HOW DRU CATCH SEES IT

Peacekeeping with a Visible Lean

There is a specific word for the person who stands between two fighters, enforces rules impartially, and makes sure neither side lands cheap shots after the bell. That word is referee. There is a different word for the person who unstraps one fighter's gloves, hides the other fighter's mouthguard, and then lectures the bleeding one about sportsmanship. That word is accomplice.

On Friday, Trump exercised a presidential waiver to exempt Russia from the sweeping economic penalties Congress wrote into law. By Sunday morning he was on Truth Social calling Zelensky a warmonger who probably never wanted peace - evidently because Ukraine had the audacity to strike a Russian oil terminal in Saint Petersburg. In the same week, according to Zelensky's post on X, Russia hit Ukrainian energy and oil infrastructure seventy-six times following Trump's announcement of an energy ceasefire that neither Kyiv nor Moscow ever acknowledged agreeing to. So the self-appointed peacemaker canceled the punishment for one side, watched it keep swinging, then screamed at the other side for ducking.

Selective Blindness Dressed Up as Strategy

The sanctions waiver is only the most legally conspicuous thumb on the scale. Zelensky told NBC that Ukrainian battlefield drones guided by Starlink had their speeds curtailed - a restriction he called a deliberate message from Washington, though the Trump administration denied ordering it. He also said US satellite early-warning intelligence went dark for three days during active ballistic missile strikes; a Ukrainian source separately told CNN there was no advance alert before a missile hit Kyiv on Sunday, the third missed warning in a single week. Whether those gaps were policy or glitch, the pattern is remarkably convenient for one party and remarkably lethal for the other. Imagine telling your neighbor you are mediating his dispute with the guy robbing his garage, but first you are going to turn off his porch light and loosen the hinges.

Great Progress, Measured in Craters

Trump declared on Truth Social that he believes great progress is being made. Let us inventory that progress. Russia struck Ukrainian energy facilities seventy-six times in seven days. Ukraine fired over a thousand drones in a single overnight barrage. Eleven Ukrainians were killed and nearly fifty injured in one twenty-four-hour window. Nobody honored the ceasefire the White House announced. And the only concrete policy outcome was Moscow walking away with a sanctions holiday while Congress stood behind a locked velvet rope waving gavels at nobody. If that is great progress, the missiles are making most of it.