Moscow demands answers from UK in journalist assault case
RT | February 8, 2025
Moscow expects the UK to provide all necessary assistance to Russian law enforcement investigating an assault involving an embassy staff member, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. In October, a female reporter was allegedly attacked at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport as she sought to interview a group of British diplomats.
The Foreign Ministry sent an official note to the UK embassy over the incident, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated. “The ministry expects the embassy to provide every kind of assistance to the Russian law enforcement authorities investigating the relevant criminal case,” she said, adding that embassy staff could be asked to take part in legal proceedings.
Earlier this week, the Russian Interior Ministry confirmed that the authorities had launched a probe into the incident involving a 23-year-old female Russian journalist whose identity was not made public. She was attacked as she attempted to interview a newly arrived group of British diplomats at Vnukovo Airport, according to the statement.
The unidentified assailant could have been an embassy staff member, according to police. The attacker forcefully pushed her away, causing the woman to “lose her balance,” the statement said. The suspect will face battery charges, which carry a maximum penalty of up to two years behind bars.
Russian authorities reached out to the embassy to request clarification of the man’s identity and possible diplomatic status. Law enforcement officials said the request was ignored.
Moscow has called on the British embassy to respond to any further such requests “in a proper and timely manner,” Zakharova said. She also remarked that the treatment of the Russian journalists by some Western diplomats is “unbefitting their high status of a foreign diplomat.”
Western countries have blacklisted multiple Russian media outlets, including RT, since 2022, citing “disinformation” related to the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has responded in kind, banning several Western news organizations, including state-funded broadcasters BBC and Voice of America.
In October 2024, a group of Russian reporters from the newspaper Izvestia was detained and questioned after arriving in Washington DC to cover the presidential election. The team’s cameraman was denied entry into the US and forced to return to Russia. He later stated that he had been questioned by border officers for nearly ten hours.
The Kremlin branded the treatment of Russian journalists in Washington as “unacceptable” and a violation of the freedom of the press.
Moscow comments on Baltic states’ switch from ex-Soviet grid
RT | February 8, 2025
The decision of Baltic nations to disconnect themselves from the unified energy system with Russia and Belarus will only worsen the economic prospects for the EU, the Russian Mission to the bloc has said, stressing that the move is politically motivated.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which are all members of NATO and the EU, began the two-day process of unplugging from the BRELL Energy Ring on Saturday. They will then join the alternative European power grid, known as ENTSO-E. The step is part of EU nations’ effort to cut long-standing energy links with Russia.
“Disconnecting from the BRELL is a politically motivated move that will drive up regional electricity prices, make power grids less reliable, and further erode the EU’s economic competitiveness,” the mission said on Telegram on Saturday, emphasizing that European households and businesses, primarily in the Baltic countries, will bear the costs.
The mission stressed that the EU economy demonstrated “meager” growth of only 0.8% last year, and highlighted that the continued drive to break energy ties with Moscow would only worsen its prospects.
The three ex-Soviet republics decided to disconnect from BRELL and join ENTSO-E back in 2018. This month they plan to test their power grids in isolation before connecting to the EU energy system via Poland.
Built on the existing interconnected Soviet-era power systems, the BRELL energy ring was established on 7 February 2001. It synchronized the power systems of Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania under Moscow’s central dispatch. Initially, the Baltics depended on Russia for grid stability, while Russia relied on them to power its exclave of Kaliningrad. Russia has since upgraded energy infrastructure in Kaliningrad, reducing its reliance on the Baltic grid.
Authorities in the three states have repeatedly claimed that reliance on the network controlled by Russia jeopardizes their energy security, believing that Moscow could weaponize the electricity supply and sever them from the network on a unilateral basis. Such fears have never materialized.
Controlled by the state, Russian electricity prices are currently among the lowest in the world, averaging around $0.055 per kWh for consumers in 2024. Power prices in the EU vary from nation to nation, with Germany having the highest price per kWh last year at €0.3951 ($0.40).
French ‘Mirage’ 2000-5 for the Kiev regime, yet another ‘game changer’ or more?
