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Trump’s USAID purge has revealed US scheming in Kiev, but won’t stop it

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | February 8, 2025

The catastrophe of the Ukraine War will leave a long trail of painful questions. Because this hubristic proxy confict has become such a pie-in-the-face fiasco for the West, there will be plenty of resistance to honest answers for a very long time.

But facts undermining self-serving Western narratives have started emerging already during the war. Most recently, revelations about the activities of USAID have delivered another hard blow to Western – and official Ukrainian – deception and self-deception.

But before we get to USAID, let’s note that those are not the first embarrassing disclosures with regard to the West’s harebrained and bloody attempt to use Ukraine to demolish Russia. Those with eyes to see have long known, for instance, that large-scale war would have been avoided if the West and Kiev had not deliberately sabotaged the 2015 Minsk-2 agreement, a short but viable blueprint to end a still comparatively small conflict, which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly. Or if the West had not brushed Moscow off when it sent what was, in effect, a clear last warning in late 2021.

Then there was a very early opportunity to stop the war, namely the almost-peace of the Belarus and Istanbul talks in spring 2022. Kiev, shocked by the reality of escalation, was ready to take this exit ramp. The conditions offered by Russia and the concessions it made during the negotiations – above all ending its advance on Kiev – amounted to a good deal for Ukraine, as one of Ukraine’s key negotiators has since admitted. And yet the West chose more war, and an obedient Vladimir Zelensky followed its lead. That failure, too, has long been denied but has to be acknowledged now under the weight of the evidence.

Last but not least, the ongoing, absurd Western lying about the Nord Stream pipeline attacks – the largest ecoterrorist assault in European history and an act of barely-covert war among NATO allies – is not even amusing anymore. All that’s left of that big lie is a reverse IQ test, sorting the indoctrinated dim from the normally intelligent.

And now, USAID and Ukraine. There, the gist of the matter is that the Trumpists are now purging and (probably) recasting that agency in what is a mean fight among US establishment insiders. Don’t be too optimistic: Despite American leader Donald Trump’s and henchman-in-chief Elon Musk’s loud noises about USAID being a “criminal organization” that is “run by a bunch of radical lunatics,” the Washington “swamp” is not being drained; it’s just changing management.

However, as a side effect, details of some of USAID’s very seedy activities are coming to light. Not that we have not known before that this “humanitarian aid” and “development agency” – founded in 1961 at the height of John F. Kennedy’s “liberal” drive to escalate the US struggle against genuine decolonization in the Global South – has always served as a front for intelligence and in particular for the type of massive subversion that precedes and produces coups, regime change, and “color revolutions.”

Indeed, the more honest defenders of USAID have always admitted – really, boasted of – the fact that it has been a tool of strategy in the geopolitical sense of the term. Even the presidential executive order that initiated the Trump administration’s drive against foreign aid in general has now admitted that the latter serves “to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”

Indeed, USAID’s last, Biden-administration head Samantha Power – a comically disingenuous regime change careerist and “genocide expert” who can recognize that crime anywhere as long as she’s paid or promoted, just not in US allies such as Israel – is a perfect embodiment of USAID’s rotten top and core.

Don’t get me wrong: It would be silly not to recognize that USAID has also provided some real assistance, even if never – yes, really never – without political strings attached. Hence, if you think of “aid” as something given exclusively or even mainly out of compassion, then it’s a misnomer here, as USAID critic Mike Benz has rightly pointed out.

In any case, before being gutted, USAID had an annual budget somewhere between 30 and 40 billion dollars and around 10,000 employees, including 6,000 outside the US. In fiscal year 2023, the agency was active in 130 countries (there are about 200 total). And its activities did include things such as food assistance, health services, and disaster relief in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen.

Let’s also be fair to those USAID staff and grant recipients – American or not – who have genuinely helped in valuable ways and out of sincere good will, often under harsh as well as dangerous conditions. In the world as it really is, many must make deals with the devil: it is not their fault that their organization has always worked as a front for political influence and subversion as well. Indeed, it is a bitter irony that those who really needed what was actually useful about USAID assistance and those distributing it are now being punished together with those who befouled all of it with their vile as well as rather ham-fisted subversion games. Samantha Power, for one, will, obviously, have the softest of landings, in a bespoke think-tank, Ivy League university, “consulting” job (i.e., influence peddling), or media sinecure.

One simple indicator of just how corrupt USAID has been is that, recently, the very top recipient of its aid has been, as it happens, Ukraine: in 2023, for instance, its hand-out of more than $16 billion left runner-up Ethiopia in the dust with less than $1.7 billion, that is about a tenth of Kiev’s allotment. So much for helping the neediest the most.

But serving as just one more funnel to pump endless gazillions into the always wide-open maw of the insatiable and highly demanding Zelensky regime was only one, if you wish, ordinary aspect of USAID’s special role in Ukraine.

This is where we return to those pesky revelations about the war: It turns out that USAID has also proactively and systematically helped to suffocate any hope for peace. And not in just one but two ways.

First, we now learn that almost the entire Ukrainian media sphere – 90 percent of news organizations – depended on USAID funding. Indeed, Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent (the irony…), a staunchly info-warring publication, fears that losing access to the USAID trough “has caused harm to independent Ukrainian journalism on par with the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of Russia’s full-scale war.” Hear, hear.

More generally, a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review is worrying that losing USAID money will threaten “independent” journalism worldwide. No wonder, as USAID itself has proudly claimed that the US government “is now the largest public donor to independent media development globally.”

