How does one mask a blatant failure? By presenting it as a necessary step. Unable to fulfill his campaign promise of immediately ending the war in Ukraine through his mediation, Donald Trump resorted to a striking analogy on Thursday, June 5.

Welcoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the Oval Office, the American president compared Ukrainians and Russians to "two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they're fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart. And I gave that analogy [to Russian president Vladimir] Putin yesterday." The American leader added that the same phenomenon could be seen in sports like hockey, where referees deliberately delay intervening.

From this strange analogy, Trump drew the obvious conclusion that the fighting would continue. Without dwelling on the bold Ukrainian drone operation against Russian air bases, the billionaire summarized his exchange with Putin. "He actually told me, 'We have no choice but to attack... And it's probably not going to be pretty.' I said, 'I don't like it, I said don't do it, you shouldn't do it, you should stop it." Trump added that "there's a lot of hatred" between the two sides; no aggressor, no victim, in his telling. When repeatedly asked about new American sanctions against Russia, Trump claimed to have a deadline in mind, without revealing it.

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