By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

On the one hand, there are the words.

In the analysis of  Oleg Tsarev, the leading Ukrainian opposition leader now in Crimea, the end-of-war terms presented by the Russian side at Istanbul on Monday afternoon  are “’not an ultimatum at all,’ [Russian delegation head Vladimir] Medinsky has stressed. Of course, Medinsky (lead image, left) is right. This proposal is not an ultimatum, but only a requirement for the complete and unconditional surrender of Zelensky.”  

On the other hand, there is the force.

Moscow military blogger reports and the Defense Ministry bulletin on the battlefield operations of Monday indicate little change in the volume of Russian drone attacks, the Ukrainian casualties, and territorial gains around the May average. In fact, Monday’s casualty rate was fractionally below Sunday’s.    While the Russian Army continues its westward advance along each of the five army group directions, there has been no resumption of the Russian electric war campaign. There has also been no reply to the Ukrainian operation of June 1 striking the  strategic bomber airfields at Murmansk, Irkutsk, Amur, Ryazan and Ivanovo, and the bridge and railway attacks at Kursk and Bryansk. “I hope”, commented Boris Rozhin, author of the influential Colonel Cassad  military blog, “that the military-political leadership will find a way to adequately respond. The blow should be painful… As long as we are waging a limited war, the enemy is waging a total war, the purpose of which is the destruction of our country and people. And no peace talks will change this. The longer it is in coming, the more unpleasant surprises.”  

On the one hand, at the Çırağan Palace on June 1, there was the meeting of 12 Russian negotiators (unchanged from the first meeting) with 14 Ukrainian negotiators  (minor  changes ) for just over one hour. The Russian delegation leader, Vladimir Medinsky, then briefed the press for nine minutes.  He followed the press briefing by Rustem Umerov (lead image, right) for the Ukrainian side, also reading from a notepaper like Medinsky.   Umerov, the Ukrainian Defense Minister, was the nominal delegation leader but outranked by Andrei Yermak, the chief policymaker for Vladimir Zelensky in the presidential office. Yermak told the press: “The Russians are doing everything not to cease fire and continue the war. New sanctions are very important now. Rationality is not about Russia.”   

On the other hand, before the three o’clock session Medinsky met in private with the nominal head of the Ukrainian delegation, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, for two and a half hours.    There has been no disclosure of who also attended on each side and what was said, except that, according to Tass, “this predetermined the effective course of further negotiations.”  

This fatuity cannot conceal that real negotiations had taken place.  But the realities on the ground had already overtaken the agenda, as leading Moscow security analyst Yevgeny Krutikov points out.  Because the Russian side had already received the Ukrainian term sheet on May 28, and the Russian term sheet was drafted before the Sunday rail, bridge and airfield attacks, “those two memorandums…no longer correspond to the changed realities, but they will have to be discussed, because this was announced in advance, this agenda cannot be abandoned… so the main task of the Russian delegation is to translate the negotiations into a constructive course, if there is any possibility.”  

On the one hand, in Moscow on Monday President Vladimir Putin had just one official meeting in the morning; this was with Maria Lvova-Belova to discuss Children’s Day and the welfare of orphans across the country.  

On the other hand, in Washington President Donald Trump’s schedule for the day was empty except for lunch, which he ate at one o’clock.   He has issued no tweet or press statement on Russia and President Putin since May 27 when Trump announced: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”  

Interpreted in the warfighting context, as it must be, Trump was saying that the US, including its European allies and the Kiev regime, is holding escalation dominance and intends to keep it.  This means the firepower to decide what happens to Russia next without being deterred by anything Russia says or does.  The “fire”, Trump meant, he intends to keep for the US and its allies in the European war.  The “fire” doesn’t and won’t belong to Russia – Trump means to deter Putin from “playing” with it.  

Calling the five airfield strikes terrorism rather than acts of war; dating the operational plan to the Biden Administration, not to Trump; minimizing the physical damage, cost, and number of  Tupolev bombers hit; unravelling the logistical details from source of explosives to drone launch; and faulting Russian internal security and airbase defence – these details, comments a well-informed Moscow source, are “beside the point. The reality of this is on Putin. So what did he tell Lavrov to tell Trump through Rubio on Sunday night? What did he tell Medinsky to tell Umerov and Yermak for Zelensky on Monday afternoon? This is now simple strategic either/or and yes or no – no more operational tit for tat.  Either Putin told Trump to order de-escalation, or Russia will escalate and destroy the enemy’s capabilities to fight on. This is the Oreshnik moment.”

