Dear President Trump,
I understand you're thinking about meeting with Vladimir Putin again, this time in Budapest. Listen, you're the "mediator president," the world's greatest dealmaker, so I'm hopeful. But I also want to be helpful!
You know Putin well. I don't. Although, while he was attending Leningrad State University in 1972, I was an exchange student at that Communist college where I knocked back a lot of warm vodka with guys named Vlad. Was he one of them? Hey, it's possible!
Over the half-century since, I've kept an eye on both Russia and Ukraine, and I have a few thoughts I'd like to share with you. Maybe one of your advisors will give you this column to read on Air Force One? It will take just a few minutes of your time!
At your press conference on Friday, you said there was "bad blood between these two presidents," meaning Putin, of course, and Volodymyr Zelensky. You're right but it's worse than that. There's bad blood between Russia and Ukraine – between the two peoples, the two nations.
During the Soviet era, Ukrainians were badly mistreated by Moscow. One example: the Holodomor, a famine engineered by Stalin in 1932-1933.
Millions of Ukrainians were starved to death because Ukrainian peasants didn't want to surrender their lands to the state under the Communist Party's policy of forced "collectivization."
And now Putin is erecting monuments to Stalin all around Russia.
Among the reasons Putin admires Stalin: At the Yalta conference in 1945, Stalin out-negotiated Roosevelt and Churchill, persuading them to accept his domination of the eastern and central European states which soon became Soviet satellites.
Am I suggesting that Putin now wants to do to you what Stalin did to Roosevelt and Churchill? Yes, Mr. President, because he wants to restore Stalin's empire.
Putin likes to ramble on about Russian history, and in his often-inaccurate version, Ukraine is just a "little Russia," a boondock province of what he calls "Russkiy Mir," the "Russian World."
In 1978, I returned to Russia for a stint as a reporter. A souvenir of that sojourn hangs in my living room: a poster from an exhibition of paintings by Ilya Glazunov. He was a rare bird: an artist both supported by the Communist Party and beloved by average Russians.
Why? Because he depicted Russian history as many Russians like to imagine it. My poster, which Glazunov signed after a night we spent drinking cold vodka and toasting Soviet-American détente, depicts Prince Igor, a 10th century blond, blue-eyed Viking warrior and his blond, blue-eyed young son.
By the way, it's relevant to recall that Reagan, elected in 1980, ended détente because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Prince Igor was a ruler of Kievan Rus' – a loose federation of medieval East Slavic principalities that laid the foundations for modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
But that hardly justifies Putin's war to force Ukrainians to submit to Kremlin rule today. We Americans, of all people, should get that.
We fought a revolution to throw off a king and an empire. And King George III, whatever his faults, was no Stalin!
One more analogy: Can you imagine a dictator in Rome waging a war to subjugate Romania – and France, Spain, and Portugal, too – because people in those countries were once ruled by the Roman Empire and still speak Romance languages?
Of course, Giorgia Meloni would never do that. She seems nice and, as you mentioned at the Gaza summit in Egypt, she's "a beautiful young woman." I don't think she minded that at all!
But I digress. What Glazunov never painted: The Rus' principalities under Mongol rule from the mid-13th century to the late 15th century.
The Mongol model of absolute authoritarianism influenced both the Russian and Soviet empires that followed. That means negotiating with Putin is also like bargaining with Genghis Khan. And Genghis was not keen on either peace or win-win outcomes.
Given this background, it would be logical for you to do what you've done in the past: achieve peace through strength, in his case by imposing harsh economic sanctions on the imperialist dictator in the Kremlin and providing Ukrainians with the long-range missiles they need to defend themselves from the invading hordes.
Doing this would not be an "escalation" – a word that made President Biden shake in his shoes. It would merely begin to level the playing field.
Putin every day – and especially after phone calls with you, as the First Lady has pointed out – uses long-range missiles to hit Ukrainian hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods.
By contrast, Zelensky wants to hit military targets deep inside Russia – like the Yelabuga drone factory in Tatarstan – and prevent Putin from resupplying the Russian troops occupying Ukrainian territory.
May I suggest that, before any more meetings with Putin, someone communicate to him that if he refuses to agree to a cessation of hostilities – including the release of all the Ukrainian children he's kidnapped, an atrocity the First Lady is rightly upset about – he must expect that you will raise the cost of his bloody war of conquest?
May I remind you, also, that the dictators in Beijing, Pyongyang, and Tehran are all assisting Putin? The Ukrainians are not fighting one enemy but four: an Axis of Aggressors that are as much America's adversaries as Ukraine's.
Mr. President, if you'd like to hear more from me about Putin or Russian history or whatever, just say the word.
Also: Would you like to see my Ilya Glazunov poster? Just give me a little notice before you drop by. My wife will want to make sure the house is tidy! I'm sure you understand.
Your friend,
Cliff