Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, expressing the outrage of European leaders over the Munich Security Conference, where U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance scored the Europeans for their strongarm attempts to “muzzle” growing discontent in their countries over the continuation of the Ukraine war, exclaimed, in total frustration, “As a tourist, I really like this place. Nice people, great beer, great Pinakothek. As a historian and a politician, the only thing I can say today is: ‘Munich—Never again.’” Finland’s President called the two-day event “diplomatic cacophony.” The atmosphere of the conference was explosive from the beginning, with most of the Western leaders outraged over President Trump’s extensive Feb. 12 phone call with President Putin to begin discussions about peace negotiations.
Already, on the final day of the Feb. 14-16 gathering, the G7 leaders held an emergency conference on the matter, and a decision was taken to hold a larger EU ministers’ conference, probably in Paris, for Feb. 17. They probably intend to lick their wounds and plan for the future, now that the U.S. had pulled the rug out from under their various schemes for bringing down the “Russian bear.” Most forlorn is Ukrainian pseudo-president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who realizes that this may also be his demise as the chief spokesman for “permanent war” with Russia.
