It’s been painful to observe the wretched state of reporting in the runup to the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska this Friday. Admittedly, the Trump side gaslighted the press with talk of territory swaps, an idea which if it was voiced in the Putin-Witokff talk in Russia, was a US scheme. The Associated Press, early on, was one of the very few mainstream media venues to put paid to this blather. On August 10, from Russia and Ukraine hold fast to their demands ahead of a planned Putin-Trump summit.
The Associated Press pointed out that Russia offered two peace proposals to Ukraine in June, both of which had Russia controlling the four oblasts that it now recognizes as Russia, even though it has yet to secure all of that territory. It indicated that there was no signal that Russia intended to relent on these demands. Separately, many commentators have pointed out that since the expansion of Russia has been enshrined in the Russian constitution, Putin can’t trade that away even if he wanted to. Let us not forget that Putin and Russians generally are almost fetishistic about legal forms.
And if you still harbored doubts, from that article:
Asked Thursday whether Moscow has signaled any willingness to compromise to make a meeting with Trump possible, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov responded that there haven’t been any shifts in the Russian position.
Nevertheless, this notion had become so widely accepted that Lavrov had to rouse himself to address it. Predictably, the interview starts out with a “When did you stop beating your wife?” line of questioning:
Even so, the mere prospect of Trump and Putin making nice to each other resulted in Zelensky rallying the Russia-hating leaders of Europe, which was not hard to do. Note that the summit may have the effect of extending Zelensky’s sell-by date; the press had abandoned its hagiography and quite a few outlets were calling out Zelensky’s plunging popularity and even his likely corruption.
Even if Trump had harbored the fantasy of a mano-a-mano with Putin that might allow him to claim some sort of progress in extricating the US from its Ukraine quagmire, Trump went into full TACO mode. From the Washington Post in White House sharply lowers expectations for Trump-Putin summit:
President Donald Trump expects his encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to be a “listening exercise,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, sharply downplaying the possibility that a deal to end the war in Ukraine could be imminent despite a warning from the president last week that Kyiv needed to “get ready to sign something.”
“Listening exercise”? As if Putin has not been exhaustively explicit in his many long speeches and press conferences?
And the Trump team seems to have missed that “listening” meetings have negative connotations, witness Hillary Clinton’s 2015 branded and Kamala Harris’ de facto listening tours.
Note that the US is continuing to claim that Putin asked for this session, an idea that Alexander Mercouris and others have debunked.1
Mind you, it’s not as if Trump and Putin are short of topics to discuss, from nuclear arms control to Iran to the spectacle of Russia allowing Western businesses back in. However, the last idea to be more of a tease than serious. Russian businesses have done so well by weaning themselves from dependence on the West that it’s not as if there’s a clamor either from citizens or a big weight of commercial interests to get them back in. FroFrom BNE in March:
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the country’s leading oligarchs that Western companies that “slammed the door” on Russia when they left the country after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine will not be allowed to repurchase their assets cheaply or regain their former market positions.
Speaking at the annual Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) in Moscow, he said that businesses would not be allowed to exercise option agreements with their partners to buy back companies. These agreements were widely signed as part of a raft of takeovers and MBOs.
“If the niche of a Western company is already filled by a Russian business, then … as we say, that train has left,” Putin said.
Of course, the elephant in the room in terms of not expecting much is the US lack of agreement-capableness. Russians had been grumbling about that for some time as a result of NATO expansion, but that predilection became undeniable due to Poroshenko’s and Merkel’s Holland’s smugness, even glee, over having snookered Putin with the Minsk Accords. Putin has engaged in public self-recrimination. He and Lavrov have also taken to making longer and longer speeches of the history of what a bunch of scheming deceivers Western leaders and negotiators have been.
The US under Trump has reached a new level of fecklessness. Trump changes tariff levels and range of application seemingly at the drop of a hat. He’s refused to commit his trade deals to writing. If the Russian want a faux-friendly cover for continuing to prosecute the war, all they need to do is demand a written instrument.2 Russia could be in Paris before one got done.
Remember that the US and Russia are already in negotiations, and the US has failed to deliver on basic, and not large, Russian requests, like returning Russian diplomatic property that the US seized and restoring flights to Russia.3
Of course, the Europeans have built up Putin into being a KGB mastermind who has Trump in his thrall and could thus extract concessions, even though, as we made clear, the US even before Trump didn’t believe in delivering on commitments. Trump’s increasingly addled state does give cause for pause. USA Today pointed out that Trump said, not once but twice, that he was meeting Putin in Russia:
During President Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s sending the National Guard to Washington, DC, to fight a crime wave that isn’t real, it became clear he has caught Sleepy Joe Biden’s much-ballyhooed cognitive decline…
But whatever the cause, hearing the president ramble incoherently during a nationally televised news conference on Monday, Aug. 11, left no doubt: The man’s brain has turned to oatmeal.