But any talk of “independence” here is, just like Rudenko’s complaint, obvious Orwellian-grade propaganda: Journalism that literally depends for its very existence on funding from an organization serving as a front for the foreign interests of the single most powerful and aggressive country in the world may be anything, but it cannot be – by definition – independent. You may, if that’s your thing, politically sympathize with such journalism or argue that you feel it is still, on balance, useful, if you wish, but please cut out the absurdity.

In practice, Ukraine is a perfect illustration of how such media dependency-across-borders can easily end in catastrophe: Anyone who knows Ukrainian well enough – as I do – can have a look for themselves. What they will find is a Potemkin village of pseudo-diversity, at best, with very few and embattled exceptions. In reality, the Ukrainian public sphere has been massively manipulated by a monotonous diet of pseudo-”patriotic” messaging. The single most urgent question concerning Ukraine’s own national interests, however, has been systematically maligned and made taboo: namely, if serving as proxy war cannon fodder for the West has been worth it.

The second manner in which USAID has promoted this devastating war was, if anything, even worse, in the sense of more drastic and hands-on: It’s now almost forgotten, but when Ukraine’s current past-best-by-date leader Vladimir Zelensky actually did face and win an election in 2019, his single concrete – and sensible – promise was to seek peace through negotiations.

Clearly, at the time, that promise was a major factor in his unprecedented landslide victory. Once in office, for a very short moment, it seemed as if Zelensky was trying to keep that promise. But then – years before the 2022 escalation – he made a 180-degree turn and emerged as an uncompromising and shortsighted nationalist and a tool of the US – if a very expensive and occasionally capricious one. It is likely that he will soon be discarded, as tools can be. But the damage he has already done to his country is enormous.

Many observers have long been puzzled by early Zelensky’s terrible turn. Was it fear of the powerful and aggressive Ukrainian far-right? Was it a misconceived play for even more popularity? Was it money? Was it Western pressure? We still don’t know the whole story, but we do know one important new thing: a wave of “popular” resistance “from below” and by “civil society” against Zelensky’s initial attempts to look for peace was not genuine. Instead, it had massive Western backing, including from USAID.

In particular, the organization was one of the key sponsors of a “joint statement” which presented a concerted threat to Zelensky in 2019, that is, almost immediately after he assumed office. On the surface the product of 70 Ukrainian NGOs, this was, in reality, a massive affront to democracy and the rule of law: Its sole purpose was to unconstitutionally constrain the newly elected president with so-called “red lines” and, in particular, nullify what so many of his voters wanted, namely an honest search for peace. None of this means that Zelensky is innocent. On the contrary, it was his duty and, literally, his job to resist such shameless pressure tactics and their foreign backers and stand up for his voters and the country as a whole. His failure to do so is his and will remain so forever.

Those NGOs were supported not only by USAID, but also by the National Endowment for Democracy, another US subversion front, the US embassy, and NATO, to name only a few. Whatever else the so-called Ukrainian “diaspora” (that is organized Ukrainian exile nationalist organizations rooted in World War Two fascist nationalism) was up to, it also took part in that big arm-twisting: the Temerty Foundation,  a key “diaspora” power broker, also figured among those NGO supporters.

Here is the sad irony: Ukraine has never been “free” and it has never had a “civil society” of its own. Instead, it has been used and manipulated by false “friends” from the West and a comprador “elite” that has put Western interests above those of their own compatriots. Together, they have openly and covertly colonized Ukraine’s public sphere and fed its people into a meatgrinder proxy war that is being lost as we speak. Soon, the West will sell out what is left of Ukraine entirely. None of this is unprecedented: It is a classic pattern of imperialist abuse. All those smart Westerners who have tried to apply “post-colonial” categories to the case of Ukraine: Go ahead – but look at yourself. You are the baddies.

In any case, don’t mistake the purge of USAID for some kind of principal improvement. It is true that some – rest assured: very selective – light is now thrown on its seedy, subversive activities. That’s a plus, for now. And yes, it’s fun to see Centrists and liberals exposed. Schadenfreude can be legitimate.

Of course, none of the above means that Washington intends to generally abandon foul play. On the contrary, under new Trumpist management, the US will remain as mean as ever. There will always be money for subversion, sabotage, disinformation campaigns, regime change, and coups. It will just flow through different channels, and the LGBTQ+ and DEI angles will be dropped. News flash: The US did not need those to coup Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and have Chile regime-changed and its president Salvador Allende murdered in 1973, for instance.

Even the good old USAID is down but not dead: Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s extraordinarily obedient secretary of state, has already announced that its work just has to be aligned with American foreign policy. How funny: As if it had not.

Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

February 8, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

USAID or SorosAid? How US Tax Dollars Fund Chaos Worldwide

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 07.02.2025

Soros’ vast NGO network has spent over $20 billion since 2000 on radical liberal causes across the world. Tens of millions or even billions of US taxpayer dollars were funneled through USAID, observers suspect.

  • The Soros-linked East-West Management Institute received over $260 million from USAID to influence foreign affairs in Georgia, Uganda, Albania, and Serbia.
  • Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, backed by Soros, began receiving USAID grants in 2014 – the same year the US-backed Euromaidan coup ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych with neo-Nazi support. Over $1 million has been funneled by USAID to the center.
  • In August 2024, a coup against Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina was allegedly fomented by USAID, IRI, and Soros-linked groups. Her successor, Muhammad Yunus, is a known Clinton and Soros ally. According to The Grayzone, US taxpayer money funded rappers, transgender activists, and LGBT initiatives to create a “power shift.”
  • Soros and USAID have long sought to unseat Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, who has actively opposed the globalist billionaire since 2017. During the 2022 elections, the Soros-linked NGO Action for Democracy funneled $7.6 million to his opposition.

