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.
Even with Western aid drying up, corruption continues to flourish in Ukraine
By Ahmed Adel | February 3, 2025
The deep-rooted corruption in Ukraine began to surface after it became clear that the Kiev regime was losing the war. Although the West used a corrupt Ukraine to attack and weaken Russia, the Westerners themselves now look for an alibi for the defeat and to distance themselves from their proxy after ignoring the total corruption of the Kiev regime due to the ambitions of certain leaders to inflict as much damage as possible on Russia.
Cracks have begun to appear in the relations between the allies due to corruption, and Ukraine accuses its Western partners of using corruption accusations as an excuse not to admit the country to NATO and the EU. Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe today, but the West continued to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky uncritically until Donald Trump raised the issue due to then-US President Joe Biden sending American taxpayers’ money to Ukraine.
It was then discovered that the Kiev regime was giving part of that money to Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, in turn, sent that money to his father, who, at the end of his term, issued a decree on Hunter’s preventive pardon.
Trump is now conducting a “special financial operation,” which will include both the Pentagon and Ukraine, to determine where the money went. For this reason, Trump has suspended the US aid program to Ukraine for 90 days, suggesting that there is evidence of financial mismanagement and theft of US taxpayer money.
Biden’s last decrees also indicate corruption related to Ukraine. Besides Hunter, Joe Biden issued preventive pardons for his brothers and their wives, as well as for his sister and her husband. It was not clear why and for what reason. However, there was no information about the existence of any criminal offenses and so on.
In Kiev, the main culprit behind these corruption schemes is Zelensky, who officially has a monthly salary of 28,000 hryvnias, about $664. Undoubtedly, he has other income because he bought a house for his parents and in-laws, a yacht, and more. According to media reports, Zelensky purchased a villa in Italy and acquired an estate in Britain—the former residence of King Charles and Princess Diana—while Zelensky’s wife has an apartment in London. In addition, the couple owns real estate in Cyprus and Miami. This, according to some sources, is not a complete list.
An Egyptian journalist who wrote about the purchase of the Italian villa in the name of Zelensky’s mother-in-law, worth almost $5 million, was found dead under unclear circumstances. As for the castle in the UK, these allegations are made by Ukrainian sources and still need to be verified. However, there is nothing secret that does not become public, and the Trump administration is certainly monitoring the movement of money.
Friends, godfathers, and relatives of Ukrainian officials are also getting rich quickly because property is being purchased in their names. Corruption in Ukraine is flourishing at all levels, and Ukrainian officials are issuing directives to journalists not to write about it until the war is over because it is bad for the country, as it may be left without Western aid. Sooner or later, everything will come to light.
The Trump administration will likely have all the information and initiate criminal proceedings by now. It is no coincidence that Zelensky is now saying that Ukraine does not have the strength to capture the lost territories. This statement seems to indicate a radical change in Kiev’s position and a renunciation of unrealistic goals to “return to the 1991 borders.” The reason for this is that Western aid is drying up.
Trump’s words that Biden and Zelensky started the war and that if he had been president, there would have been no war, draw attention to the fact that since January 20, the new president’s inauguration, there have been no attacks on Russia with American HIMARS and ATACMS missiles. The assumption is that Kiev received such an order from Trump, who replaced and fired people who dealt with Ukrainian issues in the State Department and the Pentagon.
Zelensky was a puppet managed by the West and was under the control of British intelligence. This is evidenced by the fact that in the spring of 2022, Zelensky annulled the Istanbul Peace Accords on the directive of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even though he had a chance to stop the war that would have prevented Ukraine from losing more territory and preserved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. However, he instead decided to continue to fight on the promise that billions of dollars would flow endlessly, a prospect that Zelensky could not resist as an opportunity to further enrich himself and those closest to him.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?
By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · January 31, 2025
Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.”
Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe – excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any “non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors” charged with delivering US “aid” programs overseas.
Within days, hundreds of “internal contractors” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on unpaid leave or outright fired, as a direct result of the Executive Order. Washington Post contributor John Hudson has reported organization officials brand Trump’s directives on “foreign development assistance” a “shock and awe approach,” which has left them reeling, uncertain of their futures. One nameless USAID apparatchik told him, “they even removed all the pictures in our offices of aid programs,” as accompanying photographs attested.
