By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
An international platform for national upstarts to upstage each other – trained roosters clawing at each other in a cockpit surrounded by money bettors.
This comes every September when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) holds what it calls High-Level Week and the General Debate.
Lame ducks can pretend to be roosters. For example, “I have a big decision to make”, President Donald Trump told the General Debate. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly.”
Unnoticed outside the cockpit, there was a serious meeting between the Russian and US foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio. Rubio’s official communiqué said how serious the meeting was by saying next to nothing. Rubio’s earlier meeting with the Bolivian president was reported in a communiqué of 10 lines; with the Kenyan president, 9; with the Italian foreign minister, 7; and with the Indian foreign minister, 6.
In his press conference later, Rubio revealed nothing of what he had heard from Lavrov. Instead, by repeating what Trump and Vladimir Zelensky have been repeating publicly and to each other, ignoring Lavrov, Rubio aimed to conceal the change in Russia’s line which had been spelled out to the Americans.
This new thinking isn’t new for the Russians. But for Americans used to hearing President Vladimir Putin’s negotiators Kirill Dmitriev and Yury Ushakov do the talking in private, it’s a problem Trump, Rubio and their associates have not been anticipating. They have been calculating on luring Putin to a summit meeting with Trump in Miami in mid-December, when the G20 summit conference is scheduled. Putin isn’t agreeing.
Rubio told the press after his meeting with Lavrov he’s not confident. “That [meeting] hasn’t been discussed,” Rubio said. He was lying; Lavrov said so.
“Look, the President of the United States,” said Rubio, “this President is willing to engage and meet with virtually anyone…In order to solve problems, you have to meet with people that you disagree with or the people that you might have some issues with. So, we’ve invited President Putin to the G20. We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the President but with other world leaders. We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept. There’s an opportunity in December if that happens… the ideal would be a meeting in which there will be a result, an outcome, and a lot of that means there has to be a lot of work that goes into it beforehand.”
Lavrov had just told Rubio what the Kremlin means by “beforehand work.” Rubio hasn’t liked what he heard.
For a start, Lavrov told Rubio to his face that Trump will be a lame duck president in six weeks’ time, after the November 3 congressional election. “The parties also discussed preparation for the G20 events scheduled later this year,” Lavrov’s communiqué announced. That’s December 14-15, five weeks after the election. Lavrov and other Russian officials are waiting expectantly for that.
“The Russian party,” Lavrov told Rubio, “emphasised the importance of normalising bilateral relations as soon as possible, in line with the agreements reached by the Russian and US presidents.” This is Lavrov’s reference to Trump’s summit meeting with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, and the refusal since then on the American side, particularly by Rubio’s State Department, to agree to any form of bilateral normalisation. Lavrov was telling Rubio that no deal with Trump has been honoured before Trump had lost any of his powers to his opponents in Congress, so no deal can be expected after November 3.
Compared to the line Dmitriev and Ushakov have been telling the Americans that Putin has decided, Lavrov was saying there’s new thinking, new line.
In the podcast with Jamarl Thomas, recorded on Thursday morning, Washington, DC, time, the evidence is picked out of the cockpit noise from New York, and from the Lavrov communiqué explained word by word.
The last meeting between the foreign minister and secretary of state had been called by Rubio on July 23, at an ASEAN conference in Manila, for the purpose of issuing a private and public warning for the Russians to stop aid to Iran in their targeting of attacks on US bases in the Middle East war. Over the following eight weeks, the Russians ignored the warning. The US and the Ukrainians have retaliated, escalating drone and missile attacks on the Russian hinterland. Read the analysis of the July meeting.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/rubio-warned-lavrov-to-stop-hitting-cia-agents-us-troops-in-the-middle-east-or-else-this-is-how-putin-ordered-lavrov-to-reply/ “In this guarded fashion, and for the very first time, Putin has told Trump that if he continues to participate in killing Russians on Russian territory, Russia will strike to kill Americans in their bases.”
Here are the two official communiqués for this week’s UN meeting:
Source: https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/2146925/
Translated from diplo-speak, this is what Rubio heard Lavrov say and what Lavrov meant:
“The officials had a thorough exchange of opinions on a broad range of issues on the bilateral and international agenda following recent contacts at the highest level.”
- Unless Trump agrees a comprehensive security pact covering all the war fronts, the end to sanctions and high seas war against Russian cargoes, and restoration of Russian diplomatic property in the US, there’s no deal.
“During the discussion of the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian Foreign Minister pointed out close coordination between the Kiev regime and its European sponsors. The parties substantively addressed Kiev’s destructive activity such as targeted attacks on the civilian population and trans-border infrastructure facilities, which destabilises global energy markets.”
- By European sponsors Lavrov meant to include Trump, the Pentagon, CIA and State Department.
“The Russian side reaffirmed its absolute commitment to the goals of the special military operation, including through political and diplomatic resolution by eliminating the root causes of the conflict.”
- Root causes mean the permanent war against Russia on all fronts. Lavrov means no short-term ceasefires in place, no energy target moratoria, no repeat of the Black Sea grain initiative, no winter relief for Kiev, etc
“Among the international and regional issues covered were the developments in the Middle East, the South Caucasus, in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the matter of countering illegitimate practices by several multilateral institutions that concern international law.”
- Lavrov is saying that US operations in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Brazil are hostile to Russia.
“The parties also discussed preparation for the G20 events scheduled later this year.”
- Putin will not accept Trump’s invitation to Miami unless there are concrete agreements on all fronts; a guarantee that the Europeans, Japanese and other US allies at the G20 summit do not insult the Russian president; and the personal security risk to Putin is eliminated.
“The Russian party also emphasised the importance of normalising bilateral relations as soon as possible, in line with the agreements reached by the Russian and US presidents, particularly in view of the recently intensified discussion of prospects of economic cooperation, cultural and humanitarian exchanges, relaxation of mutual travel restrictions, and facilitation of contacts between communities and people. It goes without saying that an honest dialogue on eliminating irritant factors is required as well as normalisation of the functioning of the Russian and US diplomatic missions, including the restitution of de-facto seized Russian property in the United States.”
- The working group of Foreign Ministry and State Department officials delegated to resolve the “irritant factors” has failed over more than a year of talks to produce any result because Rubio, with Trump’s approval, has ordered the stonewalling and concealed this dishonestly.
“The parties agreed to continue contacts between the foreign affairs agencies of the two countries on the issues discussed.”
- Rubio and Trump can count all they like on Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner to keep up their telephone and face to face contacts with Kirill Dmitriev but he is now a lame duck, like Trump.
Several hours after Rubio heard from Lavrov, he was asked by reporters if he is weighing the rooster and lame duck options for his own presidential campaign:
“QUESTION: Recent reports have described you as either closing the door to run in 2028 or still weighing your options. Can you clarify —
SECRETARY RUBIO: On what?
QUESTION: On running in 2028.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Oh, God. Come on, I told you guys I’m not talking about that stuff anymore. I have two – I have – I legitimately have, like, two jobs now. I don’t – I’m not talking about this stuff, okay?”
On current US polling, Rubio is slowly closing the gap with Vice President JD Vance for the Republican Party nomination. In the betting odds, he is trailing but the dynastic succession option for Trump, his son Donald Jr., calculated on the odds of Democratic Party prosecution launched in the new Congress, is no longer worth a bet.
Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2028/national
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