Tag: ukraine

Impeaching Impeachment: Declassified memos challenge key witness testimony from 2019 Trump case

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, one of the Democrats’ star witnesses in their first impeachment of Donald Trump, received repeated briefings, emails and memos related to the Ukrainian energy company that employed Hunter Biden, according to declassified documents that directly conflict with her and other witnesses’ testimony in the failed bid seven years ago to remove the president from office.

The documents released Friday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force show Yovanovitch and her aides were apprised of corruption concerns about Burisma Holdings, efforts by the company to repair its image or curry U.S. favor that would not “pass The Washington Post sniff test” and even a bid to get the Trump administration to approve a U.S. visa for Burisma’s controversial owner Mykola Zlochevsky, who was banned from American travel.

The memos provide a stark contrast to Yovanovitch’s testimony that the Biden-Burisma matter “just wasn’t a big deal” during her tenure as ambassador, and that she wasn’t briefed by staff on the issues surrounding Joe Biden’s son except for an initial briefing book during her 2016 Senate confirmation and what she read in the news media.

Yovanovitch and her top aides engaged in dozens of communications between 2016 and 2019 about Burisma, Hunter Biden, Zlochevsky and efforts by their legal defense teams and lobbyists to make investigations go away or curry favor for a company the State Department deemed to be corrupt, according to the documents the task force released, and additional memos obtained by Just the News under open records litigation.

A newly declassified email between Yovanovitch and her top deputy in Kyiv, George Kent, also directly challenges the primary argument Democrats made at the late 2019 House impeachment, namely that Hunter Biden’s relationship with Burisma had no impact on U.S. policy, and therefore it was wrong for Trump to seek investigations into the Burisma scandal.

“The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine b/c Ukrainians heard one message from us and then saw another set of behavior with the family association with a known corrupt figure whose company was known for not playing by the rules,” Kent wrote to Yovanovitch on Nov. 22, 2016.

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Zelensky Warns That 20 Million Ukrainians Would Pour Into EU If Russia Wins

Is that a threat?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders on Friday that if his country loses the war to Russia, as many as 20 million Ukrainians could be forced to flee to Europe.

Such numbers would make the 2015 European migrant crisis look like a walk in the park.

“Russia is killing us,” Zelensky said while speaking at a summit of European Union leaders. “They [Russia] don’t want to stop” and Ukrainian are being pushed out of their homeland, he said.

“What will happen if we fall? I don’t know, 20 million Ukrainians will come to Europe,” Zelensky declared.

Earlier this week, Zelensky indicated he felt ‘betrayed’ by President Trump as relations with Washington spiral, particularly over the diesel deal with Putin and White House pressure for Ukraine to stop hitting Russian oil refineries.

Trump has also late this week in a Newsmax interview said that Ukraine should hold a new national election, and added provocatively that that even Putin is easier to deal with than Zelensky.

Indicators inside Ukraine show support for Zelensky’s war policy is slipping…

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Italian Defense Minister Admits Most Italians Oppose Ukraine Aid, Sends It Anyway

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto has told the BBC that for the most part, most Italians are against sending arms to Ukraine. He admitted this in an interview at his Ministry in Rome, the full text of which was released on Sunday. And, in the meantime, Italy continues to send aid.

LaPresse quotes him as saying in an interview to the BBC at the Defense Ministry in Rome: “The majority of public opinion is against aid to Ukraine. But we have put together 12 aid packages and by the end of the year we will probably manage to put together another one.”

On Ukraine, Crosetto said: “We know perfectly well that our public opinion, also influenced from abroad, is mostly opposed to aid to Ukraine.” He added: “Above all, you cannot give in to public opinion when you believe public opinion is wrong.” He also said: “Ukraine will never be able to win the war. My objective is to ensure Ukraine survives and to bring the war to an end.”

Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia, Defense Minister Crosetto said in the interview to the BBC, adding that his goal is for Ukraine to survive and for the war to end. Victory for Ukraine, he said, would be “a victory for peace, a victory for justice, a victory for international law.”

A September poll by the Ixè institute found that only 18% of Italians want to continue to supply arms to Ukraine while the majority is looking on as prices skyrocket due to high energy costs. On Friday, in Rome, students from Italy’s secondary schools held a protest and chanted “We want more classroom, not more bombs” while truckers in the South have begun to block the roads in order to protest the sky rocketing prices of fuel. Crosetto blames the Russian disinformation campaign for the shift in public opinion. “It’s very hard to explain to a citizen who’s having trouble at the petrol pump that we can’t give any concessions to Russia right now,” he told the BBC.

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Ukraine, A Country Of Misery: What Were The Origins And Reasons For The Current War With Russia?

In this article we would like to explore the reasons and the origins for the current on-going war with Russia. What happened?

