Zelensky changed his tune after Trump stopped (some) of the military aid to Kiev
By Ahmed Adel | March 6, 2025
Although US President Donald Trump announced the halt of military assistance to Ukraine, he cannot stop all the programs. Nonetheless, the threat of no longer receiving US military assistance was enough for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to change his tune toward his American counterpart after their spat on February 28 by expressing “regret” and announcing his support for a peace process.
Aid to Ukraine is provided through a specific program for the supply of foreign military equipment, which is included in the US budget for the current fiscal year and continues. Other assistance is also provided through a special program for Ukraine.
Before leaving the post of US President, Joe Biden signed an order for the Pentagon to deliver surplus ammunition and equipment. Trump could stop this program, but he cannot stop the funds that are financed from the budget because Congress approved it.
Therefore, as in many other things, what is said aloud does not necessarily correlate with reality. In fact, Ukraine has enough weapons and ammunition for at least six months, meaning that combat operations are not decreasing. Real consequences for Ukraine may arise when the Americans stop providing them with intelligence and help in guiding missiles and other weapons at Russian forces.
Three days after the bitter clash between Trump and an ungrateful Zelensky in the White House, the US president ordered a freeze on military aid to Ukraine until the Kiev regime shows a “commitment to peace,” adding that the sending of all the military assistance that is not yet in Ukraine will be suspended, including weapons in transit on planes or ships, or located in warehouses in Poland.
Trump again sharply criticized Zelensky for his statement that an agreement to end the war with Russia is “still very, very far away.” On his Truth Social media network, Trump described it as “the worst statement that could have been made” and that “America will not put up with it for much longer,” in a threat that sounded as if regime change in Kiev was being considered.
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing,” Trump added.
US Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking about security guarantees for Kiev, said on March 3 that the best option is to give Americans an economic perspective for the future of Ukraine because it “is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
The offer Trump made to establish peace in Ukraine included various forms of pressure on those involved. For some, it was a ‘stick,’ like stopping arms deliveries to Ukraine, and for others, it was a ‘carrot,’ like promising Russia that some sanctions would be eased.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in principle, said that talks are welcomed but that military operations will not end until peace talks come to fruition. Therefore, the possibility that peace negotiations could begin in the near future cannot be ruled out.
The US president mentioned an April 20th deadline and that his meeting with Putin would take place by then, too. However, that is a whole month and a half away, and much can happen between now and then.
It is estimated that the loss of American aid will increase the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces on the front. Ukrainian military experts say that the front can hold out for only another month or two without American military support.
For this reason, Zelensky said on March 4: “Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way.”
He also claimed that Kiev wants to end the war and is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” stressing that “my team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We are ready to work fast to end the war.”
What Trump’s decision to halt military aid shows is that the Biden administration always had the ability to force Zelensky to the negotiating table but refused to do so in the false belief that Ukraine would bleed Russia whilst Western sanctions would collapse the Russian economy.
As has been proven, it is Ukraine that has been bled and its economy collapsed, while now with the threat of military aid halting, Zelensky is seemingly being forced to begin negotiations with Moscow.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Zelensky’s New ‘Ceasefire’ Offer Shows He’s Back to His Old Jokes
Sputnik – 05.03.2025
Zelensky’s latest so-called ‘peace offer,’ which the ex-comedian claims could help end the conflict, has zero chance to succeed as it contains NO NEW proposals, a source in military and diplomatic circles has said.
A ‘Truce at Sea’
- Such a truce was actually implemented during the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) during 2022-2023.
- Whereas Russia honored all of its BSGI commitments, the other parties to the agreement did not fulfil their part of the deal.
- That ‘truce’ was in fact used by the West to ship weapons into Ukraine on vessels that were ostensibly meant to ferry Ukrainian grain to global markets.
- In November last year, a proposal similar to the BSGI was made by Ukraine to Russia via Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The offer was reviewed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense and Foreign Ministry, but ultimately rejected due to being one-sided, with Moscow expected to make concessions but receive nothing in return.
No Attacks on Energy Infrastructure
- Again, a similar offer was made to Russia before via Turkiye, former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu revealed last year.
- Russia studied that offer carefully. President Vladimir Putin even postponed plans to launch a campaign of massed precision strikes against energy facilities that supplied power to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, both because of such offers and due to humanitarian concerns.
- Ukraine, however, proceeded to launch drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, achieving some of their goals. However, superior Russian strikes have now rendered inoperable about 70 percent of the energy infrastructure that provides power to the Ukrainian military and to Kiev’s arms industry.
Thus, it seems highly likely that Volodymyr Zelensky simply wants to use his old tricks to gain an advantage over Russia, and is not really interested in peace.
