The Ukraine war thread
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For three years, the US and Europe prioritized escalation management that left Ukraine with no clear path forward to an equitable negotiation for a lasting peace, or at the very least, an enduring armistice with Russia.
For a guy who placed all the blame on Putin a paragraph or two earlier, this sure seems like a backtrack.
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Coming to a theatre near you:
In June 2024, Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, presented a plan he co-authored with the former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz that proposed halting the delivery of U.S. weapons to Ukraine if Kyiv didn’t enter into peace talks with Moscow—but also warning Moscow that if it refused to negotiate with Kyiv, Washington would increase its support for Ukraine. About five months later, President-elect Trump named Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. “The makeup of the war has expanded,” Kellogg said in an interview, “and it’s time to put it back in a box.”
In response to Kellogg’s nomination, Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin, told a reporter for the Financial Times what he thought the likely Russian response would be. “Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don’t like any of it,” Malofeyev said. “That’d be the whole negotiation.
Full article:
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And I assume the Norks and Chinese are learning from the Russians.
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Trump meeting Putin, an opinion:
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Putin refuses to face Zelensky directly in any armistice negotiations:
"If [Zelensky] wants to participate in the negotiations, I will send people to take part," Putin said in comments to state TV journalist Pavel Zarubin, calling the Ukrainian leader "illegitimate" since his presidential term expired last year during martial law.
Putin will stop at nothing to pit Zelenskyi against Trump in the negotiation process. This is only his opening
gambitsalvo. -
The Kremlin continues to win the hearts and minds of Ukrainians:
Russia launched a large-scale attack on several regions overnight, hitting residential buildings in Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak said. "Attacks on residential buildings, civilians, typical tactics of the Russian army," he wrote on Telegram.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rqj171zzvo
The leader of a pro-Russian paramilitary group in eastern Ukraine has died in hospital after being injured in an explosion in Moscow on Monday morning, Russian media have said.
Armen Sargsyan, the leader of the "Arbat" battalion, was severely injured following a blast in the entrance hall of a residential building in north-west Moscow, 12km (7 miles) from the Kremlin.
He was evacuated to a hospital by helicopter and placed in intensive care after the explosion, but eventually succumbed to his injuries, according to usually reliable Telegram sources.
