It’s time to hit lying Putin with LOTS of sticks

Vladimir Putin’s promised “weeklong” pause in strikes on Ukraine’s power plants lasted just four days; will the Russian thugocrat pay any price for yet again breaking his word?

President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office last Thursday that Putin had agreed to the pause as a humanitarian gesture amid a brutally cold winter.

Supposedly, Moscow (suddenly) didn’t want to wage war on civilians.

Yet Tuesday’s barrage of 450 drones and 70 missiles, Russia’s largest assault in nearly four years of war, aimed at the very infrastructure Vlad had claimed he wouldn’t target.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called this exactly what it is: “Moscow is choosing terror and escalation,” not peace.

Putin broke his word to Trump, ruthlessly attacking civilians one day ahead of planned US-brokered negotiations in Abu Dhabi; will our president just take it?

“I’m on the side of peace, I’m on the side of stopping the war,” Trump insists — yet he keeps closing his eyes to the obvious fact that Putin is not at all on the side of peace.

At least, not any peace that doesn’t leave him with total victory.

The president said that getting a deal done is tough “because Zelensky and Putin hate each other.”

No. Zelensky hates Putin because Russia is trying to conquer on his country, waging war on civilians and killing innocents. Putin hates Zelensky because he exists. 

Not remotely equivalent — especially when Kyiv is willing to eat a ceasefire that leaves the Kremlin sitting on most of its ill-gotten gains.

Presidential spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt says Trump’s reaction to Putin’s latest atrocity “was, unfortunately, unsurprised.

These are two countries who have been engaged in the very brutal war for several years,” again spreading the blame evenly.

The war is not Ukraine’s fault. It is Putin’s, and Putin’s alone.

Leavitt went on about how Trump “continues so aggressively to pursue a diplomacy to end this war.

That’s why a special envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be an Abu Dhabi” for more talks — yet Russia’s latest horror only makes the talks a travesty that pretends Putin is interested in a deal when he plainly isn’t.

When will the president show some rage at Putin’s nonstop lies and broken promises?

What is Team Trump going to do to make Russia negotiate for real?

Months of jawboning (and feeding Putin’s ego by doing face-to-face talks) hasn’t gotten the monster of Moscow to budge an inch; Russia’s still bent on total conquest no matter how long, or how much blood on both sides, it takes.

Congress is failing here, too: It’s been a month since Trump came out in support of the bipartisan “secondary sanctions” bill; even with all the shutdown drama, House and Senate leaders should be able to get it done.

John Thune, Chuck Schumer, Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries: Go for the easy bipartisan win!

Since Vlad keeps spitting on carrots, Trump’s people should be hitting him with lots of sticks: Get Kyiv more offensive as well as defensive capabilities; squeeze Moscow’s energy industry as hard as it’s hitting Ukraine’s.

Putin’s plainly laughing at Trump’s weak-seeming will; time to teach him what “peace through strength” really means.