For starters, on two occasions Trump told reporters he will be meeting in days with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia. The meeting will be held in Alaska, which, unless Trump has given away one of America’s states to Putin, is very much not in Russia.
The Guardian gives a more traditional version of “ZOMG Trump talking to Putin” pearl-clutching, with the added bennie of reinforcing the falsehood of Russia having interfered in the 2016 election:
The lessons of Helsinki are clear: putting Donald Trump alone in a room with Vladimir Putin is an unpredictable – and often dangerous – affair.
It was 2018 when the two leaders met at the invitation of Sauli Niinistö, the Finnish president, to discuss a collapse in US-Russia relations, accusations of elections interference, and the grinding war in east Ukraine, among other topics.
By the time he came out of the room, Trump looked dazzled by the Kremlin leader. Asked at a press conference about the conclusions of the US intelligence community that Russia had interfered in the elections, Trump said: “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”….
European leaders are fearful that Trump could once again emerge from a closed-door meeting preaching the Kremlin gospel.
In the meantime, there are rumors that Ukraine is scheming to sabotage the summit with a false flag attack:
A group of foreign journalists were transported into the city of Chuguev by Zelensky’s secret police – the SBU – yesterday
On the pretext of ‘preparing a series of reports about the residents of the city in the frontline zone’ pic.twitter.com/BAT3ENm26r
— RT (@RT_com) August 12, 2025
Mind you, even if Ukraine executes a dastardly deed like that (the fact that the Western press would repeat it uncritically is a given), Ukraine over-estimates the impact of its stunts, even the bloody ones. It was not Bucha that scuppered the Istanbul draft peace deal but Boris Johnson flying to Kiev and persuading Zelensky to ditch it, with promises of “as long as it takes” military support. And even though Russia had caught Ukraine by surprise, it was merely planning to get Ukraine to the negotiating table. It took some time for Russia even to straighten out its command structure, decide to commit to a bigger war, increase armament and manpower levels, and systematically seek to learn from its mistakes.
As the Trump theatrics and the Zelensky-EU negotiation sabotage operation dominate media coverage, Russia has made a major breakthrough in the critically important Pokrovsk area. Experts have stressed for the last month, and some much longer, that the loss of Povrosk would be a huge psychological and military blow. Even though there is one more defense line in the Donbass, at Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, it’s regularly been depicted as weaker than the ones Russia has already surmounted. And it’s possible that Russia will just flank it.
This video by Daniel Davis at Deep Dive, with Colonel Douglas Macgregor, starting at 18:30. Note that Davis points out there that his Russian journalist sources say the Russian forces are having to temper their pace of advance to keep from getting ahead of their supply lines. Davis and Macgregor then turn to maps and what this advance means:
Moon of Alabama provides more detail:
During the last three days Russian forces achieved a major breakthrough. After the heavy bombardment of Ukrainian positions with over 1,300 FAB bombs Russian detachments moved north of the salient (green) they had built between the semi-encircled cities Pokrovsk and Konstantinivka.
They have reached and breached the well built second Donbas fortification line (in yellow) which had been dug over the last year.
bigger
bigger
Ukrainian sources confirm the breakthrough (machine translation):
Yesterday, Ukrainian military telegram channels, as well as AFU fighters, began to write massively about the Russian breakthrough to the north of the Pokrovskaya agglomeration – in the direction of Dobropillia.As a result of an 11-kilometer (according to Ukrainian data) dash, the Russians came out to the northeast of Dobropillya, cutting the road to Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka.
Judging by the reports of Ukrainian publics, the problem is the lack of personnel and “false reports” to the top about the state of defense near Dobropillya. Russian military telegram channels write that this area was covered by [territorial forces] – since more experienced units are holding the front near Pokrovsk.
At the same time, the battles are already taking place in a fairly deep rear, where there is no organized line of defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It should actually be built “from the wheels”, transferring reserves. There are already predictions in the Ukrainian public that if the situation is not urgently corrected, the Russians will be able to break through the front and enter the operational space. And Ukraine will lose hundreds of square kilometers of territory a day, as it did in the first weeks of the invasion.
