
Jonathan Ulsaker
582 posts

Jonathan Ulsaker
@JUlsaker
Veteran, farmer, realtor, builder







Sure, Russia hasn’t done anything good, so the oil bonanza billions from the US can’t be a reward. It’s just an expression of Trump’s general policy to make life easier for Putin. It serves no US interest whatsoever. kyivindependent.com/this-is-not-re…



Europe, It Is Time to Say It Out Loud There is a moment in every slow-motion crisis when silence stops being diplomacy and starts being complicity. We have arrived at that moment. The U.S. Treasury Department, on Friday, extended its pause on sanctions against Russian oil shipments , quietly letting the Kremlin keep filling its war chest. This came two days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters, explicitly, that Washington would not renew the waiver. He said it plainly. Then the administration reversed course without explanation. No press conference. Just a signature on a document that sends more money to Moscow. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s energy revenues had been restrained. That restraint is now gone. The Iran war has handed Putin a windfall, with Russian oil revenues nearly doubling in March alone. The sanctions architecture that Europe and America built together, over years, is being quietly dismantled in thirty-day increments. And where are Europe’s leaders? This is not a rhetorical question. It demands an honest answer. Because the pattern is now clear enough that any European head of government who still speaks of Washington as a reliable partner is either not paying attention or not willing to say what they know to be true. The waivers could impede the West’s efforts to deprive Russia of revenue for its war in Ukraine and put Washington at odds with its allies.  That is not a fringe view. That is the assessment of American lawmakers from both parties. Europe’s leaders must stop whispering their concerns in closed rooms and start saying them at lecterns. Publicly. With names attached. The continent is not without agency here. Europe has its own sanctions regimes, its own diplomatic leverage, its own voice in international institutions. What it too often lacks is the political courage to use that voice when the source of the problem is not Moscow or Beijing but Washington. There is a long-standing and understandable reluctance to confront an ally. But an ally that finances your adversary’s war machine, reverses its own stated policy without explanation, and then expects continued deference is not behaving like an ally. European leaders have a duty, not merely a right, to defend their continent. That means defending Ukraine. It means defending the sanctions framework. And yes, it means standing up in public and saying that what the Trump administration did on Friday is wrong, harmful, and beneath the obligations of alliance. The Kremlin is watching. It always is. And right now, it is watching Europe stay silent. Again. That silence has a price. Europe is paying it. @Microinteracti1 / Gandalv































