As Trump Delivers a Surrender Plan to Ukraine, Putin Demands an Increase in Weapons Production to Prepare for the Next War(s)

U.S. President Donald Trump chats with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 11, 2017. (Mikhail Klimentyev / Sputnik / AFP / Getty Images)

Putin Announces Escalation While Trump Pressures Ukraine to Surrender

On the same day Donald Trump delivered what may go down as the most disgraceful betrayal of the presidency—pressuring Ukraine to surrender sovereign territory to Russia under the false banner of “peace”—Vladimir Putin made his real intentions unmistakably clear: Russia isn’t preparing to end its war. It’s preparing for the next one.

This was no coincidence but a clear message to the world.

While Trump pushes a sham plan that would reward Russia’s genocide and illegal occupation—recognizing illegally annexed Crimea as “Russian” and handing over Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, including territory Russia doesn’t even fully control—Putin is openly escalating his war machine. At a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission, he called for an urgent expansion of Russia’s military-industrial complex to prepare for future armed conflicts that, in his own words, are “rapidly approaching.”

A War Economy Built on the Destruction of Ukraine

At the meeting, Putin claimed that Russia’s defense industry has already doubled its output of weapons, communications equipment, and electronic warfare systems. He said the military has received 4,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 180 aircraft and helicopters, and over 1.5 million drones—including 4,000 advanced FPV drones operated through virtual reality systems—for use in its genocidal war against Ukraine.

He added that the military-industrial complex has been assigned “even more ambitious” tasks for this year, with more than 400 enterprises expected to expand their production capacity.

The scale of ambition sends a clear message that Russia’s bloody imperial actions aren’t just continuing—they’re set to accelerate. Putin is calling for the production of robotic combat systems, unmanned boats, laser weapons to shoot down drones and aircraft, a global satellite surveillance network, and military-grade artificial intelligence to power complex automated command systems. These aren’t tools of defense—they’re weapons of expansion.

Russia’s economy, meanwhile, is now entirely fueled by war. According to Rosstat, military-industrial sectors have grown by 50–70% over the last two years, accounting for nearly all of Russia’s reported industrial growth. Without war production, the economy is stagnating.

With Trump likely to lift sanctions, Russia would have the means to expand—militarily and territorially.

So the question isn’t whether Russia wants another war—but what country is next?

Crimea Is Not Russia—No Matter What the U.S. Tries to Claim

Trump’s sham plan hands Moscow everything it’s demanded for over a decade—plus more. At its center is formal U.S. recognition of Crimea as “Russian” territory, despite its illegal annexation in 2014 and war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and systemic repression Russia has carried out since.

Since occupying Crimea in 2014, Russia has imposed a brutal regime of persecution: forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing, and the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Crimean Tatars have been systematically targeted—imprisoned, tortured, silenced. Crimea has been transformed into a militarized surveillance state, controlled by Russian intelligence and used as a launchpad for further aggression.

To recognize Crimea as “Russian” is to reward genocide, invasion, and war crimes with international legitimacy. It is to erase a decade of suffering and declare to the world that “This is acceptable now.” And others are watching. China, among other authoritarian regimes, will see this not as an isolated betrayal—but as a green light. If Russia can invade, occupy, and annex land by force and still be rewarded, others will follow.

And that is exactly what Trump’s plan does. His proposal permanently blocks Ukraine from joining NATO, lifts sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014, and deepens U.S.-Russia cooperation. Ukraine would be forced to surrender territory—some of which Russia doesn’t even fully occupy—in exchange for vague “security guarantees” from a fractured West.

From Backchannels to Front Page Betrayals

In his first term, Trump’s pro-Russia agenda operated in the shadows by withholding aid, smearing career diplomats, and running backchannel schemes through Rudy Giuliani and other corrupt intermediaries and Russian agents. But now, in his second term, the betrayal is open and unapologetic.

Trump has already kicked President Zelenskyy out of the White House, frozen U.S. weapons and intelligence support, and sidelined America’s allies from Ukraine negotiations. He is actively coordinating with Russia through real estate developer Steve Witkoff, while undermining NATO and encouraging isolationism.

The U.S. has made it clear that it will no longer defend Europe. Trump has repeatedly questioned NATO’s Article 5, threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from allied countries, and even told Russia it could “do whatever it wants” to NATO members who don’t meet defense spending targets.

Russia Is Preparing for the Next War—And Trump Is Clearing the Way

Trump’s actions represent a betrayal of the United States' closest allies, a rejection of international law, and a complete disregard for the victims of Russian brutality. While Trump delivers political and strategic concessions to Moscow, Putin is openly constructing the next phase of Russia’s military conquest, with ambitions that stretch far beyond Ukraine.

For more than a decade, I’ve warned that Georgia was only the beginning. After Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Ukraine was next—and the pattern has never been subtle. Russia’s bloody imperial appetite stretches far beyond its current borders, driven by a desire to resurrect the Soviet sphere of influence and dominate its neighbors through force. If Ukraine falls, the Kremlin will not stop there.

The next targets—Moldova, the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, and others—are not hypothetical. They are already in Russia’s strategic crosshairs and are actively facing the early stages of Russian aggression: sabotage operations, arson attacks, assassinations, disinformation operations, and assaults on critical infrastructure. These aren’t isolated incidents—they’re part of a coordinated strategy to destabilize and divide.

Now, with Trump back in power, signaling a retreat from U.S. commitments in Europe and reportedly preparing to scale down America’s military presence, the timeline for further Russian aggression is no longer a distant threat.

---

The source for the “Meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission” is the Kremlin website.

---

---