Tag: ukraine

Ukraine’s battlefield position is deteriorating fast

The election of U.S. President Donald Trump changed U.S. policy toward Ukraine from “as long as it takes” to seeking a negotiated peace settlement. These negotiations will be driven by the battlefield reality. The side holding the biggest advantage gets to dictate the terms. This gets more complicated if there is no ceasefire during the negotiations and the battlefield remains dynamic. Belligerents may conduct offensive operations while negotiations are progressing to improve their bargaining position. Historically in many conflicts, peace negotiations lasted years, even as the war raged on, such as during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Thus, the balance of power, measured in resources, losses and quality of strategic leadership are critical to the outcome of negotiations.

For Western powers, this carries serious consequences. They have staked their reputation on this conflict and with it, the fate of the rules-based world order. The Global South and the multipolar world order is waiting in the wings to take over. Failure to achieve victory has the potential to fatally undermine that order and remove the West from global leadership, which it has enjoyed for the last several centuries.

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Ukrainian Drones Have Been Targeting Historic Orthodox Churches In Russia

Throughout over three years of the Russia-Ukraine war, there has been a sad and tragic trend of churches being struck by missiles, drones, or bombs on both sides of the conflict.

But attacks on religious sites have gone all the way back to 2014, and the start of the conflict in the Donbass, which saw pro-Kiev forces frequently shelling Russia-aligned areas, including attacks on Orthodox churches

And of course, since then the Ukraine government has actively and openly persecuted Ukraine’s largest Orthodox church for simply maintaining spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Famous, historic monasteries have been shut down or seized by authorities, monks expelled, and churches have been raided by far-right nationalist militant groups. As for the other side, Russian aerial raids have often devastated whole Ukrainian neighborhoods, including destruction of local churches.

In a fresh incident, Russian government and media sources say a Ukrainian drone was sent across the border and struck an iconic, historic church in Belgorord region, which set the church on fire.

Local Belgorod governor Vyacheslav issued a statement on Telegram Saturday saying “the enemy is striking our holy sites again – an enemy drone has attacked Saint George Church in the village of Tolokonnoye.”

Emergency crews were able to extinguish the blaze, but not before the church’s domes caught on fire…

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INSANE: Zelensky Hints Ukraine May Attack Victory Day Parade in Moscow That Will Include 20 Heads of State

On the one hand, we all know ‘talk is cheap’, so it may be that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is just posturing when he hints that his forces may well attack the May 9th Victory Day Parade in Moscow, Russia – an event that will gather thousands of people, including as many as 20 heads of state.

This would amount to an especially damning escalation since Putin declared a 3-day truce from May 8-10 – a proposal that Kiev sneered at, but hasn’t publicly rejected.

However, given the apparent lack of common-sense reasoning, many people are taking him seriously when he says Russia is ‘rightfully worried when it fears an attack on the military parade’.

“We in Ukraine never wanted a single second of this war. Back on March 11, we responded positively to the American proposal for a full ceasefire. We made our own proposal to Russia – bilaterally – to halt strikes at least on civilian targets. We also proposed making the Easter ceasefire full and extending it for thirty days.

Russia has consistently rejected everything and continues to manipulate the world, trying to deceive the United States. Now, yet again, another attempt at manipulation: for some reason everyone is supposed to wait until May 8 before ceasing fire — just to provide Putin with silence for his parade.

We value human lives, not parades. That’s why we believe — and the world believes — that there is no reason to wait until May 8. The ceasefire should not be just for a few days, only to return to killing afterward. It must be immediate, full, and unconditional — for at least 30 days to ensure it is secure and guaranteed. This is the foundation that could lead to real diplomacy.

We reaffirm this proposal. The American proposal also remains on the table. Russia knows exactly what it needs to do and how to respond: to genuinely cease fire.”

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As VP Vance Says the Russia-Ukraine War ‘Is Not Going to End Any Time Soon’, State Department Spokeswoman Warns US ‘Not Going To Mediate Peace Talks Anymore’

The war in the Ukraine is in its third year. While a lot of progress in peace talks was made in the last 100 days under the auspices of the Donald J. Trump US administration, we’ve apparently come to the point where the initiative must now be seized by the Russian and Ukrainian warring parties.

For weeks now, we have been hearing from Trump and his top cabinet members that, because of the lack of tangible progress by the two sides in the peace process, the US may be about to leave the position of a mediator in the negotiations.

It seems that this day has arrived.

First, Marco Rubio told Fox News that progress between Russia and Ukraine was ‘not fast enough.

Then, VP JD Vance told the same Fox News that the Ukraine war is ‘not going to end any time soon’, in a rare admission of the difficulties that the peace process is facing.

Sky News reported:

“Russia and Ukraine are getting closer to a peace deal but not fast enough, the US’s top diplomat has said.

Marco Rubio repeated that Washington was ready to step aside and stop pursuing peace should a deal not materialize – a threat he’s made several times in the past week.

‘I think we know where Ukraine is, and we know where Russia is right now… they’re closer, but they’re still far apart’, he said during an interview on Fox News.