A western military source responds: “I’ve read the [Russian] terms from beginning to end but I can’t find a correlation between them and what we’re seeing, full spectrum, on the battlefield. Either Putin releases the General Staff to assert escalation dominance now, or there is no point in continuing negotiations on the memorandums and term sheets, no point in ceasefires, no point at all in meeting Trump or letting him grandstand for peace. The discipline, if I can call it that, of the Russian warfighters is unrealistic.”

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by Editor - Monday, June 2nd, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Born with a large Russia-hating chip on his shoulder, Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb has been the ideal US Government recruit to be president of Finland. And so, since March 1, 2024, he is.

No one in Finnish politics has done as much as Stubb to cancel Finland’s post-war neutrality, drive the country into the NATO alliance, and establish US bases to escalate the war against Russia on the northern front.  Four weeks after taking power, Stubb announced his policy of deploying US forces, including missiles, drones, aircraft and heavy ground weapons at Finnish bases. “When American war materiel is placed on Finnish soil,” he said,  “it strengthens Finland’s defence.”  

In one of Stubb’s schemes, NATO’s regional Multi-Corps Land Component Command (MCLCC)  has been established and expanded at Mikkeli — 256 kilometres from St Petersburg as the missile flies – and subordinated to US command-and-control at Norfolk, Virginia.   US F-35As, newly purchased by the Finnish Air Force (FAF),     will be based at Rovaniemi airbase, 24 minutes’ flying time  from St. Petersburg; the air defences for the base will be led by the medium-range, Israel-supplied David’s Sling,  recently beaten by Iran. US-supplied rocket and artillery systems, such as the HIMARS,  which have been defeated by Russia in the Ukraine, are to be based at Rovajärvi,   where the US Air Force has been coordinating B-52 bomber operations this year.  Rovajärvi is within HIMARS shooting range of the Russian border bases in the Murmansk region, such as Alakurtti and Kamenka.  

Loaded on board the USAF B-52 and the F-35As of the FAF, Stubb is also trying to draw US nuclear weapons on to Finnish territory by ending the current Finnish law banning storage of US air-dropped nuclear bombs and nuclear missile warheads or moving them into firing position there. “We in Finland must have a real nuclear deterrent,” according to Stubb, “and that’s what we have, because NATO practically gives us three deterrences through our membership.”  For the time being, he is opposed on deployment in Finland of nuclear weapons by officials in the current coalition government.  

The outcome already, according to an analysis by a Moscow think tank, is the opening of a new warfighting front against Russia from Poland to Finland, with a surge of US weapons paid for by the Europeans but directed by US commanders. “The entire northern and north-eastern flanks of the [NATO] bloc will be subordinated to a single command centre, which will significantly increase their military and operational connectivity and create a potential unified theatre of operations from the Baltic to the Barents Sea… Once all Nordic defence initiatives are implemented, the United States will be able to unimpededly project its force right at the Russian border, posing a significant security threat to Russia.” 

On March 30, Stubb made an unscheduled trip   to play golf with President Donald Trump in Florida. “The presidents met over breakfast, played a round of golf and had lunch together,” Stubb’s office said no more at the time.  Trump tweeted: “I just played a round of Golf with Alexander Stubb, President of Finland. He is a very good player, and we won the Men’s Member-Guest Golf Tournament at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, with the Legendary Gary Player, Senator Lindsey Graham, and former Congressman and highly successful Television Host, Trey Gowdy…President Stubb told me, in the most powerful of words, that the United States is STRONG, and BACK, AGAIN. I AGREE!”  

Trump revealed that he and Stubb had made a deal for “strengthening the partnership between the United States and Finland, and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed Icebreakers for the U.S.”  The icebreaker deal is worth several billion Euros. “If confirmed,” the Helsinki press reported, “it would be a crucial shot in the arm for Finnish heavy industry, which has struggled to fill its order books.”  The Finnish vessel price is several times cheaper than  US shipbuilders propose to charge;  the standing US Coast Guard contract for one Polar Security Cutter (PSC) is $1.3 billion. Trump’s Stubb deal violates existing US law  and breaches the pact which the Biden Administration had signed with Canada and Finland on icebreakers on November 13, 2024.   