How Does Trump Resume Shipments of Arms to the Regime that Started the War?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 5, 2025
Imagine if war had broken out between the United States and Soviet Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Let’s assume that two American cities — New York and Washington, D.C., and two Russian cities —Moscow and St. Petersburg — were destroyed by nuclear missiles before a peace agreement was entered into.
Who would the U.S. mainstream press, the U.S. national-security establishment, and U.S. public officials today be saying started the war?
There is no doubt that the official narrative would be that it was Russia that started the war when it installed its nuclear missiles in Cuba and then refused to remove them. If Russia had not installed those missiles, their argument would be, the U.S. government would not have had to attack and invade Cuba in order to remove them.
But what if someone were to point out that Cuba had the legitimate authority under international law to invite the Russians to install nuclear missiles in Cuba? After all, even though Cuba is only 90 miles away from the United States, it is a sovereign and independent country. As such, it had the authority to install whatever missiles it wanted in its own country.
Nonetheless, even conceding the legalities of the situation, the official U.S. narrative would have been that as a practical matter, Russia started the war by provoking it with its installation of nuclear missiles pointed at the United States from only 90 miles away and its refusal to remove them.
Undoubtedly, it is this type of reasoning that President Trump had in mind when he recently declared that Ukraine, under the presidency of Volodymyr Zelensky, started the Ukraine-Russia war.
But to be more exact, it was the U.S. national-security establishment, in complicity with Zelensky, that started the war by provoking Russia into invading Ukraine, just as it would have been Russia that started the war by provoking the United States into invading Cuba back in 1963.
Provoking war is what U.S. officials were doing when they were violating U.S. promises not to move the old Cold War dinosaur NATO eastward toward Russia after the end of the Cold War. Knowing full well that Russia was objecting to the violation of those U.S. promises, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA used NATO to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact, which enabled U.S. and German tanks, missiles, armaments, and troops to get ever closer to Russia’s border.
It was President Biden and the U.S. national-security establishment, operating in complicity with Zelensky, that pulled the final trigger to start the war by suggesting that NATO intended to absorb Ukraine, which would enable U.S. and German missiles, tanks, troops, bases, and weapons to be placed on Russia’s border. They knew that Russia would react with an invasion, just as the U.S. would have invaded Cuba had Russia not removed its nuclear missiles from that nation.
What many Americans do not want to confront is the fact that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was precisely what the U.S. national-security establishment wanted, given that this would convert Russia into a renewed Cold War enemy, would avoid a critical examination of the 20-year-long U.S. war in Afghanistan, would “degrade” Russia by having hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers killed, injured, or maimed, and, it was hoped, would result in the removal of Russian president Vladimir Putin from power and his replacement with a pro-U.S. stooge.
The fact is that Zelensky was not forced to participate in this political game. He chose to do so. He chose to sacrifice his country and his countrymen in order to please U.S. officials by having Ukraine join NATO, the old Cold War dinosaur. If he had chosen differently and declared no intention of having Ukraine join NATO, there would have been no deadly and destructive Russian invasion of his country.
Trump obviously gets this. Even though the U.S. mainstream press and the national-security establishment continue to mindlessly repeat the same tiresome official narrative, their mindsets are quite irrelevant. What is relevant is Trump’s mindset, which clearly sees Zelensky, especially with his NATO machinations, as having started the war.
Today, there are many people, including Zelensky, who are exhorting Trump to cancel his suspension of U.S. arms to Ukraine. But how can Trump do that, given his conviction that Ukraine was the one that started the war? How could he possibly justify to himself helping a regime that started the war to kill soldiers in a regime that did not start the war?
Something is smelling really bad among the peace brokers of Ukraine
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 5, 2025
You don’t have to be a genius to work out that if you exclude Russia and just look at the three groups who are vying for war, or whining for peace, that no one is being very honest about their intentions. Previously, I tackled head on how Trump is not being very honest when he talks of peace as he has the means to enforce it at the drop of a hat, but chooses to drag his feet and hold out for deals. This is not simply Trump Basic who we all know well – where’s the deal? – but also Trump playing out a longer game with Russia, looking at where the sweet spot could be. Trump’s tour de force is always to create a crisis and then position himself to be the only person on the planet who is capable or willing to resolve it. His personality is always paramount to everything.
And so the stunt in the White House needs to be seen in the correct context. Zelensky was not honest in coming to the White House in the first place as it was believed that he was to meet Trump and JD Vance to sign a mineral deal which he agreed to and retracted from signing a number of times leading up to the visit. This became apparent when he met with Trump behind close doors and so the Plan B was to lower Zelensky into a trap and make him look ungrateful, arrogant and entirely impossible to work with. But what’s the real story behind Zelensky’s decision? Again, we see the puppet Zelensky having his strings pulled by others. Is it a coincidence that just days earlier British PM Keir Starmer arrives in the White House where, just a matter of hours earlier he announces in the British parliament that defence spending will be increased, in line with Trump’s demands for European members of NATO? Was it merely that Starmer needed to show some goodwill to Trump even to get the meeting, or was Starmer preparing for choppier waters to come, when Trump would finally hear the rumours? According to some reports, Zelensky has sold all the mineral rights already to the UK, so he was playing a game with Trump all along.
