On Day 1, Trump Dubbed Russia Aggressor

He effectively dismissed Russia's war-ending narrative in several minutes

Donald Trump is officially the 47th President of the United States.

His inauguration, which featured almost all of the establishment, offered an interesting show. We saw Joe Biden smiling and laughing from time to time; Kamala Harris being tense and her husband Douglas Emhoff being even more uncomfortable than her; Miss Ukraine Universe Oleksandra Nikolayenko and her husband Phil Ruffin standing behind the Democrats; and social media mogul Mark Zuckerberg checking out Jeff Bezos’s girlfriend.

Trump’s inauguration speech didn’t offer much new. He repeated all the mantras, clarifying that immigration, the southern border, and other issues would be his highest priority. As it, in principle, should be, he’s POTUS, after all.

He made no direct mention of Ukraine, or even Israel, only referring to the successful HAMAS hostage deals that the Biden administration negotiated, together with Trump’s input following his victory in November 2024.

“Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” was among the only statements that Trump made during the speech regarding overseas wars.

However, it was not ultimately his speech that was important; the subsequent statements were made once he began signing off a flurry of orders at the Oval Office. This includes those pertaining to the Russo-Ukraine war, and his answers mattered a great deal.

When asked about his promise to end the war in 24 hours, he answered with a light smirk on his face: “Well, I still have half a day left. We’ll see.”

In doing so, he effectively reiterated that the pledge was nothing but electoral talk, and he understands that it won’t be an easy endeavor, just like the new Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted in his confirmation hearing last week.

There won’t be a swift end to the war, and that acceptance sank in his cabinet, which I believe had been aware of that all along.

But it was not this statement that was critical but several other ones. Like this one: “We have numbers that almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed, about 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed. Russia’s bigger – they have more soldiers to lose – but that’s no way to run a country.”

There’s no way for me to confirm this data, nor am I thrilled to hear the estimate of 700 thousand Ukrainian soldiers killed, but what matters here is the fact that Trump has a good understanding of how awful the situation is in general, defying Russia’s narrative of it winning or the war being sustainable.

Then he added: “It should have never started, the war with Ukraine. Russia should have never started it. It would have never started if I were president.”

The importance of this statement cannot be overestimated as it is seldom that Trump directly calls out the Kremlin for their war of aggression. Yet, it’s pivotal that he did, especially right after he took office. Here’s why: Russia’s propaganda machine spent a considerable amount of resources through its agents like traitor Diana Panchenko on X (Twitter) to claim that the reason why the war is ending is because Ukraine, and Zelenskyy personally, don’t want it to end.

This is why it’s also paramount that he went on to explicitly state that: “Zelenskyy wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does…", specifically stating that Ukraine in fact wants peace, throwing the ball into Putin’s court while adding “He should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia’s going to be in big trouble.”

Mind you, all this is happening against the backdrop of long-range strikes still being in place, with Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz even floating the possibility of expanding them, Biden’s final oil sanctions, with Trump’s team once again floating the possibility of expanding them, and the Middle East conflict being regulated, depriving Putin of the possible leverage in the region.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s still a lot of work ahead. I’m not infatuated with the new administration, though I connect with the pragmatism, and there will be ups and downs as Russia will do everything in its power to flatter Trump, offer deals, spread disinformation, and whatnot, which is why it’s important to remain vigilant and react swiftly, giving both praises, like today, and criticism, like when Trump talked about NATO being the chief reason why Russia invaded, where due.

But like I said yesterday, and I’ll repeat it again, the best person to convince Trump that Putin needs to go is Putin, and the headline below illustrates that very well.