In matching payback, what Stubb promised to do for Trump’s friends and constituents like Elon Musk, is suspected to be lucrative in the billions of dollars, but remains secret. Not quite,  because Trump’s friends like to boast.

Why Stubb for US stooge? Russian sources answer.

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by Editor - Sunday, June 1st, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Tomorrow, Monday June 2, the second round of “direct” negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will open with the exchange of term sheets, the Russian memorandum and what retired US Army General Keith Kellogg calls the twenty-two points which have been drafted by the US and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine and Poland).

Speaking for President Donald Trump and the Europeans, Kellogg has announced  that he has read both term sheets, and that when the talks open in Istanbul,  the Ukrainian delegation will have behind them the national security advisors of the US, France, UK, and Germany. Kellogg believes both sides in the talks, the US-backed Ukrainians and the Russians, have fresh escalation capacities still to be used against each other. According to Kellogg, Trump is aiming to prevent President Vladimir Putin countering each one of the Ukrainian allies now arming their escalation, including – he added – Finland.

 “The reason I believe the US has to stay involved”, Kellogg said, “is because of escalation…You have an escalation ladder. You better know when to get off it. If you don’t get off, you’ve got a big problem.”

In this discussion of India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan last month,  and Russia’s three-year Special Military Operation,  senior Indian military officers (retired), Lieutenant General Ravi Shankar and Brigadier Arun Saghal demonstrate how effective the Indian forces were in destroying Pakistan’s capability for escalation, and compelling the ceasefire Pakistan applied for.

Together, we discuss the Indian lessons and apply them to the next stage of Russia’s negotiations with all its adversaries on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Click for Sunday’s hour-long podcast.   

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by Editor - Sunday, June 1st, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

The first report came from RIA-Novosti, the Russian state news agency, on May 25 at 13:24.

“President Vladimir Putin’s helicopter (lead image, top) was in the epicentre of repelling a large-scale attack by Ukrainian Armed Forces drones during a visit to the Kursk region, said Yury Dashkin [Major General in command of the 32^nd Air Defence Division, lead image, below)  commander of the air defence division in whose area of responsibility the region is located. According to him, during the president’s visit, the Ukrainian military launched an ‘unprecedented attack,’ with 46 drones destroyed by the air defence system. ‘At the same time, we conducted an anti-aircraft battle and ensured the safety of the president’s helicopter flight in the air. [The helicopter was] actually in the epicentre of repelling a massive drone attack,’ Dashkin said.”  

The drone attack on Kursk had taken place five days earlier, on May 20. Putin’s visit to the region, his meetings with local officials, the region governor, engineers and scientists at the Kurchatov nuclear power plant, and local medical, rescue and social welfare volunteers was not reported by the Kremlin website until the following morning. The report of the attack on the helicopter was kept secret at the time. The Kremlin has made no comment on the later press reports.

Note Gen Dashkin’s precise wording: he did not claim the President’s helicopter was targeted directly; he did not say Putin was on board at the time (the President also travelled in Kursk by motorcade); he did not reveal whether there was more than one  helicopter in the presidential flight to Kursk;  he did not say whether the air defence command was spoofing the electronic tracking technology which the US and the Ukrainians have been using for their drone and missile attacks in recent days.

The Kremlin pool reporter for Kommersant, Andrei Kolesnikov, reported on Putin’s movements and meetings after the 24-hour security delay.   Kolesnikov noted in passing: “The situation was not cloudless: when the cortege of the president moved around the region, there were drones of the APU in the sky – they cannot be ignored on the video footage, which I saw. However, the region lives in such an environment not for the first year, as you know — so Vladimir Putin should have recognized how the region is working.”

Pick-up of the May 25 report by Newsweek of the US conceded: “This is the first known instance in which the Russian president is reported to have flown through an active drone attack.”     

The magazine then adopted the Ukrainian version of what had happened. “Ukrainian officials haven’t comment on the alleged attack on Putin, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country has every right to kill Putin if the opportunity arises, if doing so would protect Ukraine and its people. Zelensky told The Sun in Kyiv in November 2023 that he has lost track of the number of times Moscow has attempted to assassinate him since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of his country. ‘That’s war, and Ukraine has all the rights to defend our land,’ the Ukrainian leader said when asked if Kyiv would take a chance to assassinate Putin if such an opportunity arose.”     

