159 ships that never existed. Sunk by a president who no longer knows which country he means, and declares Ukraine defeated

Donald Trump declares Ukraine militarily defeated and offers 159 sunken ships as proof. The same number he had already used days earlier. Back then it referred to Iran. Now it moves from one war to the next, as if the world were a drawer full of interchangeable enemies. Trump sits in front of journalists’ microphones and says Ukraine is militarily defeated. You would not know it if you read the “fake news.” They had 159 ships. All 159 are now under water. All aircraft have been shot down. That is what it looks like, he says, when a country has lost.

The problem with that sentence is not its political direction. The problem is that Ukraine has never possessed 159 warships. Never. The country has a small Black Sea fleet that has been reduced since 2014. 159 ships would be a navy Ukraine could not even dream of.

The number belongs somewhere else. Trump himself used it in the days before in connection with Iran. At the time he said the US Navy had destroyed 159 Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Now he sinks the same ships a second time, just under the wrong flag.

It is not the first time a president has lied. But it is the first time a president no longer knows which lie he is assigning to whom. Let that sink in. A man who commands the most powerful military in the world sits in front of journalists and allies and mixes up two wars. Not in a private phone call. In an official press conference, where he explains how the war in Ukraine has supposedly ended. Using arguments that belong to an entirely different country.

In the same breath Trump says the war in Ukraine and the confrontation with Iran could end “around the same time.” Which one first, he does not know. Maybe they have similar timelines. It sounds as if he is talking about two deliveries he ordered and is waiting for. Not about countries. Not about people. Not about the dead.

On the same day Trump spoke for ninety minutes with Vladimir Putin. The conversation took place in a “friendly and businesslike format,” said Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov. Putin said he was prepared to declare a ceasefire for May 9, the day of the Soviet victory over Hitler. Trump calls it a “small ceasefire.” He believes Putin is open to a deal, but “some people” have made it difficult for him. Which people, Trump does not say. In earlier remarks he had described Zelenskyy as the main obstacle.

A president who can no longer distinguish the ships of one war from those of another is now negotiating the fate of a country whose navy he has just invented.

Ukrainian media do not believe a word Trump says. Even in Russia itself many Telegram channels acknowledge that the president likely confused the countries. Even pro Russian commentator Oleg Tsaryov writes that in context Trump must have been referring to Iran, because that is where the ships were sunk. When Russian propaganda has to correct its own talking points, something has gone out of control.

What is visible here is more than a slip of the tongue. Slips are corrected. Trump does not correct. He sticks to his statement. Ukraine is defeated, the ships are under water, the aircraft have been shot down. No one in the room contradicts him. No one raises a hand and says, Mr. President, that belongs in a different file. The correction does not happen. The lie stands because it was said loudly enough. That is the real story. Not that a 79 year old man confuses countries. Better minds have done that. But that the system around him is set up to turn every confusion into truth. Trump says something. It is broadcast. It is quoted. It becomes policy. And tomorrow he says something else that becomes policy again, even if it contradicts yesterday.

Ukraine has been fighting for more than four years. It has lost territory, people, entire cities. But it has not lost a navy of 159 ships because it never had one. What Trump describes is not the military situation in Ukraine. It is his own mind, in which the maps have slipped and two wars have blurred into a single image that he then shows to reporters.

And while he stands there sinking ships that were never built, he is on the phone with the man who is waging the real war. They speak for ninety minutes. They agree that Zelenskyy is an obstacle. They plan a ceasefire around May 9. They do this while the world wonders whether the American president still knows which war he is in.

This is an emergency. And no one calls it in, because the man who should be making that call is the emergency himself.

The 159 ships are not the story. The story is that someone who no longer knows which ships belong to which country has the power to end both countries. And that Vladimir Putin is on the other end of the line and knows exactly who he is speaking to. That is the advantage he has right now.