Tag: russia

Trump’s Russia Sanctions Ultimatum Will Blow Up In America’s Face: Jeffrey Sachs

Economist and longtime adviser to the UN Jeffrey Sachs has issued a scathing critique of President Trump’s decision to unleash yet more anti-Russia sanctions, giving Moscow just ten days to negotiate for peace with Ukraine or else the new punitive measures will go into effect.

Sachs called the new policy “dangerous” and a sign that the Trump administration is plagued by contradictions and lack of a coherent strategy for ending the war, despite constant early boasting that Trump would rapidly achieve peace. The ‘secondary sanctions’ aimed primarily at those nations still trading with Russia are doomed to be ineffective anyway, the Colombia University professor pointed out.

“If the sanctions are actually applied, they are an escalation of the conflict, and therefore very dangerous. I do not believe that they will be effective,” he said in an interview with Russian media.

“For example, I do not believe they will stop Russia from selling oil, gas, and other commodities to Asian markets. Yet, provocations and escalation often have unpredictable negative effects, and that could be true here as well,” he added.

The new restrictions are likely to backfire regardless, as they “could expose” the “incompetence” or even “accelerate the breakup” of US-led geopolitical and economic blocs.

“This is, in short, the wrong approach. We need diplomacy and negotiation to get to the root causes of the conflict, and solve them, not unworkable ultimatums based on the idea of an unconditional ceasefire,” Sachs added.

He further highlighted the West’s inability to acknowledge and come to terms with the real underlying causes of Ukraine war, such as historic NATO expansion east, the sham Minsk accords, or the coup events of 2014.

“Instead, the Western powers now demand an unconditional ceasefire. Russia will not agree to this, nor will a new round of US sanctions compel Russia to agree to this,” Sachs emphasized.

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‘IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS’: Russian Forces Conquer Donetsk Stronghold of Chasov Yar After 17 Months of Siege

Chasov Yar opens up the way for the largest bastion in Donetsk, the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration.

Another ‘impregnable fortress’ in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk has fallen to the advances of the Russian forces.

This time, it was heavily fortified Chasov Yar.

We have been reporting on the battle for the city for a very long time. Back in April 2024, we started the series of articles with The Battle for Chasov Yar Has Begun – Russian Troops Reach the Outskirts of Key Donbas City – What We Learned From the Sieges of Mariupol, Bakhmut and Avdeevka (VIDEOS).

In the post you can find this: “Three things stand out from the coverage of the battles for Mariupol, Bakhmut (now called Artemovsk) and Avdeevka: to begin with, it will be long and bloody. Besides that, during all the operation, fake news shills will insist on how badly things are going for the besiegers. And finally, once the town is conquered, all the media will say that the city is nothing but a ‘meaningless pile of ruble’.

And so, as the battle for key Donetsk oblast stronghold of Chasov Yar commences, the usual scenario is at play.”

“To begin with, it will be long and bloody.” That was in no way an overstatement, as we learn that now, 17 months later, the Russian Defense Ministry announces that Chasov Yar has been conquered – or, as they prefer, ‘liberated’.

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Lockheed Martin Ready to Ship Typhon Missiles to Germany To Strike Moscow

The American defense contractor Lockheed Martin has pledged to accelerate the production of Typhon strike complexes for Germany if the United States and Germany sign a relevant agreement. The report was published by Defense News.
According to Edward Dobek, program director for launch systems at Lockheed Martin, the company’s facility in Moorestown, New Jersey is capable of delivering Typhon launchers to Germany within a year. He added that the faster delivery would depend on the governments of both countries reaching a timely agreement.
Earlier, the American magazine Military Watch Magazine reported that Germany is seeking to acquire Tomahawk cruise missiles and Typhon missile launchers from the United States, with the goal of gaining long-range strike capabilities potentially reaching as far as Moscow.

German Defense Ministry Confirms Interest in Typhon Systems

In July, following talks with his American counterpart Pete Hegseth, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated that Berlin is considering the purchase of Typhon missile complexes from the United States.

