Ukraine Negotiations Still Hover Around Its Root Cause
The most important sentence from President Trump about yesterday's phone call between President Putin and him is this:
Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.
The most important sentence by President Putin about yesterday's phone call is this:
Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes of this crisis is what matters most to us.
Russia will not fall for ending the war without having achieved its main goal.
Western media, here the NY Times, continue to play dumb (archived) about what the Russia's main goal is:
[Putin] repeated his mantra that a peace deal needs to “remove the root causes of this crisis,” referring to Russia’s pursuit of wide-ranging influence over Ukraine.
David Ignatius, a CIA spokesperson at the Washington Post, makes a similar (archived) nonsensical claim:
He still wants victory, which he described once again after Monday’s call with the phrase “eliminate the root causes of the crisis.” That’s code for his conviction that Ukraine cannot be a European country, as it wants, but must remain under Russian hegemony.
Russia as well as Ukraine are European countries. Russia has no interest in having 'hegemony' or 'wide-ranking influence' over Ukraine. Its interest is the defense of the Russian Federation. It had to prevent Ukraine from becoming a U.S. (NATO) spear tip aimed at its heart.
A different NY Times piece about the Russian northern defenses build up after Finland joined NATO is far more correct when it states (archived):
From Moscow’s perspective, the Russians need to bolster their defenses to protect themselves from NATO expansion, which has always been a sore subject. The Baltic nations were the first members of the former Soviet Union to join NATO, bringing large stretches of Russia’s border up against NATO’s. The prospect of Ukraine, an even bigger former Soviet republic, following suit was so threatening to Moscow that it became one of the causes of the most devastating land war in generations.
It is NATO expansion, not Ukraine the country, that is the root cause of the war. It is NATO expansion that has to be eliminated.
The U.S. and its European allies are still in denial of that. To ignore that the U.S. has, for over 30 years, been driving the NATO expansion that led to the war, allows Trump to play a 'mediator' in war in which the U.S. is a dominant participant.
It is stupid for western media to accept Trump's claim (archived) of such a role:
After phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump posted that “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War”.
...
In remarks that indicated that Washington may be stepping back from a role as a mediator, Trump said the “conditions” for a deal could only be agreed by the warring parties “because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of”.
...
Trump also said that immediately after his call with Putin, he recounted the conversation to Zelenskyy together with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and the European Commission. (1)
...
But two people briefed on the call with the European leaders said Trump was clear that he would pull the US back from engaging with the conflict and leave Ukraine and Russia to directly negotiate a ceasefire. He also made no promise of future US sanctions against Russia should Putin refuse any peace attempts. One person familiar with the conversation said the leaders were stunned by the US president’s description of what was agreed. They added it was clear Trump was “not ready to put greater pressure” on Putin to come to the negotiating table in earnest.
Trump is pretending to wash his hands (archived) over Ukraine:
The US desire to disengage has been flagged for weeks, by Trump himself but also by secretary of state Marco Rubio and vice-president JD Vance, who have repeatedly expressed frustration with Russia and Ukraine in equal measure. Vance told reporters on Monday that the US might ultimately have to say: “This is not our war.”
The U.S. can not be a mediator in a war, or wash its hands over it, when it continues to supply weapons and the all important field intelligence and communication means needed to wage it. Only yesterday the U.S. allowed Australia to send (old) U.S. made tanks to Ukraine.
Trump's claims of disengaging from the war has yet to be confirmed by any evidence that he is really going to do so.
The only thing Trump did reject so far was to join the European attempts to escalate the war by inserting their own troops into it.
Having learned from the economic disaster his tariffs have caused Trump also rejected plans to impose secondary sanctions in form of 500% tariffs on anyone who continues to buy oil from Russia.
Aside from that Trump has kept support for the war on the same level as before and only refrained from expanding it.
That he is, for now, leaving the negotiations to Russia and Ukraine, is an admission that he has failed to keep his election promise of making peace.
The U.S. will have to reengage in negotiations if peace is to be achieved. It is U.S. (NATO) expansionism that has cause the war.
Russia needs to remove the root cause, U.S. (NATO) expansionism, to achieve peace.
A complete victory in Ukraine is a necessary but not yet sufficient condition for that.
But chances are good that the further disagreements over the defeat of Ukraine will rip NATO apart.
That might be the victory President Putin has on his mind.
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(1) The FT claims that: "[Trump] recounted the conversation to Zelenskyy together with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and the European Commission.
But Trump's statement does not mention Britain at all: "I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me, immediately after the call with President Putin."
It seems like, despite the FT's claim, Prime Minister Starmer was left out in the cold on this.
Posted by b on May 20, 2025 at 12:23 UTC | Permalink
next page »Have anyone noted that Russia had not used another Oreshnik after the first one? Why the sudden cry for 30-day ceasefire?
Posted by: ostrr | May 20 2025 12:36 utc | 2
"Eliminating the root causes of this crisis is what matters most to us."
That's a lot of people to eliminate ... You want my shortlist guys ?
Posted by: Savonarole | May 20 2025 12:38 utc | 3
B.
Thank you for highlighting the core objective of Moscow, namely roll back of NATO to 1997.
Posted by: Exile | May 20 2025 12:59 utc | 4
The worry of the "coalition of willing" is that Russia might use the Oreshnik again. There's nothing in the "western" armies that could intercept it. None of the standard or non-standard newspapers like to write about it. And, they are not talking nukes too these days. If Oreshnik is used again, Starmer, Micron and that nazi Merz would shit in pants.
And, by the way, the US knows about Oreshnik, but won't talk about that, as that would show that Russia has the upper hand.😏
Posted by: ostrr | May 20 2025 13:02 utc | 5
Negotiations between Russia and Zelensky cannot remove the "root causes" of the conflict. Zelensky does not have the authority to order NATO to pull back its forces to its earlier boundaries. He does not have the authority to order the EuroScum leaders to stop their unwarranted belligerence towards Russia. He does not have the authority to order the West to remove their sanctions on Russia, nor does he have the authority to order them to return the funds they have stolen from Russia.
President Putin should forget Zelensky and negotiate directly with the US and the EuroScum "leaders". Maybe that is what we are beginning to see?
Posted by: Gavin Longmuir | May 20 2025 13:04 utc | 6
President Putin should forget Zelensky and negotiate directly with the US and the EuroScum "leaders". Maybe that is what we are beginning to see?
Posted by: Gavin Longmuir | May 20 2025 13:04 utc | 7
No, Trump is moving away from the talks. And in fact the Russians didnt want the Americans in the last set of negotiations - recall, Rubio, Witkoff and Kellogg were all in Istanbul - all were refused entry to the talks with Ukraine.
Posted by: Night Tripper | May 20 2025 13:07 utc | 7
Is this the root cause of EU's hatred of Russia? Perhaps the NATO expansion story is cover for cocaine trafficking to the EU? EU using American war money to import cocaine? Isn't cocaine the CIA dark money source? (OT: but, has Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez figured out why the Dem's are all upset about the capture and return of Kilmar Abrego Gar/CIA).
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday that it seized more than 1.8 metric tons of cocaine bound for the European Union, with an estimated street value of 6 billion rubles ($74.5 million).
Posted by: CeaClearly | May 20 2025 13:09 utc | 8
US Plays “Mediator” in its Own War on Russia
was the title of a Brian Berletic piece 3 weeks ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNnK8yiGjkQ
I'd add Trump misreports on US mediation.
But what is the poor guy going to do - he was left in a lose lose situation by Biden (much like he did to Biden on Afghanistan).
Nato, not Ukraine lost the war. And you can't take USA out of Nato without first taking US troops out of Romania and Poland, and the nuclear missiles too.
And you can't talk about negotiating a withdrawal from Romania and Poland without being shot at again.
Posted by: Michael Droy | May 20 2025 13:13 utc | 9
Well done, b! Thank you! The issues are as you define them, with Trump's recognition buried in his usal flummery. This is the clearest definition of what is and what needs to be done.
It is doable!!
Posted by: juliania | May 20 2025 13:20 utc | 10
Turnip's only policy is "Tax cuts for the rich"
Let's face it, he is a contractor, saying whatever he thinks the person in front want to hear.
Posted by: Polli | May 20 2025 13:21 utc | 12
And if 'flummery' isn't a word, I've just made it one.
Posted by: juliania | May 20 2025 13:23 utc | 13
I kind of understand NATO expansion east.
The Baltic statelets are dwarves with an inferiority complex living alongside the giant Slav nation, which makes them prefer to think of themselves as 'Nordic' instead of Slavs, while Eastern European nations (Poland, Hungary, Romania, others) were under the Russian boot for decades after WWII.
