Piece Makers

15 thoughts on “Piece Makers”

1. a piece of Ukraine here and a piece of Ukraine there
   https://nypost.com/2025/04/23/world-news/heres-what-russia-and-ukraine-get-in-trumps-final-offer-peace-deal/

   The latest pitch, as described by one senior administration official, offers Russia several “carrots” to entice it to come to the table while asking Ukraine to make several major concessions.
   Here’s a look at what each side has been offered, according to administration officials:
   What Russia gets
   Formal US recognition of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula as Russian territory — a major departure from Washington’s longstanding Welles doctrine, which refuses to acknowledge annexed territory as belonging to the seizing power.
   “De facto” recognition of Russia’s occupation of four regions in eastern Ukraine, meaning the US would acknowledge Moscow controls the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts while formally considering them Ukrainian land.
   A pledge that the US would not support Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
   Lifting sanctions to boost Russia’s economy, which has struggled throughout its war on Ukraine.
   Opportunities for more economic cooperation with the US, especially in the energy and industrial fields.
   What Ukraine gets
   Assistance from European military forces as “a robust security guarantee” following a cease-fire. The US would not be involved in this measure.
   Russia would return a small portion of Ukraine’s Kharkiv oblast currently occupied by Moscow.
   Navigation rights in the Dnieper River, which runs along the front lines.
   Assistance in post-war rebuilding, though it is unclear from where that funding would come.

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/25/russia-ukraine-war-trump-putin/b582bece-21ae-11f0-b141-90a412b995ee_story.html

   KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone struck an apartment building in a southeastern Ukraine city, killing three people and injuring 10 others, officials said Friday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump rebuked Russia’s leader for a deadly missile and drone attack on Kyiv while Washington endeavors to stop the more than three-year war .
   Among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone strike in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, were a child and a 76-year-old woman, the head of the regional administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.
   Russian forces fired 103 Shahed and decoy drones at five Ukrainian regions overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported. Authorities in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions reported damage to civilian infrastructure but no casualties.
   Russia pounded Kyiv in an hourslong barrage Thursday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 87 in its deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital since July.
   The attack drew a rare rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump, who has said that efforts to end the war are coming to a head.
   “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying.” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”
   Trump’s frustration is growing as his effort to get a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia has failed to make a breakthrough. Senior U.S. officials have warned that the administration could soon give up attempts to stop the war if the two sides do not come to an agreement.
   Trump envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to meet with Putin in Moscow on Friday, their second meeting this month and the fourth since February.
   Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plan to arrive in Rome on Friday for the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square on Saturday. It wasn’t immediately clear if they would meet separately.
   Russian forces used Thursday’s Kyiv attack as cover to launch almost 150 assaults on Ukrainian positions along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, Zelenskyy said late Thursday.
   “When the maximum of our forces was focused on defense against missiles and drones, the Russians went on to significantly intensify their ground attacks,” he wrote on Telegram.
   Western European leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in the negotiations and seeking to grab more Ukrainian land while his army has battlefield momentum.
   Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the “killing field” by refusing to surrender the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula as part of a possible deal. Russia illegally annexed that area in 2014. Zelenskyy has repeated many times during the war that recognizing occupied territory as Russian is a red line for his country.
   Zelenskyy noted Thursday that Ukraine agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal 44 days ago, as a first step to a negotiated peace, but that Russian attacks continued.
   During recent talks, Russia hit the city of Sumy , killing more than 30 civilians gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday, battered Odesa with drones and blasted Zaporizhzhia with powerful glide bombs.

3. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/04/putin-russia-ukraine-trump/682596/

   Appeasement Won’t Stop Putin
   I’ve seen firsthand that acceding to Russia doesn’t end wars—it moves them.
   By Tetiana Kotelnykova

   appeasement won’t bring peace to Ukraine and Europe nor will a-piece-meant here and there of them.