But there are more lies and games to come.
If we look at Zelensky’s European partners can we honestly say they are being honest with the public which elected them? While Macron announces a no-fly zone rule, Starmer tells his own people that Britain will send its own troops to Ukraine. Has the world gone mad, or are these leaders actually serious about their intentions? How many of UK soldiers, airmen and sailors could Starmer actually send out of a total of barely 150,000 in uniform? In reality, probably only a third at best. And presumably this move would be without the support of the U.S., who would keep out of it? If that isn’t the craziest batshit idea, there is more madness to follow. Zelensky, since arriving in the UK for the emergency meeting of mostly EU leaders who support him – including Erdogan of Turkey – has started saying some very odd things to the press, while he picks up these huge checks for military support. He keeps talking about getting a peace deal with Russia.
As Starmer prepares to send British troops to Ukraine, he continues to jail people for posting nasty messages in Facebook, in particular when they slur his own party members – an irony that only Joe Stalin would appreciate, as it’s straight from the dictators’ handbook. Starmer preaches about supporting a free and democratic Ukraine while persecuting anyone who doesn’t agree with his views or uses social media to complain about the state of Britain. In reality it’s one despot supporting another and it’s hard to see how many days this could last with body bags coming back to the UK while pensioners get plain clothed policeman come to their houses and threaten them with imprisonment – or even more cuts to the poor. Of course the body bags will be hidden by a tawdry deal struck between the government and the British press, just as so many ‘no-go zones’ were agreed beforehand. But citizen journalism will call them out as the families won’t stay quiet. Starmer and Macron seem to think that just as Churchill pulled a few stunts to draw the U.S. into the Second World War, that European soldiers on Ukrainian soil will override any agreement that the U.S. and Russia could pull off. The move by Starmer is so idiotic that it leaves many wondering whether he is being controlled by Mossad or the Obamas, comes from the same camp which so fabulously made so many poor predictions from the beginning – namely Russian sanctions.
There is only one conclusion to it, although it leaves Trump and Putin with two options, neither particularly edifying. One, to let the Europeans go ahead with their stunt and watch the collapse of NATO as a credible organization worthy of its funding; or two, to pull the rug out from under the feet of Zelensky and force presidential elections, where of course Trump will install his own puppet to replace the incumbent one. The huge mistake Starmer is making is that he is assuming British troops need not be sent to the front line, but can encircle Kiev to show political support for Zelensky. Yet, each day Russian troops will gain ground and move closer to the Ukrainian capital. For Trump to attempt regime change will be harder of course with a strong contingent of European soldiers on the ground as the State Department and all its dirty tricks doesn’t normally encounter such resistance. Is Zelensky’s ‘we want peace’ mantra a trick so that time can be bought to re-arm? Likely. Monty Python would have had a lot of fun with these clowns. Blessed are the peace brokers.
‘Neocons Should Be Unhappy’ as Trump Calls Out NATO, Pushes for Peace – Analyst
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 05.03.2025
US President Donald Trump pledged to go ahead with his campaign of “swift and unrelenting action” in reorienting the country’s economy, immigration and foreign policy in his address to Congress.
“It seems he [Trump] wants more and more peace, urging Zelensky to conclude a ceasefire agreement and sign the US-Ukraine minerals deal,”Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired US AirForce official and former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.
Kwiatkowski stressed that Trump didn’t talk about Europe or NATO other than noting that they depend on the US and use American money, “and yet they seem not to want peace.”
She noted that peace means prosperity for the working people and younger generations rather than those not working and the government.
“It makes sense after watching his speech that he is most popular among the under 40 demographic in the United States according to current polling,” the ex-Pentagon analyst pointed out.
Former DoD officer David Pyne, in turn, said in an interview with Sputnik that “Trump had no reservations about ending all US military assistance to Ukraine” in order “to pressure the Zelensky regime to accept a cease-fire and the peace deal the US is working to negotiate with Russia.”
78% of Americans support Trump’s effort to negotiate an end to the conflict, Pyne stressed. “Even while Democrat leaders continue to support feeding Ukrainian soldiers into the meat grinder.”
Trump will continue to transform the US relationship with Russia “from one of adversaries to a new historic era of strategic partnership,” the analyst believed.
CIA confirms suspension of intelligence sharing with Ukraine
RT | March 5, 2025
Washington has brought all intelligence sharing with Ukraine to a halt, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed to Fox Business on Wednesday. The development came just a day after several American media outlets reported that the US had suspended military assistance, including both the purchase of new weapons and shipments already in progress.