All of them wanted to have a counter-weight to their big neighbor the giant of Eastern Europe once this giant was temporarily down, and what better counter-weight than a faraway giant located in a different continent, a giant that was more than willing to provide protection to all those scared little and midsize nations in the vicinity of Russia?
The faraway giant, on the other hand, has been run by neocons and liberal interventionists since ... since the coup d'etat of 1963, so the pleas and suplications for protection of the scared Eastern Europeans fell on fertile ground.
So, addressing the root couses of the Russo-Ukrainian would require
(1) that Russia the Slav giant solemnly promise not to once again exert dominion over the scared little and midsize nations of Eastern Europe,
(2) that the scared little and midsize nations of Eastern Europe accept that the new capitalist Russia will develop much more and grow much stronger and bigger,
(3) that the USA started to mind its own business and therefor behaved like a normal nation, one of three great powers.
Yeah that's what it will take to address the root causes.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | May 20 2025 13:35 utc | 14
With an estimated 75 trillion dollars of natural resource wealth under RF governance being located just to the east of the natural-resource barren EU — which finds itself in dire financial straights, could it be the EU idiot leaders (not Europeans generally) want war on Russia to set upright their crumbling house of diminished power? Their plan is to grab the RF’s natural wealth and restore European colonizer status — for the money and power. (See Martin Armstrong’s thesis. I don’t agree with his social outlook but find his geoeconomic financial arguments convincing.)
The MIC probably applauds the EU’s war aggression against the RF — for obvious reasons, and wants the US to remain engaged, but part of the US governing class opposes this philonazi folly and wants no part in the EU committing suicide, as Armstrong puts it. For the US there is promise in withdrawing from the UKEUNATO war on RF which the atlanticist rat’s nest of neocons started, err, continued, in the tradition of their ignoble forebears, aggressors who were defeated 80 years ago.
Before capital controls go more extensively into place across the EU, capital will rush to safe havens in other parts of the globe, including USA — if it gets out of nato and sincerely attempts to be a polite, respectful guest at the global banquet table. Good luck with that. Sincerely.
Posted by: suzan | May 20 2025 13:37 utc | 15
Re B's commentary..
It is NATO expansion, not Ukraine the country, that is the root cause of the war. It is NATO expansion that has to be eliminated.
NATO expansion is not the root cause, its is a symptom of that root cause?
The root cause of the conflict began in 1946 when Roosevelt was removed .replaced by the Truman led power play. At that time the city of London, their oil and gas empire and their global system of banks decided Russia was, or at least had the potential to be, too much competition; competition that had to be eliminated.
Remember the ideology, distributed by the British under the guise that competition threatening those who are King of the Mountain cannot and will not be tolerated. It really goes to shared leadership vs. hegemonic control.
The root cause is that Russia is too much competition for the British led oil and gas and wealth backed banker empire.
Posted by: Gavin Longmuir | May 20 2025 13:04 utc | 6
Negotiations between Russia and Zelensky cannot remove the "root causes" of the conflict.
<= I agree, but what Sleezensky can do is remove the root cause from Ukraine.. and that is a start..
and to do that Sleezensky needs
to allow Russia to occupy Ukraine, to oversee its government, to secure its borders from NATO and all others, to re-institute Russian morality, to correct the history taught and the language spoken and to normalize the information environment to one favorable to Russia as a neighbor for as long as it takes to dis-empower the people responsible for the root cause.. The people in Gaza are victims of the same root cause that the people in Ukraine are victim to.
Posted by: snake | May 20 2025 13:59 utc | 16
Correction b, Starmer wasn't left out in the cold nor was he ignoring Ukraine; he had other more pressing Ukrainian matters to deal with.
Specifically, following up on a Grindr lead for Roman Lavrynovych's replacement.
Posted by: Hornos | May 20 2025 14:01 utc | 17
I think it would be incorrect that Trump is essentially the same as Biden (or OBomber).
I think that it is credible to believe that Trump believes this war to be a drain on the US and working against US interest with regard to getting it's economy back on track (i.e. Manufacturing) and/or developing US commercial relations. He realizes (I think) that the MIC has largely been a corrupt, cancerous growth on the US economy and that it funds/supports his political adversaries.
But politically he is not in a position to over-rule the rest of his own party - especially because it works in concert with the "opposition" party with regard to interests of the MIC (and pharma).
Therefor, I think that he is effectively telling Putin that his hands are somewhat tied that he will do what he can to not malign Russia where he has that ability because he would like to re-establish relations for the purpose of pursuing commercial interests which could act as a common interest of the US and Russia which in the larger term could potentially act as a counter to the MIC interest of war at any cost.
It is not simply a matter of trying to peal Russia away from China, although that may be a plus in the long term - partly because the US has no hope of confronting China militarily and in fact Trump needs some degree of commercial relations with China in spite of the need to substantially reduce imports from China.
Well, chalk another one up to the Zelensky Curse. Get Well card might read: "... and what I'll do on your grave wont pass for roses".
Posted by: jared | May 20 2025 14:04 utc | 18
B
In term of root causes you have failed to mention two very relevant facts.
The Romanian and polish elections (which left to their own devices instead of “dully democratly corrected “ might have helped.
Posted by: Newbie | May 20 2025 14:07 utc | 19
Good overview by b. Here's a good companion read - a deep dive by John Helmer:
Intel Briefing - Decoding Putin Statement After the Trump Call, Trump Tweet After Putin's Statement
"On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner..."
Posted by: JohnGilberts | May 20 2025 14:12 utc | 20
Malarkey is Irish for a load of smelling male cow manure!
Zelenski and de facto Kiev have no power excet that which is given by the US and its vassla.
Zelenski de facto US puppet is not on his own!
Posted by: paddy | May 20 2025 14:13 utc | 21
Malarkey is Irish for a load of smelling male cow manure!
Zelenski and de facto Kiev have no power excet that which is given by the US and its vassla.
Zelenski de facto US puppet is not on his own!
Posted by: paddy | May 20 2025 14:13 utc | 22
I would be less pessimistic than some.
The US, the main force promoving Ukraine as a "way" to put all kinds of pressure on Russia, is now convinced it was a total failure and should asap come to an end.
In order to open an avenue towards a profitable economic cooperation between US and Russia, the "Jacksonian" move.
But this is complex to implement due to:
1) the Ukrainian core of 'integral nationalists' who claim to follow Bendera's tradition ( a very complex point still to handle), and the European leaders who would like to pursue the US democratic agenda without the US. Potentially because these European leaders were deeply impressed and trained by previous US narrative.
2) Russia won't make any peace agreement without full recognition of its constitutional ownership of the 4 new oblasts as well as of his other clearly set conditions.
This will lead to several additional weeks of war and territorial conquest by Russia, unless Ukraine and Europe accept proactively the Russian conditions. The more they wait, the more likely Russia will extend its conditions to Odessa and full control of Ukrainian Black Sea coast.
Trump seems to understand that he has limited leverage on Russia !
Posted by: Dany | May 20 2025 14:15 utc | 23
@18,
Observe what Trump does:
He is sending everything he can to Zelenski! He witheld nothing during the one day dispute bc Z showed up with no red tie!
He is adding $113B to the pentagon money no one could spend properly!
Trump is not just Biden and Obanma extended but also shrub Bush and Clinton to boot.
He is all for Mackindering Russia.
Posted by: paddy | May 20 2025 14:17 utc | 24
Have anyone noted that Russia had not used another Oreshnik after the first one?
There are no worthy targets. The City of London and Regent's Park would suit well.
Posted by: Catilina | May 20 2025 14:21 utc | 25
Putin is a diplomat and treats Trump appropriately..but Trump is getting nowhere as long as he supports this foolish war...Does the MIC have that much of a grip on him?
Posted by: pyrrhus | May 20 2025 14:25 utc | 26
DJT is part of the *root causes.* As president in 2017, he sent the first lethal weapons to Ukraine—-why do you think he’s known as Donald “Javelin” Trump-?
The tough thing is simply this: the war in Ukraine is not an existential one for the paymaster, which DJT now represents, and certainly not an existential one for an expendable proxy like Ukraine, which no one in the West seems to mind martyring on the pyre of NATO primacy, so the impetus of the paymaster to engage in *endless* negotiations in an attempt to *trick* Russia into a ceasefire costs the paymaster nothing but jaw-jaw time. Free of cost, in other words.
Of which The Phone Call was an example.
Remember: we’re dealing w/ a shameless paymaster, so of course no culpability can or will land uncomfortably on the paymaster.
In the Oval after The Call, DJT said, “Look, it’s not our war”—meaning the war falls squarely at the feet of Collective Biden. He insisted that if nothing happens, “I’ll just walk away.”
DJT has been *walking away* for 4 months. He’s been walking away so long it’s like he’s in a Patsy Cline song.