4. bat(shit crazy)man
   Attribution: Trump playbook by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com

   

5. note the source
   https://usa.news-pravda.com/world/2025/04/25/265703.html

   US President Donald Trump said he was joking when he spoke about his own ability to end the conflict in Ukraine in just 24 hours. The American leader made a corresponding statement in an interview with Time newspaper.
   The conversation between the head of the White House and the correspondent of the publication took place on Friday, April 25. And then the journalist recalled that Trump had once said that he was capable of ending the conflict in Ukraine in just 24 hours. However, this has not happened yet.
   Nevertheless, Trump was not at a loss. He stressed that he was actually joking. And, they say, only all kinds of “frivolous” media took such words seriously.
   “I said it figuratively, I said it as an exaggeration to get my point across. And, you know, it was, of course, picked up by fake news. Obviously, people know that I said that as a joke,” Trump defended himself.

6. He’s a joke, alright. A sick one. On that we can agree. Stupid is funny, as I keep hearing.

   Great thread starter today, Pat.

7. Speaking of jokes, everyone will be tuning in to see how Bill deals with Larry.

   

8. What, Bill wasn’t available?

   And yet, today … much of Washington is instead focused on something altogether more frivolous: the festivities surrounding tomorrow’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

   On the surface, much is the same as years past. The swanky, exclusive events are back, the “spotted” submissions are buzzy and bountiful (read below!) and the pileup of text messages on the Playbook team’s phones attests to the fact that the appetite for last-minute party invites and plus-ones continues, unsated.

   But something feels different.

   At tomorrow’s dinner, there will neither be a president in attendance nor a comedian providing the evening’s entertainment. Instead, Playbook is reliably told that the only people who’ll command the microphone are a select few WHCA board members, recipients of the night’s awards and scholarship students. (Unpopular opinion: Perhaps this is the way it should always be?)

   At the parties so far, “there’s no/low expectations,” an ace Washington observer texted Playbook last night. “The vibe is more serious,” added a White House correspondent at a rival outlet. “It feels like people are looking for a reason to be together. It sounds cheesy, but folks seem to be holding on a little bit longer in hugs.”

   Welcome to This Town under siege, where the cocktails flow and DJ music thumps even as the president takes a sledgehammer to Washington. Life is a cabaret, old chum.

   https://www.politico.com/playbook

9. Over his nearly 100 days in office, President Donald Trump has gleefully smashed through Washington’s conventions, remaking much of American politics along the way. In slashing the government without much of any meaningful opposition from Congress, he’s not only upended the bureaucracy, but altered what we’ve come to expect from America’s system of checks and balances (see also: the administration’s relationship with the court system). In this blitz, the speed, ferocity, breadth and scope of action is often the message as much as the underlying policies themselves. Any damage along the way isn’t collateral; it’s calculated.

   https://www.politico.com/playbook

10. Joke’s on us.

    “They don’t view the briefing room as a way to impart information,” Peter Baker, the NYT’s chief White House correspondent tells POLITICO’s Adam Wren in a must-read profile of press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.” Baker — who, Adam notes, is on his staggering 17th White House press secretary — says that the current tension between the administration and press corps “goes beyond anything that is traditional to the point of open hostility, and mockery and disparagement in a way that’s meant for the larger audience, not for the people in the room.”

    The woman in the arena: In this role, Leavitt has established herself as one of the most important figures in Trump’s Washington. Indeed, Steve Bannon tells Adam that after “a year or two” as press secretary, “I think she’s going to get a Cabinet position. Maybe chief of staff.” It’s a testament both to the extent of Leavitt’s mind meld with the president and to how central her approach to the press is to Trump’s broader project.

    https://www.politico.com/playbook

11. that cartoon on Pat’s lead-off is part of a pattern i see in European media. They are not buying Trump’s peacemaker act, they clearly see his alliance with Putin

12. Where’s Charlie Wilson when you need him.

13. Irony from the person who mocks a million covid-dead every week.

    “To use the Hitler thing,” Maher started. “I, first of all, I just think it’s kind of insulting to 6 million dead Jews. That should kind of be in its own place in history.” He added that, “Hitler has really kinda got to stay in his own place. He is the GOAT of evil, and we’re just gonna have to, I think, leave it like that.”

    https://ew.com/bill-maher-responds-to-larry-david-hitler-essay-mocking-his-trump-dinner-11721773

14. Looking at Pat’s headline and thinking “Piece Takers.”

    IMG_2461

15. Mahar don’t like being the skewered one, do he.