When asked by host Maria Bartiromo whether the US had “cut off” its cooperation with Ukraine, Ratcliffe said that US President Donald Trump had “asked for a pause” to see if Kiev was ready to work toward resolving the conflict with Russia.
“President Trump had a real question whether… Zelensky was committed to a peace process,” Ratcliffe said, claiming that the halt to assistance and information sharing contributed to Zelensky publicly stating that he was “ready for peace.”
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader said that Kiev was ready for an immediate POW release and a temporary ceasefire with a “ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure.” Last week, Trump told reporters that Zelensky needed to be ready for an immediate ceasefire before he could be welcomed back to the US following their Oval Office debacle on Friday.
”On the military front and on the intelligence front, the pause… allowed that to happen,” Ratcliffe said, adding that he expected the US to resume cooperating with Ukraine soon.
The halt to intelligence sharing was “selective,” Sky News reported on Wednesday, citing a Ukrainian source. However, the move made it difficult for Ukraine to launch attacks against targets deep inside Russia, the source said.
Washington reportedly also barred its allies from sharing with Ukraine, Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Recipients with assets inside Ukraine itself were likely to continue to pass on relevant information, the paper said, but Kiev would likely miss out on time-sensitive and high-value intelligence it needed to strike moveable Russian targets.
Trump and Zelensky had a heated verbal exchange on Friday, when the US president accused the Ukrainian leader of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III” by refusing to work towards a halt to hostilities.
Several US outlets, including Bloomberg, the New York Times, and CNN, reported that Trump had paused military aid after the fall out. According to the NYT, the president’s order affected more than $1 billion in “arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order.”
Moscow commented on the reports by saying that if the US were to suspend supplies altogether it would “probably be the best contribution to the cause of peace.”
EU’s von der Leyen unveils $840bn rearmament plan
RT | March 4, 2025
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed that member states spend about $840 billion on defense to strengthen their military self-sufficiency – an amount more than double total EU defense expenditure in 2024.
In a statement on Tuesday, the EU chief cited the “most dangerous of times” and the “grave” threats facing the bloc as reasons to assume greater responsibility for its own security.
“We are in an era of rearmament,” von der Leyen declared, adding that she had sent a letter outlining her ‘ReArm Europe Plan’ to member state leaders ahead of the European Council meeting later this week.
“ReArm Europe could mobilize close to €800 billion ($840 billion) for a safe and resilient Europe,” she said. “This is a moment for Europe. And we are ready to step up.”
Official data shows the bloc’s total defense spending reached an estimated $344 billion last year, marking an increase of more than 30% since 2021.
The new plan includes $158 billion in loans available to member states to invest in what von der Leyen described as “pan-European capability domains,” including air and missile defense, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, drones, and anti-drone technology. It will also address other needs, from cybersecurity to military mobility.
The proposed five-part strategy is also designed to address the “short-term urgency” of supporting Ukraine, the EU chief said.
Von der Leyen did not specify a detailed timeline, but emphasized that defense spending must increase “urgently now but also over a longer period over this decade.”
Her announcement came just hours after news agencies reported on Monday that US President Donald Trump had ordered a pause on military aid to Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of refusing to negotiate peace with Russia and exploiting US support for his own gain. Following Zelensky’s public clash with Trump and US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday, the US president said America would no longer tolerate the Ukrainian leader’s attitude.
The EU has historically depended significantly on the US for its security, primarily through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, the Trump administration has recently signaled a major policy shift, urging European nations to take the lead in their own defense, as well as Kiev’s. Last month, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that Washington intended to refocus its military priorities on countering China, warning the EU not to assume that American forces would remain in the region indefinitely.
Trump has previously warned that under his leadership the US would not defend NATO countries that fail to meet their financial commitments. He has floated the idea of raising mandatory defense spending by members to 5% of GDP, though none – including the US – currently meet that threshold.
His push for increased defense spending has drawn mixed reactions, with some EU officials questioning its economic feasibility. European officials have occasionally raised concerns that Trump could pull the US out of the organization.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko recently warned that NATO appears to be preparing for war with Moscow, arguing that its current course poses a threat both to Russia and to overall security architecture.
Kremlin responds to reports of Trump move on Ukraine aid
RT | March 4, 2025
Halting US military aid to Ukraine would be a significant step toward resolving the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday.
Several US media outlets have reported that Washington has suspended the purchase of new weapons for Ukraine. Several reports have also suggested that US President Donald Trump has also ordered a halt to shipments of military aid.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Peskov stated that while the details of these reports have yet to be confirmed, such a move could prove to be a significant step towards de-escalation.
“It is obvious that the US has been the main supplier” of military aid to Kiev, Peskov noted, adding that if the US were to relinquish this role or suspend supplies altogether it would “probably be the best contribution to the cause of peace.”
