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The war in Ukraine will go down as one of the stranger conflicts in American history, mostly because it has been a phony war. That is, the American government spent most of the war pretending to not be part of the war, while supplying the Ukrainians with hundreds of billions in war material. With a new administration bringing realism back to foreign policy, the end of the war promises to be strange as well. While the end is known, the path remains a mystery.
The story over the last few weeks has been the squeeze the administration has put on Zelensky to get him to agree to peace talks and agree to sign over the country’s natural resources as compensation for the hundreds of billions in aid. The process has revealed to the administration that Zelensky is an unreliable partner in a peace deal, so his future is now limited. You cannot make a deal with a guy that no one trusts, so whatever peace comes to Ukraine will not include Zelensky.
You see this with the peace talks coming this week between officials from the Trump administration and a Ukrainian delegation. Saudi Arabia is hosting the talks, and one man has been told not to attend. That man is Zelensky. Not only was he excluded from the meeting, but he was also barred from traveling with the delegation. Zelensky had planned to just hang around Saudi Arabia during the talks. Clearly, these meetings are about life after Zelensky.
The main point of the meeting is to find out if there is any support in Ukrainian politics for a peace deal. Getting rid of Zelensky is not a great challenge. Finding a replacement is not a great challenge. The issue is finding a new leader who can sign a peace deal without the country collapsing into turmoil. The Trump administration needs to find someone that can act as an interim leader, get the political factions to accept a peace deal and then hold elections.
If elections were held today, the most likely winner would be the former commander of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny. While he has the respect of the army and the respect of the public, he is tightly tied with the ultranationalists. There are a lot of pictures of Zaluzhny posing next to iconography reminiscent of a certain period in German history, because he is extremely fond of that time. That means he is probably not a reliable option as a peaceful leader of Ukraine.
Another option is Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who got rich in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He first got rich in the candy business, which earned him the nickname of the “Chocolate King.” He also owned media companies, natural resources firms and manufacturing concerns. He has lost a lot of his power over the last five years as Zelensky consolidated his own power in Kiev. Poroshenko is also an outlandishly corrupt figure with ties to the ultranationalists.
Another option is Yulia Tymoshenko, who made some headlines in the West when she briefly became the face of the “Orange Revolution.” She is the leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) political party and strongly anti-Russian, but she has been a critic of the war and Zelensky’s handling of it. She is an oligarch as well, having got rich in the energy business. This earned her the nickname “The Gas Princess”, which may be one of the better nicknamed in politics.
Within Ukrainian media, the betting favorite at the moment is Tymoshenko for the simple reason that she does not have the ultranationalist baggage. She has her own party outside the Zelensky machine, and she seems willing to strike a deal. It may also be easier for a woman to sell peace to the public. There are millions of wives and mothers of men who have been killed or maimed in the war. That might be enough to overcome opposition from the ultranationalists.
A major challenge to finding a replacement for Zelensky is Europe. The scheming ladies of Brussels view Zelensky as an essential part of their scheme to turn the EU into a replacement for NATO. This is why they are offering him unconditional support for his efforts to scuttle any peace deal with Russia. Then you have individual leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who are trying hard to make Zelensky seem like the most honest man in Europe.
Further complicating matters is the condition of the Ukraine army. They are now being routed in the Kursk region. Thousands of their best soldiers are now trapped in a cauldron with no chance of escape. Thousands of others have surrendered and thousands more have died fleeing toward the border. An army low on morale, hearing that its main benefactor wants a peace deal, is not going to respond well to news that its best units have been routed.
Since everything about this proxy war has been strange, it is fitting that its last acts will be strange as well. Normally in a long war of attrition, the side with the upper hand is willing to press on with the war, while the other side wants peace. In this case, the winning side wants a deal, while the losing side demands to fight on, even as its main benefactor demands peace. It will be another reminder that this part of the world produces nothing but misery for everyone around it.
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That is because Zalensky is not Ukrainian and the entities backing this war hate the populations of both – Russia and Ukraine.