By Drago Bosnic | February 7, 2025
On February 6, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced that the first “Mirage” 2000-5 fighter jets were delivered to the Kiev regime. According to his post on X, the aircraft promised by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 6 last year finally arrived after at least eight months of training programs for the Neo-Nazi junta’s pilots. It’s safe to assume that such training lasted much longer, as it takes time for the staff to learn how to use them.
There’s no precise information on how many of these jets were delivered, nor the exact version of the “Mirage” 2000-5. In addition, there was an announcement that Dutch F-16s were also delivered on the same day. The mainstream propaganda machine was quick to proclaim that both types will be “game changers” and “greatly contribute” to fighting off the “evil Russian invaders”.
However, while this sort of superficial enthusiasm might make one think that the “Mirage” 2000-5 is some groundbreaking “wunderwaffe”, the reality is that it’s a largely outdated aircraft. Designed in the 1970s by the French Dassault Aviation, “Mirage” 2000-5 is a multirole, single-engine, fourth-generation fighter jet, largely analogous to the American F-16. This suggests that it will most likely play a similar (if not identical) role to the US-made jet, although some argue that it has better ground attack options due to French insistence on multirole (or omnirole, as they say) capabilities. Considering the number of available aircraft around the world (assessed at approximately 600 in eight countries), the Kiev regime is likely to experience even greater problems with operating and maintaining them, especially in comparison to the F-16s.
Namely, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin manufactured well over 4,600 units, with new deliveries still ongoing. There are currently more than 2,000 F-16s in active service. In practice, this means that spare parts and support for the US-made jet are much more readily available, while the “Mirage” 2000-5 hasn’t been in production since 2007.
The aforementioned variant of the French jet was introduced in the late 1990s, with improvements to avionics and weapon systems. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the Radar Doppler Multitarget (RDY), a multimode look-down/shoot-down pulse-Doppler radar designed by Thomson-CSF (now Thales). Although certainly potent when it was introduced, RDY is by no means a match for the target acquisition systems used by modern Russian fighter aircraft.
Worse yet, in terms of air-to-air ordnance, the “Mirage” 2000-5 is even more heavily outclassed, as its older R.550 “Magic” and earlier iterations of MICA missiles are no match to the plethora of Russian long-range munitions, particularly the now legendary R-37M used by the Su-35S air superiority fighters and the superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM interceptors (to say nothing of Moscow’s unrivaled air defenses). These Russian jets are also far more potent in terms of pure kinetic performance and are flown by highly experienced pilots. They also carry more weapons without the need for external fuel tanks, while the French jet cannot match their range even with those (which also means reduced payload capacity). However, the “Mirage” 2000-5 makes up for this with the ability to deploy a number of advanced air-to-ground munitions.
Namely, it can use the “Storm Shadow”/SCALP-EG ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles) and AASM-HAMMER guided bombs. From a purely military standpoint, using the French-made jets as platforms for launching such weapons is much more sensible than trying to challenge Moscow’s air dominance. The Neo-Nazi junta’s propaganda (until recently funded by the infamous USAID) claims that the “Mirage” 2000-5 will primarily be used in an air defense role, intercepting missiles and drones.
However, this is not exactly the purpose its designers had in mind, so it’s questionable how successful it could be. On the other hand, strike missions make more sense, albeit these would also be limited by the number of available aircraft. Officially, France has at least 40 “Mirage” 2000-5F jets in its inventory, of which only 28 are still in active service.
Although some have reportedly been modernized, Paris was planning to retire these jets by the end of the decade. This could certainly free up most of them for the Kiev regime forces. However, there’s another, far more disturbing element to this story. As previously mentioned, the conventional capabilities of the “Mirage” 2000-5 are by no means the supposed “game changer” touted by the mainstream propaganda machine.
On the other hand, the French military operates the nuclear-capable “Mirage” 2000N variant (75 have been produced and most are reportedly still in service). Considering the Neo-Nazi junta’s insistence on acquiring nuclear weapons (Zelensky reiterated it in his latest interview with NATO propagandist Piers Morgan), this possibility certainly shouldn’t be discarded. The Kremlin itself has been warning about this for years.
