[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
War fighters like President Donald Trump can’t be seen to run away from losing their wars.
As Trump recently declared [3] from the deck of the USS Harry Truman, celebrating the birthday of the US Navy: “We won War I, we won World War II, we won everything in between. We won everything before… In Vietnam, the Navy unleashed Operation Rolling Thunder and deployed a brand new unit, the Navy Seals, to tear up Mekong River Delta. Problem with Vietnam, we, you know, we stopped fighting to win. We would’ve won easy. We would’ve won Afghanistan easy, would’ve won every war easy. But we got politically correct, ‘Ah, let’s take it easy.’ It’s, we’re not politically correct anymore, just so you understand. We win — Now, we win. We don’t want to be politically correct anymore.”
In the latest blitz of Anglo-American press leaks, Trump has authorized his chief prompter Vice President JD Vance (lead image, centre), his bagman Steven Witkoff, and Vance’s university chum Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll (right) to concede 28 of the 31 points of Russia’s June 2 term-sheet [4] for ending the Ukraine war; to tell the newspapers this is their “new peace plan for Ukraine [5]”; and demand [6] that the Zelensky regime and their European allies “under pressure both on the battlefield and on the home front (due to a burgeoning corruption scandal), will have to accept what’s on offer.”
Cautionaries have followed from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin to look through the smokescreen.
“We’ve seen numerous biased articles and articles that describe various processes in every possible way,” said [7] Maria Zakharova, spokesman for Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “only to be refuted later, and so on. I will say what we should base our assessment of such publications on. There are official channels known in the United States for resolving relevant issues, discussing them, and conducting negotiations. These channels must be used by all means. The Foreign Ministry has not received any information from the American side in this context.”
Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said [8]: “Moscow and Washington are not working on any new initiatives regarding the Ukrainian settlement beyond the agreements reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin and US leader Donald Trump in Alaska”. As for Driscoll’s newly publicized role as go-between, Peskov said [9] “there are no plans” to communicate with him.
Russian officials like Kirill Dmitriev have been telling American reporters “he spent three days huddled with Witkoff and other members of Trump’s team when Dmitriev visited Miami from Oct. 24-26. Dmitriev expressed [10] optimism about the [new peace] deal’s chances of success because, unlike past efforts, ‘we feel the Russian position is really being heard.’” This is Russian for “I’m in control here and not to worry”. After that notorious fabrication from US Secretary of State Alexander Haig when President Ronald Reagan had been shot, Reagan recovered; Haig did not [11].
View the new podcast with Jamarl Thomas [12] to measure the American retreat and what the Russians are doing to force it.
“I think there is a healthy competition between the official diplomacy and the unofficial”, Oleg Tsarev has commented [13] on the public notes from the Foreign Ministry, Kremlin, and Dmitriev. “I’m cheering for both sides. Let Russia win.” Tsarev is a leading Ukrainian opposition candidate for president currently based in Russian Crimea.
“Tsarev might be correct,” comments a Moscow source in a position to know. “Healthy or unhealthy competition, there certainly is a [Yury] Ushakov [presidential foreign affairs advisor] track, and there is a Lavrov track. Putin is also tracking with [Vadim] Medinsky [presidential negotiator], [Roman] Abramovich [oligarch] too. The Dmitriev-Witkoff track is overrated but the meetings to communicate the terms are making its way through the US administration, Pentagon and State.”
“All of them are helping the momentum that is building towards the White House. This is reinforcing what Trump and Vance had been briefed on from the start but now they are seeing the inevitable creep closer. This makes Trump, as you have already described him as a retreater, retreat faster. Since Trump has chosen a back-channel – which can both deliver and be deniable – Putin has done the same. MiD [Foreign Ministry] did its job, Ushakov his. The Trump whisperers now need to do theirs. But underlying this seems to be a clear understanding in the US military and the intel services that the war is lost and Russians are not giving an inch – that they will take all of the Ukraine as a complete capitulation nears.”
The Russian terms for war against the US, NATO, the Kiev regime
There are three basic documents setting down the Russian terms for an end to the long war between Russia, the US and the NATO alliance, and for an end to the short war on the Ukrainian battlefield. These are, first, the two draft treaties for security guarantees tabled on December 17, 2021 [14]; second, President Putin’s presentation to the Foreign Ministry on June 14, 2024 [15]; and third, the term sheet tabled at the Istanbul meeting with Ukrainian negotiators on June 2, 2025 [4], titled “Proposals of the Russian Federation (Memorandum) on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.” The last of these comprises a total of 31 points; 28 if the three signing and ratification provisions are not counted; for analysis, click to read [16].
A shortened form of this framework has been discussed by the foreign ministers, Lavrov and Marco Rubio, at their face-to-face meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 10; then by Putin and Trump at their Alaska summit meeting on August 16; and finally, on the telephone by Lavrov and Rubio on October 20 [17]. Russian officials have noted that for the time being, notwithstanding the “understandings” they claim to have reached, the Trump Administration has refused to agree to any form of normalization between the two diplomatic services, return of Russian diplomatic property in the US, resumption of direct air flights between Russia and the US, or acknowledgement of the proposed extension of time for a new strategic arms reduction treaty (START).
[18]Source: https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1029172 [4]
Russian opposition to UN Security Council Resolution 2803/2025
The course of the Trump Administration’s plan to get UN Security Council (UNSC) endorsement of the so-called “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict [19]” ran into immediate opposition from Russia, China, and Algeria.
To counter this, the US persuaded Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey to issue a “joint statement…express[ing] our joint support for the Security Council Resolution currently under consideration, drafted by the United States after consultation and in cooperation with Council members and partners in the region.”
