Poll after poll has shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans reject direct US military involvement in Ukraine - such as sending troops or other actions which could constitute the start of direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

The reality also remains that most Americans can't find Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia on a map. Does the American public really want to constantly poke the Russian bear over places they can barely pronounce? Do they really care who owns the Donbass? "Where!?..." - your average Joe sixpack is likely asking.

Why then, Mr. Trump, are you actually contemplating giving Zelensky, who you once dubbed the 'greatest salesman on Earth', America's own vital long-range Tomahawk missiles?

Why are you indulging yet a fourth in-person meeting with Zelensky (and specifically his third trip to the Oval Office) since you took office in January? Where is the pressure on Zelensky to cede territory and rapidly end this bloody and tragic war? Where are the loud assurances of no more NATO expansion to Russia's border?

Why can't the Ukrainian government, which has already received billions in US taxpayer funds, so much as admit that it has lost Crimea forever? Even this smallest of admissions and concessions would be a big something offered on the path to peace. And yet Kiev remains vocally against ever ceding Crimea, despite the obviously impossibility of ever getting it back (and absolutely everyone knows this).

Instead of any semblance of the ability to make compromise, even though it's obvious to pretty much all that Ukraine's military has been steadily losing a 'war of attrition', Zelensky is busy meeting with Raytheon executives before walking into the White House on Friday morning. 

This is all part of the pressure and pitch to persuade Trump to give Ukraine the sought after long-range missiles capable of reaching all main population centers in Russia.

"We discussed Raytheon's production capabilities, possible ways of our co-operation to strengthen air defence and increase Ukraine's long-range capabilities, and the prospects for Ukrainian-American production," Zelensky posted on Telegram early Friday.

Even mainstream, generally anti-Kremlin outlets like the BBC understand that this would open up a new phase in the war, where powerful American weapons are directly raining down on Russian cities:

We've been reporting that the possibility of the US sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine is causing "extreme concern" in the Kremlin. That's because these missiles could drastically increase Ukraine's range capabilities.

As the map below shows, Tomahawks can strike objects up to 1,600km (995 miles) away - putting dozens of Russian military bases, air defense sites and command centers in the range of fire.

There's also been much reporting saying that American contractors and personnel would have to themselves man the systems or oversee them, which is yet more 'boots on the ground' mission creep which Trump had earlier vowed to resist.

Again, will Washington risk WW3... all in the name of 'leverage' against Putin... while bowing down to yet another Zelensky demand - this time in the form of missiles that can reach 1,000 miles inside Russia? If roles were reversed, and a foreign entity were on our doorstep launching long-range missiles into the United States, we would without doubt immediately go to war and be put on nuclear alert.

Why risk all of this... again, for the question of who owns tiny Ukrainian oblasts halfway across the globe which most Americans could in reality care less about?

There's still hope that rational minds will prevail at the White House, based at least on some of Trump's sarcasm on display last night...

Below, a ZeroHedge reader and top commenter submitted this astute observation on the likely true state of things vis-a-vis Washington and Europe in the context of the Ukraine crisis.

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The “Democracy vs. Autocracy” myth died in Ukraine’s trenches. What replaced it is far darker: the engineered deconstruction of Europe itself. Cheap Russian energy was severed (via Nord Stream sabotage), not to help Ukraine win — but to break Europe’s economic spine. Weapons stockpiles were drained into a black hole, and now the continent is left dependent on overpriced U.S. arms, powerless to forge its own peace.

NATO’s eastern expansion was never about defense — it was about destabilizing Russia and locking Europe into vassal status. Now, as Ukraine bleeds dry, the Empire smiles: the real target was never Moscow, but Brussels, Berlin, and Paris. This isn’t a blunder. It’s a controlled demolition.