‘We Can’t Go Through Four More Years of Chaos’ – Ukraine at War Update for July 17

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced he would hold his first rally since he was nearly assassinated three days ago at a Pennsylvania rally, scheduling an appearance in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday with his newly minted running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).

The announcement came on the second day of the Republican National Convention in nearby Milwaukee, Wisconsin (which, like Michigan, is considered a battleground state). Tuesday’s lineup included former Republican primary opponents Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, and venture capitalist turned pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, each delivering forceful endorsements of their erstwhile rival.

Also appearing on stage was one-time vice presidential hopeful Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who immediately attacked the current administration’s foreign policy.

“Around the world the feckless and failed Joe Biden has caused chaos, weakening our national security: from the catastrophic withdrawal of Afghanistan to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to Hamas’ terrorist attack against our most precious ally, Israel,” Stefanik said.

Haley, the former UN ambassador, blamed Biden and former president Barak Obama for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“But when Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing … no invasions, no wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough,” she said.

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Trump and Vance watched the proceedings from a VIP box along with Stefanik and rabidly anti-Ukraine representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Haley, who had promised a much more supportive view of aid to Kyiv, had said during her campaign that the United States “can’t go through four more years of chaos” under Trump. She had not been expected to appear, AFP reported. She had represented the most serious threat to Trump, winning the endorsement and money of some of the party’s most influential backers, so her absence at the RNC might have been understood.

Then again, the man who once swore he was a “never-Trumper,” Vance, was picked as his running mate even though he is on the record referring to the former president as “America’s Hitler” and saying that one would have to be “an idiot” to vote for him.

But Saturday’s shooting dramatically changed the political calculus. Trump’s former rivals now appear much more eager to wave his populist “America-first” banner in front of the party’s elite, especially with the isolationist, anti-Ukraine Vance on the ticket.

After meeting Trump, the former UK prime minister said the candidate would be “strong” in support of Ukraine

The UK’s former prime minister, Boris Johnson, met with Trump on Tuesday, one day after the candidate appeared to thundering applause from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

According to Britain’s former Conservative Party leader, whose premiership (2019-2022) overlapped for one year with the Trump presidency, the Republican leader is “strong and decisive” in supporting Ukraine.

“Great to meet President Trump who is in top form after the shameful attempt on his life,” Johnson wrote on social media Tuesday. “We discussed Ukraine and I have no doubt that he will be strong and decisive in supporting that country and defending democracy.”

Johnson was noted for his warm relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky, and his role in helping to build a coalition of allies for Ukraine’s defense.

According to Sky News, the meeting with Trump lasted about 30 minutes.

Four days prior, just before the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Trump had also met with Hungary’s right-wing populist leader, Viktor Orban, whose rogue “peace missions” as the new holder of the rotating EU presidency have drawn the ire of Brussels.

Orban had previously wrapped up an unsanctioned trip to Moscow purportedly to discuss peace proposals with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Orban has a discomfortingly close relationship. Trump’s party has a very divided platform on aid to Ukraine, to put it charitably, and Trump has famously promised he would put an end to the war “in 24 hours.”

“It was an honor to visit President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago today. We discussed ways to make peace,” Orban wrote on social media. “The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!”

On his own social media platform, Truth Social, Trump responded, “Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should have never started!”

Krynky has fallen, but Russians complete the evacuation of patrol boats from Crimea

Citing sources in the Marines, Ukrainska Pravda on Tuesday reported that the last troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) have withdrawn from the village of Krynky on the Dnipro’s left bank.

The village was Ukraine’s final foothold on the eastern banks of the river in that part of the Kherson region, representing the fruits of a courageous crossing of the river into occupied territory in October 2023, and a months-long holdout, with resupply missions extremely treacherous.

Russian forces had focused daily on pushing the AFU troops back to the right bank, and this slowly happened throughout this spring. The withdrawal was nearly complete several weeks ago, Ukrainska Pravda wrote.

Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that fighting elsewhere on the left bank of the river continued on Tuesday, but the think tank could not confirm any advances from either side.

The good news for Ukraine emerging from the South was that the last Russian patrol boat of the Black Sea Fleet has reportedly evacuated occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian Naval Forces Spokesperson Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk said the patrol boat arrived in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai on Tuesday. Pletenchuk noted that there are still Russian non-combat supply ships based in occupied Crimea.