Now DJT has ramped up efforts to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Now DJT is saddled w/ having to babysit the attention-craving cocaine junkie Zelensky and the hostile undermining clique of European Russophobes just as domestic U.S. issues demand his attention.
On the Russian side, it was never a matter of *if* a hot war between Russia and the U.S. would break out but when. Now that it is full-on happening, Russia is prevailing but the U.S. badly needs a pause to reload & rearm its proxy. Refusing to do so gives Russia a prime opportunity.
Russia will never be this strong in comparison w/ their long-time adversary. There’s no reason for Russia *not* to follow this through to the bitterly meted-out defeat.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 14:28 utc | 27
Posted by: juliania | May 20 2025 13:23 utc | 13
Congratulations, you win word of the day.
The word "flummery" later came to have generally pejorative connotations of a bland, empty, and unsatisfying food. From this use, "flummery" developed the meaning of empty compliments, unsubstantial talk or writing, and nonsense.
Posted by: ChatNPC | May 20 2025 14:32 utc | 28
Drumpff is now said to be "stepping away" from supporting Ukraine.
What does this mean?
- All americans are forgiven. After all, it was "Joe Biden's war". Joe Biden is at fault. Not the americans raping children in Ukraine, running biolabs and bombing civilians. By the way, Joe Biden is also forgiven because apparently an automated machine signed his papers.
- All jews are forgiven.
- Drumpff is forgiven.
- He will continue sending weapons to Ukraine and starting new wars.
Posted by: Jack M | May 20 2025 14:34 utc | 29
The infantile EU leaders are crying because Russia Keeps taking their (nose) candy away from them. This is not Russia's first cocaine tanker seizure.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/cocaine-insights-1.pdf
Lengthy but clearly establishes Europe's obsession with cocaine. Just look at their leaders on the cocaine train.
Posted by: CeaClearly | May 20 2025 14:34 utc | 30
thanks b
you articulate this well... if i may - this conflict is between nato and russia and no amount of getting ukraine in on the conversation will change this root cause.. in fact, wanting to include ukraine in nato is where ukraine fits in... nato is a warmongering alliance which suits the usa and poodles just fine.... for the ''salesman'' to hawk the idea this is between ukraine and russia, is more of the same constant bullshit the west regularly displays hoping that it's citizenry will continued to be duped royally... many of us aren't..
Posted by: james | May 20 2025 14:35 utc | 31
I would respectfully disagree with b's assertion that NATO expansion is the primary or fundamental "root" cause of the conflict. NATO may be seen as a proximate cause, but it might be better seen as itself the symptom or means of expression of the prime mover: the West's serial drive to subjugate Russia and Russians.
To assert the former, as b does, is to frame the war as the result of a series of unfathomably stupid mistakes driving the expansion of NATO, resulting in a war. To assert the latter, as I do here, is to see the destruction / dismemberment / decolonization of Russia as the goal, and NATO expansion as the means to make the war intended to bring this about impossible for Russia to avoid any longer, while blaming it on a paranoid Russian aggressor.
Even now, Westards cannot bring themselves to assign any role to NATO expansion--not so much as a refusal of fault but because any such recognition would be a step towards de-escalating a conflict--even a losing one--that kills Russians.
The "mistake" on this view isn't the expansion of NATO but rather using it to provoke a conflict the West presumed it would win.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | May 20 2025 14:36 utc | 32
Posted by: Dany | May 20 2025 14:15 utc | 23
RE: the possibility of forging a Jacksonian bond between the U.S. and Russia
<<
Great insights.
Add a 3rd "complex to implement" item to your post:
3) DJT's hands are domestically tied by a dense neocon faction, not limited to Congressional politicians who hold sway over certain valuable votes in support of DJT's homegrown agenda but also including Deep State elements over which he has sketchy control
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 14:39 utc | 33
Posted by: pyrrhus | May 20 2025 14:25 utc | 26
########
Delay and distraction are valid tactics, which I believe, the Axis employs regularly.
The West is in a rush. The East is not.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 14:40 utc | 34
All this misdirection on root causes.
Empire is using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia to conquer Russia on the way to conquering China.
Trump is the bully face of empire wanting to continue its Rules Based Order that is one of the root causes.
The root cause behind all this is my God Of Mammon cult that wants to maintain private finance hegemony in our world. Russia now and beside them China along with the RoW are in the process of throwing off their chains of root cause colonialism.
Then there is the monotheist root cause of myth backing for things like genocide.
How about the root cause of some humans belief in their exceptionalism?
I see human hubris being a root cause behind exceptionalism.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 20 2025 14:45 utc | 35
Let's abandon naivety.
Trump's hands are not tied.
WYSIWYG.
As with Israel, this is what America is.
Trump started the SMO and pushed NATO expansion in his first term.
He could have ended this in the first week of his second term (he had a mandate) but chose not to do so.
Let's abandon these childish myths about Trump saving the world but being restrained by the evil "Deep State".
When someone repeatedly shows you who they are, believe them.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 14:46 utc | 36
I see human hubris being a root cause behind exceptionalism.
Posted by: psychohistorian | May 20 2025 14:45 utc | 35
######
I see low self-esteem leading to rationalizations for abusing other humans by any means necessary.
Psychologically and emotionally healthy people don't practice colonialism, but once they do, they require a reason why they "had to do it".
They are chosen, exceptional, Holy, etc. it's not their fault they have "superior" genetics and God favors them above all others...
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 14:52 utc | 37
Come on, anonymous had a point, sooner or later DS had to accept facts. 20+km2
Casualties still low hoovering 1.300
Posted by: Newbie | May 20 2025 14:53 utc | 38
@ Johan Kaspar | May 20 2025 13:35 utc | 14
nice summary.. thanks..
@ suzan | May 20 2025 13:37 utc | 15
yes, and there is that too.. thanks..
@ Paul Damascene | May 20 2025 14:36 utc | 32
i like what you say.. however, i think b is highlighting that nato is essentially a root cause of why we are here now, regardless of the expansion or not..
@ psychohistorian | May 20 2025 14:45 utc | 35
agreed more broadly speaking..
Posted by: james | May 20 2025 15:00 utc | 39
Yes, Australia shipping abrams tanks to the Ukraine is a good sign that the US still wants to continue to the war in the Ukraine. This is a VERY GOOD and SOLID sign of the intentions of the current US government. There are still too many influential people in the US who want to continue all those wars. And that doesn't bode well for the intentions of the US regarding the Middle East and the possible war with China (Xi Jinping has said that China should prepare for war).
The US seems to want to "enlist" South Korea, Taiwan and Japan in a "Proxy war" with China.
Posted by: WMG | May 20 2025 15:03 utc | 40
What do you expect from a Government that has washed it hands of it's Own People , much less all the Wars it starts. As long as the MIC gets paid, the politicians and Wall Street guys get their cut, , and Both Country's gets looted - it was a Win. Time to move on and count their money.
Posted by: GMC | May 20 2025 15:13 utc | 41
It is NATO expansion, not Ukraine the country, that is the root cause of the war. It is NATO expansion that has to be eliminated.Yes, and the only realistic way to achieve that is to dissolve NATO.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 20 2025 15:19 utc | 42
HOT WAR COMING TO THE BALTIC SEA?
(Reposting my question from the previous thread.)
Friedrich Merz via @Justpassinby | May 18 2025 12:58 utc | 4The EU plans to introduce the 17th package of sanctions on Tuesday. Among other things, it will target the so-called "shadow fleet" in the Baltic Sea.
What tools of coercion or enforcement does the EU have left, that are within their jurisdiction? Which of those tools are specific to the Baltic Sea.
The only way the EU can "target" the Russian oil tanker fleet in the Baltic Sea, is by military action. I do not yet know what form it will take, but I am sure Russia will respond. Even worse, the response can be something totally unexpected.
Update May 20, 2025
Russia detains Estonian oil tanker. (I did not know Estonia was an oil exporter.)
Estonia says Russia detained a tanker in Baltic Sea - ReutersTALLINN, May 18 (Reuters) - Russia detained a Greek-owned oil tanker on Sunday after it left an Estonian Baltic Sea port, the Estonian Foreign Ministry said, adding it had alerted NATO allies to the incident. The Liberia-flagged ship Green Admire was leaving Sillamae port using a designated navigation channel that crosses Russian territorial waters, the ministry said in a statement.
Russia halts tanker from Estonia in shift on Baltic shipping routes - Helsinki TimesThe tanker Green Admire, operated by Greek company Aegean Shipping and sailing under a Liberian flag, was en route to Rotterdam with a shale oil cargo when it was stopped by Russian border authorities. The incident took place within Russian territorial waters, but on a route jointly agreed by Estonia, Russia, and Finland for safety reasons.