This includes both President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Notably, several other NATO member states with nuclear-capable jets (namely the Dutch and Belgians) have pledged and delivered them to the Kiev regime. These countries have engaged in harsh rhetoric and even threats to Moscow, with France being no exception. What’s more, its troops have been present in NATO-occupied Ukraine even before the special military operation (SMO), while their numbers have only increased ever since (as have their already heavy casualties).
Russia and France are now engaged in a geostrategic duel in Africa, where Moscow supports at least a dozen countries that want to break free from the (neo)colonialist chokehold Paris has kept them in since the 19th century (and this is certainly not going very well for the latter).
If it wants escalation in Ukraine, France could either deliver some of its “Mirage” 2000Ns while insisting they’re actually the 2000-5 variant (the less likely option) or it could possibly modify the latter to also make them nuclear-capable (the more viable alternative). For the time being, there’s no concrete evidence for this, but the rhetoric coming from the most prominent NATO members (including the US) certainly suggests that the Kremlin is ready for any eventuality.
With the possible strategic paradigm shift under the new American administration, both Brussels and the Neo-Nazi junta are desperate to keep the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict going for as long as possible. However, the rapidly deteriorating capabilities of the Kiev regime forces stand in the way, meaning that the political West believes nuclear weapons could be the last resort.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Trump’s Foreign Policy – Strategy Behind the Noise?
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs with Prof. Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | February 5, 2025
Trump’s actions in the international system are defined by the aims to remake US foreign policy, and the tendency to make noise that keeps him in the headlines. A key challenge for analysts is therefore to distinguish between the strategy and the noise. Some of Trump’s messaging has a deliberate purpose while at other times he is seemingly improvising.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dropped a bombshell by arguing that the unipolar world order is over and the natural condition is multipolarity. Does this represent Trump’s decision to retire the “hegemonic peace” in Europe through NATO expansion (that triggered a war in Ukraine), or was it simply an independent commentary by Rubio? Trump wants peace with Russia and recognises that NATO provoked the war, but he also attempts to threaten Russia to accept US terms. Trump wants to end the wars in the Middle East, but he also sends 2000-pound bombs to Israel and casually suggests ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza. Trump wants to get along with China, but also to end China’s technological leadership. What is foreign policy and what is noise?
Did Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Just Leak?
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 4, 2025
A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine.
The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.”
If the plan is real, and if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine (as Trump has threatened), then the war will go on, and Trump’s promise to quickly end the war will vanish in a puff of delusion. But if the plan is real, and if it is put on the table as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point.
Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the supposed plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.
The process begins with an immediate phone call between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin followed by discussions between Washington and Kiev. That the plan may be intended as a starting point for negotiations is suggested by the fork in the schedule that negotiations will continue if common ground is found or pause if it is not. Further negotiations would lead to an Easter truce along the front line, an end of April peace conference, and a May 9 declaration of an agreement.
Russia has said that the Istanbul agreement could still be “the basis for starting negotiations.” In June 2024, Vladimir Putin set out a peace proposal based on the Istanbul agreement, but adjusted for current territorial realities. Putin’s proposal had four points: Ukraine must abandon plans to join NATO, they must withdraw from the four annexed territories, they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and they must ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
The alleged Trump plan can be evaluated by comparison to Putin’s proposal and to recent statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Kursk at the time of the April Truce. This would be acceptable to Russia, who would insist on Ukrainian troops leaving its territory. But for Ukraine, this would be a difficult concession; not because of the withdrawal but because of the timing. Aside from the strategically catastrophic hope that the Kursk invasion would divert Russian troops away from the Donbas, the point of taking Russian territory was to use it to barter for the return of Ukrainian territory. Giving up the bargaining chip before the negotiations begin would nullify Ukraine’s hope of using it to force the return of more of its land.
- Ukraine must end martial law and hold presidential elections by the end of August and parliamentary elections by the end of October. This could be a bitter pill for Zelensky. Recent polling has shown that he could well lose that election. Elections would be welcomed by Russia, who see Zelensky’s government as intransigently hostile and anti-Russia. This would legally transfer hope for regime change to Ukrainians.