“Zelensky is no longer in Kiev,” a Moscow source in a position to know commented this week. “He spends much of his time travelling around the world, and then in a command post in Poland. He simulates his presence in country for PR purposes. He only goes to Kiev when foreign government officials visit.”  In March 2022 Putin told former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett that he would not order an assassination strike on Zelensky.  

Five years later, has Zelensky make an attempt against Putin? what role are the US electronic warfare forces playing in tracking Putin’s movements and targeting his position? When Trump tweeted on May 27 that Putin is “playing with fire!”  had Trump fired first – and missed?

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by Editor - Friday, May 30th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

There is a risky way of being an American against the wars that President Donald Trump is aiming to fight, especially the one Trump claims not to be fighting against Russia on the Ukraine battlefield. The risk is that you may have to use words like imperialism, oligarchy, false consciousness, revolution.  

Trump is right about one thing – Americans don’t have to go to Harvard on state grants and minority quotas to learn about words like those.

One of the first great Americans to run that word risk, miss Harvard, and do more than sympathize with the Russian revolutionists of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was Clarence Darrow. He is also one of the first and still the most eloquent of examples of being an American against American wars which is almost unremembered today. “If this war be called patriotism,” Darrow said in 1898 about the US war to take the Philippines from Spain, “then blessed be treason”.  

Few enough words to make the tweet limit, but not rightfor endorsement in Truth Social. Too “WARPED RADICAL LEFT”.

Darrow (1857 -19384) was the greatest courtroom lawyer in American history, practising across the country in the defence of the oligarch-owned railroads and also union workers;  big city mayors; blacks framed for the murder of whites;  women who killed violent husbands;  Jewish thrill-homicidalists; and the McNamara brothers who on October 1, 1910, dynamited the Los Angeles Times, killing 21 and injuring more than 100. After that trial Darrow was prosecuted himself for bribing the jurors; in his two-day address to the jury he had them in tears; they acquitted him on the defence of moral necessity.

“The great question between capital and labour,” Darrow said in 1912, “cannot be solved by marching”. Nowadays that last word would be replaced by tweeting.

“Clarence Darrow is the greatest power for evil in the United States today!” declared the California state prosecutor in Trump style – it was March 1913 and Darrow was on trial on a second bribery charge. The jury deadlocked – eight for conviction, four for acquittal – and the judge declared a mistrial.  

In today’s podcast with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern, we discuss the Russian assessment of Trump’s tweets and the future sequencing of wars which Russians understand that Trump and his State Department and Pentagon are attempting – just as the Russians are sequencing their own war in the Ukraine and the future war against the Euro-Nazis led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Click to view and to listen.  

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by Editor - Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Russian officials will ignore President Donald Trump’s tweets in order to focus on the main chance.

“We do not consider the infantile attitude of Trump as a problem,” an official source said, responding to Trump’s statement and tweets of May 26 and 27.

“We consider he is the legitimate counter party [for end-of-war negotiations]. We consider he is a more adequate person than any of the European and British leaders. He is far from the worst of the leadership in the western world, whether on the left or on the right. He is not [ex-Prime Minister Elizabeth] Truss not [Boris] Johnson. He is not [French President Emmanuel] Macron. He is a real leader and [President Vladimir Putin] has no hesitation to talk to him with trust.”

“There will be a summit meeting even if it is often now that Trump speaks the last words he hears from Macron or [Finnish President Alexander] Stubb. But this is not a problem. He has an independent mind and he conveyed his wish to end war with Russia. This is the foundation on which it is necessary to build. He is trusted on this wish he has expressed.”

The official refused to be drawn into discussing the escalation of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks, including Putin’s helicopter in Kursk, or the Russian retaliation raids on Kiev and around the country.  He did not touch on Putin’s decision “to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border. Our Armed Forces are working on this now. They are also effectively suppressing enemy firing points.”  

Asked whether it is now the Russian negotiating objective to secure four, five, or eight regions, the official replied: “Look, our position has changed continually about the regions.  No one went into this [the Special Military Operation] for land. We can stop where we want if our main, long-term objective is reached — demilitarization of all Ukraine and de-nazification. We have specific proposals on that. Very specific. So on these terms, land can be given for a peaceful treaty with the US on Ukraine. Only with US. Not with the Europeans. And the main discussions on security with the US then start with normal diplomatic and business relations at all levels. This is the minimum expectation and it will be met.”

