Remember that European war? Only you-know-who could make it even worse.

The Russia-Ukraine war is mostly out of news sight, what with Trump's shall we say rather lively happenings at home, such as inflicting U.S.-harming tariffs, which "shows no comprehension as to what he is doing," converting the world's oldest democracy into his own little authoritarian fiefdom, dispatching the U.S. Constitution to history's waste bin and unleashing severely unstable boneheads to oversee the nation's physical and fiscal health — while the world looks on in shock, asking if America has gone crazy. (Y)

So a lot is bubbling here, but Europe's largest land war since the second big one has gone, and is going, nowhere — not, that is, anywhere in the neighborhood of peace. The war that Trump repeatedly claimed he could settle in one day has now added another 74 days of needless bloodshed to its preceding 1,060 days. Vladimir Putin's Red Army is still slaughtering Ukrainian citizens, Ukraine is still in search of a peace, and Trump is still an admirer of Russia's bloodthirsty tyrant — brothers in medieval brutality.

On 1 April Vladimir's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview just prior to Tuesday that his country takes America's ceasefire proposals "seriously," but — big surprise — not "as they are now." On 3 April Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said "significant progress has been made." Both men were fundamentally saying they're going to keep everyone guessing as they profit from ceaseless delay tactics.

Which is classic PutinThink and Russia's diplomatic tradition. Ending a war is a rather easy accomplishment: The aggressor stops warring. This is a concept just as easily comprehended by all involved parties, especially the instigating belligerent. But along with the additional touch of Trump's agreement, in Putin's lying eyes it was Ukraine that inaugurated the war on 24 February 2022, which by remarkable coincidence was also the day the tyrant's tank brigades began slithering their way into Ukraine's sovereign territory, whereupon they undertook a quintessentially Russian campaign of butchering innocents.

Three years and a few weeks later, Putin's Trumplike bunco mentality pretends that it's pesky Ukrainians scorning his always helpful gracious prudent and reasonable counterproposals for a 30-day ceasefire. Most recently, above what was on the table the Kremlin has merely wanted it stipulated that Ukraine would strip itself of defensive means, such as no more military aid from Western sources. Kyiv would also agree, in perpetuity, to non-membership in NATO and the withdrawal of its armed forces from Russian-occupied, sovereign Ukrainian territories. But those national leaders across the table really are a pesky-by-disagreeability lot, says Putin. Clearly they prefer that their civilian population be massacred in yet more missile strikes and that the country's battered and exhausted soldiers continue dying for that silly abstraction called "Ukrainian sovereignty."       

To be noted as well: Despite Trump's self-referential love of venomous dictators, he's becoming a bit peeved at Vlad. The psychopathically homicidal Cossack is screwing with his gallant efforts in search of a get-even-with-Barack-Hussein Nobel Peace Prize. Has Trump not already agreed to Putin's demand that Ukraine must never join NATO? Has he not also agreed to his lover's insistence that Ukraine must tender some really generous real estate gifts to illegally invading, mass-murdering, ceasefire-refusing Russia?

Turns out, there was one little thing that Donald could do not necessarily for Vlad but certainly against Volodymyr Zelensky. And he's doing it. On Tuesday Trump's Team of Ribalds delivered to Ukraine's president an even more extortionate "deal" on the fiscally impoverished country's mineral resources. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said "Ukraine was ready to sign the previously developed framework agreement. Now we have ... a new text" — chiefly because Trump never tires of violating previously developed agreements.

The Kyiv Independent reports that "the latest version of the deal grants the U.S. unprecedented control over Ukraine's natural resources." In return the U.S. offers precisely nothing, not even a security guarantee against Russia's inevitable reinvasion. Zelensky said "there are a lot of things [in the newly convoluted proposal] that had not been discussed before. And there are also some things that the parties had previously rejected."

It gets worse. Ukrainian media is reporting that Trump's reconfigured deal could destroy the nation's plan to join the European Union because of freshly imposed "severe restrictions" placed by the U.S. on Ukraine's economic sovereignty. That's seen by Zelensky as excessively menacing: "Nothing that could threaten Ukraine’s accession to the EU can be accepted," said the president.

Another reason for Trump pushing the deal's "previously rejected" components had to have been his opportunity to blame Ukraine for being the difficult party (a.k.a. messing with his one-day-and-the-war-is-over vow). Sure enough, now Trump is accusing Zelensky of trying to renege on a never-was deal. And because Trump is constitutionally incapable of telling a truth, he's also claiming that Zelensky is maneuvering to have any minerals deal linked to NATO membership. A Kyiv Independent source in the capital's presidential office said "we are not tying [any minerals agreement to NATO]," adding with more diplomatic tact than I could ever call forth: "It's a misunderstanding."

An attempted robbery, rather, and a clumsy, chaotic tangle of altogether needless complications executed by the world's most conspicuous dealbreaker — a U.S.-embarrassing bully whose inartfulness of the deal features tinpot underhandedness piled atop sadistic cruelty and bottomless mendacity.