Trump Breaks Europe Over His Knee: Unprecedented Optics of White House 'Losers' Gathering'

Posted: 21st August 2025


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Trump Breaks Europe Over His Knee: Unprecedented Optics of White House ‘Losers’ Gathering’ 

The end of Europe as a serious political power. 

SIMPLICIUS

AUG 20

∙

PAID

 

 The troupe arrived to “daddy’s” DC office for their official dressing down. If nothing else, we must marvel at the fact that the meeting produced some of the most remarkable political optics, perhaps, in history: 

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Has there ever been anything like this? The entire pantheon of the European ruling class reduced to sniveling children in their school principal’s office. No one can deny that Trump has succeeded in veritably ‘breaking Europe over his knee’. There is no coming back from this turning point moment, the optics simply cannot be redeemed. 

But even sarcasm aside, objectively speaking, we must point to how absolutely defeated and low-energy the delegation looked. Just gander at the body language of ‘eminent statesmen’ like Emmanuel Macron and Alexander Stubb in this photo op meant to convey collegial solidarity and allied ‘strength’: 

Hands in pockets, looks of mild confusion or disinterest, vacant eyes, and that bizarre ‘dead-space’ atmosphere like a “TV tuned to a dead station” (hat tip Mr. Gibson). It’s clear that no one wants to be there, and everyone knows the artificial charade looks and feels forced. The real punchline comes at the 1:00 mark where it becomes eminently clear the entire hollow exercise is nothing more than an ego-stroke for the cunning Ringmaster himself, as he bids his abject pupils to cant their eyes at the carefully-situated artwork presiding over the gilded humiliation ritual. 

Volumes could be written on the implications of such a low point in European influence. But we’ll suffice with concluding that it’s clear the matter of the Ukrainian conflict’s resolution is of such existential importance to the behind-the-scenes cabal which writes the Euro-puppets’ orders, that this cabal is willing to risk everything, including politically sacrificing these “compradors” pretending to be elected leaders.

It’s pointless to even granularize it, but there were many small moments of humiliation in the meeting: from Trump’s seeming non-recognition of Finland’s president—unable to find him despite his sitting directly in front of Trump—to Trump humbling Ursula, who came armed with a prescripted spiel about Russians kidnapping Ukrainian children; Trump silenced her by remarking that they had convened to talk about something else, i.e. your propaganda is irrelevant and unwanted here. 

It should also be noted that Trump did not greet a single one of the European messengers personally as they arrived, having a factotum escort them from the White House lawn instead. It was in sharp contrast to the pomp and ceremony of the Putin visit. This, of course, is by design, with Trump effectively showing the craven European compradors their subordinate place as part of his slow restructuring of the world order; Trump respects only power—mealy and servile leaders disgust him and earn his boot-print on their foreheads. 

So what did the meeting actually accomplish, other than raising Trump’s prestige and smothering inconvenient media narratives out of the news cycle? 

What we saw was another rehash of the same routine as in Alaska: talks are held, major “progress” announced, yet no concrete details or evidence is provided. In this case, the big achievement is said to be the agreement on a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, followed by a “trilat” as Trump calls it. The problem is, there is zero evidence the Russian side has agreed to any such thing. 

Firstly, press outlets blared that Trump “phoned Putin” in the midst of his meeting with the Europeans—Trump himself promptly shot this down:

I post this example to again illustrate just how much disinfo noise is clogging the airwaves around this issue. And this contextualizes the remainder of the analysis, surrounding what Russia may or may not have agreed to. You see, just as easily as mainstream outlets lied about Trump’s call, they may be doing so about the now-circulating claims that Putin has “agreed to” meet with Zelensky. 