Khazarian mafiosi like “Zelensky” and his sugar-daddy Kolomoisky are the traditional war-mongering shekel grubbers of the cult of flea-bitten rug merchants that Jesus railed against in the gospels (aka brood of vipers).
And they still cannot manage without the Jews: Julia Timoshenko’s father is a Jew of probably Armenian origin, and Poroshenko’s father is (was) Jewish, Poroshenko is using his mother’s last name. Ha-ha-ha.
The weirdest thing about this weird war is that the president’s drug addict son was paid millions by a foreign nation that subsequently got $300 billion in U.S. military and financial aid and there was not ONE PEEP about it from the media or the Left.
One can only imagine how these people would have gone apeshit if Tricia Nixon had been put on the South Vietnamese payroll just before Dick announced more military aid…
Zman wrote a great piece the other day about the return of Realpolitik and the end of moralism in policy. I’d say this qualifies. All the Warmongers were crowing about how our money has hurt Russia, never mind all the death and the gross immorality of perpetuating a dangerous, unwinnable proxy war with a nuclear power. So if there is a silver lining, it’s that morality has been chucked out the window. Realism can easily tilt back to peace if it’s more profitable because we have no clearly have no moral compass here.
So, to recap, two guys who have lost two elections (Macron and Starmer) back a guy who refuses to hold an election (Zelensky) to keep fighting while Trump’s (actually elected) peace efforts are ignored in favor of the war cries of the EU leadership (who are unelected). They want to fight with no army and no money, but just overturned an actual election in Romania won by a peace candidate. Meanwhile the Italian lady said we should extend NATO protection to Ukraine, but not with Italian troops. And the newly-elected German Chancellor wants to spend 400B Euro rebuilding the Wehrmacht… Read more »
More or less correct except that that loser and p.o.s., Starmer did win an election because his opposition was even more detested than him. The Brits are not given much of a choice.
Kind of like Mitt Romney vs Barrack Obama. Either way, you lose.
Representative “Democracy” only works when the ruling elite fear the population. Right now, the ruling elite hate the population, largely because they fear the invader population. But there are a lot more Brits than foreigners.
Great point about Putin. He not only doesn’t trust anyone from the West, he knows that our precious democracy means that any deal signed, even one with honest intentions, will not outlast the next “election.” He must move forward alone and do what’s best for his people and he can since he holds all the cards right now.
“…rebuilding the Wehrmacht to threaten Russia,..”
No, I don’t think it is Russia they want to threaten. It is their own nationalists who must be crushed, that is priority #1. The war loan people have promised billions to recast the EUNATO into the kind of cyber-totalitarian state that Ellison, Lutnick, Fink and company promise to make North America.
That means 500 million people responsible for that debt, thus the ‘need’ to collateralize national assets…same as here. Ukraine? Ukraine is the gateway to turn Eastern Europe into Bosnia.
E. Michael Jones was talking to a member of the West German security services after the reunification. He asked him: “Wer ist jetzt der Feind? (who is the enemy now?). The answer: “Das Deutsche Volk!” (the German people).
Well said.
I don’t know why Putin would not be sure about any potential agreement and if it is worth the paper it won’t be printed on. I don’t think anything is more sure than the West will not honor any deal it signs today. The Minsk deals were hammered out and signed by everyone, yet here we are.
Clownworld will honor the deal as long as there is a good benefit in doing so. The moment things change and honoring the deal is no longer advantageous, they will break it.
Agree. You put it well. I was running out of space….