While the Trump administration’s purge sent shockwaves through Washington’s international development corps and the Beltway Bandits which feed at its trough, the sudden severing of USAID money has sparked panic overseas. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, the US has pumped billions into NGO’s and media outlets to fuel color revolutions and assorted regime change operations, all in the name of “democracy promotion.”
Now, as the global apparatus of soft American power trumpeted by President George H.W. Bush as “a thousand points of light” goes dark, supposedly independent media outfits from Ukraine to Nicaragua are fretting about their future and panhandling for donations on their websites.
US-backed media and opposition face extinction in Ukraine
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has pumped billions into Ukraine to create and propel a fervently anti-Russian opposition. As former State Department Assistant Secretary for Eastern European Affairs Victoria Nuland remarked to an oil industry-sponsored meeting in Kiev in 2009, “we’ve invested $5 billion to assist Ukraine” to “build democratic skills and institutions” allowing it to “achieve European independence.”
The US flooded Ukrainian civil society with grants on the eve of the 2014 Maidan coup, birthing a network of pro-Western media outlets almost overnight. Among them was Hromadske, a liberal broadcasting entity which pushed for the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych and rallied for the subsequent war with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east – including through the glorification of Nazis who fought the Soviet Red Army during World War II.
With Trump’s executive order cutting off USAID programs, Hromadske has suddenly been severed from its financial tube. So too have the top Ukrainian media outlets which emerged in the wake of the Maidan coup, including Ukrinform, Internews, and a signatory of the Poynter-run International Fact Checking Network called VoxUkraine.
The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications and the Service of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, both created to propagandize for war against Russia, are also among USAID funding recipients now starving for cash.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky took to X to whine that “critically important programs” wholly dependent on “US support” were now “suspended” as a result of Trump’s executive order. He promised that “certain key initiatives” would “be financed through our internal resources,” while begging for donations from Kiev’s “European partners” to be “intensified.”
Given Ukraine’s near-total economic destruction since its proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, and complete reliance on USAID to pay the salaries of state employees, it is uncertain how the country’s “internal resources” can possibly be used to even vaguely offset its sudden deficit. Already, major Ukrainian media outlets are pleading for financial support from their readers just to keep their lights on.
According to Kiev’s foreign-funded Institute of Mass Information, around 90% of the country’s media is “dependent on American grants.”
Contra 2.0 gravy train paused in Nicaragua
Similar bleating has emanated from US-financed organizations in Nicaragua, where since the re-election of popular leftist Sandinista Front in 2006, Washington has pumped tens of millions of dollars into right-wing media outlets and opposition groups.
In tandem, these foreign-funded fifth columnists routinely disseminate disinformation, while inciting violence against the government and its supporters, and influencing Western media reporting on the country.
As The Grayzone reported, a USAID-funded Nicaraguan opposition outlet called 100% Noticias led a campaign of violent incitement throughout 2018, when a failed US-backed coup attempt left hundreds dead in the country. While the outlet repeatedly featured calls for the murder of President Daniel Ortega, its director, Miguel Mora, told The Grayone’s Max Blumenthal he wished for a US military intervention of the country to topple the elected government. When the Nicaraguan government finally shuttered the station and prosecuted Mora, Washington responded with accusations of repression and threats of heavy sanctions.
On January 21, an anti-Sandinista “news” operations called Nicaragua Investiga warned that Trump’s order “threatens to deal a severe blow” to the country and its anti-Ortega crusade, “which depends heavily on the financial and technical support provided by agencies” such as USAID. This backing, the outlet declared, was a “fundamental pillar” in the Nicaraguan right-wing’s efforts to undermine and depose the anti-imperialist President.
“Civil society organisations that rely on this assistance would be forced to reduce or cease their activities,” Nicaragua Investiga warned. The outlet further lamented that “uncertainty reigns over how and when assistance will be restored, and whether organizations critical of Daniel Ortega’s regime that still survive outside the country will be able to maintain their operations.”
Not coincidentally, Nicaragua Investiga was among the local outlets which largely depended on US government grants for their existence.
Has the US balked at balkanizing the Balkans?