Tanker Released by Russia After Brief Detention in Baltic Sea: Reports - Ship & BunkerAccording to Russian authorities, the ship entered a zone they had marked as dangerous for navigation. Despite repeated warnings to change course, the tanker did not respond and was escorted to an anchorage off Suursaar.
Here is a video explanation by BORZZIKMAN.
It's Declaration of WAR: BALTIC States Vow REVENGE for Russia's Detention of the SHIP from ESTONIA
Yes, Estonian oil exports need to pass through Russian territorial waters.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 43
juliania | May 20 2025 13:23 utc | 13--
Flummery was a favorite of author Rex Stout who put it into Nero Wolfe's mouth quite often and is 100% appropriate in this case.
The Collective West is in denial that Russia is defeating its Ukraine proxy. All the fantastical blustering predictions proved to be complete chimeras conjured by a staff of group-thinking morons who repeatedly continue to step on the same rake that's beaten them senseless. Meanwhile, Russia's stated goals and rationale remains as it was in 2021-22 as has most of its military strategy.
That the Outlaw US Empire is the Main Loser of this conflict is clear for realist analysts to see; and since it was Aggressive War that it initiated in 2014, the Empire is guilty of all the crimes committed during the conflict--a key reminder made by Lavrov and others whenever they invoke Nuremburg as was done daily earlier this month--and Russia has vowed to hold its own version of Nuremburg when the conflict concludes, while it already prosecutes the terrorists it's captured.
IMO, Russia's POV is that all Ukraine will need to act as a buffer zone between it and the main bulk of NATO until NATO dissolves and the military threat evaporates. As for security guarantees for Western Europe, as I've pointed out many times they existed and Russia signed onto all three OSCE Treaties that NATO broke that were to provide Indivisible Security to all signatories. Russia offers that same deal in its Greater Eurasian Security Structure that EU/NATO have ignored to this point. What Western Europe has yet to come to terms with is it's no longer dominant in anything, that it's merely a small peninsula attached to the much vaster Eurasian landmass with few resources of its own to support its populace. IMO, it's that huge downgrade in status that has EU elites clutching at straws because there's no way to alter that reality as their latest attempt to colonize Russia has massively failed.
So, the main question is how long can the Ukraine's military sustain its defense against Russia's advance? The attrition has depleted the ability to hold onto the very long LOC as many weak areas are now being exposed and exploited. Drones have replaced artillery and infantry, but drones can't hold ground; and Russia's drone tech now surpasses NATO's. The deeper--30-40 kms--rear's logistical lines are being continually assaulted by Russian drones which helps the speed of attrition at the LOC. And in the Deep Rear, Russia is beyond victorious compared to Ukraine. The big test will soon arrive at Kramatorsk.
The U.S. will have to reengage in negotiations if peace is to be achieved. It is U.S. (NATO) expansionism that has cause the war.Agreed. The US must reengage as a party, not a mediator. Victoria Nuland would confirm.
Posted by: Norwegian | May 20 2025 15:24 utc | 45
Relax everybody, everything is going to plan.
Russia's, when in doubt, retreat, when confident, go-slow approach to war in combination with Team-Biden/[Sullivan/Blinken]'s accelerating weapons/money delivery, allocated for a two year time span, into the final weeks of their administration has produced exactly the result hoped for, a Trump-tar-baby. This was predictable by anybody with a brain, sadly, most here and on other boards studiously ignored the obvious and...well...here we are. Oh Joy!
Two groups most pleased with the turn of events:
1]Russia's fanboys will be overjoyed at the infallibility of Russia's high command strategic plans...whatever they are. They're a pretty easy to please as they stand on the sidelines waving their pom-poms
2]Those infected with TDS are delighted to be able remove the mantel of defeat from Hillary/Cheney/Obama/Team-Biden/[Sullivan/Blinken]'s collective neck and place it squarely on Trumps shoulders.
Of course there are some losers but...
So what if ~250,000 ethnic Slovaks, Hungarians and Russians die after being forced into the "showers" of Russian artillery by the modern-day-Galician-Waffen-SS. Got to break a few eggs if you want to see Russia's "cheerleaders" high-fiving with the globalists "blue-no-matter-who's".
The timing of the Russians was perfectly synchronized with the DNC's. Was this intentional? No but, it was politically tone deaf. Had Trump been faced with a fait accompli he could have walked away clean and began a rapprochement...that would have been bad for the DNC and bad for those Europeans/Americans who want to see their respective countries destroyed, the globalist "blue-no-matter-who's".
And too bad about those trapped inside the artifice of 1991 ex-ukrainia, those ethnic Slovaks, Hungarians and Russian that must now die as the war will grind years longer.
Russia too will lose more soldiers in total, albeit at a slower rate and they will lose the peace they sought as Russo-American-reproachment will be made politically impossible...in that respect, Russia's High Command reminds me of Gen Westmoreland's tone deaf approach in Viet Nam, he too was a fan of attrition.
On the other hand, for those Europeans/Americans globalist the "blue-no-matter-who's" they will shed crocodile tears as they dance upon the graves of those who must die.
There is a small chance however.... The Russian-High-Command will see the trap they've walked into and pull their collective head out their ass this summer just as Sullivan/Blinken's accelerated arms deliveries are running out but, before congress can deliver another tranche...and a peace can be made of it. Kinda doubt it, Russian commanders, to their credit, can be stubborn, by the book but, sometimes, this time that's not what's called for.
The longer this war goes on, the more asymmetric it will become as the west is in a very weak position it will revert to the practice of piracy, assassination, terrorism et al...the foundation of the English empire after all was based on these practices. This is could easily be the thing that get us all killed.
Posted by: S Brennan | May 20 2025 15:26 utc | 46
So, the main question is how long can the Ukraine's military sustain its defense against Russia's advance?
The big test will soon arrive at Kramatorsk.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 44
Advance seems to be close to late 2024, so...
Kramatorsk, es, but some prep stages before (i.e. lyman)
37E is the first lie to clean
Posted by: Newbie | May 20 2025 15:41 utc | 47
Well, I cannot be certain, but I would like to note:
Being negative, critical, contrary or pessimistic does not equate to being wise, rational or inciteful - does not improve ones chances of being correct and is perhaps just as likely to lead to errors of judgement.
Another point I note as I browse the many blogs:
We mortals do not generally use logic for the purpose of communication - logic is quite complex and relies on knowing and removal of bias. So discussions among people ends-up like chatter among birds (though I must admit I am not quite sure what the birds are saying - perhaps it would help if I did). How many people actually subject their thoughts to rational analysis and reject those that do not meet the tests that would apply.
Posted by: jared | May 20 2025 15:42 utc | 48
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 14:28 utc | 27
DJT is part of the *root causes.* As president in 2017, he sent the first lethal weapons to Ukraine—-why do you think he’s known as Donald “Javelin” Trump-?
Maybe, But I think President Trump's actions reflected his commitment to someone else's cause? What force, concern, bribe, corrupt purpose or prior commitment caused DJT to even known Ukraine existed and much less to spend the energy needed to justify sending American taxpayer paid for weapons and state department personnel to support a foreign government somewhere in far away Ukraine? It is that hidden reason, that secret force, that impelling demand, that urge to satisfy a need, that we at the bar are trying to accurately identify and define.
Why would DJT even bother to use his political power to support Ukraine? Maybe the DOS can answer that question?
How long has the department of state been working on engineering into existence a State Department controllable society in Ukraine? Even if you identify that time table, you still need to know why would the State department be interested in Ukraine. Maybe private corporate Oligarch owned interest has sufficient political power to direct the resources of the resources of the USA?
Its best to keep digging to discover and to define the root cause? We need to be careful not to confuse a symptom, or an expression of the cause, with the cause.
Posted by: snake | May 20 2025 15:47 utc | 49
What would the world be like if we could only pass judgement on topics where we could have a high degree of confidence (meaning objectively) of being provably correct and delivered politely and with respect and received similarly.
I wonder what if our court systems were over-seen by (unbiased) AI which was always learning and self-correcting.
Or at least judgments could be graded by AI and check for deviations from norms.
The pubs would fall silent and patrons less thirsty.
Posted by: jared | May 20 2025 16:01 utc | 50
I feel somewhat validated by this essay. I had thought it odd that the US could ever consider itself a mediator in the NATO(US)/Ukraine vs Russia war. It was the US that instigated the Maidan revolution, decided who would be (s)elected to power in the Ukraine and supplied it with the lion's share of monetary/armaments support
The root cause has *always* been NATO's ever eastward expansion toward the Russian border. Each new addition to the bloc reduced the time it took for NATO missiles to impact Russian targets. This was a war explicitly started and directed by the US. For it to assume the mantle of mediator is laughable.
What does greatly surprise me is the complacency the Ukrainian people show for being so openly, and cynically used the the US for geostrategic advantage.