Now let’s turn to the Ukrainian side to see what their experts are attributing the collapse to. Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive charity for the AFU, says that Ukrainian forces first began to systemically fail at the platoon level, then the company level…and now he says the mass collapse of the battalion level has arrived.
Simplicius also highlighted this early August tweet, which describes how the new fortified lines that Ukraine was rushing to build will be ineffective:
Although there is great work done detailing Ukrainian fortifications, most of the observed positions are constructed in the open and will never be occupied by units. They are easily targeted and destroyed. Ukraine lacks infantry to man most of them in the first place. 16/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) July 31, 2025
It is way over my pay grade to forecast what happens next, even before getting to the fact that the Ukraine conflict is now moving into “overly dynamic situation” terrain. But the accelerating disintegration of Ukraine forces and the loss of Pokrovsk will have a huge impact on the morale of the armed forces and Ukrainians generally, particularly those in positions of power. If Zelensky intends to hang on to a pretense of power, the time for him to set up his government in exile is approaching.
_____
1 Putin’s elaborate pretense that the idea somehow just came up was pinning the tail on the Wiktoff donkey. In addition, the Putin-Witkoff meeting took a full three hours, which suggested a lot of Witkoff arm-twisting and even groveling. The polite-seeming Witkoff was able to bark at Netanyahu in a way that got Netanyahu to reverse himself on refusing to meet Witkoff on Sabbath. I wonder if he has other registers in his repertoire that we have not seen yet, such as Mad Dog Beck-ery (see the bit on the biscuits).
2 One might point out that the US did manage to ink at least one pact, that of its “raw earths” agreement with Ukraine. But this was in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant’s hands, and he allegedly came to Kiev with a contract he tried to get Zelensky to sign on the spot. There are many law firms that work on cross-border investments, so it should not have been hard for Treasury to get one of them to prepare a document. In addition, as it became clear, Ukraine was seen by the US as a terms-taker, and largely was, although Zelensky did appear to dig in his heels on some key points and got concessions. This is not at all what any process with Russia would look like.
3 This would be a big bennie to US carriers, since they now can’t overfly Russian airspace. That has hurt their business with flights to and from Asia, to the advantage of Middle Eastern and Asian operators. Russia would presumably restore transit rights, not just point-to-point rights. It will be amusing to see EU reactions were that to happen.
The two data here astound me: “Ukrainian military telegram channels, as well as AFU fighters, began to write massively about the Russian breakthrough to the north of the Pokrovskaya agglomeration – in the direction of Dobropillia.” Maybe I am late to understanding, but allowing soldiers to live-blog the war and maintain media channels shows an unseriousness about tactics that explains why Ukraine can’t hold it together. The war as selfie–and to hell with unit cohesion, which seems to be a strong feature of the Russian Army.
The hypocrisy about borders is all over the world today. Marco Travaglio points out in his column this morning that Israel has somehow exceeded the 1947 borders, which are its true legal borders. Oh well. Then there are the border problems of dismantled Yugoslavia, beleaguered Syria, split Libya, and diminished Armenia. But Merz, Starmer, and Macron — the geostrategist bros — are suddenly worried about Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Maybe they should not have dumped serial coups d’état and arms into Ukraine.
What will happen in Alaska besides eating the expensive bottles of macadamia nuts out of the hotel mini-bars? Talk. Maybe some of the talk will be realistic. No matter what one thinks of the Russians, it isn’t that they have upper hand in the theater of war (and they do) — it’s that they have been the realists.
Meanwhile, Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, and Pina Picierno are still intoning, All we are saying, is give war a chance…
I eagerly await the explanation of the Alaska Bake-Off and Forum from Future President Pete Buttigieg.
With drones and satellites, both sides have a very good grip on battlefield positions, so these accounts are not revealing secret information.
Maybe over-interpreting, John Helmer yesterday with Dima opined Trump and Putin intend to have two meetings, first in Alaska for “listening” as Trump repeats, then a follow up in an as yet undisclosed Russian venue.
Thusly Trump is afforded the opportunity to repair his cranial rectal inversion prior to signing something.
FWIW.
For the infantrymen and tank crews, they can tell you a lot about the morale of the soldiers you are about to do battle with, the amount of resistance they are likely to offer and their willingness to surrender.
The Ukrainian forces use of messaging shows a total lack of discipline due, no doubt, to the quality of NATO training, but when the gig is over is over, there’ll be a few Ph.Ds awarded for longtitudial, locational and God knows how many other analyses of Telegram accounts and other media messages from both sides during the war and the effects they had on the morale and resolve of the forces involved in combat through the course of the operation.