- Ukraine must declare neutrality and promise not to join NATO; NATO must promise not to expand into Ukraine. Ukraine was willing to abandon its NATO hopes in Istanbul. Though accepted by Kiev as inevitable, it would now be a painful concession. In the absence of NATO membership. It would be a hard sell to Ukrainians that the war after the Istanbul talks was worth the devastation. For Russia, this point is key, and there can be no negotiations without it. It would be the key accomplishment to get the two-sided promise that Ukraine will not ask for membership and NATO will not offer it.
- Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. This item is acceptable to both. EU membership will be necessary for Zelensky to present to Ukrainians as something that was worth fighting for. Ukraine is now free to pursue its ambitions to turn west and join Europe. Though Russia had concerns in 2014 with the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine because of its implied integration of Ukraine into the European security and military architecture, Putin has long left EU membership on the table for a postwar Ukraine, and that was specifically agreed to in the Istanbul agreement.
- Ukraine will not reduce the size of its armed forces and the United States will continue modernizing the Ukrainian military. While Ukraine will welcome this, it may not be enough. Russia will have a hard time with this one. This is like “the Israeli model” that then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says Putin and Zelensky were both open to in the early days of the war. But, in the absence of NATO, Zelensky has been adamant about American supported security guarantees. And, already by Istanbul, Russia was demanding limits on Ukraine’s armed forces. At the very least, modernized Ukrainian weaponry would have to be defensive and with a cap on firing into Russian territory.
- Ukraine refuses military and diplomatic attempts to return the occupied territories, but does not officially recognize Russian sovereignty. This item does not go far enough for Russia and too far for Ukraine. Zelensky has accepted that “De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We don’t have the strength to bring them back.” So, he will accept not attempting to return the occupied territories militarily. He has also insisted that Ukraine would never officially recognize Russian sovereignty over those lands. But the added clause, that he will not attempt to return them diplomatically, may be going further than Zelensky has been willing to go. In the case of Crimea, he has reserved the right to try to bring territory back diplomatically. For Russia, the de facto recognition of the territory it occupies will likely be enough. In his proposal, Putin insisted on the complete withdrawal from the territories while saying nothing about Ukraine officially recognizing Russian sovereignty over them. However, though Russia may be willing to negotiate over Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, they are less likely to accept only the lands east of the current front without it including all of the Donbas.
- Some sanctions on Russia will be lifted, including European Union bans on Russian oil. This item will likely be acceptable to Ukraine, especially since temporary duty on sales of oil will be used to restore Ukraine. It will likely be acceptable, at least as a starting point, for Russia.
- Parties that support Russian language and peaceful relations with Russia can participate in Ukraine’s elections. State actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Russian language must cease. Though difficult for Zelensky and some forces in Ukraine to accept, protection of language, religious and cultural rights is the second key Russian demand along with NATO.
- The idea of a European peacekeeping force is to be discussed separately. The recognition that security guarantees are both key and difficult for both parties is realistic. Neither side will agree to a European security force: Russia because it goes too far, Ukraine because it goes not far enough.
If this possible plan is a final draft whose rejection means negotiations end, then the war will not end. But if Donald Trump’s plan is intended as a starting point to negotiations—the most difficult of which may be the security guarantees — then there is hope.
Moscow welcomes Trump’s stance on Kiev’s NATO bid
RT | February 5, 2025
Russia welcomes the statements made by US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Trump is the first Western leader to admit that it was wrong to support Kiev’s plans to join the military bloc, the diplomat said on Wednesday.
Trump stated last month that he understands the Russian stance that Ukraine should not be part of NATO. Speaking to reporters in Florida, the US president said Moscow’s position had long been “written in stone,” but that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had ignored it, which contributed to the current conflict.
“Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘[Ukraine], they should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I can understand their feelings about that,” Trump added.
Speaking at an ambassadors’ roundtable on Ukraine, Lavrov said Trump’s comments suggest Washington may finally be ready to address issues linked to Ukraine’s NATO bid and the bloc’s eastward expansion.
“President Trump bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into NATO, and that if he had been in power the past four years, the conflict would not have happened,” Lavrov noted.