But vice president JD Vance told the same network that he didn’t see a quick end to the conflict.

‘It’s not going anywhere… it’s not going to end any time soon’, Vance said.”

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European Union Continues Sabotaging Trump’s Ukraine Peace Efforts

The European Union at this point seems much more open about its willingness to sabotage Trump efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine. 

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas has told the Financial Times in a fresh interview this week that the bloc will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea under any circumstances. Really, this should be the most obvious and ‘easiest’ concession to make, but alas Brussels is saying no!

The White House is seeking to pressure the Zelensky government to get to the negotiating table fast, and the quickest and easiest concession would be expected to center on letting go of Crimea, which Moscow declared part of the Russian Federation after a 2014 popular referendum.

“I can’t see that we are accepting these kind of things. But we can’t speak for America, of course, and what they will do,” Kallas said. “On the European side, we have said this over and over again… Crimea is Ukraine.”

“There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war,” Kallas continued. “President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing.”

This has basically been the Ukrainian government’s position all along as well. For this reason, she said Brussels and other European capitals are still focused on “working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest, that Russia doesn’t really get everything that it wants.” But again, Crimea should be the easiest issue.

On the question of the scenario where Washington successfully resets relations with Moscow and eventually withdraws arms and intelligence support for Kiev, she said:

“It is clear that these types of discussions are going on in certain member states and maybe hopes that we don’t really have to support [Ukraine] any more,” said Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister. “But it’s also a false hope, because if you look at Russia, that is investing more than 9 per cent of its GDP on the military, they will want to use it again.”

Currently the US is reportedly seeking to convince Kiev and Europe of a de jure recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian areas of control in eastern Ukraine, based on a ‘freeze’ of battle lines.

Trump presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Fox News this week that Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions, but wouldn’t consider any ceded territory as a permanent situation. 

“Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they’ve agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that’s what they’re willing to go to,” Kellog said. “You have your line set, and they’re willing to go there,” Kellogg emphasized. 

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Radio Liberty Let The Cat Out Of The Bag Regarding The EU’s Game Plan For Ukraine

Russia can expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine…

Russia has long warned that any unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine of the 30-day sort that Zelensky has proposed could create an opening for NATO to expand its military influence in that country. Hitherto dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the West, Radio Liberty just let the cat out of the bag. The unnamed officials who they cited in their recent article confirmed that they envisage this “buy[ing] the Europeans time to assemble a ‘reassurance force’ in the Western part of Ukraine” and organize “air patrols” there.

Their reported game plan is “keeping the Americans onboard” the peace process, “sequencing” the conflict by clinching a ceasefire that’ll later lead to a lasting peace, and using the aforesaid interim period to carry out the abovementioned military moves for pressuring Russia into more concessions. 

What’s omitted from Radio Liberty’s article is that Russia has threatened to target Western troops in Ukraine, who Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier said wouldn’t enjoy Article 5 guarantees from the US.

Even if Putin agrees to this concession that’s assessed to be among one of the five significant differences between him and Trump that prompted Trump’s angry post against Putin, Radio Liberty reported that this still wouldn’t lead to de jure European recognition of Russia’s territorial gains. 

The same goes for them lifting sanctions or returning any of its €200 billion of seized assets. More sanctions might even soon be imposed and the windfall profits from those assets will “bankroll Ukraine’s military needs”.

Given what Radio Liberty revealed, Russia can therefore expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine. Any hopes of restoring Ukraine’s antebellum buffer state status would be crushed, and it can’t be ruled out that the EU’s zone of military activity could later expand to the Dnieper or beyond. One of the special operation’s goals was to prevent the West’s eastward military expansion so that would be another major concession.

Putin’s decades-long close friend and influential senior aide Nikolay Patrushev just told TASS earlier this week that “For the second year in a row, NATO is holding the largest exercises in decades near our borders, where it is practicing scenarios of offensive actions over a large area – from Vilnius to Odessa, the seizure of the Kaliningrad region, the blocking of shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas, and preventive strikes on the permanent bases of Russian nuclear deterrent forces.”

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Tucker Carlson accuses Ukrainians of trying to kill Trump

Ukraine was involved in a plot to assassinate US President Donald Trump during his 2024 reelection campaign, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed.

In September 2024, pro-Ukraine activist Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after setting up a firing position with a rifle near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was spotted by Secret Service agents before he could open fire and was detained following a brief manhunt.

“It’s very obvious that the Ukrainians were involved in the attempted assassination on the golf course in Florida,” Carlson said on the Megyn Kelly Show on Tuesday.

“That guy definitely had some contact with Ukraine, for sure,” Kelly replied. “He was in Ukraine!” Carlson stressed.

Kelly said Routh was “asking them” for heavy weaponry, including rocket-propelled grenades. Carlson agreed and suggested that Kiev may have been involved in other assassination plots.

“I know for a fact there were others who were a target of assassination attempts by the Ukrainian government,” he claimed, without providing details.