The spokesman said that if the US had indeed stopped all military aid to Ukraine, it would mean that Kiev would effectively lose the vast majority of its ammunition, equipment and intelligence.
“If this really is so… then perhaps, without indulging in excessive optimism, we can modestly hope that this could encourage the Kiev regime to lean towards attempts to resolve the situation through peaceful means,” Peskov told Rossiya 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin.
According to Bloomberg, Trump has ordered a freeze on all military aid to Ukraine, which includes equipment already designated for delivery, as well as weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland. The New York Times reported that the president’s order, which has already taken effect, affects more than $1 billion in “arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post claimed that in addition to stopping weapons shipments to Kiev, Washington is also considering the termination of intelligence sharing and training for Ukrainian troops and pilots.
Trump’s reported order comes after a public spat with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in the White House on Friday. During the meeting, Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III” by refusing to work towards a halt to hostilities.
After the heated exchange, Zelensky stated on Sunday that peace between Ukraine and Russia was still “very, very far away,” prompting even more ire from Trump, who said it was “the worst statement that could have been made” by the Ukrainian leader.
Trump warned that “America will not put up with it for much longer,” and suggested that Zelensky “doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing.”
Zelensky reverses hardline position on peace talks
RT | March 4, 2025
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said that Kiev is ready to engage in peace negotiations with Russia, to be brokered by US President Donald Trump. The statement comes after the White House reportedly stopped all military aid to Kiev following a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office between the two leaders, for which US officials have demanded Zelensky apologize.
Zelensky made a concession-filled post on X on Tuesday, saying his public feud with Trump in the Oval Office was “regrettable.”
“We are ready to work fast to end the war,” Zelensky wrote. He has frequently said in the past that Ukraine would fight as long as necessary and that peace talks could only happen on Ukraine’s terms.
He proposed the release of prisoners and establishing “truces” on both the air and sea fronts, echoing suggestions by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in a meeting with him in London on Sunday. The French-UK plan envisages a temporary, month-long “truce in the air, on the seas, and on energy infrastructure.” Moscow has repeatedly ruled out a temporary ceasefire with Kiev, insisting on a permanent, legally binding peace deal that addresses the root causes of the conflict.
On Monday, Trump reportedly ordered a temporary halt to all US military aid to Ukraine, aiming to pressure Zelensky into negotiations to end the conflict with Russia. An unnamed senior administration official told Fox News that military assistance would stay suspended until the Ukrainian leadership demonstrates a genuine commitment to peace talks.
“Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” Zelensky continued on X, offering his appreciation for Washington’s support. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” he added.
“’Ready’ is good, it is positive,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to the statement.
During the Friday meeting, Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III” by refusing to work towards a halt to hostilities.
On Sunday, Zelensky told reporters that “an agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet.” Trump condemned his statement on social media, promising that “America will not put up with it for much longer.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated Moscow’s readiness to resolve the Ukraine conflict through peaceful means. He emphasized Russia’s aim of establishing an international system that ensures a balanced and mutual consideration of interests, creating a long-term, indivisible European and global security framework.
Kaja Kallas is ill-equipped to take stock of EU foreign policy after Zelensky’s drubbing in the White House
By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2025
Now that Zelensky has been battered by Trump and abandoned by Starmer, he can fall back of Europe’s leading diplomat, Kaja Kallas. God help us all.
The earth is still shaking from President Trump and Vice President Vance’s tag team annihilation of Volodymir Zelensky at the White House. The 27 February meeting between Trump and Keir Starmer was a more convivial affair, with the British Prime Minister quiet on Ukraine while promoting the idea of much prized trade talks with America. That was the first signal of the UK getting real about its foreign policy disaster in Ukraine and recognising that it needs trade with America far more than it needs the huge cost of propping up an unwinnable war.
This leaves Zelensky’s fate in the hands of the European Union. And with Kaja Kallas, the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the omens aren’t promising.
Kallas’ problem is threefold.
First, she is not diplomatic.
If the biggest foreign policy challenge in Kallas’ in-tray right now is the war in Ukraine, then her ingrained hatred of Russia makes her a singularly bad choice as Europe’s lead diplomat.
Her worldview is carved out of her experience growing up in the Soviet Union the child of a woman who was deported to Siberia in 1949. She looks at Russia through a shattered lens of Estonia’s suffering during the so-called communist terror after the end of World War II.
How she sees events in Ukraine today is simply a continuum of the folklore of her life. Russia is the hated enemy, and, at some point, Russia will return to conquer Estonia once more. In her statements before war in Ukraine started, Kallas reaffirmed her view that Estonia could be the next country that Russia invades. As a NATO country, I have never seen any evidence that Russia has a plan to do this.