In theory, the Russians want a deal…but a deal that satisfies their announced goals…In fact, no such deal is going to be offered by Trump or the Ukrainians, and any such proposal is tarnished by the bad faith shown with respect to the Minsk I and II treaties…which embarrassed Putin…So the cleanest and best option is to fight until Ukraine surrenders, and then take the Russian speaking areas and Odessa, leaving Ukraine no ports on the Black Sea…
This, Putin wants a deal that recognizes Russia as the winner of the conflict, the rightful owner of the eastern provinces they captured and Crimea, and Ukraine as a helpless rump state. But we all know that before the ink is dry, the people who engineered this war will be scheming and soon enough you will see the media saying that America can’t tell a country what to do and what alliances it wants to join. Of course this is totally lolworthy but the elites eat this junk up…
Unless I miss my guess–and if history is anything to go by–the “elites” are going to face *serious* “domestic unrest.” And that will be if they are really lucky. Somethin’s gotta give.
Agreed. And right now, anyway, it’s hard to imagine any other outcome–at least one that doesn’t destroy the whole world.
Agree about the Russians, but I think Trump is absolutely prepared to recognize all the Oblasts that voted to join the RF. He correctly wants out. (There’s not 3 Americans in a hundred who understand all the ethnic/Russophone nuances involved.) In the end, I think the Azov types can accept this because those oblasts are Russian and everyone understands this. Getting a legitimate Ukrainian president to say all this publicly is a problem. And the EU types would have to admit they made a huge mistake with Minsk II. This is always the problem with war – aims change, sunk… Read more »
“So the cleanest and best option is to fight until Ukraine surrenders, and then take the Russian speaking areas and Odessa, leaving Ukraine no ports on the Black Sea…”
I think you nailed it there. If the Russians continue to gain the upper hand on the battlefield, this is surely their endgame.
maybe no peace is possible before the AFU is fully destroyed?
the real loser here (given ukraine was always a garbage country) is europe. exposed as corrupt, incompetent, and incapable of learning even the most obvious lessons. oh, and now they are defenceless having sent all their weapons and munitions to ukraine. well done peeps, the WW I crowd applauds your efforts.
kvh-
I think you are essentially correct.
There is no zone of potential agreement between the US and Russia, so there will be no peace.
Odessa is a tricky element. Putin may not want to take it, but he needs to. The problem is that taking Odessa substantially raises the odds of direct US intervention.
I do hope not, but what is Trump up to? He’s all over the map with this crisis–and it *is* a crisis. Is he playing the now-famous 4D chess? Or is he surrounded by lunatic lying neocon John-Boltons-in-disguise? Or is he simply out of his depth and in way over his head? Or what? The latest that I have read is that he is “really close” to letting the Ukraine have access again to Skylink to guide their missiles. It doesn’t seem to make any sense. But direct US intervention would be a disaster of incalculable proportions. Maybe even the… Read more »
just ignore “reports”. 9/10 things trump says are just filler.
IMO russia can do what it wants, with regards to ukraine. the US is clearly ready to move on, and the afghan bugout sets a ceiling on any US posturing. with zelensky a dead man walking, the champagne is on ice in moscow.
I’m sure the European Girlboss Club would prefer the Girlboss, but that depends on how that little poisonous CIA dwarf gets removed from the board. If the Uke generals pull off a 1943 style deposition of Mussolini, keeping him alive as a bargaining chip to negotiate their way out of a losing war, or if they do him like Diem in 1963. Of course, that might not happen if the Uke Army finally mutinies like the German Army did in 1918, and the lower ranks simply rebel and the generals lose control of the troops. Because if there’s one fact… Read more »
Keine Ahnung. But it wouldn’t have nearly so many vowels in it.
Any replacement for Zelenskyy must be acceptable to Russia, and Timoshenko is not. There are also the issues of denazification, demilitarization, and neutrality.
The US and EU still refuse to listen to what Russia is saying. They still think they can impose a peace treaty on Russia.
The Gas Princess has flexible standards. She used to be happy to do business with Russia until being a nationalist was more profitable.
She wants to be an EU girlboss like Ursula and Katja. The good news is if they change their tune, so will she.
She doesn’t give a Zhytomyr
“Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”
From what i remember Julia has not a drop of Ukrainian blood. She had to learn Ukrainian and place the braid on her head in old fashioned Ukrainian style to win her first election.
