Vitamin R: Jake Broe’s Latest Video Is His Most Analytic Yet
- john raymond
- Aug 16
- 2 min read
Jake Broe’s latest video on the Trump–Putin summit in Alaska is his most analytic yet. It is a portrait not just of spectacle but of power in collapse—Trump presiding over a meeting that produced nothing of value, where even Fox News reported he was steamrolled, and the only enduring image is U.S. soldiers kneeling before a dictator for the cameras. Broe places the emphasis correctly: this was no negotiation, no ceasefire, no path to peace. It was pure theater for Putin’s propaganda.
Broe also delivers a battlefield update of unusual precision. He describes how Ukrainian deep strikes against refineries and supply lines have cost Russia billions, rupturing economic capacity in ways that sanctions alone never achieved. He highlights how salients the Russians trumpet as breakthroughs are cut apart and annihilated, while Ukraine steadily dismantles Russia’s industrial base. This, as Broe underscores, is the actual winning strategy: kinetic sanctions, applied through drones and deep-strike warfare, forcing Russia into long-term decline.
Where Jake may over presses his case is with the idea that the “Putin” in Alaska may have been a body double. The stronger frame is simpler: it doesn’t matter. Whether or not the man was genuine, the asymmetric outcome was the same. Trump provided legitimacy, optics, and cover while Putin’s apparatus pursued its goals. The Kremlin does not need Trump to meet the “real” Putin; they need him to repeat the delay cycle, to pressure Ukraine while freeing Russia’s hand. Broe captures this in his own shorthand—“two-week taco Trump”—and it is exactly the stall that keeps Russia alive.
To sharpen Broe’s analysis, three frames should be kept in mind:
Propaganda victory: Things like the kneeling-soldiers image are the summit’s immediate deliverables, that one already weaponized in Russian media.
Energy aside: Talk of Exxon returning to Sakhalin is best read as symbolic cover. No serious Western firm is going to sink billions into Russia mid-war. The point is not the deal itself, but the signal that Trump is willing to let Moscow pretend reintegration is possible.
Moral inversion: Every failed “talk” is meant to blame Ukraine for resisting dismemberment. Trump’s refusal to press Putin is not weakness; it is the mechanism by which the Kremlin reframes victim as aggressor.
Broe is correct to stress Ukraine’s resilience and Europe’s responsibility to arm up. His video’s strength lies in its clarity: the summit was empty, Russia still believes it is winning, and Trump’s performance shows he is ecstatic to serve a man who has built his career on slaughter.
The supplement is only that these moves are not merely incompetence but structural alignment. Trump’s role is to stall, flatter, and legitimize. Putin’s role is to exploit.
And Ukraine’s role, once again, is to fight for survival while the West watches the ugly pageantry of it all.
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