Kallas has called for NATO troops to be deployed to Ukraine, to ensure Russia’s total defeat. She has suggested that Russia be broken up into a series of smaller states. She once implied that Ukraine should inflict more civilian casualties on Russian citizens, to balance the number of casualties in Ukraine. Even as President Trump has said that NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic, she has continued to push for this to be kept on the table, despite it having been a redline for Russia for nineteen years.
Almost everything that she says is rooted in her unshakeable belief that defeating Russia is vital for the world to become a safer place.
The world is full of extremists, of course. However, she claims to be the leading diplomat of Europe. She seems singularly ill-suited to that role. But will nonetheless still support Zelensky, I’m sure.
Which ushers in her second problem, the absence of a democratic mandate.
Countries that are sceptical about the European project often express concerns about the lack of democratic accountability of EU institutions.
No one voted for Kallas to occupy her office in Brussels. While Zelensky has only been unelected since May of 2024, Kallas will only ever be an unelected apparatchik.
When the European Union’s role was focussed on creating a united economic, social and cultural space among nations after the ravages of World War II, it found peace by opening up borders. However, as it has grown, Europe has become increasingly bureaucratic. Following agreement of the Lisbon Treaty, the creation of a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security with a newly formed European External Action Service, continued this centralising trend.
Without any democratic mandate, occupants of the High Representative role have struggled for relevance. Outside of trade policy, individual Member States still manage their own bilateral diplomacy. And as the war in Ukraine has backfired on Europe through economic decline and political dissent, so Europeans countries have sought their divergent paths.
That has left ineffectual figures like Josep Borrel and ideologues like Kallas unable to play the sort of coordinating role that they yearn for.
So, in practice, Kallas’ influence on the actions of Member States is limited, although she has considerable power to cause harm through inflammatory public statements. This is a huge challenge when dealing with countries like Russia, where the leaders there understand fully the limitations on Kallas’ role and ignore her. Instead, Russia focusses its influencing efforts on key EU members states, especially in Central Europe.
Even though Kallas can call for the continued isolation of Russia as support for Zelensky rapidly crumbles, she has no real power to enforce that. She lacks a mandate.
So herein lies her third problem.
Kaja Kallas has no strategy.
There is a huge risk that Kallas is seen as a single-issue High Representative, as her main effort appears to be on the war in Ukraine.
She appears intent only on sustaining the decade-long European zeitgeist on non-engagement with Russia, whatever the economic cost. But in that regard, not only is she not bringing new ideas on foreign policy, her lack of flexibility will make her look out of touch at a time when Europe is facing significant economic and political challenges caused by the war. Arriving into the job in December, Kallas has brought plenty of heat, but no light.
Donald Trump has now arrived heralding a seismic shift in U.S. policy and she still thinks the earth is flat. She has criticised President Trump’s radical shift towards direct engagement with Russia without offering a compelling alternative vision.
The ‘Russia is coming for Europe next’ continues to be the rhetorical life-raft that she clings to as she tries desperately to help the now stranded Zelensky fight to the last Ukrainian.
Kallas is certainly not the author of the EU policy that has tried explicitly to isolate Russia on the world stage. But she has worked tirelessly to keep it alive, together with all the other tropes about how to handle Russia and why an end to the war can never be contemplated.
Of course, that position may have been sustainable while Joe Biden was still in power and the U.S. were arguably more gung-ho about pushing an unwinnable war in Europe.
But Donald Trump’s devastating take-down of Zelensky in the White House will force an immediate reckoning on the European policy establishment about what to do for Ukraine, and for Zelensky. Kaja Kallas has neither the skills, the mandate nor the plan to chart a credible way forward.
Reality confronts the Euro ruling-strata – ‘Through the tear in the fantasy bubble, they see their own demise’
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2025
They (the Euro-élites) don’t have a chance: “If Trump imposes this tariff [25%], the U.S. will be in a serious trade conflict with the EU”, the Norwegian Prime Minister threatens. And what if Brussels does retaliate?
“They can try, but they can’t”, Trump responded. Von der Leyen has, however, already promised that she will retaliate. Nonetheless, the combined suite of the Anglo administrative forces is still unlikely to compel Trump to put U.S. military troops on the ground in Ukraine to protect European interests (and investments!).
The reality is that every European NATO member – to varying degrees of self-embarrassment – admits publicly now that none of them want to participate in securing Ukraine without having U.S. military troops provide ‘backstop’ to those European forces. This is a palpably obvious scheme to inveigle Trump into continuing the Ukraine war – as is Macron and Starmer’s dangling of the mineral deal to try to trick Trump to recommit to the Ukraine war. Trump plainly sees through these ploys.
The fly in the ointment, however, is that Zelensky seemingly fears a ceasefire, more than he fears losing further ground on the battlefield. He too, seems to need the war to continue (to preserve continuing in power, possibly).
