The Trump-Musk mafia are threatening to cut Ukraine adrift

US government officials have been threatening to cut off Ukraine's vital battleground access to Starlink unless Ukraine agrees to hand over a massive chunk of their national mineral wealth to the US

Ukraine is in deep trouble after the ascension of the Trump-Musk mafia in the United States.

US government officials have been openly threatening the Ukrainian government that their vital battleground access to Starlink communications will be cut off unless they agree to hand over a massive chunk of their natural mineral wealth to the US.

Starlink have refused to comment on the situation, but it’s hard to imagine that these threats are being made without Musk’s permission, given the de facto control Trump has given him over the entire US federal government.

The US demands for 50% of Ukraine’s mineral reserves are utterly extraordinary, not least because the value of such a deal would absolutely dwarf the $106 billion in US aid that has actually reached the Ukraine government.

Donald Trump has begun spewing vitriolic rhetoric about Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia, and portraying Zelenskyy as a dictator, while Zelenskyy has retorted by accusing the President of his country’s biggest single military backer of "living in a disinformation bubble".

It’s an astonishing turnaround from the rapturous applause Zelenskyy received after his speech to the US Congress in 2022.

Zelenskyy has gone from wonderful hero to detestable dictator overnight in the US, and this instant pivot illustrates his folly in imagining that US intentions in Ukraine were ever benevolent, and for allowing his country to become the battleground in a proxy war between NATO and Russia.

The term proxy war deeply angers Ukraine supporters, but it’s extremely difficult for anyone to explain how it isn’t a proxy war when Ukraine is has become entirely dependent on arms and financial aid from NATO countries (something in the region of $380 billion by 2024), and when Trump and Putin have now brazenly excluded Zelenskyy from their negotiations over the future of Ukraine.

How’s it not a proxy war if neither Zelenskyy nor the Ukrainian people even get a say in the future of their country as it’s territory and resources are carved up between Russia and the US?

The Trump-Musk mafia are behaving like a protection racket, demanding Ukraine hand over a massive chunk of their national mineral wealth, otherwise they lose access to the battlefield communication platform that’s become so vital to them over the course of the war.

Trump and Musk want Ukraine’s rare earth metal resources so much because the US is badly trailing China in access to the rare earth metals that are so vital to modern communications and green technology.

This US lust for rare earth metals has increased dramatically after China resolved to "choke off" supplies to the United States in response to US trade sanctions and embargos against China.

We know that Elon Musk has form in regards to looting of other countries’ mineral reserves after his notorious "we’ll coup whoever we want" Tweet about the 2019 coup in Bolivia and the US grab for Bolivian lithium reserves.

Zelenskyy is now trapped between Vlad Putin on one side and the Trump-Musk mafia on the other.

Putin is clearly going to demand control of the (oil, gas, and mineral rich) Russian speaking regions of Ukraine in the east, while Trump and Musk are making absolutely no secret of their desire to extract hundreds of $billions worth of Ukraine’s mineral wealth for free.

Add in the fact that Ukraine has suffered enormous battlefield casualties; massive infrastructure destruction; and the exodus of literally millions of people to Western Europe, and it’s clear that the future is bleak for Ukraine.

Comparing Ukraine’s situation now with what Russia was demanding in 2022 must be agonising for Ukrainians.

Russia wanted guarantees that Ukraine wouldn’t allow NATO expansion into their territory, as well as independence for the breakaway Russian-speaking regions in the east and acknowledgement of Russian control of Crimea.

With Trump and Putin negotiating the carve up of Ukraine between themselves now, it’s clearly going to be significantly worse.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has described Ukraine returning to pre-2014 borders as an "unrealistic objective", and insisted that "the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement".

Ukraine is going to lose the territories they’ve been fighting to control since 2014; their aspiration to join NATO now looks hopeless; they admit themselves they’ve suffered over 400,000 battlefield casualties; they’ve lost millions more in the exodus; the country is a war-ravaged wreck; and the US is demanding half of their mineral wealth for free.

And if they don’t comply with US demands, they’ll have their battlefield communications systems turned off in punishment.

If Zelenskyy tries to defy Trump and Musk by refusing to hand over his nation’s mineral wealth, everyone with a grain of knowledge about US imperialism knows what happens when leaders of their puppet regimes stop following orders. "We’ll coup whoever we want", remember.

It’s a diabolical situation, and it’s profoundly sad too because it was always obvious from the beginning that Ukraine was going to end up getting absolutely shafted if they allowed themselves to become the battlefield in a proxy war between Russia and the West.