The official passed over Trump’s latest tweet on Tuesday evening: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”   

The official responded: “We have changed our position that [Putin] will meet only on the conclusion of all the technical details. We are ready to meet at any stage of the technical Ukraine discussions. A meeting [with Trump] will happen.”

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by Editor - Tuesday, May 27th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Either President Donald Trump (lead image, bottom) cannot comprehend the sequence of cause and effect. Or he cannot control his own military and intelligence operations in the war against Russia. Or Trump thinks he can deceive President Vladimir Putin (lead image, top), authorize an attack on him personally, and later, when the attack failed, and  Putin retaliated with a counter-attack on Kiev, Trump is pretending  “I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin…he’s sending rockets into Kiev and other cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”  

Trump then threatened Putin directly. “We’ll see what we’re going to do.”  

Follow the sequence and decide what’s cause, what’s effect.

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by Editor - Sunday, May 25th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

In their hour-long Oval Office meeting on May 22, President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked South African (SA) President Cyril Ramaphosa. This is the longest,  continuous face-to-face verbal assault on a foreign head of state in recent Trump history.

As the lead image shows, Ramaphosa and the state ministers sitting at his right are black. Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are white. “It was a full-on ambush,” observes a black American source, “and an attempt to make the South African delegation, Ramaphosa in particular, look small.”

“In an extraordinary scene clearly orchestrated by the White House for maximum effect and reminiscent of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s US visit in February,” responded a former US Ambassador to South Africa (2013-2016)  Patrick Gaspard,    “Trump confronted Ramaphosa with false claims of genocide against SA whites, including allegations of mass killings and land seizures…Trump had turned the meeting with Ramaphosa into a shameful spectacle and savaged him with some fake snuff film and violent rhetoric. Engaging on Trump’s terms never goes well for anyone.”  

Gaspard added: “Bizarrely, Trump has cued some video of a political rally of a minor Party in SA  of Julius Malema and others going on about land seizures in South Africa as if that’s ‘evidence’ of a ‘genocide’. Just bizarre. And Cyril is doing all he can to maintain his composure and dignity.”  “Pretty extraordinary to see billionaire Johan Rupert pleading Trump for some deal for Elon Musk and Starlink to come ‘save’ South Africa. I think that this grift from Musk lies at the heart of this entire performance.”  

The Russian reaction came in the Kremlin-backed security analysis internet publication, Vzglyad. The writer is Yevgeny Krutikov, a former GRU field officer and Russian strategy analyst who is an expert on Russian policy in Africa; he is white and speaks Afrikaans.

“Ramaphosa is the exact opposite of Zelensky in terms of human qualities. He is smiling and funny… he has a wonderful sense of humour which gives him a charm that is unexpected.  This even affected Trump, who apparently counted on conflict in the conversation, while Ramaphosa constantly joked, laughed, and smiled even where it was difficult to do so; for example, on the issue of ‘genocide of whites’ and the murders of farmers…Apparently, this attitude was planned in advance by the South African delegation with all its Soviet experience of former underground fighters…the whole show ended in a draw… Cyril Ramaphosa really wants to bring South Africa onto the big political stage, including by participating in the negotiation process on Ukraine. For South Africa, his visit to Washington was not only an attempt to restore and reset economic relations with the United States, but also to establish himself as another source of diplomatic efforts. And, despite the elements of the show program, he succeeded. This is a very positive sign for Russia, as South Africa is not only our traditional partner and ally, but also another independent vector of power that Trump’s typical pressure failed to break.”  

Watch the Oval Office session posted by the White House here. It ended with Ramaphosa quipping to Trump about the press: “they like you so much.”  Read the full transcript.  

Read the analysis by Krutikov in yesterday’s edition of Vzglyad.   The Russian original has been translated verbatim into English without editing. Links, illustrations and captions have been added for clarification.

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by Editor - Friday, May 23rd, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

The war in the Ukraine is a sideshow for President Donald Trump because he is escalating his preparations for war against Russia on other fronts and concentrating his main forces against China on the ground, Russia in space.  This is Trump’s MEGA – Make the Empire Great Again.

This is also the reason he is signalling his readiness to make battlefield concessions to President Vladimir Putin which the European leaders are reluctant to accept.  Their reason for that is the enormous new cost in US arms which Trump is demanding they start to pay.

“It’s a pretty evil world out there,” Trump announced on May 20.  He was referring to Russian and   Chinese nuclear missile capabilities to strike the US. Reviving President Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” threat from Moscow, and his “Star Wars” space shield, Trump said he is going one better.