Trump calling time on the Ukraine war that has been lost has seemingly caused European elites to enter some form of cognitive dissonance. Of course, it has been clear for some time that Ukraine would not retake its 1991 borders, nor force Russia into a negotiating position weak enough for the West to be able to dictate its own cessation terms.
As Adam Collingwood writes:
“Trump has torn a huge rip in the interface layer of the fantasy bubble … the governing élite [in the wake of Trump’s pivot] can see not just an electoral setback, but rather a literal catastrophe. A defeat in war, with [Europe] left largely defenceless; a de-industrialising economy; crumbling public services and infrastructure; large fiscal deficits; stagnating living standards; social and ethnic disharmony – and a powerful populist insurgency led by enemies just as grave as Trump and Putin in the Manichean struggle against vestiges of liberal times – and strategically sandwiched between two leaders that both despise and disdain them …”.
“In other words, through the tear in the fantasy bubble, Europe’s elites see their own demise …”.
“Anybody who could see reality knew that things would only get worse on the war front from autumn 2023, but from their fantasy bubble, our élites couldn’t see it. Vladimir Putin, like the ‘Deplorables’ and ‘Gammons’ at home, was an atavistic daemon who would inevitably be slain on the inexorable march to liberal progressive utopia”.
Many in the Euro ruling-strata clearly are furious. Yet what can Britain or Germany actually do? It has quickly become clear that European states do not have the military capacity to intervene in Ukraine in any concerted manner. But more than anything, as Conor Gallagher points out, it is the European economy, circling the drain – largely as a result of the war against Russia – that is dragging reality to the forefront.
The new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has shown himself to be the most implacable European leader advocating both military expansion and youth conscription – in what amounts to an European resistance model mounted to confront Trump’s pivot to Russia.
Yet Merz’s winning CDU/CSU achieved only 28% of votes cast, whilst losing significant voter share. Hardly an outstanding mandate for confronting both Russia – and America – together!
“I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers, and heads of EU states and for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S., step by step”, Friedrich Merz said.
Second place in the German election was taken by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 20% of the national vote. The party was the top vote getter in the 25-45 year-old demographic. It supports good relations with Russia, an end to the Ukraine war, and it wants to work with Team Trump, too.
Yet AfD absurdly is outcast under the ‘firewall rules’. As a ‘populist’ party with a strong youth vote, it becomes automatically relegated to the ‘wrong side’ of the EU firewall. Merz has already refused to share power with them, leaving the CDU as pig-in-the-middle, squeezed between the failing SPD, which lost the most voter share, and the AfD and Der Linke, another firewall outcast, which, like AfD, gained voter share, especially among the under-45s.
The rub here – and it is a big one – is that the AfD and the Left Party, Die Linke (8.8%), which was the top vote getter in the 18-24 demographic, are both anti-war. Together these two have more than one third of the votes in parliament – a blocking minority for many important votes, especially for constitutional changes.
This will be a big headache for Merz, as Wolfgang Münchau explains:
“For one thing, the new Chancellor had wanted to travel to the NATO summit this June, with a strong commitment to higher defence spending. And even though the Left Party and the AfD hate each other in every other respect, they agree that they won’t give Merz the money to strengthen the Bundeswehr. More important, though, is the fact that they won’t support a reform to the constitutional fiscal rules (the debt brake) that Merz and the SPD are desperate for”.
The Rules are complicated, but in gist dictate that if Germany wants to spend more money on defence and aid to Ukraine, it had to be saved from elsewhere in the budget (most likely from social spending). But politically, saving on social spending to pay for Ukraine hasn’t played well with the German electorate. The last coalition failed on precisely this issue.
Even with the Greens, Merz still will be short of the two-thirds majority necessary to make constitutional changes, and the ‘Centre’ just doesn’t have the fiscal space for challenging Russia without U.S. funding. Von der Leyen will try to ‘magic’ money for defence from somewhere, “but German youth are voting against the Establishment parties who are hated. They can build a few Leopards if they want. They won’t get recruits”.
Whilst the EU and Britain are proposing to raise billions to arm themselves against some imaginary Russian invasion, it will be done against the backdrop of Trump saying explicitly – on the threat of a Russian invasion of NATO – “I don’t believe that; I don’t believe it, not one little bit”.
Another Euro-shibboleth ripped by Trump.
Thus, how will the European public, which has largely soured on the Ukraine war, react to higher energy costs and more tax and social service cuts, in order to pursue an unwinnable war in Ukraine? Starmer already has been warned that the (government debt) ‘bond vigilantes’ will react badly to yet more UK government debt as the fiscal situation wobbles precariously.
There are no obvious solutions to Europe’s current predicament: It is, on one hand, an existential conundrum for Merz. And on the other, it is the same one that dogs the EU as a whole: To get anything done, a parliamentary majority is a basic necessity.