Across the West Balkans, USAID, self-avowed CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the panoply of NGOs and media outlets have infiltrated every conceivable sphere of public life. Following the 1992 – 1995 civil war, Bosnia and Herzegovina was methodically transformed into a de facto EU and US colony, with all basic functions of the state hijacked by foreign interests.
Some concern about the imperial project found its way into mainstream media at the time. The New York Times warned in 1998 that US domination of Bosnia “raised troubling questions about how the state will work without continued infusions of outside aid and direct international supervision.” A senior foreign government advisor angsted over Washington’s lack of exit strategy in the country, or any plan to end “Bosnia’s culture of dependency.” Today, at least 25,600 Western-funded NGOs are active in Sarajevo.
The pause in “foreign development assistance” has placed countless jobs and beneficiary organizations at risk of permanent erasure across the Balkans. On January 30, Balkan Insight – an outlet exposed by The Grayzone as a tentacle of British intelligence – published an illuminating investigation into how the aid pause “has immediately affected a range of organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.”
From 2020 until the end of 2024, Washington has funnelled a staggering $1.7 billion into the West Balkans, “supporting civil society organisations and state institutions and projects ranging from human rights and media to energy efficiency,” with next to no demonstrable social benefit. Now, “all projects have been halted… until the evaluation period is over.” Expenses up until January 27 will be covered, “while everything after that has to be stopped.” Already, layoffs and huge pay cuts have been enacted at recipient entities.
Nameless NGO workers consulted by Balkan Insight fretted that the US financing freeze would not be temporary. One source speculated the Executive Order could be “just a soft way of cutting these funds permanently.” The outlet noted Washington “has supported thousands of activities” in the region, and “the precise number of affected projects” remains “unknown”. When reporters contacted local USAID offices seeking clarity on the cuts, they were redirected in every instance to the agency’s Washington headquarters.
USAID base camp “responded by sending a link to its press release” on the funding pause. “President Trump stated clearly that the US is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people,” it bluntly declared. “Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative.” Evidently, the new administration is not remotely concerned that entire sectors of local economies in the Balkans have been effectively shuttered.
Even in Albania – a doggedly pro-US country with an influential DC lobby – 30 Washington-subsidized projects have been suspended, including bankrolling of “courts, prosecutor’s offices and the ministries of Defence, Education and Sports, and Finance.” In Macedonia – where “most” US funding is distributed via USAID and NED – $72 million allocated to 22 projects is “now on hold.” Six wider regional USAID-backed initiatives in the Balkans, which also covers Macedonia, “worth some $140 million”, are likewise mothballed. In local terms, these sums are monumental.
Georgia not on the Trump admin’s mind
The Republic of Georgia has been the site of a series of color revolution efforts since the start of 2023, all in response to the government’s successful push to compel the more than 25,000 foreign-financed organizations in the country to disclose their funding sources. Western-backed NGOs and activist groups have been at the forefront of all these attempted putsches. Unsurprisingly, this shadow army of previously US-funded foot soldiers are furious about the Trump administration’s “foreign development assistance” cutoff.
By contrast, the Georgian government appears delighted. Parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze has even suggested the highly controversial law on foreign funding transparency “might not be needed at all anymore” after Trump’s executive order. Indeed, with untold foreign-sponsored chaos agents suddenly out of money, the color revolution coast is now clear in Tbilisi.
On January 30, local English language publication Georgia Today published a leader mourning that, “as the future of their funding hangs in the balance, aid organizations are already laying off or furloughing staff,” and “some programs” in Tbilisi “may struggle to restart after this temporary shutdown, with many potentially disappearing permanently.” It went on to note USAID financing “has been a cornerstone of the country’s development since 1992, with over $1.9 billion in assistance provided to date.”
Prior to the funding pause, USAID alone was “investing in 39 programs across the country, with a total value of $373 million and an annual budget exceeding $70 million.” These efforts overwhelmingly focused “on promoting economic reforms” and “fostering private sector investment,” which is to say facilitating foreign financial rape and pillage of Georgia.