We would like to start with several hypothesis for this war that seem to us to not have been described by political observers of various size and colors.

  1. The current war is not only a geopolitical tournament for the area, it’s a war that based on vulgar reasons of access to cashflow channels from natural resources.
  2. The current war is based on a combination of political, geopolitical, economic, personal reasons of higher level that just money.

Let’s begin with how the reasons for the war are viewed and declared in Ukraine. The war is on the territory of Ukraine. Russia occupied approximately 26% of Ukraine’s territory from 2014. Thus, the occupant is Russia, the aggressor is Russia. Let’s explore the views and the reasons for the war from the eyes of the government of Ukraine and the average citizen of Ukraine (peresichniy hromadianyn, as they call this resident-citizen in Ukraine).

Please, pay attention of the conflicting views on the reasons and the origins. We tried to keep the voices and the views expressed as original as possible.

From the view of citizen-resident (without any particular order, what comes first to the mind is stated first). Please, be attentive, this list includes politically-correct and acceptable expressions of average Ukrainians and “expressions that are not-voiced openly in the public”, but easily expressed in private conversations and has been recently voiced in the soccer stadiums and on public TV channels.

  1. “Putin is huylo (dickhead), and he is the only and the main reason, all other reasons are derivative and subordinate”
  2. “Russia is an empire state, always wanted to occupy Ukraine, this is just the way things are”
  3. “Ukraine was a part of Russian Empire, thus, they want Ukraine back”
  4. “They need to back off NATO from the borders”
  5. “Poroshenko made a treaty with Putin-huylo and sold part of Ukraine”
  6. “Zelensky insulted Putin for so many years, it’s a matter of personal revenge for Putin on Zelensky”
  7. “The government of Ukraine was weak and sold us to Putin”
  8. “The government of Ukraine failed to deter Russia, thus, Russia occupied Ukraine”
  9. “Russia’s government understood how weak and stupid is the government of Ukraine is and decided to occupy the country governed by the imbecile politicians and the clowns”
  10. “The leftist ultra-nationalist and oligarch-sponsored government occupied Ukrainian government, seized some Russian assets on the territory of Ukraine, thus, Russian bandits decided to strike back to get even more out of Ukraine”
  11. “The left-sided, and brain-washed radicals and bandits from the Western Ukraine, sponsored from the Western countries, occupied the parliament, the ministries of Ukraine, and, led the country to it’s weak form, thus, allowing Putin and FSB to analyze the state of affairs and see that there is a possibility to strike”
  12. “Ukraine was never an independent state, not even from the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991”
  13. “KGB, now FSB decided to take Ukraine as a territory that was a part of it’s influence and temporarily went out of control after the coup of the Revolution of Dignity (or not-so-dignity, depending on what you know)”
  14. “Ultra-nationalistic forces from the West and the Western Ukraine control the government of Ukraine. They could not, didn’t even have a chance to negotiate with Russia. They spent 8 years to prepare for the war. They wanted this war.”
  15. “We wanted democracy and independence from Russia. Russia wants to control us, our government and our resources.”
  16. “Yanukovich sold us to Russia for gas. We don’t need gas from Russia. We do not need oligarchs from Russia doing busines in our country.”

From the view of politicians, current or former (retired) state officials of Ukrainian government (without particular order, what comes first to the mind is stated first). Please, be attentive, this list includes politically-correct and acceptable expressions of politicians and “expressions that are not-voiced openly in the public”, but easily expressed in private conversations. We will not provide the sources of those expressions and the names of the people who voiced them – if you want you watch the thousands of videos with Ukrainian politicians in your own spare time. We provide you the samples of the expressions and declarations.

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The Sheer Ignorance Of What’s At Stake Globally

This is a textbook case of how someone can reach the top of one field and still be utterly clueless about everything else. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg served as National Security Advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence and later as Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. He is Co-Chair at the Center for American Security, America First Policy Institute, USA, which is a Neocon think tank. The man’s ignorance is staggering. He has made no effort to examine the facts—or, more likely, he knows them and deliberately refuses to discuss how Victoria Nuland helped select the interim government that started this civil war and attacked the Donbas on Neocon orders.

He advocates that Zelensky should tell President Trump to go to hell and destroy every refinery in Russia. To illustrate his sheer stupidity: forget the food crisis he would cause in Russia, knowing that would lead to nuclear war—he completely ignores that Africa and the Middle East account for over 80% of Russia’s wheat exports, making those regions the most directly tied to Russian grain. Iran is 100% dependent on Russian grain. That would be a surefire way to make the Middle East explode into a full-blown war, which would then merge with the Russia-versus-EU war, and China and North Korea would join.