Times must be difficult for Kallas and Fond of Lyin’ … defeated by those barbaric jungle relics Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
Oh well, there are always the trappings of the job … jet-setting conferences, good coffee, obsequious press.
Get down, Get down
Get down, Get down
Get down, Get down
Get down, Get down
(savage scream)
Jungle boogie (Get down with the boogie)
Jungle boogie (Get it on)
Jungle boogie (Get down with the boogie)
Jungle boogie (A-get it on)
Jungle boogie (Get up a-with the boogie)
Jungle boogie (Get up a-with the get down)
Jungle boogie (Get down with the boogie)
Jungle boogie (Shake it around)
Huh
Jungle boogie (Get up with the get down)
Jungle boogie (Boogie, baby)
Jungle boogie (Get the boogie)
Jungle boogie (Brrr)
Jungle boogie (Get up a-with the get down)
Jungle boogie (A-get the boogie)
Jungle boogie (In the jungle)
Jungle boogie (Down with the boogie)
Get down, get down
Get down, get down (With the boogie)
Get down, get down (Jungle boogie)
Get down, get down (With the boogie)
Get down, get down (It’s the boogie)
Get down, get down (Jungle boogie)
Get down, get down (With the boogie)
Get down, get down (With the boogie)
Get down, get down (Jungle boogie)
Get down, get down (Yeah)
Get down, get down (It’s the boogie)
Get down, get down
Uh, huh
Uh, get it
Feel the funk, y’all
Let it flow
(Get down) A-get down with the boogie
A-talk, talkin’
I’m a-talkin’ ’bout the jungle boogie, get down
Huh, uh, get down with the boogie
Say uh, huh, get down
Say uh, huh-uh, a-get down
Say uh, huh, get down
Say uh, ha, ’til you feel it, y’all
Uh, ha, a-get down, y’all
Uh, ha, a-get down
Uh, huh-ah, a-get up, y’all
Uh, ha-ah, a-with the get down
Uh, ha
Uh, ha, get down
Whoa
Jungle Boogie
Russia has used cellphone signals from Ukrainians to assist in accurately targeting strikes on bases and camps (Ukrainians have also had some successes). There is a reason the Russian military doesn’t allow cellphone use by their soldiers deployed in front lines. But I don’t think they always strictly apply that rule to Russian mercenaries or Akhmat forces.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407922006406
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/19/british-volunteer-fighters-may-have-triggered-deadly-strike/
Simplicus also discussed this in one of his articles 2-3 years ago.
There was a video clip back then showing Ukrainian troops dodging artillery strikes and after doing so would whip out their mobile phones to use – only to have that artillery target them in their new position.
Well, Zelensky is now claiming the KIA ratio is 3:1 in favour of Ukraine, and western media keep reporting that the Russian economy is on the verge of collapse, implying Putin does not have that strong a hand. At the same time Swedish media are bellowing that Russia intends to invade Sweden as well as the Baltic countries.
A Swedish tabloid splashed with ‘Putin’s father poked out his mother’s eye with a pitchfork’. I honestly have no idea if there is any truth in this but as they are both long dead, not sure how this can be relevant to current events. I do know both his parents barely survived the siege of Leningrad, and his father managed to keep his mother alive when medics said she was either dead or on the point of dying. All this was before VVP was born.
If Trump is being fed such distortions on the true state of affairs, I doubt Trump and Putin will reach any sort of deal.
He claims 3:1 casualty ratio (dead, wounded, POW, missing). Claimed KIA is much higher. :)
🤡
▪️Russia — 968 losses (531 killed and 428 wounded, 9 captured).
▪️Ukraine 340 losses (18 killed and 243 wounded, 79 missing).
https://x.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1955318233017229339
Might not be unreasonable if Russia was overrunning fortifications, which would be a costly exercise.
I do wonder how he gets those numbers so quickly, though (and he’s not rounding, which implies a high degree of accuracy that is often unjustified). How is a Russian kill or injury confirmed? Does Ukraine really have precise knowledge of its own troop disposition and casualties in that kind of timeframe? How would we verify that he isn’t doing the same thing he accuses Russia of and ‘creating an information space’?
They might not be entirely fabricated (it makes sense that Ukraine would know the captured count for Russians but not their own soldiers, and vice versa for ‘missing’) but he’s almost certainly implicitly overstating their accuracy at a minimum.