The Russians have been playing things extremely close to their chests, even more than usual. It appears they have adopted a strategy of deliberate strategic ambiguity in order to give Trump the license he needs to play his game against the Europeans—and Ukraine—while the Russians sit back and watch. In this case, in confirming Trump’s attempt to get Putin and Zelensky to sit down together, Putin aide Ushakov in fact very subtly modified the language to state that Putin and Trump in fact discussed raising the level of “negotiators” and mentioned the possibility of Russia studying this proposal—as I wrote on X: 

An interestingly evasive word-salad as non-answer in customary “Politburo-speak”. He doesn’t really confirm anything other than Trump and Putin discussed “raising the level of negotiators” between Russia and Ukraine (specifically omitting what level that would be). And in fact, he didn’t even say raising the level itself was discussed but rather the possibility of “studying” this proposal. It seems Russia for now continues to play strategic ambiguity to give Trump the arm space he needs to “work” on the Europeans and Zelensky.

Russian journal Gazeta.ru confirmed—read the subtle change carefully: 

“According to him, the leaders discussed the possibility of increasing the level of direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. The Russian and US presidents supported the idea of direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, the presidential aide said.” 

As I again wrote on X: 

Note, the Russian side supported the idea of “direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.” Not between Russian/Ukrainian presidents, but “delegations”.

Now, almost as if trolling or intentionally road-blocking the potential meeting, Russia has reportedly floated a Putin-Zelensky meeting in Moscow as the favored destination. 

Again, this doesn’t come from Russian outlets or official sources, but in this case Western AFP—so it could be fake. But if it is true, it appears another potential signal from Moscow that a Putin-Zelensky meeting is unrealistic.

But why is Russia playing these indirect games, rather than openly announcing to Trump and the West its red lines, precise demands, and position on a Zelensky meeting. You may argue Russia has declared its demands many times, but one can argue in recent days as “negotiations” have accelerated, Russia has again blurred the lines with its actions and contradictory signals. Though most of these signals have come from Westernoutlets, the fact that Russia does not openly deny them to slam shut the rumors and speculations seems also telling. 

So, again: Why does Russia play these indirect games? 

The only logical answer seems to be that Russia is content with giving Trump and the West enough rope to hang themselves with, whether that means to keep themselves busy while Russia continues to advance in Ukraine, or simply to allow the West to drown itself in its own manic “negotiations” delirium—let the shabby carousel spin off its platform. 

Another, perhaps more realistic, possibility is one I’ve already articulated before: that Russia may be keen on leaving as many doors ‘open’ as possible, and prefers to maintain as many options as possible. On top of that, Russia is likely keen on giving Trump as much ammo as it can in allowing him to exert dominance and supremacy over his opponents—which include the sniveling EU apparatchiks—because Russia views Trump as its only semi-trustworthy champion. In Russia’s eyes, the better Trump does, the more victories he mounts up—both domestic and abroad—the better it is for Russia because Trump has clearly made it known behind the scenes that he wants to work with Russia; his problem is, his hands are tied by the deep state when it comes to Ukraine, and he’s only able to operate within a given radius of ‘acceptable’ actions. 

In that view, it would be against Russia’s interests to damage Trump by openly contradicting him in public. As such, when Trump’s admin utters some gross exaggeration regarding how things are going, Russia may find it useful to “humor” and indulge those stretches in order to legitimize Trump’s maneuvering and help fortify him against the hostile press and other forces working against him. Trump clearly has great respect for Putin, as you saw in the video above, wherein he denied calling Putin during the meeting with the groveling supplicants not because it would be disrespectful to the Euro-supplicants, but because it would be disrespectful to Putin—an extremely telling justification. 

Reading between the lines, one can see that the two sides could not be further apart as things stand even now. Zelensky again reiterated that he will give up no land, will not demilitarize, still wants in with NATO, wants Russia to pay massive reparations in the order of hundreds of billions, and much more. The Euro-comprador labradors are now focusing on military security guarantees on the framework of Article Five, and bringing boots-on-ground. 

In a new statement, Lavrov again reiterated that there could be no agreementwithout a litany of issues first being resolved, such as respect for Russia’s security interests, full rights of ethnic Russians and protection of the Russian language in Ukraine, etc.: 

So, how could Zelensky and Putin possibly meet in two weeks—as now earmarked by Trump and co.—if not a single one of these issues is resolved, and even worse, not even being discussed at all? 

