25A018 The 100 Days Are Up by Jim Davies, 5/6/2025

Back before the election, Donald Trump boasted he could end the Russo-Ukraine war in a single day. It is his habit to over-promise, so I mentally gave him the 100 days that constitute a President's "honeymoon"; and that ended on April 30th.

And yet, there is no peace deal. So that's a failure; albeit one in which nobody should take pleasure. This war has killed 1.2 million so far, nearly all of them Ukrainians, and all that's needed, to end it, is that their government abandon hopes of joining NATO and accept the right of people in its five former South-Eastern provinces to secede.

But it won't do that, just as Lincoln refused to let the South leave the Union.

Team Trump tried very hard, and one good result of that is a rapprochement with Russia. That has yet to translate into ending the forest of trade embargoes, but at least the two parties are talking nicely, which the Biden Gang didn't.

The trouble has been the Ukes; they will not yield. As I see it the calculation by its leader Volodymir Zelensky is that France, Britain and Germany will put boots on the Ukraine ground soon enough to stop a considerable acceleration of the Russian advances - to prevent the loss of the whole country. I think he's wrong; that those three will get their military act together no sooner than 2027, while the Russians may well over-run the country before this year ends.

But time will tell, and for now the war does not seem poised to go nuclear. Another bullet dodged.

Having conquered all Ukraine, what then; will the NATO screams that the Russians are Coming mean that a general war will begin between Europe and Russia? Putin says he has no such intention, but if Macron, Starmer and Merz are silly enough to intervene now and see some of their own troops killed and captured, might they re-group and attack Russia?

They might be that stupid. Governments thrive on war, and the NATO people might be dumb enough to suppose that, since Europe has a nearly 3:1 advantage in population and more yet in financial resources, they can hardly lose. Hmm. That's just what Napoleon and Hitler thought; and Putin has repeatedly reminded us that if the Russian State's existence is in peril, his nuclear arsenal will be used.

Assuming those renegade EuroNATO people do not enter the fray, what's likely to happen next? My guess is that having been extraordinarily patient so far, to limit Russian casualties, Mr Putin will order his armed forces to press ahead more quickly and eventually occupy the whole of Ukraine some time next year or perhaps the end of 2025. It's possible (and would be very sensible) if the Ukes gave up part way through that advance, maybe after everything East of the Dniepr is lost. But either way, Russia will be in control.

That won't be a bed of roses. Some Ukes are fanatic, and guerilla war is likely to continue long. Resentment generally is likely. Suppressing a resentful population is no fun, even if it hasn't figured out the wisdom of a Porcupine Defense. So I speculate that the Russian conquerors will first portion out some border regions to Moldavia, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland as and where the residents so wish, in order to reduce the size of the problem and to pacify those neighbor nations that enlarge their borders.

Simultaneously I expect them to carry out a vigorous "de-Nazification" program such as was done in Germany in the late 1940s. The number of actual Nazis in Ukraine is smaller than alleged, but there are some - they are sometimes known as Banderites, after a zealot who led those Ukrainians affiliated with the German army in 1942 - and those are the likely guerilla leaders. How effective such a program will be remains to be seen.

Then at some point I think the Russians will instal a friendly government in Kiev and gradually withdraw when they can expect good relations and open borders. The region will then be at peace. But it won't happen tomorrow. To take power away from an existing government is like prising barnacles off a rock. Far simpler just to quit working for it.