On Friday, President Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel.

On Saturday, he told Ukraine to fire its president.

“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” he told reporters on the South Lawn. Then he left for a campaign rally in Clarksville, Tennessee.

I’d love to say I’m shocked. I’m not.

I wrote the ending to this story way back in November 2022. I even gave it a cast of characters.

Good morning from a foggy Piedmont, where the truffle hunters are out in the hills, and I’m out with my old archives.

Let’s get into it.

What Happened

On Friday, Trump confirmed a deal with Moscow. The USG will suspend restrictions on Russian diesel exports until April 7, 2027. Millions of tons of Russian fuel will flow into American and global markets.

Why would The Donald do that? Because the ill-conceived fight with Iran has squeezed world fuel supplies. Squeezed truckers are howling about diesel prices. And the midterms are only 3 weeks away.

Of course, Zelenskyy objected. He warned that the deal will hand Russia fresh cash for weapons.

But the silly little dictator also kept sending drones into Russian refineries. Trump had warned him off. “You can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries,” the President recalled telling Kyiv.

So on Saturday, Trump lost patience. He said Zelenskyy “could have made many deals and for some reason, he never does.” One that comes to mind is his terrible penchant for taking advice from disgraced former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The Donald suggested Ukrainians find “a new leader who can make a deal.”

The American president eased sanctions on Russia to cut his voters’ fuel bills. Then he told Ukraine’s president to step aside for complaining.

This is the divorce I’ve been waiting years for.

The Receipts

I went back through the Rude archives for 2021 and 2022. This is a summary of what I wrote.

August 2021. Kabul had just fallen, and America left some friends on the tarmac. I wrote that if I were Europe, I’d start building a working relationship with Russia. America had just shown the world how it treats a cause it’s bored of.

September 2021. Five months before the war started, I had written, “The West must reconcile with Russia.” Against all common foreign policy sense, DC had pushed Moscow into Beijing’s arms. Back then, it was a fringe view. Today it’s an official talking point.

February 2022. Days after the tanks rolled, I wrote about the now-famous Budapest Memorandum. In 1994, Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons in return for American and British “assurances.” Ukraine didn’t get guarantees. A guarantee means troops. An assurance and $5.00 doesn’t even get you a latte at Starbucks.

March 2022. Two weeks into the war, I urged DC and Brussels to “find a way to save face and cut a deal.” I also wrote, “Ultimately, this sanction plan will fail because they always do.” On Friday, DC suspended the diesel sanctions to fix its own fuel bill.

May 2022. I wrote that the West was already at war with Russia and was letting Ukrainians do the bleeding. I also told you who was paying. A government funds a war through taxes or the printing press. Americans wouldn’t vote for the tax, so they would pay through inflation instead. That inflation has hit the diesel pump, and Americans have noticed.

November 2022. This was the big one. The headline read “The EU Awakens and the Coming Betrayal of Ukraine.” I wrote, “I think it’ll be a staggering betrayal of Ukraine.”

The next day, I told you a story about a schoolyard.

A Bully picks on a Nerd. A big, friendly Jock steps in, flattens the Bully, and takes the Nerd out for a milkshake.

Then the Jock moves to another city next summer, and the Bully goes right back to work.

Ukraine was the Nerd. Russia was the Bully. America was the Jock.

I wrote, “America will leave, sooner or later, just like it did in Afghanistan.” I said The Swamp would someday run the numbers and find that a war that served the hawks didn’t serve America.

On Saturday, the Jock loaded the moving van.

The Pump-Price Veto

No leader serves “the nation.” The “national interest” is a lovely fiction people need to believe for the system to work. In reality, every leader serves the coalition that keeps him in power. If they lose that coalition, they lose their job.

Zelenskyy’s coalition lives in Kyiv.

Trump’s coalition lives in towns like Clarksville. Its truckers, farmers, ranchers, and commuters matter to him. Those people buy diesel by the tank, not the barrel.

And none of them vote in Ukraine.

When a foreign war starts costing that coalition money every week, the coalition casts its veto. It doesn’t need a Congressional vote. It just needs an election on the calendar.

Every faraway war carries a Pump-Price Veto. The only question is when that veto gets cast.

For Ukraine, it was cast on Saturday.

Any president facing midterms and soaring diesel prices would reach for the same lever. Trump just says the quiet part aloud, on camera.

Where I Got It Wrong

I don’t get a perfect score.

I thought Europe would crack first. Never in a million years would I have understood just how deep Europe’s vassalage runs without this dreadful war.

In late 2022, I expected most of Europe to seek a deal with Moscow within a year. Germany’s chancellor even blinked that December, musing aloud about a return to the old “peace order.”

But Europe held. It’s broke, but its leaders don’t care. They care only about staying in power until the bitter end. It’s the only way they’ll avoid the unsavory consequences of their treacherous actions. You know, like the guillotine.

It was the Jock who cracked.

What to Watch

What happens on April 7th, when the diesel waiver expires? If DC extends it, then the Russian sanctions regime will have ended.

Then watch the EU’s next move. The Brussels vassals poured their industry, energy, and weapons stocks into this war and its alliance with America. If DC walks, Europe must carry Kyiv alone or cut its own deal. It’ll likely be a deal, depending on how bad the economic situation is by then.

Finally, every other security “assurance” is under the microscope, especially NATO’s. Taiwan, the Baltics, and the Gulf states all just watched how America treats an ally that got too expensive.

Wrap Up

None of this takes away from the Ukrainians’ courage. They fought harder than anyone in DC expected.

But the people who sent them into this fight never had the staying power to finish it. And those of us who said so in 2022 got called Putin’s puppets for our trouble.

The geography never changed. Russia and Ukraine still share a 1,200-mile border. DC still sits 5,000 miles away.

“The Bully” only had to bide his time.