The second flood

But with a higher sewage content

©2025 William L. Brown. Kakhovka II.

President Donald Trump spewed waves of abuse, insult and misinformation on Ukraine this week almost as overwhelming as the catastrophic 2023 Kakhovka Dam flood unleashed by the Russians in occupied Kherson Oblast.

First, Trump alarmed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and his government by phoning Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and by arranging a meeting between US and Russian negotiators without consulting or informing Ukraine.

©2025 William L. Brown. Snake Den.

Then, as the New York Post describes, “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed concern, sparking an intemperate reaction from Trump, and then a louder exchange between the two.”

Trump belittled Zelensky personally, going so low as to besmirch Zelensky’s acting career (“moderately successful comedian¹”), and calling him a “dictator.”

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskiy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,”

The New York Post remarked;

Trump’s sparring with Zelensky gives Putin reason to think he need not compromise, placing the US president in a pickle of his own making.

That hurts Trump politically. Though his MAGA base may enjoy the rhetorical fireworks, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, which have been generally supportive of Trump, have called him out for creating this predicament.

More gently, over a dozen Republican lawmakers have publicly recited facts that contradict most of the claims Trump made in recent days.

All the while, Putin just sits back and enjoys the spectacle.

The conservative Washington Examiner ran an editorial entitled “Trump’s dangerously deluded history of the Ukraine war.” The National Review has a few salty things to say also;

If Ukraine had shown better judgment than to be located next door to a much larger, perpetually aggrieved and autocratic neighbor, with which it shares a complicated history, perhaps this never would have happened.

This assault on Ukraine and Ukrainians by Trump and his associates such as Vice President J.D Vance and Elon Musk, who called Ukraine’s battle for existence “the biggest graft machine,” is especially brutal, happening days ahead of the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion.

The full-scale invasion was February 24, 2022. Do you remember? Perhaps you felt like the world had been plunged abruptly into both the past and future at the same time. It strained credibility, but there it was on the news.

©2022 William L. Brown, “No”

Three years ago, I had, as a precaution, moved temporarily to Lviv from Kyiv, following the US Embassy’s lead.

This is what I wrote Feb. 12, as I prepared to leave Kyiv:

I’m ticked off that I am leaving Kyiv soon, not knowing if I’ll ever return, but also not knowing if it is really necessary. I’m going to the western Ukrainian city Lviv. It’ll be safer there, supposedly, and close to a friendly border. My family and US friends have urged me to leave. I appreciate the concern, but they don’t realize what they are asking - the emotional toll of being forced to leave home and the city I love. I have attachments here, friends, weekend plans, a daily routine, the red squirrels, all the things it’s taken me months to figure out how to navigate: my pool membership, the farmers markets, how to order water, how to pay the house-bills.

The complaints seem mundane, but the loss of community, friends, family, the routine of peaceful life is at the heart of war trauma. It’s unpleasant and frightening to understand you are the plaything of evil forces, and must give up significant parts of your life (for some your very life) to make way for it. The trauma from the disruption of normal life, deprived of friends, family and routine is what made the pandemic lockdowns so difficult. Refugees of all kinds live with this every day. People in countries at war do also.

It’s worth repeating this part of my Feb. 12 article Ticked Talk:

I’m ticked off on behalf of my Ukrainian friends and students. These are the people, especially my young students, who yearn to live as we do in the west: with democracy, freedom, a normal economy, reliable infrastructure, a future for their children, high consumer, safety and construction standards, and bureaucracies that aren’t based on the Soviet model. This desire is what is driving events. Ukrainians want to become more western. Putin hates that.

©2022 William L. Brown. Russian Threat.

My students are in the midst of life. Many are parents of small children. Many have relatives and friends living close to the Russian border. Two are about to move their young families into newly built apartments. One of their employers offered the opportunity to relocate to western Ukraine. Great, but what about his children’s school? Does he abandon his new apartment to the Russians and looters? Like window glass in a bombardment, accomplishments, hopes and lives can be easily smashed.

Another student just got a promotion. Two others are working on their masters-degrees in business management. A couple of my friends are entrepreneurs, daily struggling to pay the rent, trying to recover from Covid business losses. Another friend lives in a city two hours from the front lines. She has a 13-year-old son, parents in a nearby town, and a civic laboratory job she cannot afford to lose. What is she to do?

Another friend is already a victim of the Russians, as many here are. Her family home is in the occupied territory. Her elderly mother lives there. Will she fall victim again? Imagine trying to sleep at night with the uncertainty and memories.

Readers: Where were you on February 24, 2022? What did you think? What do you think of current events?

©2022 William L. Brown. “1939/2022”

1. Actually Zelensky had a hugely successful career in entertainment. He has a law degree from Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, though he did not practice law, choosing instead to go into television entertainment. He created a production company, which produced the political satire series Servant of the People, about an everyman who becomes president, dealing with corruption, Russian and oligarch interference, and other topical issues. Zelensky played the lead role. The series was hugely popular leading to the creation of the Servant of the People Party, and Zelensky’s highly successful run for president, earning him a record 73.23% of the vote. By the way, the Servant of the People series is similar in many ways to my own work, President Bill, a cartoon series published in book form in 1990.