“For the first time, a Western leader… the leader of the entire Western world, uttered these words, which we welcome because for the first time the problem of NATO was identified as something that the US is ready to discuss seriously,” he added. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s stance that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were a root cause of the current conflict, saying that warnings not to encourage these aspirations either fell on deaf ears or were met with “duplicity” and “hypocrisy” by Western politicians.
“The root cause is the conscious, long-term desire and… practical steps of the West to create direct military threats to Russia on our borders, on the territory of Ukraine, and drawing it into NATO. We have raised this issue repeatedly, demanding NATO honor its pledge not to expand eastward, but all was in vain,” Lavrov said. He suggested Trump’s remarks could signal a shift in US policy, which he called crucial as “Washington is the one who will ultimately make the decisions” regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership.
Moscow has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, insisting any settlement of the ongoing conflict must include Kiev’s neutrality and demilitarization. Ukraine, however, considers its membership a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and has recently claimed that it sees its admission to the US-led military bloc as a security guarantee to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow. While NATO last year declared that Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path to joining the bloc, its members warned that Kiev would have to meet certain conditions first, such as resolving the conflict with Moscow.
Zelensky a ‘maniac’ to demand NATO nuclear weapons – Moscow
RT | February 5, 2025
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s statements on obtaining nuclear weapons are cause for serious concern, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. In a social media post on Wednesday, she branded Zelensky a “maniac [gripped by] sick delusions” who could seek a ‘dirty bomb’.
Zelensky reiterated his nuclear aspirations in an interview with British television host Piers Morgan on Tuesday, in which he lamented that Kiev traded Soviet-era deterrence “for nothing” in the 1990s.
“Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then let them give us nuclear weapons,” Zelensky told Morgan. “What missiles can stop Russia’s nuclear missiles? That is a rhetorical question.”
He called on NATO to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a stopgap measure while Kiev awaits accession to the US-led military bloc.
Responding on Wednesday, Zakharova wrote: “Zelensky’s latest statements that he wants to possess a nuclear capability expose him as a maniac, who considers the planet as an object for his sick delusions. They also prove that for him nuclear power stations are not a source of peaceful energy, but a dirty weapon that the Kiev regime needs for blackmail.”
Ukrainian nuclear rhetoric predates the outbreak of hostilities with Russia. Zelensky suggested that Kiev could build atomic weapons in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, days before the escalation of the conflict.
Russian officials have expressed concern over Ukraine potentially developing a dirty bomb amid its battlefield setbacks. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has reported no diversion of declared radioactive materials in the country.
Ukraine inherited a well-developed civilian nuclear industry from the USSR, and currently operates three nuclear power plants and two research reactors.
Contrary to Zelensky’s assertion, independent Ukraine lacked a true nuclear deterrent as it did not possess the unilateral capability to launch Soviet weapons deployed on its soil in response to an attack. The disarmament of Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, was part of a broader nuclear reduction initiative in the 1990s. Western nations incentivized the host nations with aid programs.
Kremlin comments on talks with ‘illegitimate’ Zelensky
RT | February 5, 2025
Moscow is ready for talks with Kiev even though Vladimir Zelensky currently has no legal right to lead Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
On Tuesday, Zelensky told British journalist Piers Morgan that he could hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments marked a significant shift from Zelensky’s stance adopted in the autumn of 2022, when he signed a decree banning any negotiations with the Russian leadership.
“If that is the only setup in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people, definitely we will go for this setup, for this meeting,” Zelensky told Morgan.
Asked to comment on Zelensky’s remarks on Wednesday, Peskov said there is “no place for emotions” when it comes to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. “What is needed here is legal analysis and absolute pragmatism… Zelensky has significant de jure legitimacy issues within his own country,” the spokesman pointed out.
Peskov referred to the Ukrainian leader’s refusal to hold a presidential election and the fact that his term expired last May. Moscow maintains that the legitimate power in Ukraine now lies with the parliament and its speaker.
“Despite this, the Russian side remains open to negotiations,” Peskov stressed, arguing that Moscow’s successes on the battlefield “clearly suggest that Kiev should be the one to demonstrate openness and interest in such negotiations.”