You cannot make a deal with a guy that no one trusts
As the Russians should have learned twice with Minsk
Any peace deal is going to be fraught with all sorts of complications. The US and Euro war-mongering jackoffs, such as cue ball Kelly, are all yammering about Trump’s betrayal and stabbing poor Ukraine in the back, yada, yada, yada. Hey, as long as it’s not their fellow citizens getting ground up, let’s keep the party going – on our dollars of course. F all of them.
“A major challenge to finding a replacement for Zelensky is Europe. The scheming ladies of Brussels view Zelensky as an essential part of their scheme to turn the EU into a replacement for NATO. This is why they are offering him unconditional support for his efforts to scuttle any peace deal with Russia. Then you have individual leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who are trying hard to make Zelensky seem like the most honest man in Europe.” The Europeans present a pathetic sight. From 2021 to 2024 they were posturing and preening as “world leaders” but Trump has… Read more »
Whether the mewling runts are capable of it or not, nothing would make me happier than to see them go their own way and attempt to forge their own Ukraine/Russia policy. The Blackberry Fruitcake Empire gets to wash its hands of the entire continent, the Euros get exposed for the bumbling twits they are, and Russia becomes stronger. That’s a win/win/win, baby.
Well put. If we have learned anything from this war, it’s that you cannot defeat a modern adversary without space-based ISR. The money the Euros are talking about so far doesn’t even approach the table stakes for modern ISR, air force, hypersonic missiles etc. It’s a fugazy. Meanwhile, the UK cannot even recruit troops. Why join the French Foreign Legion when you can just take a boat across the Channel and get welfare in the Uk?
That depends on what you mean by “defeat.” Multiple parties have shown that it’s possible to outlast the GAE without “high tech.” Maybe that’s all Russia has really been trying to do, militarily, for a while now. Although they aren’t invincible qualities (see Assad), determination and will are still the most important military attributes.
The minerals deal is a trap.
The UK met with the dwarf dictator this weekend. Their plan seems to be to sell Trump on the minerals deal, as long as they provide protection for their ‘investment’, meaning US troops in Ukraine.
Of course a fake “Russian” attack on those troops will soon follow, trying to force the US into the war.
Trump should first demand that Zelensky is removed, then Putin and Trump can agree on the terms of Ukrainian surrender and present it to the new puppet installed by the UK to sign.
Yeah, it’s a fig leaf for the peace deal. The US will have to spend more money to enforce the peace. Trump will want to show how we are getting a good mineral deal in return. Meanwhile, some company will actually have to invest real dollars in exploiting all these “mineral rights”. Good luck finding someone to do this, given the business, technical risks and the legendary crookery of Ukraine. It’s all BS. Remember all the mineral wealth of Afghanistan?
“Remember all the mineral wealth of Afghanistan?” Good call. We have more rare earths in our (shuttered) coal mines and mine tailings, the supposed rare earths of Ukraine are a fiction. They don’t really have any.
Rare earth minerals are not rare. They’re everywhere that people look for them. The problem is that they are nasty and dirty to dig out the ground, which is why we in the USA don’t dig it out of our ground and outsourced it to other countries. This is somehow better for Mother Gaia.
Waging endless war against a nuclear power on the other side of the earth for a bunch of rocks that are all over the American West is a really bad idea…
The fact that all the wrong people want Trump to sign the minerals deal tells me everything I need to know. The fact is, from their POV, the idea of the minerals deal is genius – Trump gets to talk about how he made a deal, he gets to talk about all the money it is going to bring in, and they (correctly) understand that it lowers the likelihood of an end to the conflict and it also ties us closer to the fortunes of the Kiev regime. There’s no way around this, for this war to end, Trump needs… Read more »
Well said!