The ‘firewall’, though primordially intended to protect the ‘Centrists’ in Brussels from Rightist ‘populists’, was subsequently turbo-charged in Brussels by Biden’s issuing of a foreign policy determination to all U.S. foreign policy ‘actors’ to the effect that populism was a ‘threat to democracy’ and must be contested.
The practical outcome however, has been that across the EU, blocking coalitions were formed of odd (minority party) bed-fellows agreeing to keep the Centrists in power, but which rather has led to endless stasis and an ever increasing detachment from ‘we, the people’.
Angela Merkel governed in this way, kicking the can of reform down the road for years – until the situation ultimately became (and still is) insoluble.
“Can another coalition of short-sighted centrists arrest the decline of the economy, fix the failure of leadership, and free the nation from its pernicious political trap? I think we know the answer”, writes Wolfgang Münchau.
There lies a bigger problem however: As Vance very explicitly warned at the recent Munich Security Forum, Europe’s enemy lies not with Russia; It lies within. It derives, Vance implied, from the fact of having a permanent bureaucracy, assuming to itself the exclusive prerogative of autonomous governing power, yet incrementally becoming ever-more remote from its own base.
Tear down the firewalls, Vance advocated, in order to return to the (abandoned) principles of that earlier democracy originally shared between the U.S. and Europe. Implicitly, Vance is targeting the Brussels Administrative (Deep) State.
The Eurocrats see in this new front an alternate American-supported attack on their Administrative State – and perceive therein their own demise.
In the U.S., there is acknowledgement that there is an “institutional resistance to Trump” in the DOD, DOJ and the FBI. It proves, Margot Cleveland argues, that those touting the need for “institutional resistance” and the supposed independence from the executive branch, are the opponents to democracy – and to Trump.
Given the close nexus between the U.S., the British and European Deep States, the question arises as to why there is such strong parallel resistance to Trump amongst European leaders also.
Ostensibly, it is not in Europe’s interest to mount a concerted resistance against the U.S. President over a failed war. Is the European frenzy then fuelled by a wider (U.S.) Deep State desire to neuter the ‘Trump Revolution’ by demonstrating, in addition to the U.S. domestic opposition at home, that Trump is causing havoc amongst the U.S.’ European allies? Is Europe being pushed further down this path than they would otherwise have chosen to venture?
For Germany to change course – albeit unthinkable for Merz – it would require only a minimal amount of imagination to envision Germany again linked to Eurasia. The AfD gained 20% of the vote on just such a platform. Really, there probably is little other option.
‘Zelensky wants forever war’ – Musk piles on after Zelensky says the war is far from over
By Liz Heflin | Remix News | March 4, 2025
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that an agreement to end the war between Ukraine and Russia is still “very, very far away,” Elon Musk went on the offensive against the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of wanting the war to go on.
While U.S. President Trump said Zelensky’s words were “the worst statement” possible and that “America will not put up with it for much longer” just before cutting all funding to the war-torn nation, Musk reacted by calling Zelensky “evil” for wanting “a forever war, a never-ending graft meat grinder.”
Musk also took to posting other accounts commenting on the issue, including a repost of a clip of David Sacks, who said that Democrats increasingly support endless war.
“Zelensky basically says the war needs to go on forever. If the war is over, he loses power. He canceled elections there. If he stands for elections there, he’s very unpopular, despite what the fake USAID polls say,” said Sacks.
“The Democrats have become the Party of forever war. Remember this was Joe Biden’s war. He easily could have ended this war in the first month if he agreed to the Istanbul Accords, which said that all Ukraine had to do was stay neutral and basically agree not to become part of NATO. Biden said that was unacceptable, and that’s why the war continued.”
The condemnation of Zelensky comes at a time when Ukrainians are increasingly being dragged off the street and being sent to the front.
Political commentator for Magyar Nemzet, Zsolt Bayer, wrote up a piece in response to yet another video of a young man being dragged away for military duty in Ukraine. “I’ve been watching these videos for years …and I’ve been horrified by them all for years. And I imagine what would happen if these… these… these I don’t know what kind of horrors happened anywhere else,” he wrote.
He went on to say, “This is not a country, this is not a state, this is a rotten mafia-monster state that makes death lists, that deprives its citizens of the most basic human rights, that treats men like animals – and that in the meantime dreams of EU membership, scolds, demands, and loudly explains to everyone and anyone what to do, how to support, finance, and arm this scum.”
Remix News has reported extensively on Ukraine’s issues with manpower, boots on the ground, as its troops dwindle from ongoing casualties as well as hundreds of thousands fleeing service.
Forced conscription is real and most believe largely undocumented. The Hungarian community in Ukraine is said to have been badly targeted, culminating in an incident last May where relatives of forced draftees erected barricades in front of a recruitment center, demanding their husbands and sons be released.
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The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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