The relationship between the United States and key ally Ukraine is dissolving before our eyes.

Donald Trump's social media diatribe on Wednesday, local time, in which he described the country's leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "dictator" who's "done a terrible job", was just the latest deterioration.

It's been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the new US president has made it clear he'd rather deal with Moscow than Kyiv when it comes to finding a way to end the conflict.

To understand why that could be a big mistake, let's rewind one day to when the US and Russia got back on speaking terms, publicly at least.

Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's been in the job for four weeks, led a US delegation to Saudi Arabia for a hastily organised meeting with Kremlin counterparts.

Sitting opposite him was Sergey Lavrov — the Russian foreign minister of 21 years — who's seen it all before.

There was plenty of anticipation ahead of the summit, which was billed as an important precursor to three touted get-togethers between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As Rubio pointed out, Tuesday's meeting marked the first "regularised" contact between Moscow and Washington in three-and-a-half years.

That may be true, but there are claims Putin and Trump have never stopped talking, since the latter was swept out of the White House in 2020.

A book by journalist Bob Woodward released late last year detailed seven phone calls between the pair that allegedly took place in the years after Trump lost the presidency.

That's on top of the five in-person meetings that they had when they were both in power — a period when Trump famously described Putin as "strong" and "nice".

Forget needing to break the ice with a summit in Riyadh this week, some have gone as far to describe the pair as being in a "bromance".

It's not just Trump that's giving clear signs he wants the US to get closer to Russia.

Rubio, after Tuesday's meeting concluded, said ending the war in Ukraine could create "incredible opportunities" to partner with the Russians on issues of common interest.

Every country that's got a stake in the conflict — and there are many — claims they'd like to see it end, albeit on vastly different terms.

"So far I have seen zero evidence that Putin is willing to give one inch in order to negotiate a peace deal," Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia posted to social media.

Trump, meanwhile, has already flagged the possibility of several concessions, including cutting aid to Ukraine and denying its bid for NATO membership, encouraging Kyiv to cede territory to Russia and withdrawing US troops stationed in Eastern Europe — something considered a deterrent for Putin, amid fears he could launch future invasions.

What has the Russian president promised in return? Nothing, apparently.

Some analysts contend that, despite the deadly Ukraine conflict, this is not the right time to be bowing down to Russia, which is showing clear signs of weakness.

While its economy has defied predictions (or in some cases, hopes) that Western sanctions and Putin's prolonged invasion of Ukraine would prove ruinous, there are plenty of red flags.

Russia's currency, the rouble, has fallen to some of its lowest levels in a decade. Inflation, in December, was 9.5 per cent, with the cost of household essentials soaring.

Labor shortages, sparked by people being sent to Ukraine and fighting-age males fleeing the country, are stymieing the economy.

And, while Russia undeniably wrested the upper hand in the war last year, it came at an enormous cost.

Casualties are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. With prisons already emptied and no appetite for another round of conscription, Putin became so desperate he turned to North Korea for troops and weapons.

Elsewhere, rebel forces swept Russia out of Syria [RUSSIA CHOSE NOT TO FIGHT THE AL QAEDA TERRORISTS TO PREVENT A FULL-ON WAR WHICH IT COULD HAVE WON] without so much as peep amid the fall of dictator Bashar Al Assad, whose regime the Kremlin had devoted copious amounts of money and blood propping up over decades.

Some experts argue the West should seize the opportunity to exploit Putin's weakness [DO THIS GET NUKES. GREAT IDEA!] and, potentially, flip the tables in Ukraine, rather than offer him a seat at the table. [ARE YOU AN IDIOT MR Riley Stuart?]

The events of the past week have sparked concerns in some quarters that the US and Russia could be growing too close.

Dialogues, however, are nothing new.

Officials from both nations have gathered in person and spoken over the phone regularly throughout the past 20 years.

Lavrov and Putin met George W Bush and key figures in his administration on multiple occasions.

At one point, the Russian president even stayed at his American counterpart's family home, where they went fishing and discussed the "possibility of raising our relations to an entirely new level".

Barack Obama held several in-person talks with both Lavrov and Putin. Trump met Putin five times, and Lavrov on multiple occasions. The veteran foreign minister and Russian leader also attended a summit with Joe Biden in Geneva.

Even when diplomatic contact between Washington and Moscow was officially cut after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, dialogue continued elsewhere.

Secret talks the White House described as "unsanctioned" took place in New York in 2023. Again, Lavrov was there.

When put in an historical context, there's a case to be made that US-Russia meetings are more routine than revolutionary.

Still, there are concerns that Trump, despite being an experienced negotiator, is underestimating Putin.