Might not be unreasonable if Russia was overrunning fortifications, in a Hollywood movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8fWp-i-BGA
The US political system was torn apart during the Vietnam War with 100,000, >200,000 Russian KIA) thrown around by Kyiv, London, Trump cracks me up—-and I can’t believe no one in the West’s leadership is going on the record to at least question those UA-sourced numbers
Yes, its really hard to know what Trump actually believes, what information is fed to him, and by whom. Last night’s NBC News story also reported that Putin had asked for the summit, the implication being that he wanted a “deal.” Rubio is going around claiming that Russia had 60,000 KIA *last month*! As Yves notes above, I’m sure *someone* behind the scenes knows the score. But how is this information being packaged?
As I (and others) keep saying, the factions promoting this war do not want peace. They know Ukraine cannot win. They know the war is destroying the country. That doesn’t matter. Their goal is to keep the pot simmering to drain Russian resources, maintain regional instability, and fortify the wall between Russia and Europe. They will do all they can to undermine any real peace effort. Does Trump realize this? Does he really care? Does he have anyone in his administration who is capable of actually resisting these entrenched Atlanticist/neocons and their warmongering parasites in Congress and the “defense” establishment?
How many Americans would be against this land swap?
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-negotiates-russian-ceasefire-by-giving-putin-california
Would this fall under the question from the Dune: “When is a gift not a gift?”?
Putin would give California back to Mexico.
At this point, California – and Oregon, and Washington – would prefer to be part of Mexico.
If Putin would give us free healthcare, free education and housing blocs like they’re building in Mariupol, California should consider it.
I am a CA resident and I endorse that sentiment.
Well, all I have seen is Witkoff coming to Moscow, for a talk with Putin. That is not standard protocol. That talk took 3 hours, which seems long.
And the only official comment I’ve seen is “that Washington made an offer which was deemed acceptable by Moscow”, followed by Putin going to Alaska.
This is not about re-opening embassies.
My hunch is that there is an agreement where the US can abandon Ukraine without loosing face. With terms such that if US reneges, it will loose Ukraine and its face.
Are US stocks of guided and otherwise weapons sufficient for both Tel Aviv and Kiev’s plans? Enough stuff to claw Taiwan from China as Donbas from Kiev?
Replacements are planned and money tossed about but it will be years to see stocks in the magazines.
Putin is not going to agree anything with Witkoff, ever. Mercouris contends that the offer that was deemed acceptable was the summit. Recall Trump has been begging for one since February and Putin has refused by pointing out that necessary advance work had yet to be done.
As we indicated. Putin has a clear position which he set out in June 2024 from which he has not budged. The Russian battlefield advances and the increasingly obviously inability of the West to provide adequate arms, and Ukraine to dragoon enough fit men to replace losses means if anything Putin should increase his demands, not lower them.
On top of that, one foundational rule of negotiating is a principal should NEVER negotiate with an agent. Principal A will be seen as making commitments, while the agent for B can go back to his principal. Principal B can try to extract more based on the commitment Principal A made. There are exceptions, the main ones being when there is a power imbalance between the two sides (here, the agent is representing a principal that really needs a deal) or similarly, the principal talking to the agent does not need the deal. That is arguably Putin’s position here, but he so does not need a deal that he has blown off meeting requests from the US (IIRC by Keith Kellogg).
If a deal emerges from this meeting it is more likely to be on reopening intermediate range missile talks, divvying up arctic oil leases, allowing Nvidia to sell advanced washing machine chips to Russia so long as they pay 15% to Trump, anything but an end to the Ukraine war.
CNN has announced that this summit will be held at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska. One reason is that it is tourist season in Anchorage so accommodation for the huge entourages would be too hard to come by. The second is that being a military base it already has its own security in place so should be able to keep Zelensky out of there. There is talk that a second meeting will be held but will be done so in Russia so perhaps Vladivostok?
I wonder about what Trump hopes to accomplish at this meeting but no doubt Putin will throw him a bone to keep him happy with something to take back home. Probably not a Russian flag signed with the signatures of Russian fighters in Pokrovsk though. I have heard one theory though that makes sense. You had the Battle of Debaltseve about ten years ago and the Ukrainian army was collapsing. So Merkel jumped aboard a plane and flew to Russia to beg for mercy and as a result you had Minsk 2 which turned out to have been never about establishing peace but building up the Ukrainian army to go to war against Russia. So could Trump think himself so great at negotiations & deal-making that he can convince the Russians to sign a Minsk 3 and buy time to rebuild the Ukrainian army?
Imagine if Zelensky showed up to gate crash.
One good Marine could give him an attitude adjustment.
Zelensky has flown to Berlin with his begging bowl. Supposedly to have an online conference with EU leaders and Starmer, plus the Donald. Not sure if the Donald will bother to tune in.
