🎯 Ego, transaction and optics. That’s Trump’s language. Putin’s is conquest.

This is the core asymmetry: Trump sees war as a deal to close and a personal triumph to claim. Putin sees it as a civilizational and imperial project, with human life—including Russian life—as expendable. One is chasing applause. The other is willing to absorb carnage.

Putin knows Trump’s strings by heart — and plays them expertly.

— GP

h/t Giorgi Revishvili