By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 5/27/25
President Trump on Tuesday said that if it weren’t for him, “really bad things” would have happened to Russia in what appeared to be a veiled threat aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The post came after Trump vented frustration with Russia’s heavy attacks on Ukraine, which Russian officials have said are a response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory. A Russian commander said that Putin’s helicopter got caught in a Ukrainian drone swarm over Russia’s Kursk Oblast last week.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump is considering adding sanctions on Russia and potentially abandoning negotiations for a peace deal in Ukraine if a final push doesn’t work. According to The Kyiv Post, Trump is also “seriously considering” lifting all Biden-era restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to wage war, though it’s unclear what that would mean for the proxy war.
Trump said in a recent post that the conflict in Ukraine was not “Trump’s war,” but he has continued to provide Ukraine with military aid and intelligence support. He briefly paused such support to pressure Ukraine to enter negotiations with Russia, but there’s no indication he’s considering doing so again to force Ukrainian leadership to make concessions to reach a peace deal.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy of the Russian National Security Council, warned Trump on Tuesday that one of the “really bad things” that could happen between the US and Russia is World War III.
“Regarding Trump’s words about Putin ‘playing with fire’ and ‘really bad things’ happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.
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Trump’s Latest Angry Post About Putin Is His Most Significant One Yet
By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 5/26/25
Trump’s latest angry post about Putin revealed a lot about how he perceives the Ukrainian Conflict. According to Trump, “[Putin] has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”
What’s really happening is that Russia ramped up its bombing campaign against Ukraine in response to Ukraine ramping up its drone one first, during which time Putin’s helicopter was almost downed after it was caught in a drone swarm while he was visiting Kursk last week. Zelensky earlier demanded that the US condemn Russia for its latest attacks after it was silent all week long, which Trump just complied with despite remaining suspiciously silent after Zelensky implicitly threatened Moscow’s Victory Day parade.
As for Trump’s claim that Putin “wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it”, this is a gross misportrayal of his latest buffer zone plan that was announced in response to Ukraine’s aforementioned ramped-up drone campaign that provoked Russia’s reciprocal bombing one. Right around the start of these tit-for-tat escalations, Trump held his third call with Putin this year, which was analyzed here and included a list of ten background briefings to bring observers up to speed about the conflict’s military-political dynamics.
Although Trump also wrote in his latest angry post about Putin that “President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop”, his ire is clearly directed much more at the Russian leader than the Ukrainian one. Objective observers can therefore conclude that Trump is either being maliciously misinformed about the conflict by his trusted advisors or that he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation.
Regarding the first possibility, although his Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff is a close friend, some in Trump’s circle reportedly don’t like or even trust him and they might have whispered into Trump’s ear. As for the second, Trump’s confirmation that he’s weighing new sanctions against Russia – which came after prior posts about this – could lead to him approving ally Lindsey Graham’s plan to move his proposed legislation through Congress, which would impose 500% tariffs on all Russian energy clients.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also confirmed that more sanctions against Russia and even aid to Ukraine could be in the cards so the US might not walk simply away from the conflict like some expect. Of course, Trump’s latest anger with Putin might just be a ploy to pressure him into compromising on more of his maximum goals than he feels comfortable with or could have been an emotional outburst with no strategic intent in mind, but it still raises questions about how Trump perceives the conflict.
There’s no excuse for Trump blaming the latest tit-for-tat escalations on Putin, let alone claiming that he’s “gone absolutely CRAZY” and might even “want ALL of Ukraine”, which proves that something is seriously wrong. Either Trump is being maliciously misinformed about the conflict by his trusted advisors (not counting Witkoff of course) or he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation. The coming week might therefore reveal more about which of these two explanations is the most likely.