Russia will win this war. The US/NATO will suffer reputational loss and both Russia and the Ukraine will suffer their war dead and maimed. The biggest loser will be the Ukraine. An entire generation lost to war in one form or other. The country devastated. In debt to western vultures for at least another generation.
This is what it means to be a 'friend' of the United States. But a mediator? Don't make me laugh.
Posted by: rgl | May 20 2025 16:03 utc | 51
*** The root cause of the conflict began in 1946 when Roosevelt was removed .replaced by the Truman led power play. At that time the city of London, their oil and gas empire and their global system of banks decided Russia was, or at least had the potential to be, too much competition; competition that had to be eliminated. ***
Posted by: Gavin Longmuir | May 20 2025
This pattern is older than 1946. Consider that London was financing coal shipments to Russia before the Crimean War.
Posted by: frithguild | May 20 2025 16:07 utc | 52
Have anyone noted that Russia had not used another Oreshnik after the first one? Why the sudden cry for 30-day ceasefire?Posted by: ostrr | May 20 2025 12:36 utc | 2
Every time you use a new weapon, you give your enemies a chance to gather more information about it... and work out ways to defeat it.
Russia's leadership have demonstrated that the missiles work, and very well. But Russia doesn't need to use them at present, so - my guess - is that they won't.
Posted by: Observer | May 20 2025 16:11 utc | 53
*** The root cause has *always* been NATO's ever eastward expansion toward the Russian border. Each new addition to the bloc reduced the time it took for NATO missiles to impact Russian targets. This was a war explicitly started and directed by the US. ***
Posted by: rgl | May 20 2025 16:03 utc | 51
What better time could there be to reverse course on NATO expansion and it's series of tripwire cases when every base and it's underground facilities is vulnerable not to rolling tanks but Oreshnik. Bases are so 1900's.
Posted by: frithguild | May 20 2025 16:14 utc | 54
HOT WAR COMING TO THE BALTIC SEA?
Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 43
########
Searching for excuses for NATO to escalate.
The Russian North Sea navy will decimate the NATO navy in a straight-up battle. It's not even close in technology.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:15 utc | 55
"It is NATO expansion, not Ukraine the country, that is the root cause of the war."
To be fair, none of this would be happening if Ukrainians didn't have an irrational hatred of Russians. Cultures based on historical grievances, whether real or imagined, are far easier to manipulate than those that aren't.
Posted by: frithguild | May 20 2025 16:14 utc | 54
#########
That's part of Trump's issue.
Psychopaths (The Empire) don't possess a reverse gear.
NATO and the EU are incapable of backing down and taking another tack, regardless of what alt-media talking heads wish for.
America is wrestling with the same issues vis-à-vis Iran and China.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:18 utc | 57
Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 43Hei Petri, thank you for your contributions! What's the sentiment in Finland? Do people feel safer as part of NATO (which is the impression I got from talking to a few Finns around here)?Hot war coming to the Baltic Sea?
In Germany, there is a clear attempt to prepare minds for war. I still lack the fantasy to imagine actual German-Russian frontline action but we've seen in the recent past how effective propaganda can be. Are Finns afraid of (or worse: eager for) war?
Alexander Stubb recently made a semi-compentent --for an EU bureocrat-- noise about Russia always being Finland's neighbour and future relations should be better etc. But now he said something stupid again. Fits better with my mental image of Stubbi.
An unrelated question that I always wanted to ask a Finn but didn't dare to ask my colleagues: I get that many Finns are proud of Suomi's performance in the Winter War. Do peope also know about the Continuation War and, if so, is there any shame? Do kids learn about the siege of Leningrad and Finland's role?
Posted by: Konami | May 20 2025 16:18 utc | 58
@ Posted by: rgl | May 20 2025 16:03 utc | 51
Well, for what it might be worth
I think Trump's latest tweet suggested that only Russia and Ukraine speaking directly could have a hope to resolve the conflict, in the absence of complete defeat of one side.
The US is not suitable as mediator, but perhaps as motivator.
Posted by: jared | May 20 2025 16:22 utc | 59
The reason why Europe wants to escalate or just continue the war forever is that it has seen how the US ruling class has used forever wars to control the domestic population by forming the mythological framework for looking at international politics, i.e., it is a struggle between good and evil. The governments and government-controlled media create this framework such that I have heard even alternative-minded people speak within those frameworks and not realized they are deliberate and engineered lies. It is hard to believe that our entire society is governed by not just a tissue of lies but an entire structure of lies that serve the ruling oligarchs. Europe, after 9/11 and US forever wars got that there was no need to "win" any war but just to maintain wars and to maintain "threats"--the reality is that most people will believe the lies no matter how insane they appear to those of us who are allergic to the Kool-Aid.
European oligarchs must have war to keep their power even more than the US oligarchs not just because of their personal lack of morality but because their entire societies lack solid moral values so the populations are easily led into false moralities. This is somewhat less the case in the USA so that is why Trump is hesitating to fund the war. It is likely he will do so not so much because he wants to but because the dominant cliques in Washington is solidly for perpetual wars anywhere and everywhere short of nuclear war. I genuinely feel Trump does not want to continue the crusade against Russia but what can he do with an entire city and all the national media for that war.
Putin will oblige everyone by going slow in hopes the Euro-trash in charge of Europe will weaken and that the US will change starting from the bottom as it has been doing, for example, with changing attitudes toward Israeli's obvious and in-your-face fascism. Just scratch the surface on what most Israelis think and you can see the most stunning face of evil. Whether Trump actually seeks peace or is going to reluctantly going to be dragged back into war will not matter so much. Russia's views are being spread and will be welcomed in the US over time.
Posted by: Chris Cosmos | May 20 2025 16:24 utc | 60
G Longmuir@6
"The root cause is that Russia is too much competition for the British led oil and gas and wealth backed banker empire."
It has ALWAYS been about this one stark fact! The ALL-powerful and ALL-controlling Global Banking Cabal made up of very old European families AND Gewish Rothschild Banking families creating wealth for centuries. This has all been thoroughly documented by many sources, writers, researchers and even Rabbi's. The City, has had it's eye on that $75 Trillion dollars of resources since it has been known to be there!
They are literally the scourge of the earth and of all humanity.
To scoff at or ignore this basic and well-understood fact is naïve, childish or plain stupid....
Posted by: bisfugged | May 20 2025 16:29 utc | 61
Yes, Estonian oil exports need to pass through Russian territorial waters.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 43
Why would Estonian sea vessels need to cross Russian territorial waters?
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=8/59.702/25.543
I think the Estonian vessel venturing into Russian territorial waters was meant to provoke more escalations similar to the cutting of the sea cables. Of course Russia could decimate a whole NATO fleet but then we'd be in an end game. An end game any sane person doesn't want to occur.
Also, the ports of Kiliningrad and Saint Petersburg would be cut off from the Atlantic by Denmark.
Posted by: xor | May 20 2025 16:32 utc | 62
**Flummery**
So I guess that this word was in fact created to describe typical English cuisine that was bland, unpalatable and generally offensive to the senses....
Posted by: bisfugged | May 20 2025 16:36 utc | 63
*** Psychopaths (The Empire) don't possess a reverse gear.
NATO and the EU are incapable of backing down and taking another tack, regardless of what alt-media talking heads wish for. ***
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:18 utc | 57
Parasites attract to any store of value, which is an object to be converted to its own purpose. So cluster B personalities with dark tetrad characteristics are drawn to governments like maggots to flesh. Government resistance to parasitic attacks become more diminished the more they become populated by the products of post modern education, which is nothing more than a formula for acquisition of power designed for psychopaths (Was Derida a deviant?).
As Mr. ebear observes, "Cultures based on historical grievances, whether real or imagined, are far easier to manipulate than those that aren't." Russia is surrounded by grievance cultures, little doubt due to its own parasitic infestation that waned before 2000.
Posted by: frithguild | May 20 2025 16:37 utc | 64
The reason why Europe wants to escalate or just continue the war forever is that it has seen how the US ruling class has used forever wars to control the domestic population by forming the mythological framework for looking at international politics, i.e., it is a struggle between good and evil.
Posted by: Chris Cosmos | May 20 2025 16:24 utc | 60
######
Europe, like America, is broke. They have no solution for their economic situation.
War is the timeless Western response.
Social control + sending off the young men most dangerous to the regime in a revolution to die.
Confiscation of property for "national defense".
Censorship and suspension of elections due to "martial law".
While war is terrible, it is the best and only move for the West. The East is rapidly pulling away economically and technologically. In 40 years, the West squandered the end of the Cold War and a significant head start. The conditions around that head start are unlikely to be repeated.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:43 utc | 65
The root cause of the conflict began in 1946 when Roosevelt was removed .replaced by the Truman led power play. At that time the city of London, their oil and gas empire and their global system of banks decided Russia was, or at least had the potential to be, too much competition; competition that had to be eliminated.