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Russian Official Says Trump’s Mineral Deal Forces Ukraine to Pay For Future US Military Aid

Following the signing of President Donald Trump’s mineral deal by Ukraine, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Washington has broken the Zelensky Regime with the agreement. He posited that Washington is effectively forcing Kiev to pay the U.S. for its future military aid. Medvedev’s analysis appears to pan out based on statements by Reuters, The New York Times and the Ukrainian official who signed the deal.

“Trump has broken the Kiev regime to the point where they will have to pay for U.S. aid with mineral resources,” Medvedev said on Telegram. “Now they (Ukrainians) will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country.”

U.S. military aid, specifically air defense, is part of the mineral deal, however that aid will be derived from the newly created fund, which is paid for by Ukraine’s own mineral resources.

“The Fund will finance reconstruction efforts, with both sides contributing – including via future U.S. military aid in the form of air defense, a notable change from the last deal draft,” the Kiev Post said Wednesday.

While the full text of the final mineral deal has not yet been officially published, several sources have reported on the fact the agreement does not provide specific ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine, a key stipulation of Ukrainian Dictator Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘victory plan‘.

“The Trump administration did not immediately provide details about the agreement, and it was not clear what it meant for the future of American military support for Ukraine. One person familiar with the negotiations, discussing them on the condition of anonymity, said the final deal does not include explicit guarantees of future U.S. security assistance. Another said the United States rejected that idea early in the process,” The New York Times said Wednesday.

“The agreement did not, however, provide any concrete U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, one of its initial goals,” Reuters said Wednesday.

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Europe Just Proved Trump Right About NATO

In a shocking-not-shocking exclusive report in The (UK) Times, Europe “would struggle to put 25,000 troops on the ground in Ukraine” as part of a postwar peacekeeping force. Defense Editor Larisa Brown “was given a rare insight into conversations between Europe’s defence ministers and military chiefs as they thrashed out plans for a ‘coalition of the willing’ force,” and the results are as disappointing as they are sobering. 

And you know how much I hate sobering.

British defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin asked European defense ministers “if they could put together a 64,000-strong force to send to [Ukraine] in the event of a peace deal.” Britain offered up to 10,000 personnel, but even then, “defence ministers across Europe said there was ‘no chance’ they could reach that number and that even 25,000 would ‘be a push for a joint effort.'”

This is not your father’s NATO.

During the Cold War, the British Army of the Rhine stood watch in West Germany for half a century with a force of 50,000 men — and the promise of swift reinforcements almost as quickly as the balloon went up.

Today, all of European NATO couldn’t put a peacekeeping force in Ukraine of half that size without wheezing like an asthmatic with a sinus infection hiking up Kilimanjaro.

NATO was always a little fractured and weaker than it should have been. Unlike the Warsaw Pact on the other side of the Iron Curtain, NATO members were independent nations, each with its own priorities and needs.

Paris could complain about American “hyperpower” all it liked, but we didn’t send in the tanks — like Moscow would have — when France withdrew its forces from NATO command and ordered NATO troops out of France in 1966. We just made do. 

And while Washington was correct to ask for more “burden-sharing” from our allies during the Cold War, it wasn’t as though they didn’t take the Soviet threat seriously. The West German Bundeswehr consisted of 10 battle-ready heavy Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions, plus another division each of airborne and mountain forces — for a total of 38 combat brigades. That was just the Field Army. The Territorial forces consisted of reserve troops — older men called up to defend their cities, towns, and homes — amounting to another 450,000 soldiers. 

But here’s the rub.

West Germany raised those forces from a population of 60 million with a GDP of $1.6 trillion in today’s dollars. Unified Germany has 80 million people, a GDP of $4.7 trillion, and a military of three divisions that are understaffed, under-trained, and unfit for combat.

The balloon went up more than three years ago in Ukraine, and yet the only substantial-sized NATO member seriously rearming is Poland.

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SICK: Zelensky Praises Ukrainian Intelligence’s Campaign of Car Bombings and Other Terrorist Attacks That Target Military Officers, but Also Journalists and Civilians

It’s not unusual for parties losing a war to a stronger enemy to engage in ‘asymmetrical tactics’ of fighting. We have a name for that: terrorism.

Hailed as a hero by the western MSM, ‘mini-Churchill’ Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian leader who rules via martial law, who incarcerated or exiled his political adversaries and censored the media, is supposed to symbolize ‘the best of democratic virtues’.

But what we saw yesterday (28) was Zelensky praising terrorism, even if he couched it with beautiful words.

Zelenskiy commended Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service on Monday for the killing of ‘top Russian military figures’ since the start of the war.

Zelensky did not specifically mention last Friday’s car bomb that killed Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces – but that’s what he was alluding to.

Reuters reported:

“Authorities in Kyiv have made no direct comment on the attack on Moskalik, the latest in a series of Russian military officers and pro-war figures killed since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.”

But the car bomb campaign also targets civilians, Administrators of the conquered regions, journalists…

The first high-profile victim of these terrorist operations was journalist Daria Dugina, daughter of famed Russian philosopher Alexandr Dugin, who died in a car bomb intended for her father.

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