Can’t have ultra-nationalists! Have to have a counterpart to the PM of Mexico, the President of Argentina, the mayor of Florence and own a revolving door at the head seat in Kiev and on and on and on and on. On the one hand it is strange that the side that is getting ground down and is heading toward a rout would insist on not pursuing peace. On the other, when the leader is not of the people getting crushed and nor are the leader’s benefactors, it isn’t surprising. When any of them can escape for any number of penthouses… Read more »
About those penthouses, I had long wondered why Hitler overextended himself rather than solely fortifying the former Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Czechia, some Baltic fiefs like Estonia.)
I hadn’t realized the role of the American industrialists and bankers. They basically prodded him on into overreach, promising backing, investment, and funding, just as Zelenkskyy was promised a Second Israel. The Austrian Napoleon sought to take on fallen Russia, with the same results. Instead of Paris, the Russians marched into Berlin.
What is the deal with Derbyshire? Why does he keep claiming that Russia is the most corrupt country on earth? Napolitano and Larry Johnson seem to be full of praise for Russia. They just met lavrov.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3GW_9IUcg-M
He says it’s one of the two most corrupt WHITE countries on earth. I think Moldova is more corrupt than either of them, so maybe he should say the two most corrupt significant white countries on earth.
How does he say that after watching the Biden-Obama gang rule over the last 15 years?
Because that ruling faction isn’t White nor does it want any Whites to remain in that country.
I have no clue how this war can end. Russia needs what remains of Ukraine to be a neutral, demilitarized country, but Russia can’t trust the West or Ukraine to stick to that deal. Thus, to enforce that situation, Russia would need to control Ukraine, which it doesn’t want to do for good reasons.
No obvious solution.
It will end with a dramatic fall of EU. Maybe the Romanian election will be the catalyst.
Oh gosh I hope so, Lavrov, I hope so, I hope so. Creating a Soviet west of the Urals not only means our peoples will be living in an impoverished, polluted totalitarian wreck, they will have sexually depraved Muslims as their kommisars.
Like with the demographics, or debt, or drug trade/war, the short-sighted “visionaries” keep creating enormous messes that can’t be solved.
It is a weird war. So feminine and passive-aggressive. We basically were at war but JK not at war! with Russia. Like we were mean girls who pretended to be uninvolved with Rachel’s love life but were feeding destructive gossip to her BF and other girls behind that bitch’s back. F**k that bitch, Rachel is not as cute as I am!
Rachel doesn’t have functioning nuclear weapons. 😉
What exactly is an “ultranationalist?” Honestly, “ultranationalist” just sounds like Nazi or racist or something, just a slur. Do they support joining the EU or are they slurred because they don’t want to join the EU?
I don’t see how anyone can get behind this mineral deal, assuming it is even real, which is questionable(I’ve read all these minerials are in the Russian occupied areas). The American taxpayer hands out hundreds of billions of Dollars while some fake “American” (in name only) mining companies get all the benefits. It just underlines the corruption of “America” Meanwhile, it is near impossible to start a new mine in the US. Two new large lithium deposits have been found in the US over the last year or 2 (IIRC, one in New England and one down near Texas) which… Read more »
Another huge lithium strike on the Idaho border, touted as one of the largest in the world, along with California’s Salton Sea (the desert side of Palm Springs.) Greens think “green” means pit mines the size of Ohio.
Edit: woops, can’t forget North Carolina either, can we?
Yes, Yulia with that distinctive long braid. They tossed her in jail for awhile too I believe.
Deservedly so.
The only adults in the room when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine are the Russians. They would be wise to stay the course and finish the job, regardless of other actions by other players. Win the war, dictate the terms of peace, keep the parts that are historically Russian, and let Poland deal with the Nazis in Western Ukraine. When the smoke clears, Russia will engage in fair business deals with the US and Europe; but these won’t be exploitation deals, so the EU central banks are screwed.
I think “let Poland deal with the Nazis in Western Ukraine” is an extremely viable solution. Basically, let Poland and Russia carve up the Ukraine’s sides, that way both get something for their trouble, and get the US out.
Polak nationalists are as scrappy as Gallicians, so I think they’d come to terms rather quickly.