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland. The success rate is very close to 100 percent, which is incredible when you think of it, you’re shooting bullets out of the air…Now we’re number one in space by a lot. It’s not even close…I think you can rest assured there’ll be nothing like this. Nobody else is capable of building it either.”

Trump is repudiating Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine of strategic deterrence in practical effect between Washington and Moscow for more sixty years.  Trump’s new idea is not MAD; it’s LUNACY – Launch Under Nuclear Ascendance Confidence Yessiree.

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by Editor - Wednesday, May 21st, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Is it MAGA or is it MEGA?

When President Donald Trump negotiated with President Vladimir Putin on Monday, May 19,  was he aiming to lower the cost of the Ukraine war to the domestic US economy, or to enrich it by transferring the war cost to the Europeans, particularly Germany, so that most of their planned €150 billion in loans  and €650 billion in country budget outlays  for the “ReArm Europe Plan” to fight Russia will get spent in the US?

Is Trump counting on Putin to give him enough of a battlefield pause or armistice in the Ukraine so that Trump can expand US force deployments and allied  military procurement further north along the front from the Baltic Sea to Finland and Greenland; south along the Iranian frontier; and east against China?

The last of these, the eastern front war against China – explained Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday – is now the strategic priority for the US. Implementing it requires sequencing Trump’s wars.   “Every minute we spend,” according to Rubio, “every dollar we spend on this conflict in Europe is distracting both our focus and our resources away from a potential for a much more serious and much more cataclysmic confrontation in the Indo-Pacific…they are related but they’re related both ways — they’re related on the one hand by the precedent that it could set,  but they’re also related by the fact that every minute that we spend on this conflict that cannot be won by military means,  every resource that’s expended into it is money and time that’s not being spent on preventing a much more serious confrontation from a global perspective in the Indo-Pacific.”  – Min 53:51.

This is bigger, “much more serious” than MAGA – Make America Great Again. It’s MEGA – Make the Empire Great Again.

When Rubio went on to explain what the Putin-Trump telephone call was aimed at doing, he was confident the US is taking advantage of what he called Putin’s political weakness, the vulnerability of the Russian economy, high battlefield casualties, and the slowness of the Russian military advance. “I think [Putin] approaches it — we have to assume – from a cold, calculated cost-benefit nation-state evaluation of what’s in the best interest of his view of Russia. What I’m pretty certain of is this is not the war [Putin] thought he was getting when he first invaded Ukraine.  I think he anticipated that the government would collapse and that, uh, he would be greeted as a liberator. It has not turned out that way,  and in fact Russia today controls less territory than they did after the first two months of the war so they’ve suffered significant losses —  they’ve suffered the losses of at least you know by some estimates 200,000-250,000 men in uniform and the Ukrainians have suffered less but nonetheless suffered as well. It is a battlefield today in which the front lines move 10 kilometres at a time in one direction or another. Even if [the Russians] are advancing, they’re advancing at a tremendously high cost. But the challenge Russia faces now is their entire economy stirring up. In their regard we want to see the conflict end in a way that’s enduring,  meaning not a peace that lasts three months and then restarts again,  but something that’s enduring that both sides could live with for a long period of time without it restarting again.”  Min 2:46.50.

The idea that Putin cannot and will not challenge MEGA in Europe except slowly and weakly  on the Ukrainian battlefield reinforces the American conviction that if Trump gives Putin enough rope now in the Ukraine, he will hang himself later in the face of MEGA strategy on all fronts, especially on Iran and China, as Putin did in Syria.

Even current critics of Trump’s negotiating tactics with the Russian president believe that Putin doesn’t want to fight MEGA, but aims to come to terms – business deals — that will undermine Russia’s alliances with Iran, North Korea, and China. Putin, as one of the critics claimed this week, “has clearly avoided winning the war because for him it can be achieved for a much greater purpose, a Great Power settlement, a new Yalta.”  Min -8:47.

A NATO veteran responds: “The Chinese are in an ill humour. They will take a dim view of any Russian double-dealing, including facilitation of Trump’s sequencing which we can be sure they are aware of.” Regarding Rubio’s answers to the questions he was asked by senators this week, he adds: “I view that hearing with Rubio as nothing more than a council of war.”

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by Editor - Tuesday, May 20th, 2025
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