> There is talk that a second meeting will be held but will be done so in Russia so perhaps Vladivostok?
In conversation with Nima on Dialogue Works, Helmer interpreted Trump’s references to meeting Putin in Russia as meaning there is a second meeting planned if the first goes well enough. Perhaps that corresponds with the “listening exercise”.
I think that the perfect venue in Russia for the second meeting would be Sevastopol.
“I’m sorry President Trump. It’s time to put up or shut up.”
Maybe Yalta, where Stalin and Roosevelt carved up the post war world between them. With the drunken Churchill appearing for photo ops with them.
Trump is there to find out if Putin will give US corporations guaranteed access to Ukrainian rare earth resources. If the answer is yes, Ukraine ceases to exist as an independent state.
Extra credit for a Trump Tower in downtown Moscow.
The central point is that Pax Russ requires substantial territorial gains.
Putin has conceded nothing and will negotiate nothing.
47 is ‘promising’ land swaps but has no basis for his zero sum game, and lacks the competence, let alone the moral authority, to confirm a deal.
This is neither an inverted Brest-Livotsk, nor a rerun of Yalta/Potsdam.
I doubt whether Trump is even aware of the background.
Meanwhile another European war of attrition drifts on and on.
Unsurprisingly, no European nation is currently prepared to transfer territory to another on the basis of force majeure alone.
It is all performative nonsense, designed to deflect from the Epstein files, assert Putin’s status, and to satisfy the egos of two global leaders with textbook DSM V antisocial personality disorders.
I agree that the only Russian “concession” if there was one, was to agree to the meeting taking place at all. The venue–in the US if only just–might have been a modest second concession. The fact is that Trump wants and needs this summit, and Putin does not. On the other hand it’s always useful to compare positions, and the Russians probably judge that they can have an effect on US thinking which makes the effort worthwhile.
And I have to say that there was a time when newspapers employed diplomatic correspondents, who knew about all these things and could explain them. I’ve been depressed, but not really surprised, by the media’s level of sheer ignorance and incompetence on this subject in the last few days.
Could it be that the people surrounding Trump like Rubio and Graham are deliberately not telling him Russia’s demands? Yeah, the Russians have been stating them again and again the past year or two but how much of them is Trump actually hearing? So maybe Putin wants a meeting to tell him chapter and verse exactly what Russia’s demands are so that there is no mistake or wiggle room. And if after the meeting he still goes on about some of his ridiculous ideas, then the Russians will know for sure that it is all on him and act accordingly.
The real question is does Trump have the patience and mental capacity to sit down and listen to Putin. This is a person who won’t even look at daily Presidential briefs unless presented in bullet form single sentences. And even then it’s seems he only looks at the DPB less then weekly.
Jacques Baud in conversation with Glenn Diesen, recommended.
He speaks about the conflict´s genesis and his assessment of the upcoming meeting.
Jacques Baud: Europe’s Dishonesty Exposed as Project Ukraine Collapses
Glenn Diesen
Aug 12, 2025
85 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/jacques-baud-europes-dishonesty-exposed
“Is this a war within Ukraine, a Russian-Ukrainian War, or a NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine? The failure to reach a common understanding of the war results in a failure to agree on what peace requires. However, many of the misunderstandings are based on false narratives. As Project Ukraine collapses, the intellectual dishonesty in Europe is exposed.”
Baud doubts this meeting will lead to anything.
So, Putin and Trump, despite opposition in many cases from their own political elite, are sitting down to begin the hard work of stopping war and promoting peace. Traditionally, especially in Western countries, this was seen as a noble endeavor, at least nominally.
In contrast, Europe and America’s elite political classes, and the Western mainstream press are frothing at the mouth, barking mad war mongers ready to sacrifice any number of lives in order to preserve their power and prestige for a bit longer. Not even to mention their disgusting support for the ongoing human catastrophe and genocide in Gaza.
Perhaps these self-serving war mongering monsters, mortal enemies of the entire human race, should be tried for crimes against humanity and placed in locked rooms, and kept there. Forever. Would the world not instantly become a better and safer place for everyone? What are laws for, after all?
I hate to tell you but your first sentence is based on a huge misapprehension promoted by the media and Trump’s team.
Russia has not budged from its position. The US and Ukraine will not meet it. There is no bargaining overlap.
Russia and the US may make progress on some important issues, but the Ukraine war will not be one of them.