Meanwhile, here’s the type of uncanny fabrications being reported by mainstream outlets: 

The only possibility for this being true is if somehow Putin decides that perhaps he needs to meet Zelensky just once so as to decisively demonstrate to the world that they are incapable of reaching agreement. But even that would make little sense, as doing so would legitimize Zelensky and contradict all Putin’s previous statements that Zelensky is not a lawfully legitimate counterparty. Such a backtracking would cast doubt on many of Putin’s other seemingly solid statements about Russia’s constitutional control over certain regions, and things of that nature. It’s quite doubtful Russia would elect to slide down such a slippery slope—but the strategic ‘ambiguity’ is clearly seen at play here. 

Putin could easily declare: “I’ve already stated many times, Zelensky is not legitimate and therefore is incompatible with meeting with me at a presidential level.” But think of how that would be received: Every world leader and news outlet would decry Putin as “frightened” of his counterpart, validating Zelensky’s own accusations of this very thing. One can see the trap in Putin openly dismissing any possibility of ever meeting Zelensky one-to-one. This is why the ‘ambiguity’ deflection appears the most strategically sensible option, pragmatically speaking. Putin needs to remain as publicly amenable and agreeable as possible, utilizing strategic ambiguity when necessary, while letting the intermediaries like Ushakov, Lavrov, and the like, make the more difficult and disagreeable pronouncements.

And by the way, Zelensky, too, is bluffing in the same way: he conveyed his own amenability to agreements to Trump, implying he’s open to territorial concessions, etc., yet today he stated that actual territorial details would “only be discussed directly with Putin”, again deflecting commitment to a contingency he knows won’t happen. Trump, for his part, is likewise bluffing to his own domestic audience that everyone is nearly in agreement, and only the final stretch remains. This is why the entire charade is such an immaculate example of smoke and mirrors, where everyone bluffs and fibs to keep kicking the can while the constructed narrative moves further and further from reality. The main motivation, of course, is easy to see: 

By the way, Zelensky, too, cancelled a scheduled Fox interview after the White House theater, just as the Alaska summit appeared to be cut short—all likely for the same reason: that nothing of substance was achieved, and each party wanted to avoid embarrassment. 

That brings us to the final logical question: Where will things go after Trump’s new two-week deadline expires? By that I mean, Trump has now elucidated that we’ll know in “two weeks” or so where things are headed, as well as giving a similar timeline for sanctions during the Alaska summit. We can only assume that the Russian side will have to put forward some more of their demands, as Lavrov gave earlier, and politely remind the West that it seems more felicitous to move closer on these issues before any drastic escalation in the negotiating levels can be enacted. 

Politico has cottoned on: 

Russia’s calibrated language follows a familiar pattern: agree in principle, stall in practice. A similar dynamic played out in May, when Putin suggested a Russian meeting with Zelenskyy for peace talks, only to send a second-tier delegation instead.

But it will be interesting to watch, even to me, how this particular deadend is resolved. Perhaps Russia really will seriously pull the Moscow card and announce that Putin will only meet Zelensky there, but this seems liable to attract as much ridicule as the outright rejection of any meeting. Recall from the earlier article on Putin’s alleged Moscow suggestion, Zelensky immediately rejected it: 

The source said the Ukrainian president, who was in the White House with European leaders at the time, “answered ‘no’.”

Now we have news that Zaluzhny has been quietly preparing a presidential campaign, with a full-blown campaign HQ being formulated around him: 

The more interesting thing is that this scoop coincides with news that the UK intends to “help”—read: orchestrate—Ukraine’s ‘first elections’ after the war’s end: 

How munificent of them. Of course, it’s pure coincidence that Zaluzhny is London’s man, living and working there as Ukrainian ‘ambassador’ while building his political army. 

The only thing in question is the timing: the UK’s ideal scenario is to force Russia into a freezing of the conflict as favorable to Ukraine as possible, then quickly boot the ‘rogue’ Zelensky via “elections” and install their man to immediately take charge of Ukraine and turn it into an unprecedentedly militarized killing machine against Russia. 