While domestic critics of Trump’s Executive Order have lambasted Washington’s resultant loss of expansive “soft power” influence in the Global South, such retreat can only be to the enormous benefit of target countries. As a LeftEast essay noted, foreign-funded NGOs have for decades “eroded Georgian citizens’ agency and the country’s sovereignty and democracy.” Its authors explained, “Activists in Georgia know all too well what is expected of them and which behaviors are punished and rewarded: being critical of the government on Facebook will net you more grants than being out in the community helping people… Donors even monitor activists’ social media profiles, and there can be consequences for posting the wrong things.”
However, the relief could be premature for populations that have suffered decades of US “foreign development assistance,” and the attendant coups and unrest it has paid for. The “pause” on US aid may indeed be a temporary measure, or, spending on soft power could be redirected to harder options with even more grave repercussions across the world.
Ex-US Colonel: Mounting US Merc Deaths Signal Impending Collapse of Ukraine’s War Machine
Sputnik – 01.02.2025
Having lost tens of thousands of its best and most experienced troops in foolhardy attacks, Ukraine has become increasingly reliant on mercenaries to make up for this shortage in troops, Ret. Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen tells Sputnik.
Thus, an increase in casualties among these mercenaries is a “natural occurrence” that serves as “an indication of a slow and actually increasing collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
Unlike its senile predecessor and his cohorts, the Trump administration seems to be gaining a “sense of realism” regarding the way the Ukrainian conflict is going, veteran international consultant Ret. Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen tells Sputnik.
Western media narrative has now shifted from celebrating virtually everything Kiev does to a sobering assessment of the growing casualty and desertion rates in the Ukrainian military.
This may be an attempt to shape the public opinion as the US could be mulling either abandoning the Ukraine completely or passing the burden of supporting Kiev to someone else.
“Maybe try to shut it down or perhaps just pass the Ukraine project over to Europe and say, you take care of it, it’s your problem. So I think the US is trying to to extricate themselves out of the situation potentially.”
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.
How Ukrainians became cannon fodder in British military’s Krynky debacle
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 1, 2025
In November 2024, Ukrainska Pravda published a little-noticed investigation, documenting in frequently disquieting detail the catastrophic failure of Ukraine’s long-running effort to capture the village of Krynky in Russian-controlled Kherson, October 2023 – June 2024.
That it was to all intents and purposes a British operation, from deranged inception to miserable conclusion, was perhaps the most shocking revelation.
As the proxy war teeters on collapse, it’s high time London’s covert role in fomenting relentless escalation, and getting enormous numbers of Ukrainians pointlessly killed, is critically scrutinized.
In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction almost completely submerged large swaths of Kherson, a key proxy war frontline, depopulating these areas in the process. In the wake of this incident, responsibility for which remains a point of significant contention, Kiev decided to secure a beachhead on Russian territory on Dnipro’s Russian-held left bank.
As Ukrainska Pravda notes, the initiative was and remains “one of the least publicized operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” despite lasting as long as the Battle of Bakhmut.
This omertà endures today, with many “experienced officers” involved in and aware of the operation unwilling to answer any questions put to them by Ukrainska Pravda.
One pseudonymous marine quoted “was so concerned about the privacy” of his conversations with the outlet that he contacted them “from different numbers almost every time.”
The rationale for this conspiracy of silence is obvious. The Krynky operation’s failure was so egregious that it easily ranks among the uppermost tier of the biggest and worst modern military calamities.
Moreover, though, the effort had a supremely grand ultimate purpose, in which the surviving Ukrainian marines involved in the operation believed so strongly that several of them spoke of Kiev’s failed Krynky incursion in the same terms as the June 1944 Normandy landings – D-Day.
Ukrainska Pravda reveals it was hoped securing the Krynky beachhead would be a “game-changer”, opening a second front in the conflict, allowing invading marines to march upon Crimea and all-out victory in the proxy war.
This fantastical objective has hitherto never been publicly divulged. A December 2023 BBC article nonetheless hinted at intended greatness. It discussed the horrendous experiences of Ukrainian soldiers who “spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side” of the Dnipro, as Kiev sought to establish its Krynky “bridgehead”.
Along the way, the British state broadcaster noted parenthetically, “President Volodymyr Zelensky has been keen to talk up this offensive, framing it as the beginning of something more [emphasis added].”