The Palestine State, under Mahmoud Abbas, then issued its own statement [20] “to welcome the [US] statement’s affirmation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to establish their independent State of Palestine.”
Hamas issued [21] a comprehensive condemnation in private to the Arab leaders, and then in public. “This resolution does not meet the level of our Palestinian people’s political and humanitarian demands and rights, particularly in the Gaza Strip, which for two years endured a brutal genocidal war and unprecedented crimes committed by the terrorist occupation in front of the entire world—the effects and repercussions of which remain ongoing despite the declaration of the war’s end according to President Trump’s plan. The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject. It also imposes a mechanism to achieve the occupation’s objectives, which it failed to accomplish through its brutal genocide.”
STATEMENT OF OPPOSITION BY HAMAS (ISLAMIC RESISTANCE MOVEMENT)
[22]Source: https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1990550770073088154 [21]
Follow the course of the politicking over the language of the resolution and the attempts to amend it – click here [23].
Somalia and Algeria are the two Arab states which are currently non-permanent members of the Security Council. But Algeria was the only Arab state in the UN to join the Russian and Chinese opposition to Res 2803/2025, However, it abandoned its opposition and agreed with the other Arab and Muslim states to vote in favour of the resolution. The Russian and Chinese governments decided to abstain. The official justification the Russian UN Mission gave for opposition was that “UNSC resolutions are supposed to reflect the universally recognized international legal framework and reaffirm fundamental decisions and principles, first and foremost the two-State solution for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Unfortunately, these provisions were not given due regard in the US draft [24].”
[25]Source: https://russiaun.ru/en/news/comment_gaza_141125 [24]
This was a direct challenge to the legality of the US resolution and to the Trump plan which was annexed to the official document for the vote on November 17.
[26]Source: https://docs.un.org/en/s/res/2803(2025) [27]
The overriding legal rights of the Palestinians had already been set out ahead of the UNSC vote by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on October 22. This provided legal grounds for a Russian and Chinese veto; they opted not to invoke them and not to veto.
The reason for this was political, and was spelled out in a statement from the Ministry in Moscow the next day [28]. “Russia abstained in the voting, taking into account the stance of the PNA [Palestine National Authority] leadership, the position of concerned Arab and Muslim countries in support of the American document, and to avoid a recurrence of violence and military actions in Gaza.”
[29]Source: https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/2060230/ [30]
Responding to the critics, virtue signallers and armchair generals in the West, the Foreign Ministry’s explanation [31] for its abstaining vote was that it could not vote against the Arabs and Turkey, but would support the continuing resistance of the Palestinians to the US and Israel. “It bears reminding that the war and the suffering of civilians in the enclave could have been halted long ago had Washington not consistently – six times in the past two years – used its veto to block draft resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire. The paramount concern now is that this decision does not become a fig leaf for unbridled experiments in the occupied Palestinian territories, nor a final verdict on the legitimate rights of Palestinians to self-determination or the aspirations of Israelis for security and peaceful coexistence in the region.”
This was an implicit endorsement of continuing Palestinian resistance. It was an explicit dismissal of the Security Council itself.
“The UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat have been entirely sidelined, both in terms of oversight and accountability for the structures being established in Gaza, and the practical modalities for deploying and stationing the international contingent. Also telling are the rushed, indeed ultimatum-like, methods employed to advance the American draft – without genuine discussion, without addressing the substantive concerns of other delegations, and under direct threats of renewed large-scale bloodshed in Gaza. Even the circulation of a Russian counter-draft, aimed at overcoming the disagreements in the UN Security Council by returning to consolidated international legal foundations for Palestinian-Israeli settlement, failed to rectify the situation.”
Legally, according to the Ministry’s interpretation [31] of the resolution, no powers had been conferred on the Security Council, and the UNCR had gained no legal authority to violate the international law as it had been interpreted for Gaza and the Palestinians by the ICJ. “It must be acknowledged that Resolution 2803, as adopted, does not grant the Security Council the requisite prerogatives to maintain peace and security. It contradicts the spirit of genuine peacekeeping and universally recognised international legal decisions, which envisage the creation of an independent and territorially contiguous State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, coexisting peacefully and securely with Israel.”
In parallel — but ignored by the western media — the Russians had managed a vote trade with the Arab states to secure their votes for enactment of the Russian-drafted resolution for the UN General Assembly (UNGA) “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism [32]”. This, a key objective of the Special Military Operation, was opposed by the US, the European states, and other allies except for Turkey, which abstained. Pakistan, which had voted in the Security Council for 2308/2025, voted for the Russian resolution in the General Assembly; so did Israel [33].
This illustrates the UNGA votes on this Russian resolution in each of the years of the Special Military Operation.
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY VOTING ON RESOLUTION TO COMBAT NAZISM, RACISM
[34]Resolution texts, amendments, vote rollcalls and tallies are published by the UN since 2005, when the first resolution 60/143, titled “Inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” was voted in December 2005. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/60/143 [35] For assessment of the 2022 vote, following the start of the Special Military Operation, read this [36]. A UN summary of the draft amendment and voting process for the 2023 resolution can be found here [37].
China’s opposition to Res 2803/2025 and explanation for not using the veto
Fu Cong, head of the Chinese Mission to the UN, issued a statement following the vote. Read it full here [38]. The statement was less hostile towards the UNSC and towards the US than the Russian statement. The rationale for abstention instead of veto is the same: “Considering the fragile and severe situation in Gaza, the imperative of maintaining the ceasefire, and the positions of the regional countries and Palestine, China abstained in the vote.”
[39]Source: https://un.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/hyyfy/202511/t20251119_11755683.htm [38]