Yes, thank you. In fact I meant to emphasize meeting and talking as the necessary first step to any kind of progress on general coexistence and noting the way that the “neocon” demographic is terrified of and will try to sabotage any kind of movement for peace rather than war. Ordinary people are generally not in favor of war and so the “neocon” elites must use every means possible to make sure that any moves for peace cannot take place. I think this is utterly monstrous and that we are running out of chances. This is why I refer to the compulsive mindset of neocons, Zionists and fascists as like a malignant tumor in the body of humanity.
Re: alleged breakthrough north of Pokrovsk/Krasnoarmejsk (really, north of Rodinskoe, which is north of Mirnograd/Dimitrov).
First, chronology.
Two days ago, various Ukrainian channels (DeepState, etc.) began to report an alleged breakthrough “towards Dobropolje”, really towards the road to the east of that town. At this point, most of the Russian media and blogosphere is silent, though a few mid-tier bloggers do pick it up and repost.
Yesterday, the Ukrainians were talking about the breakthrough on their TV news, and western newspapers (Telegraph, etc.) joined in. But note, most of Telegraph’s sources are…bloggers, primarily on the Ukrainian side. Russian TV news and Group of Forces North (but not MoD) put up stories in the vein of “this is what THEY are saying”, without confirming or denying. Russian milblogs were split 50/50, some urging caution until actual video evidence is produced, others throwing said caution to the wind.
Today, thus far, MoD-affiliated channels have confirmed that they are cutting the roads to the west of Pokrovsk/Krasnoarmejsk and to the north of Rodinskoe, but no word about the “breakthrough” to Dobropolje.
The problem thus far is that we really do have no evidence other than Ukrainian blog posts (sometimes reposted or rewritten by some Russian milblogs), plus a few social media statements by this “Azov” officer or that politician. Nothing else, so far as I can tell, is in the public domain. And it would not be the first time, even within the past month or two, that Ukrainians first reported that a particular place was “taken” by the Russians, and then “liberated” again by the Ukrainians, whereas the Russian side reported no fighting at all along that part of the frontline.
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We know for a fact that the Ukrainians have a dire infantry shortage, and that the Russians have been using this to infiltrate small infantry teams behind the frontline. The infiltration itself is a nuisance, but means nothing from an operational standpoint. IF the infiltrating infantry can establish a defensive position, and IF a logistics corridor can be created between that position and the original frontline, and IF this corridor can be protected from any counterattacks (or if no counterattacks are forthcoming) – then we have the frontline actually move, and any bypassed enemy positions effectively become cut off and can be cleared out at will (the Russian military uses the term “cleaning out”, same difference). Otherwise, the infiltrating groups have to fall back, and although in the process they can make a lot of hay by ambushing logistics or isolated positions, the frontline itself does not move. Or, like in a few instances during the earlier stages of the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the infiltrating (British) troops become cut off and mopped up by newly arrived enemy reserves (basically, the Brits could not push the logistics corridor through past German minefields and artillery fire).
Incidentally, during World War II the Soviets used infiltrating teams a LOT, though mostly to gather intel and disrupt German logistics. This is what happens when you have a very, very long frontline with insufficient infantry coverage.
So I’ll readily accept that the Russians here have sent a bunch of small teams to range 10-15 miles behind Ukrainian lines and see what can be got. There is a significant stretch between that and a “breakthrough”, however. And thus far, however much one may or may not wish to believe the sayso of some mostly Ukrainian bloggers and all and sundry, I would rather wait for Indisputable Visual Evidence of something, of anything, before committing.
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Obviously, none of this is going to have an iota of an impact on the Russian position at the Alaska meeting. Or shouldn’t, at any rate.
Also, too, while everyone’s eyes are firmly fixed on Pokrovsk/Krasnoarmejsk, I would point fingers squarely in the direction of Kupyansk, where the Russians are quietly but steadily encircling the city from the west (!!). Which encirclement, if completed, would not only put Kupyansk itself in jeopardy, but also cut off literally the last remaining route across the Oskol river for the entire Ukrainian group of forces on the left (eastern) bank. [The Russians have to go a bit south of Kupyansk for this, but I am assuming that’s the overall plan.]
I don’t think Mr Putin will want a dramatic breakthrough to complicate his meeting with Mr Trump, expect a consolidation for a period for political reasons, Russian logistics are not set up for quick breakthroughs either yet. When you see new truck factories being built instead of drone factories, Europe should start to worry.
Mr Putin will want to see if Mr Trump’s mind has worsened as much as it looks like from outside or if he is operating on the madman theory of politics. Only a long personal meeting can tell him this, the mask Mr Trump is using doesn’t seem to be able to stay in place for too long without slipping and such judgements are Mr Putin’s core competency.