Election Meddling at Home?

  • Soros-linked groups, backed by USAID, led resistance efforts against Donald Trump during his presidency, influenced the 2020 election through Black Lives Matter protests, and worked to flip battleground states in 2020–2021.
  • Soros funded the Electoral Justice Project, Black Lives Matter’s voter mobilization effort, and gave $22 million to Tides Advocacy, which supported the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s pre-election nationwide protests aimed against Trump in 2020.
  • USAID and Soros allegedly spent $27 million on anti-Trump prosecutions, claims journalist Mike Benz. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was also accused of being “bought” by Soros.

February 7, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK trying to prevent peace – Ukrainian MP

RT | February 7, 2025

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s recent visit to Kiev was an attempt to disrupt potential peace negotiations with Russia on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, according to jailed Ukrainian MP Aleksandr Dubinsky.

Britain’s foreign secretary visited Kiev on Wednesday and announced a further 55 million pounds ($68.7 million) in financial aid.

Dubinsky, an opposition lawmaker who has been held in custody since November 2023 on a litany of charges, including high treason, claimed on his Telegram channel on Thursday that the actual purpose of Lammy’s trip was to disrupt a nascent peace process.

According to him, Lammy’s “urgent” visit to Kiev as well as Vladimir Zelensky’s “urgent” interview with British media “were necessary to prevent a peaceful settlement” and to “discredit” a US-backed push for a ceasefire being led by President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg.

“What is needed for this? An urgent counteroffensive. I believe Zelensky has been brought his plan,” Dubinsky stated.

Kellogg is expected to present a peace plan at next week’s Munich Security Conference, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, citing insiders. However, in an interview with Newsmax on Wednesday, the envoy clarified that while he will be holding discussions with EU leaders in Germany, he will not publicly unveil any proposition.

Any deal would instead be presented by Trump himself.

Last Friday, Trump said that communication is ongoing between his administration and the Russian government and reiterated his goal of putting a swift end to nearly three years of hostilities.

During his Kiev visit Lammy also met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sybiga, who urged the UK to scale up investment in Ukraine’s weapons industry. London has already beefed up its backing for Ukraine. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a £4.5 billion package which includes the procurement of hundreds of air defense systems and drones.

The so-called Istanbul round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine was scrapped in April 2022, despite having reached a draft agreement, following then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s surprise visit during which he pledged continuous military support and urged Kiev to keep fighting.

David Arakhamia, then head of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations, later acknowledged Moscow’s claims that Johnson had played an influential role in scuppering a peace deal that would have seen Kiev retain territories it has since lost.

While the controversial British politician denied the claims, former US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland later confirmed that the negotiations fell apart due to US and UK pressure on Kiev to continue with warfare and reject the Istanbul deal.

February 7, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

French ‘Mirage’ 2000-5 for the Kiev regime, yet another ‘game changer’ or more?

By Drago Bosnic | February 7, 2025

On February 6, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced that the first “Mirage” 2000-5 fighter jets were delivered to the Kiev regime. According to his post on X, the aircraft promised by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 6 last year finally arrived after at least eight months of training programs for the Neo-Nazi junta’s pilots. It’s safe to assume that such training lasted much longer, as it takes time for the staff to learn how to use them.

There’s no precise information on how many of these jets were delivered, nor the exact version of the “Mirage” 2000-5. In addition, there was an announcement that Dutch F-16s were also delivered on the same day. The mainstream propaganda machine was quick to proclaim that both types will be “game changers” and “greatly contribute” to fighting off the “evil Russian invaders”.

However, while this sort of superficial enthusiasm might make one think that the “Mirage” 2000-5 is some groundbreaking “wunderwaffe”, the reality is that it’s a largely outdated aircraft. Designed in the 1970s by the French Dassault Aviation, “Mirage” 2000-5 is a multirole, single-engine, fourth-generation fighter jet, largely analogous to the American F-16. This suggests that it will most likely play a similar (if not identical) role to the US-made jet, although some argue that it has better ground attack options due to French insistence on multirole (or omnirole, as they say) capabilities. Considering the number of available aircraft around the world (assessed at approximately 600 in eight countries), the Kiev regime is likely to experience even greater problems with operating and maintaining them, especially in comparison to the F-16s.

Namely, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin manufactured well over 4,600 units, with new deliveries still ongoing. There are currently more than 2,000 F-16s in active service. In practice, this means that spare parts and support for the US-made jet are much more readily available, while the “Mirage” 2000-5 hasn’t been in production since 2007.

The aforementioned variant of the French jet was introduced in the late 1990s, with improvements to avionics and weapon systems. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the Radar Doppler Multitarget (RDY), a multimode look-down/shoot-down pulse-Doppler radar designed by Thomson-CSF (now Thales). Although certainly potent when it was introduced, RDY is by no means a match for the target acquisition systems used by modern Russian fighter aircraft.

Worse yet, in terms of air-to-air ordnance, the “Mirage” 2000-5 is even more heavily outclassed, as its older R.550 “Magic” and earlier iterations of MICA missiles are no match to the plethora of Russian long-range munitions, particularly the now legendary R-37M used by the Su-35S air superiority fighters and the superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM interceptors (to say nothing of Moscow’s unrivaled air defenses). These Russian jets are also far more potent in terms of pure kinetic performance and are flown by highly experienced pilots. They also carry more weapons without the need for external fuel tanks, while the French jet cannot match their range even with those (which also means reduced payload capacity). However, the “Mirage” 2000-5 makes up for this with the ability to deploy a number of advanced air-to-ground munitions.