It is these Neocons, who simply hate the Russian people, who are cascading the world into World War III over a war they instigated using Ukraine. He would fulfill our model by pushing diesel to the extreme, projecting $8, which would hit the U.S. economy, reduce trucking, and result in a U.S. food shortage. This is what I mean. Expertise in one field does not qualify you to argue about things that will impact the rest of the entire world with zero comprehension of where that leads.

A full-scale war with Russia would very likely cause a severe global diesel crisis, and in many regions, a collapse in supply is a real possibility. The system is already under extreme strain, and a broader conflict would push it past its breaking point. Our computer projects $10+ a gallon by 2032.

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AfD’s Weidel Tells Berlin The Truth: A German Company Goes Bankrupt Every 19 Minutes While Merz Sends Billions To Kyiv

German businesses are going bust in alarming numbers, claims AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is devoting his strength and taxpayers’ money to Kyiv, she charged. The numbers for the first part of her statement are dramatic.

“A wave of bankruptcies is sweeping across our country,” Weidel said. “Every 19 minutes, a company in Germany goes bankrupt. In the third quarter of this year alone, the wave of insolvencies affected 41,000 jobs. Many of them will disappear permanently.”

The 19-minute figure traces to official data from the Federal Statistical Office. There were 2,373 corporate insolvencies in July, 8% up on the previous year and thus the highest July figure since 2013. As small-business expert Marc Evers of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry told n-tv: “Every 19 minutes a company in Germany goes insolvent.” In the seven months to end-July a total of 15,185 corporate insolvencies were registered, 6.9% up on the same period of the previous year. Insolvencies were most frequent in the transport and storage sector, followed by the hospitality industry and construction.

The figure of 41,000 jobs also corresponds with the third-quarter insolvency tracker from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH). According to this, there were approximately 4,880 cases of insolvency of partnerships and capital companies in the third quarter, down 2.3% from the record high of the second quarter. However, this still corresponds with the second highest number of quarterly cases of insolvency since 2005 and approximately 41,000 jobs were affected, about 10% fewer than in the second quarter. Weidel’s assertion that many of these jobs will disappear permanently is her own assessment and not a statistic.

Smaller businesses have not yet experienced the upswing the government is predicting for this year. Instead, according to n-tv, they are slipping into insolvency more and more often. Evers said the small upswing “threatens to be short-lived, because it is based mainly on high, debt-financed government spending.”

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Calls For Europe To Get Involved In The War Are Growing, Czech PM Babiš Says: Fight For 20 Years Or 10, Or Finally Do Something?

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says the calls for Europe to get involved in the war in Ukraine are growing, and he wants European leaders to say out loud what they are going to do. The Czech premier spoke to the press in Brussels on Thursday, as he was arriving at the European Union summit, Czech news site Ekonomický deník reported.

“Are we going to fight for another 20 years or 10 years, or are we finally going to do something?” Babiš told reporters as he arrived for the European Union summit in Brussels. There are growing calls for Europe to become involved in some way, he said.

The Czech Prime Minister saw Washington symbolizing Europe’s isolation. “Trump talks to Putin regularly,” he said, adding that Europe is completely out of the conversation. He characterized the deal about Russian diesel that Trump agreed with Putin as “not good news”. Above all, he said, Trump puts the United States first with elections coming.

Babiš then pointed at European leaders. “European leaders need to clearly say what they want, and we should agree on how we’re going to proceed,” he said. He made clear who is footing the bill: “We are paying for all of this.”

The frozen Russian assets were also expected to come up at the Summit. The Europeans were already very clear on this issue in Miami, a week ago, and told the Americans that no one would take control of these assets, the Financial Times reported.

Europe already has a military plan within the Coalition of the Willing, led by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. After a ceasefire is agreed a multinational reassurance force could be deployed inside Ukraine. The plan has already been discussed by Macron and Starmer and the UK and France signed a declaration of intent on the plan in January.

This is the background to Babiš’s question. A sitting EU prime minister goes to Brussels to say that more and more voices want Europe to be involved in the war. Europe is paying for it all, and the EU leaders should now say what they want. The only concrete military initiative put on the table so far is European troops on Ukrainian soil. And a question that few people ask: will the European voters also get a say?

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The Right-Wing Ukraine Divide Returns

President Donald Trump reignited a fierce debate within the American right on October 10, when he made some aggressive remarks about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Zelensky could’ve settled this war many times,” Trump said. “He chooses not to. Very difficult.”

Trump went on, “We said you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries, because that’s a world problem that it’s caused… and what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”

“He better damn well stop,” Trump continued. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal.”

Trump’s colorful statements come in the aftermath of an oil deal he announced with Russia, in which he says Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to distribute “300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” to the American and global markets. As the midterm elections quickly approach, Trump is making a last-ditch effort to bring down the price of gasoline and diesel here in America – an issue which has caused serious concern among voters.