Peskov also weighed in on Zelensky’s suggestion that the West could give Ukraine nuclear weapons as a substitute for NATO membership to guarantee its protection.
“In general, such statements are borderline madness. There is a nuclear non-proliferation regime,” the spokesman said. Peskov suggested that EU politicians, despite their flaws, should understand the “absurdity and potential danger of discussing such a topic.”
Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK as part of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the deal after Crimea voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Russia has argued that the deal was fundamentally undermined by NATO’s expansion towards its borders.
Putin has said that Russia would not allow Kiev to create or obtain nuclear weapons “under any circumstances.”
US special envoy says Ukraine should hold elections this year
By Ahmed Adel | February 4, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said that elections should be organized in Ukraine. This is another message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington will no longer sign him blank checks and fund his failed war efforts on Russia.
Zelensky’s claims that the constitution does not allow elections to be held during a state of emergency are meaningless because the Ukrainian constitution also does not allow the president to serve after his term expires. The powers of the president should have been taken over by the parliament, which did not express an opinion on this because it is in the pocket of Zelensky.
It is doubtful that Zelensky fears losing the elections since he has already banned all legitimate opposition parties. The only person he might be afraid of is the four-star general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who is currently serving as Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom, as he could return from London and be the opposing candidate because he is more popular, according to some indicators there.
Nonetheless, it does not matter what the results of those elections will be since it will be a farce like the rest of the Ukrainian state administration. The essence of the story is that this is a message to the Ukrainian people that Zelensky, an unelected usurper, cannot sign anything in anyone’s name. Ukrainians must have some legitimate authority, at least on paper, to be able to sign a capitulation. It will not be a truce or a peace agreement but a surrender because the Kremlin said this is the only way to end the conflict.
The US is trying to soften the situation by creating a narrative that it has defended democracy in Ukraine and that the Ukrainians have democratically decided to capitulate.
Russia is not interested in negotiating with a puppet but with the one who pulls the strings. This means that Russia will negotiate directly with the Americans. The Ukrainian delegation, whatever it may be, will be present but will not be relevant to the discussions and will only be symbolic – they will just put their signature on what is agreed.
The Americans have always been the bosses in Ukraine; the difference now is that a new boss has arrived in Washington and is now telling them what to do, and they will have no choice but to agree with it. Their options are capitulation with American oversight or trying to reach an agreement with the Russians separately.
Zelensky unfortunately cut off the second option as a possibility by issuing a decree banning direct negotiations with the Kremlin. He will have to withdraw that decree because it is absolutely clear that the Americans are in a hurry to end this as soon as possible. After all, this conflict no longer suits Washington, and they want to deal with other things, such as opposing the rise of China.
The Russians are unlikely to be satisfied with anything other than their announced goals: the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, the country’s neutral status, and recognition of Russia’s new territories.
US President Donald Trump’s team believes that elections must be organized in Ukraine so that the winner can engage in dialogue with Russia. Reuters sources say White House officials and Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, have recently discussed how to persuade Kiev to hold elections in the initial phase of a ceasefire with Moscow. They also discussed whether a ceasefire should be achieved before trying to reach a longer-term agreement.
Kellogg said that holding elections in Ukraine is important.
“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so. I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running,” Kellogg said.
Reuters cited two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former US official briefed about the election proposal as saying that the Trump plan for peace “is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made” but that Kellogg and other White House officials discussed pushing Kiev to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia.
Zelensky’s five-year term was supposed to end in May 2024, but he has clung to the excuse that presidential and parliamentary elections cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022. According to sources cited by Reuters, the White House raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Zelensky’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, and US officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms.
Given that Zelensky has no viable opposition to challenge him, besides perhaps Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the question still remains why he refuses to uphold the democratic norms that he supposedly champions and defends.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Ukraine has lost – ex-Zelensky adviser
RT | February 3, 2025
Ukraine has lost the armed conflict with Russia, primarily due to the inability of the Ukrainian people to take personal responsibility for their failures, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to Vladimir Zelensky, has argued. He expects the US, Russia, and China to decide on a resolution without consulting Kiev.