Posted by: snake | May 20 2025 13:59 utc | 16
I have this strange feeling that the CityOf London together with their cousins in Russia, "the Bolsjevics" have robbed Russia for eternity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Narodny_Bank_Limited
In 1919, due to disruption of relations with the parent company due to its nationalization in Russia, the London branch was incorporated as a British legal entity in order to protect it. The bank heads, Jean Bubnov and Konstantin Popov, submitted an application to register it as an English limited liability company, which was registered in London on October 18, 1919 as a company of England and Wales under number No.159752.[4][5][6]
In 1956, after the Hungarian revolt, as the Soviet Union feared that its deposits in North American banks would be frozen in retaliation, it decided to move some of its holdings to the Moscow Narodny Bank Limited. The British bank would then deposit that money in the U.S. banks. There would be no chance of confiscating that money because it belonged to the British bank and not directly to the Soviets. On 28 February 1957, a sum of $800,000 was transferred. The Soviets also owned a bank in Paris, called the Banque Commercial pour l'Europe du Nord. The Paris Russian bank took some Narodny's dollars and lent them.
Eternity here means, since 1555. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscovy_Company
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 16:43 utc | 66
If Trump cannot completely disengage US Imperialism from the war on Russia in Ukraine, then there is nothing to be said for him. He is a dead loser, useful Zionist pussy.
The whole effort has been an unmitigated disaster for Imperialism, although a great boon to military contractors, and yet he can't find the will to simply drop a losing gambit. Russia has not been extended, it's economically more sound and it's alliance with China and North Korea has been strengthened immensely.
Same story in Ziolandia. Imperialism has been completely unmasked by the genocide. It's credibility is lower internationally than at anytime since WW2. Israel already had Gaza in a cage. Genocide gains US imperialism nothing.
And then there's China. Tariff gambit is already lost. The outcome of a hot war Imperialism pretends to want so bad with China is already clear to every same person on earth.
Trump is again just one in a long line of useful idiot stooge president's. He's a car salesman for the Pentagon, Zionists, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
He's not winning a third term. This turd will get flushed and there will be a bright eyed bipoc Imperialist ready to replace him with a "joyful" genocide that every woman, minority and gay can support enthusiastically.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | May 20 2025 16:45 utc | 67
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:43 utc | 65
######
Empires have gone quietly, and they have gone loudly.
Can anyone imagine the West going quietly and with dignity?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:50 utc | 68
I'm loving all of the hysterical Russophobia. It's laughable that ZATO, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to shift the focus from a land war to the High Seas.
Russia has the most formidible suite of anti-ship missiles on Earth. I can hardly wait to hear the Eurotrash sqealing like stuck pigs when their ships begin disapearing without a trace.
Dumbassness used to be an exclusively Yankee predilection but the Eurotrash seem to have decided to give it a whirl.
Go for it, dolts!!
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 20 2025 16:51 utc | 69
He's not winning a third term.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | May 20 2025 16:45 utc | 67
######
Not to be dramatic, I don't think it is a given that the US has another election in 3.5 years. I mean, they may stage one, but America then won't look much like America now.
I can remember watching the Berlin Wall being torn down by Germans on TV.
That was on no one's bingo card 3 months earlier.
Things are primed to flip quickly, the way COVID changed everything in the West in 2 months.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 16:58 utc | 70
Dumbassness used to be an exclusively Yankee predilection but the Eurotrash seem to have decided to give it a whirl.
Go for it, dolts!!
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 20 2025 16:51 utc | 69
#######
You know what they say, we are all the average of our "n" friends.
Europe has been getting closer and closer to America since 2001.
Europe has increasingly become more like America than Europe has hewed to its traditional norms.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 17:00 utc | 71
And btw. "the bolsjevics" saved Hungary from:
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 17:03 utc | 72
@ Posted by: rgl | May 20 2025 16:03 utc | 51
Well, for what it might be worth
I think Trump's latest tweet suggested that only Russia and Ukraine speaking directly could have a hope to resolve the conflict, in the absence of complete defeat of one side.
The US is not suitable as mediator, but perhaps as motivator.
Posted by: jared | May 20 2025 16:22 utc | 59
So far the U.S. or Trump haven't been able to "motivate" Ukraine to make any concessions. Hours after the Trump - Putin phone call, Zelensky repeated Ukraine's demands for a peace deal - path to NATO, not giving a single km of territory to Russia, no recognization of Crimea as russian. He still wants a better deal than he could get in Istanbul in 2022. Rubio said weeks ago that the U.S. will pull out of the negotiations if Russia can't make a deal with Ukraine within days. Weeks later Trump says no deal can be make without him and Putin. Now Trump says he will pull out of the negotiations again and deal has to be negotiated only by Ukraine and Russia. Obviously no deal will be made with Zelensky's current demands and Trump can keep the supply of weapons and money to Ukraine going, because abandoning Ukraine wouldn't play well with the "nation's enemies of defeating the MAGA agenda - © Markw". And everyone on that side will be happy - the MIC, neocons, american warmongers like Lindsay Graham and lastly european politicians who are getting kickbacks from the now approved giant military spending and money laundering in Ukraine, not to mention using Russia as a boogeyman and excuse for everything including their failing economic, energy policies and tightening the chokehold on their own electorate. I still think that Trump could have ended the war quickly, he had the power to do so. Either he was afraid he would be disposed of by the deep state or he is part of it. Everything else is a theatre.
Posted by: 5thcolumn | May 20 2025 17:04 utc | 73
"Flummery was a favorite of author Rex Stout who put it into Nero Wolfe's mouth quite often and is 100% appropriate in this case."
Posted by: karlof1 | May 20 2025 15:23 utc | 44
Thanks, karlof1. In a sense, it is like what I've always felt about Shakespeare's Hamlet, that too being a case of flummery itself sending things on a more violent course, ironically speaking. We see Trump proclaiming his desire to end the killing while taking a course that makes more of it inevitable. The Europeans are like incidental players revealing their own shallowness and thereby compounding the problem.
Hamlet didn't really have an effective protagonist inching him along the right path to eventual safety, as we see Putin doing; at the very end of that play it is only somebody who hasn't been involved till then who comes in to sum things up. I'm not entirely seeing Trump as Hamlet in today's very real happenings, but the Russians are good at casting a longer line narrative than even Shakespeare has done. It has to end well for them; that is the objective. And for us all.
It's Swift, isn't it, that writes an essay about the battle of the books. When I finish "A Gentleman in Moscow", (or maybe before), I shall see if my library has any Rex Stout novels!
Posted by: juliania | May 20 2025 17:06 utc | 74
I'm loving all of the hysterical Russophobia. It's laughable that ZATO, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to shift the focus from a land war to the High Seas. ***
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 20 2025 16:51 utc | 69
And of all the NATO leaders who were briefed by DJT about his call with VVP, who was absent? High Seas gives you a hint. And they are probably the most post modernist of them all. Just a bunch of Milenials running family offices on behalf of senile patriarchs and matriarchs, much like Biden in Washington. See Tucker and Sean Ryan discussion.
Posted by: frithguild | May 20 2025 17:06 utc | 75
Btw. the robbing lastet until 1649:
Alexei Mikhailovich in 1649. The elders of the English merchants were informed of the royal decree, which stated: "The English have committed a great evil deed with all their land, they have killed their sovereign, King Charles, beheaded by Cromwell, for such an evil deed you were not destined to be in the Muscovite state."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_of_Russia
Then 100 years later and Boris Pfeffel Johnson's family was caretakers of a district in Tsarist Russia. The robbing goes a long way back.
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 17:14 utc | 76
Chris Cosmos 60,
Inside the US and inside the Trump Administration there two rationales for keeping this war going, one private, unspoken.
The spoken one is to "weaken-Russia". Is this feasible? It matters not or, not so long as the 3LAs-media-minions can keep a lid on factual details and in so doing, completely misinform the public and weak-minded politicians..of which there are quite few. I note again, almost all the public figures who espouse this canard are heavy recipients of Chinese money. But..but..but..China is Russia Brother Forever !!!! Yes..yes things aren't always what they appear.
The unspoken one is to destroy Trump's coalition.
Yes..yes..the frequent flyers on this comment section [and others] endlessly remind us that all Trump voters are a singularly monolithic basket of deplorables rather than what they really are, a collection of malcontents from both parties and independents. Inside this coalition are those that want the forever-wars to end, the reformists, if you will. These are voters that both parties seek to disenfranchise, those most dangerous to both party's inner cabal of globalists. As the 6 Jan protest reveal, the national security state will use it's secret police to incite violence and if need be, create violence with the purpose of silencing the two party's malcontents. I add, in spite of it being transparently obvious to all but the most clueless, it worked quite well. Team-Biden was able to start the war in ex-ukrainia and substantially expand NATO to completely encircle Russia...amongst other things.