Namely, it can use the “Storm Shadow”/SCALP-EG ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles) and AASM-HAMMER guided bombs. From a purely military standpoint, using the French-made jets as platforms for launching such weapons is much more sensible than trying to challenge Moscow’s air dominance. The Neo-Nazi junta’s propaganda (until recently funded by the infamous USAID) claims that the “Mirage” 2000-5 will primarily be used in an air defense role, intercepting missiles and drones.

However, this is not exactly the purpose its designers had in mind, so it’s questionable how successful it could be. On the other hand, strike missions make more sense, albeit these would also be limited by the number of available aircraft. Officially, France has at least 40 “Mirage” 2000-5F jets in its inventory, of which only 28 are still in active service.

Although some have reportedly been modernized, Paris was planning to retire these jets by the end of the decade. This could certainly free up most of them for the Kiev regime forces. However, there’s another, far more disturbing element to this story. As previously mentioned, the conventional capabilities of the “Mirage” 2000-5 are by no means the supposed “game changer” touted by the mainstream propaganda machine.

On the other hand, the French military operates the nuclear-capable “Mirage” 2000N variant (75 have been produced and most are reportedly still in service). Considering the Neo-Nazi junta’s insistence on acquiring nuclear weapons (Zelensky reiterated it in his latest interview with NATO propagandist Piers Morgan), this possibility certainly shouldn’t be discarded. The Kremlin itself has been warning about this for years.

This includes both President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Notably, several other NATO member states with nuclear-capable jets (namely the Dutch and Belgians) have pledged and delivered them to the Kiev regime. These countries have engaged in harsh rhetoric and even threats to Moscow, with France being no exception. What’s more, its troops have been present in NATO-occupied Ukraine even before the special military operation (SMO), while their numbers have only increased ever since (as have their already heavy casualties).

Russia and France are now engaged in a geostrategic duel in Africa, where Moscow supports at least a dozen countries that want to break free from the (neo)colonialist chokehold Paris has kept them in since the 19th century (and this is certainly not going very well for the latter).

If it wants escalation in Ukraine, France could either deliver some of its “Mirage” 2000Ns while insisting they’re actually the 2000-5 variant (the less likely option) or it could possibly modify the latter to also make them nuclear-capable (the more viable alternative). For the time being, there’s no concrete evidence for this, but the rhetoric coming from the most prominent NATO members (including the US) certainly suggests that the Kremlin is ready for any eventuality.

With the possible strategic paradigm shift under the new American administration, both Brussels and the Neo-Nazi junta are desperate to keep the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict going for as long as possible. However, the rapidly deteriorating capabilities of the Kiev regime forces stand in the way, meaning that the political West believes nuclear weapons could be the last resort.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

February 7, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

USAID’s Color Revolutions: Destabilizing States for US Interests

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.02.2025

USAID openly acknowledged its role in regime change operations through “democracy” programs by 2006.

“USAID played a critical role in influencing color revolutions by providing financial, logistical, and strategic support to opposition movements” in Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, Dr. Marco Marsili of the Portuguese Catholic University’s Institute of Political Studies tells Sputnik.

These regime change operations advanced US geopolitical interests but brought no real benefits to the affected nations, he argues.

“USAID’s activities were framed as democracy promotion, electoral assistance, and civil society development,” Marsili notes. However, the results tell a different story:

“Ukraine and Georgia faced ongoing political instability, Lebanon remained sectarian, and Kyrgyzstan suffered repeated upheavals,” he says.

Here’s a breakdown:

Georgia – Rose Revolution (2003)

  • US aid: $103M (2002), $141.16M (2003)
  • “Democracy programs” received $23.5M (2002), $21.06M (2003) via USAID, IRI, and NDI for NGOs, activists, and media.
  • In 2004, the US admitted it “helped” prepare Georgia’s 2003 election, with US-funded NGOs playing a key role in the regime change.
  • USAID noted Georgians “borrowed” Serbia’s 2000 pro-democracy tactics, later influencing Ukraine in 2004.

Ukraine – Orange Revolution (2004)

  • US aid: $188.5M (2003), $143.47M (2004)
  • “Democracy programs” received $54.7M (2003), $34.11M (2004) via USAID, NED, and the Eurasia Foundation.
  • To push a pro-US candidate, USAID launched the Strengthening Electoral Administration in Ukraine Project (SEAUP) in Dec 2003, influencing Ukraine’s parliament and judiciary.

Kyrgyzstan – Tulip Revolution (2005)

  • Inspired by Georgia and Ukraine, USAID heavily funded local NGOs, activists, and media before the Feb 2005 election.
  • US aid: $56.6M (2003), $50.8M (2004), with “democracy programs” receiving $13.5M (2003), $12.2M (2004).
  • George Soros’ Open Society Institute funneled $5M (2003) to Kyrgyzstan’s American University of Central Asia.

Lebanon – Cedar Revolution (2005)

  • In March 2005, 1M Lebanese protested, demanding Syria’s military withdrawal, paving the way for pro-US leader Saad Hariri.
  • USAID’s 2006 report claimed years of work laid the foundation for the uprising.
  • US aid to Lebanon tripled in the early 2000s from $15M to $45M.

February 7, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Did Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Just Leak?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 4, 2025

A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine.

The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.”