"I hate to jump to premature conclusions but suspect that Putin-Trump's bromance will not be long-living because the strategic goals of the Russian Federation and US are strikingly different and the level of anti-Americanism in Putin's Russia is exorbitant," Russia expert and visiting fellow to the Australian National University Leonid Petrov said.

The Kremlin says Putin is ready to talk about peace in Ukraine, but analysts argue Russia's entire economic system has been entwined with, and even powered by, war for a long time.

Under Putin's decades-long reign, Moscow has pursued multiple conflicts: in Chechnya for 10 years from 1999 [THIS WAS DUE TO THE PENTAGON'S STURING THE POT], in Georgia in 2008 [THIS WAS DUE TO THE PENTAGON'S STURING THE POT], in Crimea in 2014 [THERE WAS NO CONFLICT IN REGARD TO CRIMEA WHICH VOTED 97 PER CENT TO BE RUSSIAN] before a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 [THIS WAS TO PROTECT THE RUSSIAN POPULATIONS IN THE DONBASS WHICH WERE BOMBED DAILY BY THE KIEV NAZI REGIME... WITHIN A MONTH, UKRAINE AND RUSSIA HAD A DECENT PECE DEAL THAT WOULD CONTINUE THE MINKS ACCORDS, BUT BORIS JOHNSON DESTROYED THIS DEAL BY PROMISING THE MOON TO ZELENSKY WHO WAS AN IDIOT ENOUGH TO ACCEPT BORIS' WORDS].

Last week, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy warned his country had intelligence that Russia was training up to 150,000 troops to, possibly, launch another attack on "maybe Poland, maybe the Baltic countries" as early as next year. [ZELENSKY'S INTELLIGENCE IS WORSE THAN HIS ARSE DEFECATIONS...]

Putin has made no secret of his imperialist ambitions, even comparing himself to Peter the Great, a tsar who annexed swathes of new land for Russia centuries ago. [PUTIN NEVER DID... THE WEST INTERPRETED SUCH]

While many in the international community would welcome an end to the bloody war in Ukraine, questions remain about the wisdom of negotiating with an autocrat so thirsty for territorial expansion, who's presiding over an increasingly frail economy and military.

Congressman Joe Wilson, from Trump's own Republican Party, argued in a social media post on Saturday: "The fastest way to end the war is to win it. War Criminal Putin is weaker than ever. The killing stops immediately when Russia leaves Ukraine."

That ship appears to have sailed, though. Trump and Putin are organising multiple meetings, and the US president's rhetoric about Ukraine is deteriorating.

Trump this week claimed the war could have been settled years ago "very easily".

What the president may find more of a challenge is ensuring the "strong" and "nice" Russian leader does not to start another one.

Donald Trump is moving the US closer to Russia, and history says that could be a big mistake?

THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE IS A FUCKING IDIOT !!! HISTORY "SAYS"? IS NOT WRITTEN YET BUT IT COULD SHOW TRUMP TO BE CORRECT... Riley Stuart IS A MORON.

RUSSIA SHOWING SIGNS OF WEAKNESS?

THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE IS A FUCKING IDIOT !!! RUSSIA IS DOING WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH... Riley Stuart IS A MORON.

PUTIN COULD START ANOTHER WAR?

THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE IS A FUCKING IDIOT !!! ANOTHER WAR AGAINST WHOM? GERMANY? FRANCE? UK? YUCKRAINE?... Riley Stuart IS A MORON. 

Diatribe? THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE IS A FUCKING IDIOT !!! TRUMP IS CORRECT: ZELENSKY IS A DICTATOR (AND A THIEF) — PLEASE SEE HOW ZELENSKY HAS TREATED THE OPPOSITION AND THE CHURCHES AND THE LINGO, AND BURNT MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN BOOKS, LIKE HITLER DID — OF BOOKS HE DID NOT LIKE!... Riley Stuart IS A MORON. 

OH, AND WHAT IS A KEY ALLY?.... UKRAINE IS HOT BED OF PSEUDO-NAZIS, BANDERISTS AND NASTY DEMENTED ARMY LEADERS....

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN: 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV. (UNLESS THESE MOSTLY RUSSIAN POPULATED PROVINCES BECOME AUTONOMOUS (THAT COULD BE THE ONLY CONCESSION RUSSIA MAY BE PRETARED TO DO)....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

SEE ALSO: https://sputnikglobe.com/20250219/unpacking-the-european-peacekeeper-debacle-in-ukraine-1121583578.html

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O07pMMpNks

SEE ALSO: 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqyus6PEiBg

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aBZiYs8KEw

WITH SCOTT RITTER.....

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nehGUbo4JMk