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Zelensky Urges Women and Seniors to Enlist

Where have we seen this before? President Volodymyr Zelensky is wiping through troops so rapidly that he is encouraging men and women over 60 years of age to enlist in the military. Previously prohibited, Zelensky signed the measure into law under the premise of martial law.

The new law encourages people over 60 to sign up for one-year military contracts if they are cleared to serve. There is now no maximum age of service. The Ukrainian military will place seniors under a two-month probationary period to see if they are fit to fight. I fear where they would place these individuals on the battlefield.

Last April, Zelensky also lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. Casualties outnumbered estimates, and in February 2025, Zelensky implemented one-year military contracts for teens and young adults aged 18 to 24 on a voluntary basis. The youngest and oldest among the population are encouraged to fight voluntarily, for now—again, where have we seen this before in modern history?

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Western Pressure On India Over Russia Already Backfired Even If It Partially Complies

India’s former Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin recently published an informative opinion piece at NDTV titled “Tariff Blitz: Is India Becoming Collateral Damage In Someone Else’s War?”

The gist is that the West, via Trump’s threatened 100% sanctions on Russia’s trading partners upon the expiry of his deadline to Putin for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the EU via its new sanctions barring the import of processed Russian oil products from third countries, is putting undue pressure on India.

They can’t defeat Russia on the battlefield by proxy, nor will they risk World War III by taking it on directly, so they’re going after its foreign trade partners in the hopes of eventually bankrupting the Kremlin.

This is counterproductive though since their threatened sanctions could torpedo bilateral ties, push India closer to China and Russia (thus possibly reviving the RIC core of BRICS and the SCO), and spike global oil prices, which hitherto remained manageable due to India’s massive imports from Russia.

Nevertheless, partial compliance is also possible due to the damage that Western sanctions could inflict on the Indian economy, so it can’t be ruled out that India might curtail its aforesaid imports and no longer export processed Russian oil products to the EU.

Full compliance is unlikely though since India would risk ruining its ties with Russia, with all that could entail as was touched upon here, while reducing its economic growth rate through higher energy prices and thus offsetting its envisaged Great Power rise.

Even in the scenario of partial compliance, however, Western pressure on India over Russia already backfired.

Their coercive threats and the very real consequences for no compliance whatsoever, presuming that exceptions can be made for partial compliance, are reshaping Indian policymakers’ views of the West and breeding resentment of their governments among its society. The “good ‘ole days” of naively assuming that the West operated in good faith and was India’s true friend will never return.

This is for the better from the perspective of India’s objective national interests since it’s more useful to have finally realized the truth than to keep having illusions about the West’s intentions and formulating policy based on that false perception. Conversely, this is for the worse from the perspective of the West’s hegemonic interests since their policymakers can no longer take for granted that India will naively go along with whatever they request and blindly trust its intentions. This new dynamic might lead to rivalry.

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“Step Towards War”: Kremlin Slams Trump Ultimatum, Unleashes More Deadly Missile Attacks On Ukraine

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued the Kremlin’s response to President Trump’s Monday announcement from Scotland that he’s reducing a deadline for Russia to agree a peace settlement from 50 days to 10 or 12 days, citing ‘disappointment’ in Putin not ending or at least winding down the war.

Medvedev, who serves as the current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, wrote on X that the US President was playing “the ultimatum game” with Moscow, which we should note is of course nuclear-armed, and that each new threat like this is a “step towards war”.

Medvedev warned: “Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran” and thus that “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with (Trump’s) own country.”

America’s own loudmouth hawk later in the day Monday responded with his own challenge pushing back. Here’s what the senator from South Carolina said on X:

“To those in Russia who believe that President Trump is not serious about ending the bloodbath between Russia and Ukraine: You and your customers will soon be sadly mistaken. You will also soon see that Joe Biden is no longer president,” Lindsey Graham said, adding: “Get to the peace table.”

Medvedev then responded to this on X, telling “gramps” to instead get busy working on America First. “Negotiations will end when all the objectives of our military operation have been achieved. Work on America first, gramps!” he said.

Trump’s new deadline means that he could impose fresh sanctions by somewhere in early August: possibly Aug. 7-9, as opposed to what was initially the 50-day window which would have ended on September 2.