And speaking of presidencies, former Zelensky advisor Aleksey Arestovych, who now sports a suit in profile and styles himself “Candidate for President of Ukraine” has penned a magnificent political tract outlining a complete reversal of the ideological underpinnings of the Ukrainian project. To contextualize it, he’s not only changed his profile photo, but the banner picture as well, to one which symbolically reads Rus-Ukraine, evoking the entwined historical realities on which he now elaborates: 

The mini-manifesto is a must-read, both for its shocking reversal of the previous political course, and for its incisive accuracy: 

The Strategic Dilemma of Ukraine: Project Choices and Historical Continuities: 

- The key task for Ukraine today in all these Alaskan tales is to preserve political independence in the long term. 

Despite the shared symbolic capital with Russia and Belarus, there are evident fundamental divergences in views on rights and freedoms, and on what is proper and possible in forms of political organization. 

The inevitable paradox is that within the framework of a narrow, nationalist project, Ukraine has not preserved these views but has lost them (in practice), becoming maximally similar to Russia and Belarus, adopting the form of an authoritarian dictatorship – an excessive trait of shared historical roots, stemming from Byzantium. 

Russia’s fundamental decision to convert symbolic capital into political capital, i.e., the forcible seizure of former imperial territories, and the collective West’s refusal to share symbolic capital with Ukraine (we are not considered part of Europe and have been denied entry into the EU and NATO), raises the question of the prospects for the independence that still remains. 

Ukraine has only one way to preserve it: acknowledging the shared symbolic capital with Russia and Belarus, adopting a neutral status, and building good-neighborly relations with Russia and Belarus while maintaining political independence and the unique role of a “crossroads of worlds”- between Russia and Europe. 

Economically, the most promising role is that of a “steppe corridor” – between Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the EU. In short, this is about a fundamental shift in project orientation – from a narrow, nationalist one to a broad, transit-oriented one. 

In a sense, this could be called a “Great Return” – to Ukraine’s natural historical and cultural role. 

By way of analogy – modern Kazakhstan. 

If this is not done voluntarily, the change in project orientation (the main directions of foreign and domestic policy and development strategy) will happen forcibly. 

The timeframe is 10–15 years. 

The cost will be the loss of political independence, and instead of Ukraine, there will be a federal district called “Little Russia”- with all the ensuing consequences for discussions about rights, freedoms, and distinctive features. 

Any negotiations, any strategies that do not address this shift in project orientation are meaningless – truly, “bandages for the dead.” 

Such is the choice, and such is the price. 

In conclusion, the fundamental challenge for Ukraine lies not in tactical maneuvers but in recognizing the strategic perspective: the necessity of reimagining its role as a neutral, transit-oriented state in order to preserve independence in the emerging geopolitical order.

The problem with the above is that Ukraine has already tried the neutrality he speaks of, and it was broken apart by the West with a coup as soon as Yanukovich even slightly tilted toward the Russian side on a single not-overly-expansive issue. From this point forward, how could Russia ever trust Ukrainian “neutrality” as stewarded-over by the West? Any such neutrality is only bound to again decay into one-sidedness by a rabidly entrenched Western political class harboring a generational enmity toward Russia. The only solution can be for Ukraine to be permanently de-fanged in the way Germany and Japan were after WWII—and this means forcible demilitarization.

As a final underscoring point, the West finally appears to be making a profound realization—that Russia is a Great Power not to be underestimated or trifled with: 

This is edifyingly timely because it so sharply contrasts with the picture of the cowed and subservient European leadership we saw earlier, and now the chasm could not be wider between Russia’s power and influence and that of ‘little’ Europe. 

I asked on X if a single European country could any longer even be deemed a ‘Great Power’, but of course that’s a rhetorically easy answer. The real question is, at this point, with how far things have come, can Europe as a whole even be considered a ‘Great Power’ anymore? Given how shrunken and impotent the entire European pantheon appeared before a single man—himself at the helm of a declining power—one could easily make the argument for ‘no’. 


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