‘Constant Fire’
Per Ukrainska Pravda, Krynky’s foundations were laid in February 2023, when it was announced London, “perhaps Ukraine’s most active and determined ally”, would begin a training program for Ukrainian marines and pilots. Behind closed doors, Britain – “a naval power” – concurrently began lobbying Kiev to “start using marines for waterborne operations.”
However, the proposal “did not resonate… for a long time” with Zelensky, or then-Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. So the British took the “radical step” of dispatching an “official delegation” to Kiev, to convince the pair.
“The British team persuaded Zaluzhnyi, and he said: that’s it, we’re creating the Marine Corps,” a source informed the outlet. London then instituted five-week-long training programs.
Ukrainians were taught on British territory “how to overcome water obstacles: to cross a river, land on the shore and conduct operations on land.” Survivors of the operation told Ukrainska Pravda, “They realized they were being prepared for something big and different from their previous tasks during their stay in the UK.”
Come August, almost 1,000 Ukrainian marines had reportedly been tutored “in small-boat landing operations and amphibious assaults”, in training environments identical to where they would land in and around Krynky.
The stage was thus set for seizing the beachhead, which commenced two months later. “Almost immediately” though, “the operation’s biggest flaw – its planning – began to work against the Marines,” producing “huge losses”.
Ukrainska Pravda acknowledges the mission “wasn’t fully thought through in every aspect,” which is quite the understatement.
Ukrainian marines reaching Krynky required them to travel across the Dnipro via boat or be dropped off at numerous small islands nearby and swim to land. Resupply was also supposed to be conducted via boat deliveries.
In the aforementioned December 2023 BBC article, a marine participating in the catastrophe revealed it was expected by the operation’s British planners that once the Ukrainians landed, their adversary “would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed.”
Alas, “it didn’t turn out that way”:
“The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro River… When we arrived on the [eastern] bank… they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us – artillery, mortars and flamethrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”
To make matters worse, “a lot of young guys” with zero combat experience were being fed into Krynky. “It’s a total nightmare… some of our marines can’t even swim,” the embattled marine bitterly relayed to Britain’s state broadcaster.
Fearing “things will only get worse,” he added “no one” dispatched to the “hell” there knew “the goals” of the operation in which they were engaged. “Many” believed their commanders had “simply abandoned” them, and “our presence [has] more political than military significance.”
‘Almost Impossible’
Ukrainska Pravda gravely notes, “not all [marines] made it” to Krynky, and “not all who did return.” Even those who survived the perilous journey “frequently sustained injuries or were killed” upon arrival, “because the Russians immediately targeted them with artillery.”
During landings, “every second mattered”, to the extent the Ukrainians quickly “abandoned the use of life jackets” for their river crossings, as detaching one onshore took half a minute, “and there [could] be casualties during that time.”
Fatal operational blindspots and blunders didn’t end there. Resupply boats were likewise relentlessly targeted by Russian forces, making it virtually impossible to equip marines with even the most basic essentials, including ammunition, bandages, food, medicine, and water.
The Ukrainians resorted to using hexacopter drones “to deliver all sorts of things” to the frontline, “even blood for transfusions.”
Meanwhile, one marine bitterly informed Ukrainska Pravda, “heaps” of artillery and rocket support “that would work in our favor” promised by their superiors never materialized.
“HIMARS will fire like machine guns!” they were told, “but we were deceived in the end.”
Regardless, marines were still expected to carry out extraordinarily grand missions once – if – they reached Krynky. For example, three marine brigades were tasked with capturing a 30-kilometer-long beachhead around the village, on foot and without heavy equipment, “using units already exhausted from fighting in Donbas,” within just four days.
This also necessitated thrusting up to seven kilometers inland, into Russian territory.
“The order seemed insane to everyone at the time,” a participating marine told Ukrainska Pravda, “we warned that it would be a massacre, but we were told to keep pushing.”
Their dire predictions were proven completely correct, the mission abruptly failing after “a considerable number of highly valued personnel” were blown to bits by Russian airstrikes, missiles, and tank fire. Yet, this senseless turkey shoot paled in comparison to the disaster and insanity of Britain’s plot for Kiev to march on Crimea.
A survivor of the Krynky operation said this “ultimate goal” was “almost impossible.” To accomplish it, Ukrainian marines “needed to cover a vast distance” – 80 kilometers – into territory that had been under heavy Russian occupation for 18 months.