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Russian Intel: US and UK Working to Oust Zelensky and Enthrone Zaluzhny – Ukrainian General Is Portrayed in the Pages of Vogue

The ousting of Kiev regime leader is ongoing – and today, the successor was anointed in the pages of Vogue.

After three and a half years hailed as the heroic defender of democracy and a present-day Churchill, Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky rapidly fell out of favor with both the exhausted Ukrainian population and with his masters in the West.

We reported today here on TGP how the EU has frozen all aid until the independence of the anti-corruption agencies is restored.

(The problem is that the agencies were investigating people on Zelensky’s and Andriy Yermak’s circles.)

But, according to Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the US and Britain not only want to replace Zelensky with General Valery Zaluzhny as president of Ukraine, but they are already plotting it, discussing it at a secret meeting in the Alps.

Until February 2024, Zaluzhny held the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Here he became famous as the organizer of meat grinders for Ukrainian troops.

Sputnik reported:

“In March 2024, due to a conflict with Zelensky and unwillingness to give him decision-making on army actions, he was removed from his post and sent as the Ukrainian ambassador to London. He probably carries out Kiev’s main communication with [British Intelligence] MI6.”

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Abandoning Ukraine

The war with Russia is now going very badly for Ukraine. But Ukrainians must feel like the world, and not just Russia, is treating them badly.

At the beginning of July, the Russian armed forces took full control of the Luhansk region for the first time. And, though it is too early to tell if they will hold it, there are now unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian front line defending Pokrovsk has collapsed and that the Russian army has broken through, rapidly advancing 6-10 km and cutting Ukraine’s supply lines. There are now even unconfirmed reports that Russian forces have entered Pokrovsk, which, if true, is a severe strategic setback for Ukraine.

But Ukrainians must feel that it is not just Russia that is pummeling them. Ukrainians must feel as though the whole world has abandoned them. 

In the first weeks of the war, before all the loss of life and land, Ukraine was prepared to sign a peace with Russia that would have satisfied its goals. The U.S. and its Western allies—particularly the UK and Poland—encouraged them off the diplomatic path and pushed them into war with Russia with the assurance that they would be provided with everything they need for as long as they need it.

Ukraine needs more, and they need it for longer, but the promise has been broken, and Ukraine is largely on its own. The U.S. will no longer provide Ukraine with military equipment unless European countries buy it for them. But several European countries have opted out of the deal, and even if all of Europe was all in, not enough weapons can be made available on time to save Ukraine.

Ukraine provided the bodies the U.S. asked for in its proxy war with Russia, but the U.S. broke its promise to arm them. Now the Donabas is nearly lost, the Ukrainian armed forces is in real danger of collapsing, and Ukraine looks to be on the verge of losing the war the U.S. pushed them into fighting.

And it is not just the U.S. that has abandoned Ukraine, it is the entire NATO community that pretended to court it. Ukraine was pushed to fight to defend its right to join NATO and NATO’s right to expand where it wanted. As the U.S. State Department explained it, “each and every country has a sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, has a sovereign right to determine for itself with whom it will choose to associate in terms of its alliances, its partnerships, and what orientation it wishes to direct its gaze.”

Ukraine was seduced with promises of an “irreversible path for Ukraine into NATO.” But at the recently concluded NATO summit, the issue of Ukrainian membership in NATO was not even on the agenda. The Summit Declaration contained not one word about Ukraine joining NATO and not one promise of an irreversible bridge.

Russia was not going to end the war without written guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO. But Russia did seem prepared to give Ukraine an open road to European Union membership. And Europe had courted Ukraine with promises of fast tracking their accession. But, like the U.S. and NATO, the European Union seems to have abandoned Ukraine.

Richard Sakwa, Emeritus Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told me in a recent correspondence that “a growing number of member states are growing uncomfortable with the idea of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.”

Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, promised in a recent social media post to “do everything” to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU. But Ukraine’s long time EU ambassador, Olha Stefanishyna, recently revealed that there is more than one country–not just Hungary–that have concerns about Ukraine joining the EU. Public support in some other countries, including the Czech Republic, is low. And Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, campaigned against Ukraine accession to the EU. 

