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Posted by Phillips P. OBrien

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/trump-helps-putin-kill-ukrainians

Hi All,

I know I sent out a piece a few hours ago, but what has happened last night in Ukraine was so egregious and terrible that I thought it deserved a special note. The Russians launched what was arguably their largest missile/drone attack of the war, aiming to destroy as much of the Ukrainian heating and power generation system as possible.

The number of missiles and drones that the Russians used is still being counted, but it was massive particularly in terms of the very difficult to intercept ballistic and cruise missiles. Here is how President Zelensky described the system.

Today, Russia carried out a record strike in terms of the use of ballistic missiles. There were 28 cruise missiles, as well as 43 missiles of various types that approach their targets along a ballistic trajectory and can be intercepted only by Patriot systems.

Here is a map that the Ukrainians released of the attack, showing that the major cities in the east of the country were basically blanketed in missiles and drones.

According to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the attack hit Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and at least three other cities.

The temperature in Ukraine is below -20°C (-4°F). Overnight, Russia attacked with 450 drones and over 60 missiles, including ballistic ones.

Primary targets: energy and residential houses in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy, Odesa, and other regions.

Putin waited for the temperatures to drop and stockpiled drones and missiles to continue his genocidal attacks against the Ukrainian people.

Neither anticipated diplomatic efforts in Abu Dhabi this week nor his promises to the United States kept him from continuing terror against ordinary people in the harshest winter.

We are dealing with terrorists who must be forced to stop violence.

Sybiha’s reference to the temperature was no accident. This attack was carefully planned to happen during the coldest stretch of the winter—indeed the coldest stretch of the last few years. Ukraine is freezing now, far worse than it was when I was there in early January. According to the BBC Weather forecast, Kyiv will not be above freezing at any time in the coming weeks. They have a forecast up for the next 14 days, and its all below freezing—often in the teens.

So this attack was a cruel and calculated war crime, designed to freeze and kill Ukrainians with maximum effectiveness.

It was also an attack which was aided by the President of the USA. How you say? Well, a few hours before the attack, Trump engaged in a deliberate act of disinformation, designed to fool people. In an afternoon press conference from the Oval Office, Trump said that Putin not only would not attack Ukrainian energy/heating that night, but had promised not to do so for the next week. Here is the exact quote.

"I did call up President Putin and he's agreed -- they have the same cold wave that we do, maybe different because it's pretty far away, but it's the equivalent. And Ukraine is a very cold country, it's much colder than us. It's colder than, on average, Canada or colder. I asked him if he wouldn't shoot for a period of one week and he's agreed to do it."

I’m sure the better natured of you will say that Trump was misled by crafty Vlad. If that makes you feel better, so be it. I do not buy it. If Trump had been deliberately misled and made a fool of, then we should have an immediate response by the US government. The President of the US was turned into a tool of Russian disinformation.

Get those sanctions on Russia going, restart military aid to Ukraine, something.

Yet so far we have silence.

Unless Trump does something dramatic soon, even the most hopeful will have to admit that he is not a fool, but is happy to spread Russian disinformation in a way that helps Putin the most and harms Ukraine. Indeed it is just the latest example of how Trump is helping Putin kill Ukrainians.

It will almost certainly not be the last.

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/trump-helps-putin-kill-ukrainians