If the plan is real, and if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine (as Trump has threatened), then the war will go on, and Trump’s promise to quickly end the war will vanish in a puff of delusion. But if the plan is real, and if it is put on the table as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point.

Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the supposed plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.

The process begins with an immediate phone call between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin followed by discussions between Washington and Kiev. That the plan may be intended as a starting point for negotiations is suggested by the fork in the schedule that negotiations will continue if common ground is found or pause if it is not. Further negotiations would lead to an Easter truce along the front line, an end of April peace conference, and a May 9 declaration of an agreement.

Russia has said that the Istanbul agreement could still be “the basis for starting negotiations.” In June 2024, Vladimir Putin set out a peace proposal based on the Istanbul agreement, but adjusted for current territorial realities. Putin’s proposal had four points: Ukraine must abandon plans to join NATO, they must withdraw from the four annexed territories, they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and they must ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

The alleged Trump plan can be evaluated by comparison to Putin’s proposal and to recent statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  1. Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Kursk at the time of the April Truce. This would be acceptable to Russia, who would insist on Ukrainian troops leaving its territory. But for Ukraine, this would be a difficult concession; not because of the withdrawal but because of the timing. Aside from the strategically catastrophic hope that the Kursk invasion would divert Russian troops away from the Donbas, the point of taking Russian territory was to use it to barter for the return of Ukrainian territory. Giving up the bargaining chip before the negotiations begin would nullify Ukraine’s hope of using it to force the return of more of its land.
  2. Ukraine must end martial law and hold presidential elections by the end of August and parliamentary elections by the end of October. This could be a bitter pill for Zelensky. Recent polling has shown that he could well lose that election. Elections would be welcomed by Russia, who see Zelensky’s government as intransigently hostile and anti-Russia. This would legally transfer hope for regime change to Ukrainians.
  3. Ukraine must declare neutrality and promise not to join NATO; NATO must promise not to expand into Ukraine. Ukraine was willing to abandon its NATO hopes in Istanbul. Though accepted by Kiev as inevitable, it would now be a painful concession. In the absence of NATO membership. It would be a hard sell to Ukrainians that the war after the Istanbul talks was worth the devastation. For Russia, this point is key, and there can be no negotiations without it. It would be the key accomplishment to get the two-sided promise that Ukraine will not ask for membership and NATO will not offer it.
  4. Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. This item is acceptable to both. EU membership will be necessary for Zelensky to present to Ukrainians as something that was worth fighting for. Ukraine is now free to pursue its ambitions to turn west and join Europe. Though Russia had concerns in 2014 with the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine because of its implied integration of Ukraine into the European security and military architecture, Putin has long left EU membership on the table for a postwar Ukraine, and that was specifically agreed to in the Istanbul agreement.
  5. Ukraine will not reduce the size of its armed forces and the United States will continue modernizing the Ukrainian military. While Ukraine will welcome this, it may not be enough. Russia will have a hard time with this one. This is like “the Israeli model” that then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says Putin and Zelensky were both open to in the early days of the war. But, in the absence of NATO, Zelensky has been adamant about American supported security guarantees. And, already by Istanbul, Russia was demanding limits on Ukraine’s armed forces. At the very least, modernized Ukrainian weaponry would have to be defensive and with a cap on firing into Russian territory.
  6. Ukraine refuses military and diplomatic attempts to return the occupied territories, but does not officially recognize Russian sovereignty. This item does not go far enough for Russia and too far for Ukraine. Zelensky has accepted that “De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We don’t have the strength to bring them back.” So, he will accept not attempting to return the occupied territories militarily. He has also insisted that Ukraine would never officially recognize Russian sovereignty over those lands. But the added clause, that he will not attempt to return them diplomatically, may be going further than Zelensky has been willing to go. In the case of Crimea, he has reserved the right to try to bring territory back diplomatically. For Russia, the de facto recognition of the territory it occupies will likely be enough. In his proposal, Putin insisted on the complete withdrawal from the territories while saying nothing about Ukraine officially recognizing Russian sovereignty over them. However, though Russia may be willing to negotiate over Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, they are less likely to accept only the lands east of the current front without it including all of the Donbas.
  7. Some sanctions on Russia will be lifted, including European Union bans on Russian oil. This item will likely be acceptable to Ukraine, especially since temporary duty on sales of oil will be used to restore Ukraine. It will likely be acceptable, at least as a starting point, for Russia.
  8. Parties that support Russian language and peaceful relations with Russia can participate in Ukraine’s elections. State actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Russian language must cease. Though difficult for Zelensky and some forces in Ukraine to accept, protection of language, religious and cultural rights is the second key Russian demand along with NATO.
  9. The idea of a European peacekeeping force is to be discussed separately. The recognition that security guarantees are both key and difficult for both parties is realistic. Neither side will agree to a European security force: Russia because it goes too far, Ukraine because it goes not far enough.

If this possible plan is a final draft whose rejection means negotiations end, then the war will not end. But if Donald Trump’s plan is intended as a starting point to negotiations—the most difficult of which may be the security guarantees — then there is hope.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pulling the Money Chain: The NGO Network in Ukraine and the Global War on Terror

By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | February 5, 2025

Detritus from Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t just amount to the obvious—inflation and deficit spending, regulations and wars. There’s also been a more subtle shift off of these failures, affecting who has power in our country and how they’ll use it in the future.

Nowhere is the shift less noticed or more definite than in the world of humanitarianism, which has been enriched these past three years by the previous administration’s proxy wars. Since 2022—when the Biden White House responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by neither escalating nor defusing but prolonging—a network of humanitarian non-profits has grown up around the conflict. This network has fed off the deaths of Ukrainians and the piling on of debt for future Americans through its operators’ deep contacts with the United States government and its outgrowths.