So, in that sense, Trump is "mediating" between two internal factions in what could be called a "schizophrenic dialogue". It's unclear to me that Trump truly holds the reigns of power as his detractors here insist; it looks to me like he's trying to walk the line. Would I wish otherwise? Yes, of course but, those who knowingly extended the carnage in ex-ukrainia knew exactly what they were doing and sadly, the Russian High Command unwitting obliged these demonic souls in creating this "prisoners dilemma". As I said, Trump's coalition has many factions, some with very deep with pockets to whom Trump is completely disposable and those that want the forever-wars to end, the reformists, those people have few or, more realistically, no options.
Posted by: S Brennan | May 20 2025 17:24 utc | 77
Flummery.
My Mum used to make Flummeries.
They were a refrigerated dessert dish in which a flavoured milk-based liquid was whipped/beaten until it was frothy. If it was beaten for long enough it became frothy from top to bottom.
Problem was that it took so long to chill that the final result was a cold custardy dish with the consistency of junket and 1/2 an inch of froth on the top.
Mum only made it a few times which I assume is because there was a lack of appreciation which was scant reward for the time spent in preparing it...
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 20 2025 17:31 utc | 78
Posted by: snake | May 20 2025 15:47 utc | 49
RE: digging for the root cause & not getting distracted by the *symptoms*
<<
Allen Dulles's CIA operatives were already ginning up Bandera-leaning elements of the Ukraine S.S.R. in 1947, in order to thwart Stalin and destabilize the Soviet Union, so it may be that *root causes* find their actual taproot deeply embedded there.
For the next 43 or 44 years the objective either languished or gained acceleration as a result of geopolitical vicissitudes. So the entire objective was very much on the back burner.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union presented tasty new opportunities for adventurers, however, and shifted the dynamics for Ukraine ss it became an independent nation.
As early as 1992, George Soros sent tendrils & shoots throughout Kiev's civic life in the form of start-up NGOs, pro-democracy groups, etc. Naturally those threads twined around the already-existing tap root, which had taken hold under the CIA in 1947.
Nascent Project Ukraine was born.
Fast-forward to DJT 1.0---during his first term I don't think DJT had gone granular on why the heck the U.S. was hovering so protectively over its investment/involvement in Ukraine. In fact, he retained the entire diplomatic staff & embassy personnel who had been working hand-in-glove w/ Mrs. Nuland since 2012. DJT just let them continue their work. If eventually they persuaded him to send Javelins, though Obama had never done so, he just sent the Javelins, probably without drilling down into the implications.
DJT had presided over a similar sleight of hand in December 2016, before his actual presidency began, when the NIH under Dr. Fauci restarted the "gain of function" research in the North Carolina laboratory *as well as in the Wuhan Institute.*
In other words, crafty Fauci and his curators 'snuck' the restart in during an interregnum period when *one* admin was leaving and a very inexperienced admin was getting ready to come aboard. No one was really minding the store. And I think the greenlight for Javelins to Kiev occurred under a similar kind of set-up, not during the interregnum but @ the crafty behest of a Nuland-caliber embassy & diplomatic staff who knew that DJT was not really devoting attention to Ukraine.
But here's the thing: since returning to the White House for 2.0, DJT has *publicly* boasted about sending Javelins to the AFU when all Obama would send were blankets--and he has done this several times. He has, since February 2025, described the Javelins as "Russian tank killers." The plight of the *Russians* inside the tanks is obvious.
So why would DJT claim full responsibility for fortifying the AFU w/ lethal weaponry, which in effect escalated matters and intensified what he now calls "a ridiculous war"-?
It is indicative of DJT's need still to establish his bona fides in the eyes of---whom? The neocons-? Who would be impressed by the fact that DJT was the *first* to send Javelins to Ukraine-?
In doing so, DJT assertively & confidently grafted himself onto the *root causes* which precipitated the war.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 17:49 utc | 79
ebear | May 20 2025 16:15 utc | 56--
Excellent point! As I understand the historic process of the Banderite phenomenon, it began either before or during WW1 within the Hapsburg Empire, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that the seed was implanted. So, getting to and digging up the roots rests on the effective denazification of not just Ukraine but most of Eastern and Central Europe. And the main problem with such extremist organizations and their philosophies is that they cannot be allowed to exist as we've seen with Wahabism, Nazism, Zionism, Catholicism, and other Exceptionalist isms. I've written about the problem this need presents: How to exterminate an ism's followers without becoming as inhumane as the extremists? Some will suggest reeducation or reverse brainwashing, or some other non-lethal method of expunging the ism from the minds of its adherents. IMO, that's necessary but not sufficient as the ism will continue because such methods aren't 100% effective. As is well known: Ideas--isms--are almost impossible to destroy. So, how to do what must be done?
And unfortunately, while Russia works to denazify Ukraine, other European nations are busy building their own counterparts as we see in Moldova, the Baltics and elsewhere within Europe since Fascism/Nazism was never completely expunged there either. EU/NATO clearly want to try and defeat Russia yet again, and to do so a new strain of Russia-Hate must be created and indoctrinated to motivate people to sacrifice themselves.
Eliminating the roots will not be easy or painless for Humanity.
Posted by: S Brennan | May 20 2025 17:24 utc | 77
Great comment! Let me be clear, Trump is not in charge, more to the point, no POTUS can be in charge under the current rules of the game. At best, he can broker power and make deals between competing factions--this is precisely why, in both administrations, he made it clear he supports Israel no matter what in order to neutralize Jewish oligarchs so they don't come out with guns blazing and opposed his attempts at peace. Dismantling and reforming the Deep State, if you know Washington, is almost impossible due to the extraordinary networks of corruption and sinecures nodes of which dominate and have dominated Washington for decades. Washington, as I've said for decades, is "systemically" corrupt. Well meaning players exist but know that the best they can do is keep things from completely falling apart though I suspect that many are no realizing it all needs to fall apart.
One way or the other it will fall apart and Trump will be "blamed" for all of it by the official media--but will anyone really believe them in the next few years? I think the System is simply too profoundly corrupt to endure--either way, it's going to get very rough.
Posted by: Chris Cosmos | May 20 2025 18:10 utc | 81
Posted by: bisfugged | May 20 2025 16:29 utc | 61
"The City, has had it's eye on that $75 Trillion dollars of resources since it has been known to be there!"
In 1959, the former head of the Shanghai branch Andrey Dubonosov was appointed to a managerial position in the London branch of the bank and led Mosnarbank until 1967.[14][15] During the period from 1958 till 1960 the number of staff members increased from 40 to almost 100.
In September 1964, The Guardian named Andrey Dubonosov one of the most popular men in the City of London.[19]
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 18:14 utc | 82
Cope on overdrive.
Trump is held back which implies that nothing which MAGAs attribute to Trump was accomplished by Trump.
He either has agency or he does not. Pick one and stay consistent.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 20 2025 18:16 utc | 83
Forgot this link to Dubosonov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Narodny_Bank_Limited
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 18:16 utc | 84
Romania had to stage their election again to make sure it came out right:"Romania’s new pro-European president puts it back on a Western course" https://apnews.com/article/romania-president-election-dan-simion-e665b3944752de288a2778c84e535045
"Work on Largest NATO Europe Base Begins in Romania"
https://thedefensepost.com/2024/03/21/largest-nato-europe-base-romania/
Far from eliminating "root causes," NATO is fast putting down even more roots...
Posted by: JohnH | May 20 2025 18:16 utc | 85
Romania had to stage their election again to make sure it came out right
Posted by: JohnH | May 20 2025 18:16 utc | 85
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
The trouble is there is a an endless line of morons, still clamoring to buy tickets for the show.
Posted by: saner | May 20 2025 18:27 utc | 86
The leadership of the Eurotrash remind me of my favourite version of Que Sera Sera.
When I was just a little girl
I asked my Mother what will I be?
Will I be pretty, will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me...
No! You're a boy, Goddamit!
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 20 2025 18:33 utc | 87
Posted by: snake | May 20 2025 15:47 utc | 49
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 17:49 utc | 79
RE: the vibe in Crimea during DJT 1.0
<<
During DJT 1.0 I was visiting Russia three times a year, trying to sus out the geopolitics between my country & this great place, and I expanded my travels in 2018-2019 to include several trips to Crimea. Long consequential conversations w/ friends in Alupka, Yalta and Gyrsuf gave me a granular understanding of how sanctions were affecting people on the peninsula and how matters had settled for them after *The Return* to Russia.