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Kiev Kleptocracy… Stench of Corruption Fouls NATO Regime’s Endgame

The sewer gates are opening as the endgame approaches. It’s not just the Kiev cabal that will be swept away.

Previously, any observer who had pointed out the rampant corruption that is endemic in the Kiev regime was automatically denounced by Western governments and media as a peddler of Russian disinformation.

Hilariously, though, this week, the Kiev kleptocracy burst open in such a spectacular way that even the American and European apologists for the regime could no longer maintain the worst-kept secret of their charade.

The fiasco exploded after the self-appointed President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, passed a law that stripped two anti-corruption agencies of their independent powers.Raico, Ralph

Citizens took to the streets of Kiev and other cities in furious protest against what they openly lambasted as an autocratic regime trying to prolong its corrupt racketeering. The demonstrations were the largest seen on the streets of Ukraine despite the country being at war with Russia for over three years. As the Wall Street Journal reported: “The protests exposed long dormant divisions between the government and society.”

Zelensky, whose official presidential mandate expired last year, was stunned by the upsurge in public anger. By the end of the week, he was backtracking on the move to close the anti-graft agencies and was claiming, somewhat unconvincingly, that he was drafting a new bill to return the investigative powers. It was damage-limitation mode and largely prompted by the alarm of his Western backers.

It is not clear if the U-turn will appease the Ukrainian public, who appear to have reached a pivotal level of disgust with the Kiev regime, not just over its endemic corruption but also over the grinding war with Russia and forced mobilization of reluctant military recruits.

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Why’d Ghana Of All Countries Agree To Partially Finance Ukraine’s Drone Program?

Footing part of this bill in exchange for Ukrainian support for securing its borders is one of the costs that Ghana must pay as part of its involvement in the emerging anti-Russian regional coalition that plans to wage a protracted hybrid war against Moscow’s Sahelian Alliance/Confederation allies.

Zelensky announced after a call with his Ghanaian counterpart in early July that “Ghana is ready to finance our (drone) production, and we are ready to help our partners secure their borders.” This caught many observers by surprise since Ghana has a GDP per capita that’s a little less than half of Ukraine’s. It makes more sense though when one recalls that West Africa is one of the New Cold War’s fronts. Russia supports the Sahelian Alliance/Confederation while France, the US, and Ukraine support its opponents.

The last-mentioned trilateral’s backing of terrorist-designated Tuareg separatists in Mali and similarly designated Islamic radicals there, in Burkina Faso, and Niger has thus far failed to break up this bloc. That’s not to say that this subversion doesn’t stand a chance of succeeding, just that continued Russian security assistance makes it much more difficult than they expected. As a back-up plan, they’ve therefore preemptively sought out regional bases to facilitate a protracted hybrid war, ergo Ghana’s importance.

The Wall Street Journal reported as far back as January 2024 that “The U.S. is holding preliminary talks to allow American unarmed reconnaissance drones to use airfields in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Benin”. Nothing has yet to tangibly come from those talks, but the latest update from two months ago in May shows that the US decided to focus its efforts on Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Ghana is right next door, and both border the Sahelian Alliance/Confederation, so there’s a logic to Ukraine cultivating ties with it.

Seeing as how “Ukraine Has Been Presenting Itself As A Reliable Mercenary Force Against Russia In Africa” via its involvement in Sudan and Mali, the precedent is established for it doing the same in Burkina Faso, which is the Sahelian Alliance/Confederation member that borders Ghana. An estimated 40% of Burkina Faso is already under the control of terrorist groups, some of whom are reportedly infiltrating into Ghana and the Ivory Coast, so Kiev’s quid pro quo with Accra is semi-legitimate.

Nevertheless, given the abovementioned role that Ukraine has played vis-à-vis Russia in Africa at the US’ behest, it should also be taken for granted that this semi-legitimate deal will be exploited as the cover for the West to ramp up its hybrid war against the Sahelian Alliance/Confederation. Ukraine’s speculatively forthcoming clandestine base of operations in Ghana will focus on Burkina Faso while the US’ openly planned drone base in neighboring Ivory Coast will divide its focus between there and Mali.

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