This network is worth investigating on its own. But with the advent of the second Trump Administration which is looking to wind down the war, its players appear to be pivoting from Ukraine to the Middle East: from ginning up funds for an endless proxy war to ginning them up for a repeat of the Global War on Terror.

The most obvious entry point into this network is Ukraine NGO Coordination Network (UNCN), which has a small staff but a wide reach: forty-two organizations are members. Many of them are some version of globalist: “Cross Border Civilians,” “Aviation without Borders,” “Global Outreach Doctors,” “Medical Teams Worldwide.” And many of these have the institutional links one might expect. Cross Border Civilians recruits from the World Economic Forum while Global Outreach Doctors traffics in Black Lives Matter. But even UNCN non-profits with close connections to Ukraine are much more tied into Washington DC-backed institutions than they first appear.

Listed first of all these organizations is Razom, a Ukrainian-American non-profit active since 2014. Its president, Dora Chomiak, is a Princeton and Columbia graduate who served in the 1990s as a Director of Regional Media Programs for George Soros’ newly-founded Open Society Institute. Under Chomiak’s leadership, Razom has a spot at the World Economic Forum, a regular Soros haunt. It also has a strong presence at Bard College, a major accepter of Ukrainian refugees which recently received a $500 million endowment pledge from Soros, whose second wife directs the Bard Graduate Center.

Razom also has government and university contacts. Samantha Power, the outgoing director of USAID, the government agency responsible for foreign aid, has been a featured speaker at Razom-hosted events, and so has the U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery, Penny Pritzker. Columbia University, which has received extensive donations from Soros as well as tax exemptions from Washington, hosts regular pro-Ukrainian events at its Harriman Institute, where Chomiak serves on the board.

Another prominent member of UNCN’s network is Help Ukraine, founded by Brian Mefford, who also founded Wooden Horse Strategies, which by its own description is “a Kyiv-based consulting firm focusing on USAID and EU project development and evaluation, risk analysis, due diligence, political strategy and strategic communications” that “provides clients with both Ukraine and regional insight that achieves results for their projects, businesses and policy objectives.” In 2023, Wooden Horse Strategies was listed by Russian officials as under contract with Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center to help carry out “the United States’ military biological programs in Ukraine.”

This claim isn’t verifiable, but it is verifiable that Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center contracted with Wooden Horse Strategies to combat “disinformation” about the Ukrainian war effort. Mefford was also reliably identified as an attendee at a 2022 Washington summit on the conduct of the war sponsored by “private sector cyber security and intelligence operators and CIA venture capital firm In-Q-Tel,” which, according to its CEO, has seen over thirty of its portfolio companies “deplo[y]” their technologies “as part of Western efforts to support Ukraine.

These players, in other words, are not the Salvation Army. They’re highly plugged into government-funded universities and intelligence agencies as well as the U.S. Department of State. This positions them to be indirect or direct recipients not just of defense and university grants but of staggering amounts of formal humanitarian aid. “Since February 2022,” according to a Congressional Research report released on January 6, 2025, “Congress has appropriated more than $46 billion in emergency funds for accounts solely or partially managed by USAID to address the war in Ukraine” including for “humanitarian assistance.” This is on top of $65.9 billion in direct military assistance in the same period.

It’s not clear, as this report notes, where funds raised and spent this fast actually went. But almost surely some of them percolated directly or indirectly to the organizations which help make up the UNCN. Now, with the Trump administration opposed to further involvement in Ukraine, at least one of UNCN’s players appear to be mobilizing to get funding for a different foreign cause.

This player is Sarah Adams, Chief of Operations for UNCN from January 2022 to January 2024 and an institutional operator par excellence. At the start of her career, Adams worked for a pharmaceutical company with links to Pfizer and in the 2010s she was a CIA analyst abroad, including in Libya. She serves as a Program Analyst for the United States Department of the Air Force in Tampa.

Currently, though, on conservative podcasts like Shawn Ryan’s and Tudor Dixon’s on which she appears, Adams presents herself as a former CIA agent and whistleblower cut from MAGA’s mold: an ex-soldier sounding the alert on jihadi infiltrations. She makes the case for a unified global movement of pre-planned Al Qaeda “wave” attacks which represent a clear and present danger to the United States. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the January 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans, Adams’s supporters claimed validation for her—despite the fact that the attacker was an American-born resident of Texas and a Deloitte employee radicalized online.

Adams claims to be going up against Pentagon pushback when she makes her warnings, despite the fact that she’s employed by the Air Force, which is run from the Pentagon. But the Pentagon’s history of firing employees who dissent, among them decorated Space Force Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, renders this claim extremely dubious. Journalist Max Blumenthal has pointed out other inconsistencies as well. Not only are “Adams’ sources [for her claims] unnamed,” they’re also uncited outside of her constant references to “we.” In only the first fifteen minutes of her appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show, Adams cites “open source” information, i.e. information from publicly available sources or that she got “on the ground”; doesn’t link to those sources (outside of a terrorist training video); and then makes broad claims. One is that Al Qaeda activities in Europe are a planned operation for revenge against America for its interfering in the Middle East. Another is connecting threatened Al Qaeda attacks on America to the October 7 attack against Israel, implying that combating one means combating the other.

