DONALD TRUMP’S “OCTOBER SURPRISE” of a renewed bromance with Vladimir Putin has developed with startling rapidity.
asserted
SURPRISE → renew → rapidity
Maybe he’s delusional enough to think that buying a few days’ worth of diesel fuel from Putin and blaming Volodymyr Zelensky for the high prices will save him from a Republican midterm bloodbath.
asserted
buying → ’ → bloodbath
Maybe he anticipates that a Democratic House—and perhaps a Democratic Senate—will constrain him after the elections and sees a last chance to advance a pro-Russian agenda with a free hand.
asserted
House → anticipate → hand
Either way, it has been a very grim development in the war in Ukraine: Whatever the eventual fallout, it has already done tremendous damage on account of the disruption of Starlink/Starshield communication signals that are, among other things, essential to the interception of Russian drones.
asserted
that → do → drones
But one may find some dark humor in the plight of pundits on the right who have long maintained that, ackshually, Ukraine had no better friend than Trump.
uncertain
Ukraine → find → Trump
Take Washington Post columnist (and former George W. Bush speechwriter) Marc Thiessen, whose greatest hits include, “Putin is stalling and Trump is angry.
asserted
Trump → take → Thiessen
It’s time for ‘maximum pressure’” (March 31, 2025), “Watch Trump make good on his Ukraine promises” (July 9, 2025), and “Putin made a big mistake with Trump” (September 25, 2025)
asserted
Putin → ’ → Trump
In recent days, Thiessen has been mostly quiet on the subject; in his tweets, he has occasionally pushed back against inane anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia right-wing commentary but also chided Volodymyr Zelensky for being imprudently confrontational in response to Trump’s insults.
asserted
he → push → insults
A pro-Trump, pro-Ukraine position has always required awkward mental gymnastics, but now it demands downright contortionism.
asserted
it → require → contortionism
In one cringeworthy moment, radio host and Fox News contributor Hugh Hewitt was caught in the middle of a Fox appearance when informed of Trump’s remark to the press that Ukraine needs a new president.
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Ukraine → catch → president
Hewitt, visibly taken aback, conceded that it was “shocking,” but quickly bounced back to suggest that it was just “jaw-jaw”—Trump venting his frustrations about the “international economy” and diesel fuel prices.
asserted
it → take → economy
Not to worry, he reassured his audience: Zelensky is here to stay, and “Russia is the bad guy.
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Russia → worry → audience
The president knows that.”
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president → know → that
Trump, at that point, was saying things like, “Zelensky could have settled this war many times—many, many times” and “I think, actually, Putin wants to make a deal more than Zelensky.”
uncertain
Putin → say → Zelensky
(Meanwhile, as anybody with a brain that hasn’t been fried by Trumpism can tell you, it’s Putin who has repeatedly rejected Zelensky’s offers for a ceasefire and direct talks.
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who → fry → ceasefire
)
And Trump shows no sign of reversing himself.
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Trump → show → himself
He has indefinitely delayed the sanctions on Russia spelled out in the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill, which he had only recently signed.
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he → delay → which
His latest social media rant explains that he doesn’t want to endanger a peace deal with Russia, on which “great progress is being made.”
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progress → explain → which
He claims that Ukraine is “in shambles.”
uncertain
Ukraine → claim → shambles
He also viciously bashes Zelensky, accusing the Ukrainian president not only of driving up diesel fuel prices with his strikes on Russian oil refineries—a claim refuted by a lot of people, including Thiessen—but of wanting to keep the war going for his own greed, because of the money he’s getting from Europe.1
uncertain
he → bash → money
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journalism → find → internet
THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES over the past year and a half when a Trump pro-Ukraine “pivot” seemed possible.
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pivot → seem → year
On a few occasions, Trump did vent his frustration about being jerked around by Putin and did sound troubled by Russian bombings of Ukrainian cities in which civilians, including children, died.
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civilians → vent → children
He did, a little over a year ago, call Russia a “paper tiger” while praising Ukrainian battlefield prowess.
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He → call → prowess
Meanwhile, Zelensky seemed to have developed impressive Trump-whisperer skills, showing remarkable flexibility and grace even after being publicly berated in the infamous Oval Office showdown in early 2025.
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Zelensky → seem → 2025
And many hoped that the American president, in whose vocabulary “loser” is the ultimate insult, would be sufficiently impressed by Ukrainian successes to decide that Zelensky, not Putin, had the proverbial cards.
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Zelensky → hop → cards
Maybe, once he saw that Putin had failed to make much progress in the Donbas despite stalling for time—and that Ukraine was making headway—he would decide to back the winners.
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he → see → winners
Ukraine has wrested the momentum back from Russia on the frontlines and is bringing the war home to Russia in ways even the most wild-eyed optimist could not have predicted in 2022.
uncertain
optimist → wrest → 2022
(On Sunday, it launched a massive drone attack on St. Petersburg, striking a major oil terminal and a data center.)
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it → launch → terminal
Claims of Russian territorial gains publicly made by Putin and by Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, are so ludicrous that even Russian war-hawk bloggers are refuting them.
uncertain
bloggers → make → them
And yet Trump is pivoting in the other direction harder than ever.
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Trump → pivot → direction
Even some conservative pundits who are still pooh-poohing “hysteria” about Trump’s affinity for Putin and insisting that the Democrats were crying wolf all along are conceding that . . . wait a minute, maybe there is a wolf.
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Democrats → poohe → minute
We can concede that some “Russian collusion” claims have been hyperbolic.
uncertain
claims → concede → ?
No evidence ever emerged that the Trump campaign conspired with Russian agents to steal emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016 (only that people linked to the campaign were actively working to obtain those hacked emails).
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people → emerge → emails
Nor is there any real evidence that Putin has Trump on a leash because of kompromat (whether “pee tape” or Epstein related), or because he was recruited by the KGB decades ago.
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he → relate → KGB
Yet many of Trump’s recent actions certainly raise the familiar question: If he were a Russian agent, what would he do differently?
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he → raise → what
It’s possible to think of a few answers—like removing Venezuela’s Russia-friendly dictator Nicolás Maduro, seizing a Venezuela-bound Russian-flagged tanker, or pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil.
asserted
It → ’ → oil
But it is also abundantly clear that for the most part, Trump sees his interests as coinciding with Putin’s—and that his view of the war in Ukraine has always been broadly favorable to the Russian side.
asserted
view → see → side
As Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov put it in a YouTube interview:
[Trump] has always admired Putin.
asserted
Trump → put → Putin
He never hides his strong sympathies for Putin, for Xi Jinping, for Kim Jong-un.
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He → hide → un
…and 28 more, not listed.
The Aporia