Furthermore, it was “impossible to establish a foothold” in many of the areas where marines landed, which were “nothing but swamp”. Unable to dig shelters or trenches in the terrain, they were forced to hide from Russian bombardment in craters left by previous attacks.
Some marines intentionally “got lost” on islands near Krynky to avoid the river crossing. Others tried to reach the area and return floating “on car tyres”.
At least two “heroes” involved in the operation “refused to act” on certain orders from their commanders, “as doing so would have been suicidal.”
Some wounded soldiers literally took their own lives, “because there was no evacuation.” These were just a few of the “tragic stories” to result from Britain’s futile, covert proxy push on Crimea.
‘Remain Silent’
The onset of winter was “when the situation on the [Dnipro’s] left bank started to really deteriorate.”
The Russians transferred significant assault forces to the area, used glide bombs “to destroy a large part” of Krynky, and “figured out how best to target Ukrainian forces’ river routes, especially at the turns, where the boats had to slow down, and landing points.” Moscow’s artillery onslaught left the area “cratered like the moon.” A reconnaissance officer told Ukrainska Pravda:
“Each time our battalion entered [Krynky], the situation got worse and worse. People got there, only to die. We had no idea what was going on. Everyone I knew who was deployed to Krynky is [sic] dead.”
The situation further “took a dark turn” in early spring 2024. Not a single boat could enter or leave the area. “By May, the situation was a disaster” – but it was not until July the last of Ukraine’s marines withdrew from the area, being forced to swim back.
“Most people” Ukrainska Pravda interviewed about Krynky “are convinced the operation dragged on for at least several months longer than it should have.” One despaired:
“We had to withdraw in spring at the latest, during the foggy season. We could have got all of our soldiers out at that point. It would’ve saved people’s lives. But instead, we waited until nothing could be done any longer. Until the very last moment.”
During the operation’s entire nine months, Krynky never came under full control of Kiev’s British-trained and directed marines. They managed to capture, recapture, and hold “about half of the village” at most, per Ukrainska Pravda.
“As of late 2024, all of Dnipro’s left bank in Kherson Oblast is under Russian control,” the outlet concludes. No wonder that today, neither Ukrainian nor Western officials are “particularly vocal about Krynky, preferring to remain silent on the issue.”
Zaluzhnyi “has never issued a public statement about the operation.” In May 2024, he was appointed ambassador to Britain. Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol, Ukraine’s former Marine Corps commander who oversaw Krynky, was dismissed from the armed forces in November 2024, ostensibly after failing a military medical exam.
Total killed and wounded figures for the operation remain concealed, although Ukrainska Pravda learned just one brigade lost around 700 personnel during the nine-month-long debacle.
Had it been wave after wave of poorly prepared, ill-equipped and militarily unsupported British marines dispatched in large numbers to certain death in Krynky, one might expect their commanders and anyone responsible for planning the operation to face severe censure.
As it was Ukrainians doing the fighting and dying in an unwinnable, literal quagmire, British officials are likely to remain immune from repercussions.
In a bitter irony, Zelensky may well be joining them in London in due course.
Desertion Epidemic? Ukrainian Soldiers Flee as Army Collapses on the Battlefield
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 31.01.2025
As Ukraine’s army suffers mounting defeats, thousands of soldiers are abandoning their units, unable or unwilling to continue the fight.
- The 157th Brigade, formed in 2024, ceased to exist by 2025 with one-third of its soldiers deserting before becoming operational.
- The elite 155th ‘Anna of Kiev’ Brigade saw at least 1,700 of its 2,300 soldiers desert before reaching the front lines.
- Over 10% of the 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers sent to Poland for training fled the country.
- Desertion is occurring in both large and small groups, with 22 soldiers from the 71st Separate Jaeger Brigade deserting in just one week in December 2024.
- Some deserters are even charging to assist others escape, with one man arrested for smuggling soldiers out for €7,000 each.
The Scale of Desertion is Staggering:
- For every 100 mobilized soldiers, only 10 reach the front, according to General Serhiy Kryvonos.
- Ukrainian activist Gennadiy Druzenko estimates 150,000 deserters, with 114,000 criminal cases opened.
