Professor knocks out Trump’s Russia translation: “Eye roll trick”

President of the United States Donald Trump’s the recent decision to cancel several sanctions and tariffs against Russia puts the whole of Europe in an exceptionally difficult situation.

The sanctions and tariffs originally decided in the United States were part of a congressional bill. Donald Trump signed it in mid-September and the measures were supposed to take effect tomorrow, Sunday. However, the US president changed his mind and announced last night Finnish time that the sanctions and tariffs would have been against the country’s national interests.

Professor of Strategic Studies, University of St Andrews Phillips O’Brien interprets Donald Trump as protecting Russia and especially its president Vladimir Putin.

“It was a scam from the beginning: Donald Trump at no point even intended to do anything that would harm Putin,” he assessed in his Saturday morning newsletter.

O’Brien believes that, in fact, the entire congressional bill was a sham or a bluff, as the ultimate power remained in the hands of the president throughout.

“So it was just a ploy to mislead people. However, the bill has achieved one important thing. It forced Trump to make a cowardly, Putin-friendly move less than three weeks before the US midterm elections,” he commented.

Ukraine needs more money

At the same time, the pressure to support Ukraine is shifting more and more to Europe’s responsibility. The president of Ukraine, who participated in the EU summit on Friday Volodymyr Zelenskyi asks EU countries for a new 70 billion euro support package.

European director and researcher at Eurasia Group, which analyzes political risks Mujtaba Rahman says that there is only one option to help Ukraine: a new collective debt.

“The EU will support Ukraine with EUR 70 billion, and it will be financed in the same way as the EUR 90 billion loan: the European Commission will issue debt on the capital market against the EU budget’s room for maneuver, and Russia’s frozen assets will serve as an implicit guarantee for repayments when the loans fall due,” he writes on the messaging service X.

However, the processing of the new aid to Ukraine falls at an exceptionally difficult time in the EU. In the two largest EU countries, Germany and France, the parties opposed to supporting Ukraine, i.e. the far-right AfD and the National Alliance, are constantly increasing their support. Even in Italy, the third largest EU country, opposition to support for Ukraine is becoming increasingly popular politically.

“Political leaders who seek power in major European countries have an alarmingly short-sighted understanding of Russia, European history and security”, foreign and security policy expert Henri Vanhanen summarizes in X.