Whatever Trump does, even if he deploys the entire GAE military to Ukraine and orders a bayonet charge, he will still be slandered as a Russian asset and an enemy of “democracy.” So one wonders why he would try to make a deal that appeases anyone anywhere in Europe, who will give him no credit whatsoever. This war was provoked by the GAE, and waged for 3 years with little to no regard to the cost to the Ukrainian people, so its present claims to want “peace,” and to care about the Ukrainian people are risible. It just wants to… Read more »
It just wants to be rid of the tar baby it can no longer handle, and for some inexplicable reason seems to care about the optics.
Standard Leftist playbook: They had to keep the grift going when it was their boy (Biden) or boys and girls in charge. Now that they’re out it’s “Well that was in the past, and why keep bringing up the past?”
Fertile farmland, strategic location and mineral wealth seem like the obvious ones.
Three things we kind of have here in the US? If it was me, I’d take Canada and Greenland, the supply line logistics make a lot more sense.
” . . . why he would try to make a deal that appeases anyone anywhere in Europe . . . .”
Trump seems to have an emotional need to be liked. Just a guess; I don’t know the guy.
Echoes of Republicans prostrating themselves before the NYT
She is the leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) political party and strongly anti-Russian You know what other European leader led a Fatherland and was strongly Anti-Russian? Finding a replacement is not a great challenge. The issue is finding a new leader who can sign a peace deal without the country collapsing into turmoil. I would argue finding a replacement for Little Piano Man IS a great challenge. Ukraine sounds (from the outside looking in, based on what I’ve read) like they looked at corruption in say Chicago and said “We can ramp that up to 11 or 12 druk!” It… Read more »
Trump ad Co. need to get out NOW. Get out CLEAN. Just GET OUT!
Damn and blast the minerals deal! Just GET OUT! YESTERDAY! This is NOT a game. The danger is beyond beyond. NOTHING is worth rolling the dice again. NOTHING.
Leave the Old World to their own devices. As Ron Paul used to put it: “You just marched in, so you can just march OUT.”
This is DANGEROUS stuff!
The lesson that God, Darwin and Murphy are trying to tell you, America – is that if you let women, and their male clowns have a say in military affairs – you will lose, regardless of how good your military is. Every single war America has fought in the last half century has been lost at home. The losses have been getting worse and worse as their power grows too. Viet Nam was bad – but a rousing victory compared to Afghanistan and the Kraine. In this latest clown show, over one million Ukes are dead. There is nothing to… Read more »
The damage is already done
The goal was undermine Russia, killing Russian and Ukrainian as many as possible, turn Ukraine Women into whore
Mission accomplished
It surprises that Ukraine people are dumb enough to buy the Jewish lie that makes them rich
No one interested in making white people a richer, especially if you are Jewish guy might be doing opposite
If you’re a jewish pimp, Ukrainian women are worth going to war over
(and children too, especially)
CTH: Romania Has Barred Leading Candidate Calin Georgescu from Postponed Presidential Election
Well, spit. If they can’t get a Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine, it looks like they’re aiming to get a puppet into Romania, all to have a stake on the Black Sea (and still a direct line to NATO Turkey, in preparation for the Turko-Israeli war on Iran.)
“It will be another reminder that this part of the world produces nothing but misery for everyone around it.” There it is. The U.S. should have stayed as far away from this sh**-show as possible, and let the Euros deal with what is going on in their own back yard. Now the U.S. is getting smeared and stuck by this tar baby and even Trump is going to find it hard to extract the US without terrible optics. Ukrainian collapse will be ugly, and what if the Russians decide to push their advantage and gobble up more land that seems… Read more »
My impression (from social media) is the the Euros either think Ukraine is winning or will win if they are just given more aid. With that in mind, Trump’s decision to pressure Ukraine to make peace seems like a cowardly betrayal to them rather than a piece of 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘬. I assume that this belief is fostered by their version of our MSM, which also shares this delusion.
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