- Ukrainian officials have admitted the crisis, with Deputy Anna Skorokhod estimating over 100,000 desertions by October 2024. Commissioner Olga Reshetylova stated bluntly: “The problem is big. People are exhausted.”
Ukraine wants EU to replace lost US aid
RT | January 30, 2025
Ukrainian lawmakers have appealed to non-US donors to fund local media outlets and NGOs following the suspension of Washington’s foreign assistance programs that has reportedly drastically impacted the sector.
Last week, President Donald Trump halted cash flows from the US and ordered a 90-day review of aid schemes. Many affected programs were run by USAID, Washington’s soft power agency that distributes billions of dollars each year for projects that promote US interests around the world, under the premise of humanitarian development. It spent over $60 billion in 2023 alone.
Ukrainian recipients of American grants were hit “worse than it may seem,” a statement by the parliamentary committee on humanitarian affairs said on Wednesday. Lawmakers anticipate that it will take up to six months for US funding to fully resume, and have urged EU donors to step in.
“Given the constraints on public funding, grants remain virtually the only way for cultural and media projects to function,” the statement said.
Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of a Kiev-based media research non-profit, warned that 90% of news outlets in Ukraine rely heavily on foreign grants. With USAID operations frozen, many of them are now soliciting emergency donations.
The Ukrainian MPs described foreign assistance as “an important part of our path to democratic development and sustainability”. They empathized that USAID was funding projects for children, with thousands of minors attending schools that depend on American taxpayer dollars.
According to media reports, senior officials in the Department of State have lobbied Secretary Marco Rubio to make exemptions for their preferred aid programs, arguing that they are essential for US interests. Meanwhile, at least 60 senior USAID officials reportedly have been placed on paid administrative leave.
Ukraine ‘an invented state’ – Romanian election frontrunner
RT | January 30, 2025
Calin Georgescu, the politician whose first-round victory in the Romanian presidential election was overturned by the Constitutional Court, has argued that the borders claimed by Ukraine were artificially drawn and are subject to inevitable change.
The staunch critic of Western policies made the remarks on Wednesday in an interview with political analyst Ion Cristoiu on YouTube. He was discussing the adjustments of European borders after World War II, which resulted in a transfer of territories to Soviet Ukraine. Georgescu said he expects Ukraine to be fragmented as part of a peace deal with Russia, along historical lines.
”This will happen 100%. The path to an outcome like that is inevitable,” he asserted. “Ukraine is an invented state.”
Parts of the historic areas of Bukovina and Bessarabia, which were ceded from Romania to Ukraine during the post-war settlement, are “of interest” to Bucharest, Georgescu said, adding that Hungary and Poland could also claim their historic lands in a hypothetical breakup of Ukraine.
Georgescu made headlines in November when he unexpectedly garnered 23% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in Romania, a NATO member. However, the Constitutional Court annulled the results shortly before the second round, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in the campaign.
Subsequent media reports revealed that Georgescu’s candidacy was boosted by a firm closely linked with the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), seemingly to undermine another candidate. The Romanian government has claimed that Russia was behind the interference scheme. Georgescu leads in opinion polls and is projected to get 38% of the vote in the upcoming election re-run in May.
Russian President Vladimir Putin previously warned about the threat of potential separatism in Western Ukraine, driven by ethnic minorities’ wish “to return to their historic homeland,” with potential support from foreign governments.
”In that sense, only Russia could serve as a guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity,” he claimed in late 2023. “If [Ukrainians] don’t want that, so be it. History will set things straight. We will not stand in the way, but neither will we relinquish what is rightfully ours.”
End of Neutrality in Europe
Pascal Lottaz with Glenn Diesen
By Glenn Diesen | January 28, 2025
The belt of neutral states that created a buffer region between NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War was an important part of the European security system. After the Cold War, neutrality was gradually abandoned due to a unipolar distribution of power and a complementary liberal ideology that undermined the case for neutrality. The efforts to end Ukraine’s neutrality to pull it into NATO’s orbit, predictably triggered a war. Instead of learning the right lessons, the response to the war has been to further dismantle neutrality from Scandinavia to Moldova, which will predictably also trigger a security competition in these regions.
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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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