Saturday night erupted into a political wildfire when Donald Trump took the CPAC stage in Maryland at 8 PM PST, February 22, and launched a verbal assault on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that’s still reverberating across the globe. In a 45-minute speech streamed live on Fox News, the president-elect branded Zelenskyy a “belligerent fool” who’s “sucked America dry” with $200 billion in military and economic aid since Russia’s 2022 invasion—figures tallied by the Pentagon last month. Trump thundered that he’d end the war “in 24 hours” once he’s back in the Oval Office on January 20, dangling a new mineral deal as his trump card—Ukraine’s lithium and aluminum for U.S. cash to offset taxpayers’ tab. The crowd roared, X exploded with 4 million posts by midnight PST—half hailing “Trump’s peace genius,” half branding him “Putin’s lapdog”—and the air turned electric with unhinged stakes.
Zelenskyy wasn’t about to let it slide. At 10 PM PST, he fired a blistering rebuttal on Telegram from Kyiv, declaring, “Peace isn’t surrender—Ukraine fights for survival, not handouts,” a direct slap at Trump’s ceasefire pitch. The Ukrainian leader’s team doubled down—spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov told BBC at 11 PM PST that Kyiv’s mineral wealth “isn’t up for grabs,” rejecting the deal floated by Trump’s incoming NSA pick Mike Waltz, which Axios detailed at 9 PM PST as a desperate bid to keep Ukraine afloat with its $5 billion monthly war bill. Meanwhile, Russia’s Kremlin grinned via TASS at 11:30 PM PST—“West’s fracturing”—and Putin’s silence spoke volumes as his war machine churns toward year four.
The ripple effects are a global gut punch. Lockheed Martin, raking in $3 billion from Ukraine arms contracts, could see that dry up if Trump pulls the plug—CEO Jim Taiclet’s been mum, but shareholders twitched on late-night trades. Tesla’s Elon Musk, sniffing lithium for his EV empire, looms in the shadows after his Argentina deal yesterday—could Ukraine be next? X’s a screaming void—“Trump saves us” versus “Zelenskyy’s sold out”—while European leaders like France’s Macron and UK’s Starmer scramble for a Monday Oval Office huddle, per Sky News at 10:30 PM PST, to counter Trump’s bulldozer vibe. This isn’t just rhetoric—it’s a power clash rewriting alliances, with Zelenskyy’s defiance and Trump’s war chest swinging the pendulum wild.
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