The way Adams phrases her warnings reinforces the confusion. She sounds either like she’s not confident in her own material, or that she’s patronizing her audience by talking down. “But it’s just, um, al Qaeda has all these waves of attacks planned, okay” is her way of describing a clear and present threat to Americans. About terrorist trainees: “Remember their life is they train all the time so if that’s all you’re doing all day long, I mean, you’re gonna get really competent at it and then they have different emotions behind it too and, you know, different beliefs, and the religion behind it too, which makes you more devout.” She calls a Pentagon communication to her a “nastygram.” She says (jokingly? not?) that Shawn Ryan’s head of production looks like a terrorist and that she “could have [his address] by the end of the day if I really wanted it.” This doesn’t sound like an experienced veteran delivering a serious warning. It sounds like a self-promoter with a strange side.

When it comes to questions about her analysis or sources, Adams is not tolerant. When I pushed back on X with “total respect” about whether the issue of the Taliban targeting a French Afghani in France was relevant, as Adams claimed, to “all of us,” she responded before blocking me:

One reason Adams may take this attitude is that engaging with American conservatives isn’t really what she wants to be doing; it’s a means to an end. One of her supporters explained to me on X: “Sarah’s focusing on raising attention with ‘the right’ (even though they typically lack nuance) because they’re still national security focused, while Left leaning westerners tend not to [be].” This ally, James Griffin, runs a website titled “Analytica Camillus.” It pairs broad sloganeering (“Morality in Ruthlessness”; “You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you”) with intricately plotted maps of counteroffensives in Ukraine.

All of this raises a question: if Muslim terror tactics have been such clear threats and created such humanitarian calamities, why did self-identified experts in war and humanitarianism like Adams and Griffin spend years focusing on Ukraine and only pivot to Islamism as a new Donald Trump presidency loomed? One answer is that these pivots—from the Russia threat to Muslim terror, from Kosovo to Iraq—have been happening for three decades, executed by the same connected institutional operators in the name of the same general principles applied to different situations based on which administration is in the White House.

These general principles are security and humanitarianism, a double rhetorical punch that has justified the foreign interventions that have created unprecedented non-and-for-profit boondoggles since the 1990s. Tellingly, Adams describes herself as 10% warlord, 90% humanitarian, or a warrior in the name of humanitarian ideals, and neither her pairing of war and human rights nor the profits that accrue from that pairing are new. An early beneficiary was George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations picked up in the Balkans where NATO left off, and who has been heavily invested in Ukrainian companies. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were also a boondoggle for non-profits as well as for business ventures to “build up” the region America had decimated by players like the Pritzker Family; one of whose members, Thomas Pritzker, set up North America Western Asia Holdings in partnership with a former undersecretary of Defense in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administration to pursue those opportunities in 2011.

A humanitarian-crusader thru-line also runs through the careers of government officials responsible for these crusades. Biden USAID director Samantha Power made her name in the 1990s with a Pulitzer Prize winning book urging American intervention in the name of human rights and later stage-managed the intervention in Libya, where Sarah Adams served as a CIA analyst. Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a key backer of humanitarianism up to his last days in the State Department, had a father, another humanitarian, who was a key supporter of the NATO expansion off of our 1990s Balkans interventions which began our long cool down with Russia. Both Power and Blinken also  advanced their career off of or in support of the Iraq War. This was the ultimate in humanitarian-security politics gone wrong. It was justified by links between Muslims (Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda) that later proved conflationary and that are uncomfortably similar to the links Sarah Adams is currently making between different Muslim groups.

In between stints in government, both Power and Blinken subsisted off Ivy League research perches with links to nonprofits and security contractors. Almost surely, both will lend their support to policies already being bandied around in Washington, and reinforced by testimony from people like Sarah Adams that empower those institutions. These policies include re-authorizing government surveillance on American citizens and expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security in the name of combating Muslim terror.

Other prominent supporters of these policies like Aayan Hirsi Ali, operating out of non-profits inside government-funded universities, want Americans to take the same broad-brush approach to national security as Sarah Adams does. But they expand the threats even further, broadcasting a new humanitarian and security crusade against Marxism, Islamism, the Chinese Communist Party, and Vladimir Putin. Tellingly, Hirsi’s husband, Niall Ferguson, an institutionally-connected booster of American interventionism and humanitarianism since a dozen years before the Iraq War, has recently become a Trump supporter, self-professedly dancing at Mar-a-Lago not too long ago.

He, along with longtime interventionist Bret Stephens and Stephens’ protégé, Free Press founder Bari Weiss, have increasingly identified with conservatives while pushing very different focuses. As of January 28, The Free Press’ last twenty international stories have included five on the Western hemisphere or China; the other fifteen have been on Europe and the Middle East. And this doesn’t even mention The Free Press’ separate section on Israel and antisemitism. Whatever one’s views of these issues, these players’ focus is far away from the focus of constitutional conservatives or the Trump White House.

Arguably, these humanitarian-military crusades—the ones which fund people like Sarah Adams, Brian Mefford, and Dora Chomiak, and which open investment opportunities for the Pritzkers and George Soros—are the most durable beneficiaries of America’s post-Cold War deep state apparatus. Quietly since 1995 and loudly since 2001, there has literally not been a year when we weren’t engaged in one of these missions, empowering contractors and non-profits abroad while encouraging surveillance at home.

Today’s latest sales pitch for a new crusade by Ukraine War pushers is something believers in small government and individual liberties should push back against. Profits in the name of war-linked humanitarianism are suspect to begin with. But when they threaten our liberties and our finances, they’re anathema to American interests.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow welcomes Trump’s stance on Kiev’s NATO bid

RT | February 5, 2025

Russia welcomes the statements made by US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Trump is the first Western leader to admit that it was wrong to support Kiev’s plans to join the military bloc, the diplomat said on Wednesday.

