August 8th, 2025. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed he could stop Russia's war on Ukraine with a single phone call.

Instead, Matt Murphy and Ned Davies of the BBC report that Russian attacks on Ukraine

have doubled since Trump took office. Today was the deadline the president had announced for

Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in his illegal invasion of Ukraine or

face further sanctions. Instead, Trump announced this afternoon

that he intends to meet with Putin on August 15th in Alaska. Putin generally cannot travel

outside Russia because he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes,

including the theft of Ukrainian children.

And yet, Trump is welcoming him to the United States of America.

This welcome gives Putin the huge gift of letting him touch down on U.S. soil after he invaded Ukraine

in defiance of the policy established after World War II to prevent another such devastating war.

In 1945, the United Nations Charter declared that all members shall refrain in their international relations

from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity

or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes

of the United Nations. The United States was the key guarantor of this principle until

Trump took office. The U.S. has stood against Russian invasions

into Ukraine, not only on this general principle, but because of security guarantees the U.S., along with

the United Kingdom and Russia, gave to Ukraine in 1994. After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Ukraine had the third largest

stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In exchange for Ukraine's giving up those weapons,

the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed to secure Ukraine's borders. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, they agreed they would not use military force or economic coercion against Ukraine.

Russia violated that agreement with its 2014 and 2022 invasions.

Now, Trump will welcome Putin to the United States,

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