The move was a brief and sudden departure from the foreign policy that has defined Trump 2.0 up to this point, which has been one that combines Bush-like hubris with a lustful attraction to militarism. Trump even seemed to have been growing fond of Zelensky, whom he had lambasted in February 2025 – saying the Ukrainian president was “gambling with World War Three.”

In response to the deal, the Russia-Ukraine war’s top boosters came out of the shadows to denounce the move as a betrayal of Ukraine. Former Vice President Mike Pence was among the pro-war figures to speak out, saying on Twitter/X that “President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.”

Lindsey Graham?

Graham, who died this past summer, was one of the biggest pro-Ukraine zealots in Washington. He was working up until his final hours to pursue the interests of Ukraine in the U.S. Senate. A fierce advocate for increased American support for Zelensky’s war effort, Graham also drafted legislation to sanction Russia – a bill which was passed over the summer in his memory. He often acted as Zelensky’s voice in Trump’s ear.

To say that American foreign policy should prioritize the defense of Graham’s legacy – a man who “never saw a war that he didn’t like,” in Trump’s words – is foolish at best, and dangerous at worst. The good news is that Pence isn’t in a position to enact such policy goals. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people close to Trump, or media figures from whom Trump seeks approval, who share Pence’s perspective.

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade is one such figure. Kilmeade has always held the line on supporting America’s foreign adventures, no matter how reckless or needless they may be. The proxy war in Ukraine is no different. After the news broke regarding the Russian oil deal, a debate ignited on Sunday’s edition of “Fox & Friends Weekend” between Kilmeade and Rachel Campos-Duffy, wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Campos-Duffy gave the administration’s pitch to the Fox audience, attempting to convince Kilmeade.

“[Zelensky] keeps blowing up these refineries after the President [Trump] said ‘please don’t do that,’ especially before the midterms,” Campos-Duffy said. “It’s hurting President Trump and the administration who’s been very generous towards him and his war efforts.”

Kilmeade responded, saying “The President got ticked off because Zelensky came out and said do not buy 500 million tons of diesel, which is in violation, I thought, of the bill that they just signed, Lindsey Graham’s bill. If you buy any energy from Russia, you’re going to get sanctioned and tariffed. Are we going to tariff ourselves?”

He went on, “Zelensky’s frustrated because now all this money is going to flow into Russia, who started this whole war unprovoked, their the bad guys… there’s no plausible, practical peace effort that Vladimir Putin would participate in effectively that would end this war. There’s one person who is responsible. Vladimir Putin. That is it.”

“It would be the biggest mistake of his administration to work with Russia,” Kilmeade added.

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SKIES SET ABLAZE After Ukraine Bombs Massive Oil Depot in Valuyki, Russia – Two Days After Zelensky Agreed to Trump’s Energy Ceasefire

It is pretty clear at this point that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy can not be trusted.

How many times has he turned on President Trump and America? It is too numerous to count.

Zelenskyy agreed to an energy ceasefire with Trump but his globalist masters had other plans.

On Tuesday — two days after President Zelensky agreed to Trump’s energy ceasefire – Ukraine bombed the massive oil depot in Valuyki, Oblast, Russia.

As Cristina Laila reported earlier, President Trump on Sunday announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

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Kallas & Zelensky Cannot Sleep as Long As One Russian is Still Breathing

For whatever it’s worth, it seems diesel fuel and heating oil are set to climb, with a final peak next March. A cold winter could speed that up, but Ukraine has already inflicted massive damage on Russia’s refineries. Diesel has a dramatic impact on food. In Asia, ships need diesel to transport food back, and farmers can’t harvest their crops without it. Trump is right that Zelensky is affecting the entire world, and Zelensky has openly said he doesn’t give a damn. Even worse, all the critics pushing for World War III insist Trump shouldn’t lift any sanctions on Russia. They won’t be satisfied until there’s a nuclear war.

In the case of wheat, we had a Directional Change in 2025 and that has been correct. A close at year end simply above 645 when we are currently at the 670 area is projecting a serious risk of a rally into 2030. Between Zelensky and Netanyahu, this dynamic-duo is really screwing the entire world and then we have ruthless Neocons, include Kaja Kallas in Europe, who cannot sleep at night as long as one Russian is still alive.

Even the Ukrainian government-controlled press states that they will NOT honor any ceasefire on energy. What if the EU were supplying Carney in Canada to wage war against the United States with 80,000 drones—who is the enemy? Canada, which launches the drones, or the country providing them? In law, if you hire someone to kill your spouse, you cannot claim innocence on the grounds that you didn’t pull the trigger. The UK has supplied over 80,000 drones to Zelensky, orchestrated by Boris Johnson, who has intervened to ensure Zelensky does not agree to peace.

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