Recognizing how rapidly the U.S.’s r’ship w/ Russia was souring, I could only say to my Krymski friends that the DJT admin looked like “an unreliable partner.” Russiagate was @ a full-tilt boogie level, and my Spidie senses told me that I needed to travel to Crimea as much as possible during DJT 1.0 before matters absolutely went south.
Remember: when Rodham failed to win the 2016 election, the Deep State and neocons, especially @ that time fronted by McCain and Lindsey Anne, got *denied* the hot war w/ Russia which had been in the works.
The history professor Stephen Cohen was talking about this in early 2017.
When it comes to the hegemon, however, a war *denied* is only a war *delayed,* as we’ve come to discover.
In 2018 and 2019, I knew I had a short compressed window of time for travels to Crimea, so I hit it hard. My great fortune was the capacity to strike up bonds, inaugurate friendships and have consequential conversations w/ people who trusted me w/ the truth.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 18:34 utc | 88
As time goes along, it’s increasingly clear that everything Trump does is essentially a carnival circus side show to confuse and distract his American base while the real agenda continues unabated. It’s the classic magic trick: the rubes watch the waving hand while the hand behind the back does the work.
The newly announced US Military budget is the largest EVER. Something crazy like 1 Trillion. Sounds peaceful, doesn’t it? But the waving hand is promoting “DOGE” and funding cuts that evaporate like water. It’s quite a thing to behold really. In the first Trump term they made hundreds of excuses and used “q-anon” (operation trust) to explain why nothing was actually happening. Now it’s just straight up lie to your stupid faces. And why not? It works.
Listen to Trump long enough on any issue and eventually you hear both sides. Everyone gets to hear what they want. It’s a complete waste of time.
Posted by: Moonraker | May 20 2025 18:39 utc | 89
Posted by: Moonraker | May 20 2025 18:39 utc | 89
Rubes is what they were during the first Trump term. At this point they are mooks.
Posted by: Badjoke | May 20 2025 18:51 utc | 90
Paul from Norway@72
This is one of the reasons why David Irving was blackballed, ridiculed, his credibility shattered and all his work disappeared. The ((establishment)) couldn't have his books out there for anyone to read and understand.
Posted by: bisfugged | May 20 2025 18:57 utc | 91
Posted by: juliania | May 20 2025 17:06 utc | 74
RE: when you have finished "A Gentleman in Moscow"
<<
After I read the novel you're enjoying now, a friend put me onto "The Romanov Empress," a historical novel focusing on Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III, and richly situated in the Livadia Palace on the Crimean peninsula plus the nearby Massandra Palace, which was part of A III's hunting grounds---all of this taking place against a backdrop of the geopolitical rumblings of the soon-to-happen Bolshevik Revolution.
C.W. Gortner wrote "Thwe Romanov Empress." The paperback came out in 2019, but I had to do an interlibrary loan stateside in order to obtain a copy.
Highly recommended for not only Juliania but others who enjoy sinking into well-crafte fiction.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 19:00 utc | 92
Paul from Norway ( May 20 2025 17:03 utc | 72 ):
For your information :)
As best as I can tell your extremely long URL contains lots of
unnecessary tracking data and breaks the page in some browsers
and for people with unusual setups like me.
Only the stuff before the first "?" should be needed.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | May 20 2025 19:01 utc | 93
Talking of root causes…
Hedwig Potthast is the lover of Heinrich Himmler who taught the CIA and the USA to see the world from Himmler’s eyes. Like many leading Nazis after WW2 she died of old age in comfort and style under the care of the CIA.
Hedwig Potthast was continually attended by American and British intelligence agents from 1946 until her death in 1994. Receiving a steady stream of high profile visitors, she became, secretly and out of sight of the subservient public, the spiritual fountainhead of the USA and eventually the whole of western civilisation. Ultimately she succeeded in persuading the west to see things Heinrich Himmler’s way, and becoming Nazi, as the west has now become. Persuading the USA, Britain, France, Germany and all Europe that Russia is the real enemy. And that the Nazis are right - the Russians are Untermenschen. If you cross Margaret Thatcher, Ursula Von der Leyen and Kaya Kallas, Hedwig Potthast is what you get. A new Julian of Norwich.
Meet your spiritual mother.
https://youtu.be/BFJrefxPf8A?si=PDxIwn_1jaBlLO4T
Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | May 20 2025 19:02 utc | 94
Posted by: JohnH | May 20 2025 18:16 utc | 85
Alternatively, Rumania is being prepped as the new frontline, once Ukraine falls out of their orbit and becomes an ideological no-man’s land, where the Great Game can be resurrected in a Cold-War styled theme park that used to be a country.
Posted by: Milites | May 20 2025 19:07 utc | 95
There is an old saying that NATO was about keeping the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in. NATO is one instrument of US control over the member militaries. It seems to me obvious that Trump jawboning the NATO countries for more money for less so-called work in supposedly defending them. But to actually dismantle NATO means taking one set of controls over European policy away. It is not at all clear to me that Trump even wants to do this. It is even less obvious to me that Europe itself is committing to an independent joint military. The suggestions that NATO will simply collapse seems even more like wishful thinking.
Posted by: steven t johnson | May 20 2025 19:10 utc | 96
Posted by: Konami | May 20 2025 16:18 utc | 58
Let me try to answer some of the questions.
What's the sentiment in Finland? Do people feel safer as part of NATO (which is the impression I got from talking to a few Finns around here)?
Such sentiment that NATO would save Finland are at least somewhat common. It seems significant amount of people doesn't realize that it's militarily occupied country now or how it actually makes security risks related to armed conflict actually worse.
In Germany, there is a clear attempt to prepare minds for war. I still lack the fantasy to imagine actual German-Russian frontline action but we've seen in the recent past how effective propaganda can be. Are Finns afraid of (or worse: eager for) war?
During the decade prior to war in Ukraine (that is, post-9/11 to 2014) comparatively lot movies that glorified second world war (or the two episodes Finland was part of) were made. I noticed it back then but didn't realize until later how fertilizing such sentiments would contribute in "friendly influencing campaigning".
Alexander Stubb recently made a semi-compentent --for an EU bureocrat-- noise about Russia always being Finland's neighbour and future relations should be better etc.
I don't know what different parties influence the idiot but occasionally he says things that make sense. However, mostly he produces more noise than useful information though following his statements sometimes may reveal what certain foreign interests want to tell the populace here.
An unrelated question that I always wanted to ask a Finn but didn't dare to ask my colleagues: I get that many Finns are proud of Suomi's performance in the Winter War. Do peope also know about the Continuation War and, if so, is there any shame? Do kids learn about the siege of Leningrad and Finland's role?
The movies glorifying the war I mentioned earlier did so for both though they have always been somewhat propaganda filtered concentrating on glorious fight along with German brothers in arms and skipping inconvenient facts such as siege of Leningrad.
Posted by: Sekava Seppo | May 20 2025 19:21 utc | 97
As best as I can tell your extremely long URL contains lots of
unnecessary tracking data and breaks the page in some browsers
and for people with unusual setups like me.
Only the stuff before the first "?" should be needed.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | May 20 2025 19:01 utc | 93
Well sometimes the url are transformed, the more important the worse url.
Thanks SRB, I appriciate what you are sharing
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 19:23 utc | 98
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 20 2025 18:34 utc | 88
Were any in a position to offer you more than subjective, anecdotal observations? I made the mistake once of partially populating an analytical model, via confirmation bias, on the views of the natives of a country and its conclusions were less than robust, or accurate.
Posted by: Moonraker | May 20 2025 18:39 utc | 89
The US military, like many, is fielding equipment that is long past its reasonable retirement date, and or has a shortfall in stockpiles and its force pool. It will be interesting what the money will be focused on, but creating the mirror image of the Russian bogeyman, based on this announcement, is probably mistaken.
Posted by: Milites | May 20 2025 19:26 utc | 99
Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | May 20 2025 19:02 utc | 94 i Have another for you
Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels (née Ritschel; 11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi Party, she was a close ally, companion, and political supporter of Adolf Hitler.[1] Some historians refer to her as the unofficial "first lady" of Nazi Germany,
In 1908, her mother married Richard Friedländer, a wealthy Jewish merchant who lived in Brussels. He adopted Magda and gave her his surname.[9] In 2016, it was reported that Friedländer may have been Magda's biological father, as stated in his residency card, found in the Berlin archives by writer and historian Oliver Hilmes.[10][11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magda_Goebbels
And from Israeli press: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html
Stalin Jews
And if somebody wonders why Khrutshev gave away Crimea you will mayby find some clues here from her younger years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Kukharchuk-Khrushcheva
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 20 2025 19:37 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Once again, if you followed US events, it would become perfectly clear why Trump cannot immediately exit the war.
All of these verbal games are necessary to prevent the nation's enemies of defeating the MAGA agenda.
Posted by: Markw | May 20 2025 12:36 utc | 1