Trump’s Weapons Magic Show is Smoke & Mirrors Masterclass

Simplicius, Jul 15, 2025

Trump finally ‘wowed’ the world today with his grand announcement on punitive measures against Russia.

As usual, the announcement struck a dull and lackluster chord for most, with Russian markets jubilantly jumping by nearly 3% in response. But let’s dig in to see whether there is actually more meat on the bone of Trump’s scary threats than people give credit for.

Firstly, the timing: Axios now reports that Putin allegedly told Trump he plans to ‘intensify’ the Russian summer offensive in the next 60 days, with the goal—according to some sources—purportedly being to capture the remainder of nominal Russian territory, i.e. Donetsk, Lugansk, and Zaporozhye oblasts

Axios: According to Trump, Putin allegedly told him about plans to intensify the offensive in Ukraine in the next 60 days.

Trump shared details of the conversation with the Russian leader with his French counterpart Macron, adding: “He wants to take everything.”

It was after this conversation, according to the publication, that Trump criticized Putin and promised to increase arms supplies to Ukraine.

If there’s any hint of truth to such reports, then Trump’s “50-day notice” would seem to line up with Putin’s timeline, given that the conversation happened days ago, and thus Putin’s “60-day plan” would fall almost precisely on Trump’s deadline.

The basic interpretation of that could be that Trump is giving Russia two months to capture whatever territory it claims belongs to it, then “the hammer” will come down.

Now on the weapons side, as always, is where the biggest cloud of ambiguity lies. No one seems to know precisely what weapons and from what package will be sent, but according to CNN, it all sounds like more of the same, but just ‘repackaged’ with a new price tag.

Reports indicate the same air-to-air missiles, howitzer and GMLRS rounds will be sent as before, but simply that now NATO countries will foot the bill. Prior to that, under Biden’s PDA, the US was sending weapons directly to Ukraine from its own stockpiles, and then replenishing those stockpiles with new orders to the MIC, from taxpayer funds. Now, it will come from European taxpayer funds—a win for the US, we must admit.

But the biggest focal point were the Patriot ‘systems’. Again, the cloud of confusion—no one quite knows what the numbers represent: Patriot launchers, batteries, battalions, etc. Trump once mentioned the word ‘batteries’, but the numbers being discussed do not appear to realistically jibe. For instance, he mentioned sending “17” to Ukraine, but the US itself only has something like a total 50-70 active batteries, and obviously sending a third of its entire Patriot stock is unlikely.

When you really read between the lines, what Trump appeared to intimate was that the eventual goal is to scrounge up a larger amount of ‘systems’ for Ukraine, but “initially” only a tiny fraction will be sent. This is one of the few commenters who grasped the nuances of the mealy-mouthed ‘announcement’:

Recall that Rubio just recently implied the US has no more Patriots to give, a video I posted several updates ago. He called on Europe to give their Patriots instead, but quelle surprise, in a new FT article German Defense Minister Pistorius admitted that Germany will not be sending any Patriots nor Taurus missiles:

You can see in the above [on original], he goes on to say that Germany could purchase two systems from the US for Ukraine, instead. This is a kind of puerile shell game which is really meant to bolster the PR narrative that Ukraine is being ‘supported’ in order to keep hopes alive, so that the AFU doesn’t collapse from demoralization.

German Defense Minister Pistorius to Reuters:

Decision on two Patriots for Ukraine will be taken within days or weeks, but actual delivery of first system will take months.

In short: it’s a lot of hoopla to kick the can down the road again, repackaging the same policy with new fanfare.

The sanctions threat was likewise fraught with double-meaning. Trump called them ‘tariffs on Russia’, but in reality they are merely tariffs on US’ own allies:

Russia exports virtually nothing to the US which can be ‘tariffed’. The threat here is meaningless as these other heavyweights will not put up with Trump’s threat, forcing him to back away at the last moment as usual, then claiming “victory” after securing some other secondary fig leaf ‘deal’.

In conclusion: the entire charade appears to be a sneaky but brilliant act of jugglery by Trump, wherein he once again gives the appearance of major ‘action’ against Russia to silence critics and placate neocons, while in actuality doing little to further Ukraine’s war efforts, apart from plugging the previous status quo back onto life support. The act is meant to play both sides, relieving pressure on himself, while not overly risking his relationship with Putin in the hopes he can still clinch his big Nobel-earning armistice.

Notably, top-shelf items like JASSM missiles were all absent from the discussion, contrary to high-octane predictions from the peanut gallery the day before. Likewise, in the earlier-mentioned FT article, Pistorius once again categorically rejected—for the umpteenth time—the sending of Taurus missiles to Ukraine:

So, what are we left with? Essentially, the resumption of Biden’s PDA status quo with an ambiguous new promise of “a few” Patriot launchers, which is more a preliminary call to look for some potential stock among allies.

When asked what would happen after the 50 day mark if Putin refuses to back down, Trump told a reporter: “Don’t ask me that question.”

The bigger debate is whether Trump has now officially taken ownership of the war, despite his feeble attempts to impute his continued failings to Biden; many think so. But I still suspect Trump is trying his hardest to playact the stern and impatient taskmaster to signal ‘toughness’ against Putin for his deep state audience, all while actually trying to mitigate damage to US-Russian relations.

For instance, ‘senior officials’ told FT just two days ago that Trump still views Zelensky as the primary obstacle to peace:

That would likely make his ‘anger’ at Putin a put-on.

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Intermezzo:

Ex-Russian prime minister Sergei Stepashin has a stark message for Germany, amidst all the militarization threats:

Moscow ‘knows location’ of German missile plants as Merz plans to hand Zelensky the bombs to hit ‘center of Russia’ — ex-PM Stepashin

Given that all the Trump-Ukraine weapons antics are merely an attempt to front-run and offlet some steam from the Russian summer offensives, let us now turn to frontline news:

Starting in western Zaporozhye Russian forces took over the remainder of Kamyanske:……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trumps-weapons-magic-show-is-smoke?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=168312161&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=c9zhh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email