The inflation spiral of 2026—hitting truckers and farmers with ruinous diesel prices, and every American with higher prices at grocery store checkout stands and gas pumps—began eight months ago on February 28. That was the day Mr. Trump, ignoring the warning Iran would close the Persian Gulf if he attacked, attacked anyway. The result on price charts was a sudden spike straight up like the rising handle of a hockey stick.
Before Mr. Trump took us to war a little over eight months ago, NBC News has reported: “The American economy was on a steady course to lower inflation and attain greater buying power. Gas was cheap and interest rates were coming down.” All that ended when Mr. Trump took us to war.
By September the NBC News report goes on: “Before the war, gas prices were just under $3 gallon. Today they’re at approximately $4.50 on average. Diesel prices went from an average of $3.75 on February 28 to an all-time high of more than $6.50.” Mortgage costs and borrowing costs followed upward. Mr. Trump’s war costs every American household.
Mr. Trump has tried to shift the blame for inflation to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the man fighting Russia’s invasion by attempting to collapse its oil and gas. Mr. Putin is the man Mr. Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Whitkoff, praises as a “humanitarian” for handing back Stephen Hubbard, his tortured American hostage for five years. Mr. Trump’s other envoy is his son-in-law, Jarod Kushner, who like Mr. Witkoff, now finds himself a billionaire. Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner blame President Zelenskyy for not giving Mr. Putin the rest of the Donetsk region Mr. Putin has been unable to conquer.
However, the rest of Donetsk includes the Donetsk fortress belt protecting Ukraine, a 31-mile-long string of Ukrainian cities, barbed wire and trenches keeping Russia from overrunning the rest of Ukraine. Mr. Putin would love taking the Donetsk fortress belt without firing a shot if his friend, Mr. Trump, can force President Zelenskyy to capitulate it. To that end reports have emerged of a proposal for a trilateral summit between Presidents Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping—without President Zelenskyy— to take place once the American elections are out of the way.
Mr. Trump’s recent attempts to shift the blame for inflation caused by his Iran war to President Zelenskyy have not worked. The amount of diesel Russia was exporting to world markets is dwarfed by the amount of diesel that had been coming out of the Persian Gulf. President Zelenskyy states: “I’ve offered an energy ceasefire. Trump can’t get Putin to agree. So, he blames me.”
Mr. Putin will not back off knowing he has the personal sympathies of his friend, Mr. Trump, who does not criticize him. Ever. Mr. Trump expects President Zelenskyy to relinquish control of the rest of Donetsk that Mr. Putin has been unable to conquer despite over 50,000 Russian casualties a month—an unsustainable rate.
How will the Russo-Ukraine War end? My assessment is grim: President Zelenskyy has no choice but continue to degrade the Russian oil and gas facilities, Russian data centers, and the Russian war economy until the Putin regime collapses; only then will the war end. Let me quote the conservative military historian Victor Hanson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. In a discussion of the Peloponnesian War that went on (and off, though mostly on), between Athens and Sparta for over 27 terrible years, Hanson writes: “Again, wars do not really end until the conditions that started them—a bellicose government, an aggressive leader, a national policy of brinksmanship—are eliminated. Otherwise, there remains a bellum interruptum, much like the Peace of Nicias when Athens and Sparta agreed to a time-out in 421 BC, before going at each other with renewed and deadly fury in 415 BC.”
That is my fear: Russia would gladly take a pause from the pressure in a false peace forced by President Trump on Zelenskyy only for the war to renew once Russia recovered and became ready to conquer the 81% of Ukraine it does not have. Back in 1991 Americans and Europeans gave Ukraine security assurances in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons left behind by the Soviet Union. However, the US and Europe failed to protect Ukraine as promised when Mr. Putin invaded. President Zelenskyy has no reason to believe in similar assurances coming from the likes of Mr. Trump.
President Zelenskyy has shown great wisdom and is in the best position to judge what the democracy of Ukraine needs to survive. Whatever it takes, the White House needs to be dissuaded from ever again stopping intelligence sharing or Starlink or Starshield coverage. One side will prevail. It must be the democracy of Ukraine, not the autocracy of Mr. Trump’s friend, Mr. Putin, who seeks to take the resources of Ukraine to restart an empire. Please support Ukraine’s drone operators: www.dignitas.fund.
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