Trump stated last month that he understands the Russian stance that Ukraine should not be part of NATO. Speaking to reporters in Florida, the US president said Moscow’s position had long been “written in stone,” but that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had ignored it, which contributed to the current conflict.

“Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘[Ukraine], they should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I can understand their feelings about that,” Trump added.

Speaking at an ambassadors’ roundtable on Ukraine, Lavrov said Trump’s comments suggest Washington may finally be ready to address issues linked to Ukraine’s NATO bid and the bloc’s eastward expansion.

“President Trump bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into NATO, and that if he had been in power the past four years, the conflict would not have happened,” Lavrov noted.

“For the first time, a Western leader… the leader of the entire Western world, uttered these words, which we welcome because for the first time the problem of NATO was identified as something that the US is ready to discuss seriously,” he added. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s stance that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were a root cause of the current conflict, saying that warnings not to encourage these aspirations either fell on deaf ears or were met with “duplicity” and “hypocrisy” by Western politicians.

“The root cause is the conscious, long-term desire and… practical steps of the West to create direct military threats to Russia on our borders, on the territory of Ukraine, and drawing it into NATO. We have raised this issue repeatedly, demanding NATO honor its pledge not to expand eastward, but all was in vain,” Lavrov said. He suggested Trump’s remarks could signal a shift in US policy, which he called crucial as “Washington is the one who will ultimately make the decisions” regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership.

Moscow has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, insisting any settlement of the ongoing conflict must include Kiev’s neutrality and demilitarization. Ukraine, however, considers its membership a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and has recently claimed that it sees its admission to the US-led military bloc as a security guarantee to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow. While NATO last year declared that Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path to joining the bloc, its members warned that Kiev would have to meet certain conditions first, such as resolving the conflict with Moscow.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky a ‘maniac’ to demand NATO nuclear weapons – Moscow

RT | February 5, 2025

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s statements on obtaining nuclear weapons are cause for serious concern, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. In a social media post on Wednesday, she branded Zelensky a “maniac [gripped by] sick delusions” who could seek a ‘dirty bomb’.

Zelensky reiterated his nuclear aspirations in an interview with British television host Piers Morgan on Tuesday, in which he lamented that Kiev traded Soviet-era deterrence “for nothing” in the 1990s.

“Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then let them give us nuclear weapons,” Zelensky told Morgan. “What missiles can stop Russia’s nuclear missiles? That is a rhetorical question.”

He called on NATO to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a stopgap measure while Kiev awaits accession to the US-led military bloc.

Responding on Wednesday, Zakharova wrote: “Zelensky’s latest statements that he wants to possess a nuclear capability expose him as a maniac, who considers the planet as an object for his sick delusions. They also prove that for him nuclear power stations are not a source of peaceful energy, but a dirty weapon that the Kiev regime needs for blackmail.”

Ukrainian nuclear rhetoric predates the outbreak of hostilities with Russia. Zelensky suggested that Kiev could build atomic weapons in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, days before the escalation of the conflict.

Russian officials have expressed concern over Ukraine potentially developing a dirty bomb amid its battlefield setbacks. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has reported no diversion of declared radioactive materials in the country.

Ukraine inherited a well-developed civilian nuclear industry from the USSR, and currently operates three nuclear power plants and two research reactors.

Contrary to Zelensky’s assertion, independent Ukraine lacked a true nuclear deterrent as it did not possess the unilateral capability to launch Soviet weapons deployed on its soil in response to an attack. The disarmament of Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, was part of a broader nuclear reduction initiative in the 1990s. Western nations incentivized the host nations with aid programs.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin comments on talks with ‘illegitimate’ Zelensky

RT | February 5, 2025

Moscow is ready for talks with Kiev even though Vladimir Zelensky currently has no legal right to lead Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

On Tuesday, Zelensky told British journalist Piers Morgan that he could hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments marked a significant shift from Zelensky’s stance adopted in the autumn of 2022, when he signed a decree banning any negotiations with the Russian leadership.

“If that is the only setup in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people, definitely we will go for this setup, for this meeting,” Zelensky told Morgan.

Asked to comment on Zelensky’s remarks on Wednesday, Peskov said there is “no place for emotions” when it comes to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. “What is needed here is legal analysis and absolute pragmatism… Zelensky has significant de jure legitimacy issues within his own country,” the spokesman pointed out.

Peskov referred to the Ukrainian leader’s refusal to hold a presidential election and the fact that his term expired last May. Moscow maintains that the legitimate power in Ukraine now lies with the parliament and its speaker.

“Despite this, the Russian side remains open to negotiations,” Peskov stressed, arguing that Moscow’s successes on the battlefield “clearly suggest that Kiev should be the one to demonstrate openness and interest in such negotiations.”

Peskov also weighed in on Zelensky’s suggestion that the West could give Ukraine nuclear weapons as a substitute for NATO membership to guarantee its protection.

“In general, such statements are borderline madness. There is a nuclear non-proliferation regime,” the spokesman said. Peskov suggested that EU politicians, despite their flaws, should understand the “absurdity and potential danger of discussing such a topic.”

Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK as part of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the deal after Crimea voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Russia has argued that the deal was fundamentally undermined by NATO’s expansion towards its borders.

Putin has said that Russia would not allow Kiev to create or obtain nuclear weapons “under any circumstances.”

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 3, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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