Dear Editor,

The recent peace meeting that was held in Alaska USA between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the president of our great country Donald J Trump which proved to be highly unsuccessful and quite embarrassing as the presumed leader of the free world Trump shamelessly catered and acquiesced to notorious war criminal and malicious dictator Putin by giving him the red carpet treatment literally which is a symbol of ultimate respect in order to attempt presumably to finally end Russia’s war of aggression against a neighboring sovereign nation Ukraine during which is reported that more than 1.4 million Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or wounded to date.

As part of the red-carpet treatment Trump shamelessly applauded Putin as he walked the red carpet had US fighter jets fly overhead in Putin’s honor scheduled a luncheon following the meeting in honor of His Excellency Putin which Putin failed to attend. Comments from leaders of free world nations were without exception completely negative, with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson referring to such actions by Trump as vomit inducing.

Recall that prior to the meeting, Trump said that at the least his meeting with Putin would lead to an immediate ceasefire which obviously did not occur. In addition, Trump had oftentimes stated that if he would be returned to office following the 2024 election, which he obviously was, would end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on day one, which obviously did not happen.

As a result of the meeting in Alaska, Russia made it clear that in order to end their invasion of Ukraine, Russia must be granted the entire eastern Dunbar region of Ukraine including territories still under Ukraine’s control which obviously was unacceptable to president Zelensky and the people of Ukraine.

Despite all this Trump made the comment that Putin wants peace not victory. Has Trump completely lost all perception of reality?

Can you imagine if you have president Franklin D Roosevelt would have had such a flattering meeting with Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany at the start of World War 2 after its invading and waging war on our allies including Great Britain, France, Poland and others which F.D.R. as a great leader of our country and the free world thankfully never occurred.

Throughout this crisis Trump aggressively is promoting himself to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and agrees with Putin the dictator on the elimination of mail-in ballots, continues to claim that Russia did not intervene on his behalf in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, although all evidence has proven otherwise, as Putin continues to manipulate Trump as he relentlessly employs excessive military force in order to reconstruct what had been the Russian empire.

Richard Hord

Martins Ferry