witkoff has now said that Putin, in effect, ended that no-Ukraine-in-NATO position, on Friday, August 15th.

I then quoted Witkoff’s statement about how he and Trump understood Putin at the summit. Trump did not subsequently correct Witkoff’s statement.

Then, on August 20th, Fox News headlined “Russians made concessions ‘almost immediately,’ Trump envoy says of Putin summit: Special envoy Steve Witkoff says Russians made concessions 'almost immediately' in first Alaska meeting”, and reported:

Russia gave in quickly to concessions during President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, according to U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The remarks come as the U.S. and European allies are sorting out various security guarantees to accompany a peace deal and after Witkoff said Sunday that Putin was on board with permitting the U.S. and its European allies to provide additional protection for Ukraine, akin to protections included in NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause.

"I don't want to delve into the specifics of what was discussed because we're in a negotiation, mediating, and I think we're going to be very successful because of the leadership of President Trump," Witkoff told Fox News Tuesday night.

"But there were concessions almost immediately made on the part of the Russians in the first meeting in Alaska," Witkoff said. "And, you know, part of getting those concessions was learning whether we were going to be able to see the Russians prepared to be more accommodating.”. …

The next step Trump and other European allies are working toward is hashing out security provisions for Ukraine under such a deal.

That was a huge focus Monday, when Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders at the White House to discuss various security measures to prevent Russian aggression against Ukraine in the future. After the meetings, Trump said Tuesday that sending U.S. troops to Ukraine to beef up security in the region was off the table.

"The president has definitively stated U.S. boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.

"The president understands security guarantees are crucially important to ensure a lasting peace. …

However, today, August 21’s, Stephen Bryen, who has been the CEO of one of America’s biggest armaments-producers, and a top official at the Pentagon (which is that corporation’s main customer), headlined “NATO Virtual Meeting for Ukrainian Security Guarantees Backfires: The Russians reject European-NATO participation to Guarantee Ukraine's Security”, and reported:

The Trump administration made a massive political blunder on August 20th in its pursuit of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The blunder centered on a "virtual" meeting led by NATO.

Prior to that meeting, Trump had promised the Russians that any deal would rule out Ukraine's NATO membership. Apparently the Russians read Trump's assurance to include no NATO peacekeepers. That was a mistake. …

The discussion apparently considered different views on what a security guarantee would actually look like: would it, for example, include troops and if so, how many, where would they be based in Ukraine and what role would they perform? Stories are around that some countries, the British and French in one version, the British, Germans and Poles in another (unlikely option), would actually put boots on the ground in Ukraine, although British sources insist that its troops would not be on the front line but "far back" from the action. President Trump says that the US won't send any troops, but will support a security guarantee for Ukraine with US aircraft, presumably mainly spy aircraft (which anyway the US is regularly doing). But President Trump has also touted US air superiority against Russia, suggesting that the US air patrols might well include fighter aircraft such as the F-35. Would these aircraft operate from Ukrainian soil or from bases in Poland and Romania, for example?

The virtual meeting included the defense chiefs from all 32 NATO member countries. The meeting was overseen by Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of NATO's Military Committee.

The new Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and leader of U.S. European Command, U.S. General Alexus Grynkewich, delivered his first briefing to the virtual meeting. Also attending was General Dan Caine who is Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Russia's reaction came quickly and rejected foreign participation in security guarantees for Ukraine. Speaking about the possibility of foreign troops being deployed on Ukrainian territory, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow has always viewed this as unacceptable. "And I hope they understand that this would be absolutely unacceptable for Russia and for all sensible political forces in Europe," Lavrov said." He went on to say that such proposals are a "road to nowhere."

It is hard to be sure what led the Trump administration to believe that the Russians would accept NATO states providing security for Ukraine.

It’s not hard at all: This is clearly yet more of the psychopathic wishful thinking that has always characterized this idiot. He has obviously never asked himself: “If Russia were to place Russia’s nukes onto America’s border in an incredibly hostile Mexico or an incredibly hostile Canada, then what would I then do as the U.S. President?” For him, all of the thinking is only one way: “me, me, me. Just forget about the other guy.”

What amazes me is why did the Putin Government wait this long to go public about this? (Maybe he’s just trying to be tactful.)

After Putin’s representatives (such as Lavrov) reiterated Russia’s position on this, Trump could either have stuck to his guns, or else have backed down by nullifying his (agent Witkoff’s) prior announced statement as to what Putin had agreed-to at the summit. Trump chose to avoid WW3 — at least for the time being.

Of course, whereas the Witkoff-Trump lie about what Putin had agreed-to was spread widely by the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media as having been what Putin had agreed-to, instead of as what the the Trump team’s claims about that were from the always-lying U.S. Government (stenography of the Government’s allegations instead of real news-reporting about the Government’s allegations), my news-reports about the lies are the actual news that is being reported about this matter.

Obviously, therefore, there will be no “security guarantees” by the U.S. empire to its (ever since February 2014) colony of Ukraine. Russia has been forced by the U.S. empire to take what had been, during 1990-2014, the formerly neutral nation of Ukraine, in order to be able to PREVENT a U.S. nuclear blitz-attack from Ukraine to decapitate Russia’s central command in Moscow.

A much more tactful discussion of this matter regarding Tump is posted today by Alexander Mercouris in his 91-minute video commentary “Moscow VETOES Western Guarantees To Kiev, NO To Putin Zelensky Summit; Kiev Huge Losses, Drone War”.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.