Arestovich resigned from his government post in early 2023 after contradicting the official narrative around a missile incident. Now a sharp critic of the Zelensky administration, he argued in a Telegram post on Sunday that the changing tone of Western discourse about Ukraine has signaled a significant policy change.
US President Donald Trump will sort things out with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping “without consulting us, because engaging with those who deny reality is futile,” he wrote.
“We have lost the war due to our own stupidity, pride and stubbornness. In truth, we have defeated ourselves,” Arestovich added. “We have created a society of mutual hatred and intolerance, in which every individual is right and everyone collectively is to blame.”
He cited several recent news stories, calling them a wakeup call for Ukrainians to acknowledge defeat and their role in it.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, has called on Kiev to resume presidential and parliamentary elections, which Zelensky suspended under martial law. Conservative US political commentator Tucker Carlson branded the Ukrainian leader “a dictator” during a debate with British television host Piers Morgan. Additionally, Washington’s decision last month to suspend foreign aid programs has forced many Ukrainian NGOs and media outlets to solicit for private donations to avoid shutdown.
Public statements and media reports suggest that the Trump administration seeks a freeze of the Ukraine conflict along existing frontlines. Moscow has said that it won’t accept an outcome that would allow Kiev to rebuild its military and renew hostilities in the future. The core causes of the conflict, including NATO’s expansion in Europe, need to be addressed in order for a sustainable peace agreement to be reached, Russian officials have asserted.
The Ukrainian military is reportedly plagued by large-scale desertion and poor morale, while Russia continues to advance. Zelensky, meanwhile, has called on Kiev’s Western backers to deploy at least 200,000 troops as “peacekeepers.” He has also urged Trump to adopt a “peace through strength” approach to pressure Moscow into accepting truce terms favorable to Kiev.
Kiev and Western backers trying to undermine Moscow’s ties with neighbors – FSB
Nikolay Kochmarik posing with a Ukrainian armored vehicle. FSB
RT | February 1, 2025
Ukrainian intelligence services and their Western handlers are creating fake online content in an attempt to spoil Russia’s relations with neighboring countries, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has alleged.
The agency announced in a statement on Saturday that it had identified a Ukrainian national who had offended the people of Uzbekistan while posing as a Russian blogger. The controversial clip had been uploaded to a YouTube channel “controlled by the Lithuanian special services,” it added.
A video featuring a man who claims to be a Russian citizen made headlines last month for comparing Uzbeks to dogs, sparking outrage among commentators in both Central Asia and Russia.
At the time, Rasul Kusherbaev, an advisor to the Uzbek ecology minister, urged the country’s foreign ministry to “take action” in response to the insults. “Our cooperation with Russia is based on the principles of equality and mutual respect. Discrimination is unacceptable in interstate relations,” Kusherbaev told the media outlet Daryo.
According to the FSB, the offensive blogger is a citizen and current resident of Ukraine named Nikolay Kochmarik, who has been actively supporting Kiev’s military during the conflict with Moscow.
“This incident is evidence of deliberate actions by the Ukrainian and Lithuanian special services as well as by their foreign handlers to create provocative content aimed at undermining relations between Russia and its partners in the CIS,” the FSB stressed. With such clips, Kiev and its Western backers are “attempting to form anti-Russian sentiment abroad,” it added.
The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) is an intergovernmental organization comprised of many former Soviet Republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
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British weapons and personnel doing much of the killing in Yemen
Press TV – June 18, 2019
A detailed report published by the Guardian newspaper has shown how Britain is massively contributing to Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen as it suggests that London is not only supplying the bombs that fall on Yemenis, but it provides the personnel and expertise that keep the war going.
The comprehensive report by Arron Merat published on Tuesday showed that Britain was doing much of the killing in Yemen as the country continues to provide Saudi Arabia with everything it needs to turn its southern impoverished neighbor into a graveyard.
“Every day Yemen is hit by British bombs – dropped by British planes that are flown by British-trained pilots and maintained and prepared inside Saudi Arabia by thousands of British contractors,” said Merat in the report. … continue
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