Russian logistics are train centered. EU should start to worry only when Russians start building large number of not-for-export standard-gauge wagons.
Here is another interpretation of what might be going on. (from Coffee and Covid, Aug. 13 2025).
” Robert Barnes is an American litigator and another veteran of the pandemic legal wars. He often pops up on podcasts and offers insightful commentary about current events…Barnes is fascinated by the timing of all these Trump events and he agrees the timeline is probably not coincidental. On a podcast on Monday Robert pointed out the remarkable and absolutely correct fact that, until Tulsi Gabbard began declassifying RussiaGate evidence, Trump was still stymied under a black “Russian influence” cloud.
No matter what he did to settle the war, if he gave any concessions to Putin, no matter how reasonable or justified, his enemies would have instantly accused him of “selling out” to Russia. They’d have hung him higher than Haman, with the rope of Russia collusion.
Barnes is right. Trump was stuck. It was like a hostage situation; his enemies were still holding Russia Collusion at a secret location, to force Trump to stay in his lane. Then, a few weeks ago, Trump sent in a rhetorical special forces team and started declassifying documents, one after another.
Now, everything has changed.
Within a handful of weeks, all Trump’s enemies have now lawyered up. And their lawyers have surely told them to shut up. Anyone who now accuses Trump of being compromised by Russia risks being linked to the seditious plot.
In other words, it had to happen in this order. Trump had to draw out the poison. First declass, then peace deals. In hindsight, it seems obvious that Trump could never settle the proxy war with Putin until after he’d briefed the public on where the RussiaGate allegations originally came from.
The mind-blowing implication is that this sudden and unexpected meeting between Trump and Putin was not a happy recent accident, but was planned long ago, before the declassifications began.
And if that is the case, then whatever the two leaders plan to do has also been long in the works. And if that is true, then it may not, as I thought and many others suggested, be a dud of a meeting where they only ‘make progress’ but don’t agree on anything.
Instead, it could be something historic. Maybe ending the Proxy War. Maybe something even bigger than that.”
Certainly selling out Ukraine and the EU. Trump and Putin agree that both need to be dismembered – different reasons, but identical goals.
Maybe five dimensional chess!
Maybe got Epstein off the news cycle…
Strategic coherence in evidence to date would obviate your hypothesis, but one can hope!
Trump plays five dimensional golf, and cheats.
His ball travels through time and space, and miraculously always ends up out of the bunker and closer to the hole.
The golfer Arnold Palmer had a bunch of followers who “helped” him out on the golf course and who were named “Palmer’s Army” I believe. Opponent’s balls would get kicked away into the rough or be stomped into the ground.
https://x.com/clement_molin/status/1955602490994401453
https://xcancel.com/clement_molin/status/1955602490994401453
Between Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, I mapped 3 200 russian 🇷🇺 airstrikes in 3 months, including 1 400 new ones from july 11th to august 11th.
Russian airforce is launching massive strikes at ukrainian 🇺🇦position, supporting a large offensive.
🧵THREAD🧵1/23 ⬇️
As an Alaskan resident, this meeting will provide some diversion. A pretty good trick to stage an event and to arrange hotel rooms in mid August in Anchorage during the height of tourist season. Oops…JBER will work. As best as I can figure, the Trump Team wil be bright eyed and bushy tailed after an early morning alpine start to make the meeting. Great planning. There will be no arab sheiks to greet the US delegation just the likes of Murkowski, Sullivan, Begich, Dunleavy, and Palin, they let them past the gate, It seems Trump insists on an immediate cease fire and Putin argues for a global security arrangement. If Putin doesn’t get abducted, then he will call for a second meeting which means Trump will have to learn to negotiate or further escalate as he buys and bullies his way into the conflict in Ukraine.
Is the venue down stream from one of those collapsing glaciers?
“Help us Obi wan Matanuska, you’re our only hope.”
Give Col. MacGregor a medal.
The adult in the room along with John Helmer, Lawrence Wilkerson and Larry Johnson.
Thanks for this article. I continue to be amazed at just how wrong the reporting on all of this continues to be in the MSM, and even in much of the alternative media. America/NATO has lost in Ukraine. Ukraine is being destroyed at this point because it was stupid enough to believe the Western elites that told them the West would win this war.
Let’s hope that Trump can do something like re-start nuke treaty talks with the other world powers, but honestly, given the unreal world that our elites choose to occupy, I expect nothing of substance from this meeting.