There has been a lot of excited commentary about the Trump-Putin phone call, after which it appears Trump over-hyped the idea that another Trump-Putin summit would happen soon. Not even having seen the kinda-sorta readouts, Douglas Macgregor was of the “prove it to me” school in terms of seeing if this gambit amounted to a meaningful step forward. If you read the Trump statement and the recap of the phone call from Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov, reproduced in full from the Kremlin site at the end of this post, there is indeed much less here than the excited reactions would have you believe. Importantly, the Ushakov remarks make clear that the much-ballyhooed idea of a next summit was discussed but not agreed by the Russian side. Recall also that Trump just claimed in a call with Modi that Modi had agreed to stop importing Russian oil. India issued a tortured-so-as-apparently-not-to-call-Trump-a-liar denial.
As we’ll review, the practical significance of this call and follow-up meetings appears more to be to buy both Trump and Putin more room for maneuver domestically. A related element of significance is that the call mildly disproves the recent din of criticism in Russia, even by the Russian Foreign Ministry, that the process that Putin attempted to get started in the Alaska summit was dead. That has been to confirm the argument by hardliners who are apparently getting much the broader public that Putin has been way too soft in his prosecution of the Ukraine war and vis-a-vis Trump, that Russia should quit fooling around with pretending that there is any point in talking to the West, and the only resolution to the war is a military one. Even though yours truly does not follow the Russian press, even at this considerable remove, it has been apparent that the Russian media, including even Putin’s favorite Pavel Zarubin, has been questioning Putin aggressively on this topic, which is out of character for the press pool.
However, this does not change the fact that there will be no negotiated settlement to this war, absent “negotiation” being Russia allowing Ukraine to get some very mild softening of a capitulation agreement or perhaps some “negotiation” with a successor regime in rump Ukraine after the current one decamps to set up a government in exile. There is no overlap between the Russian and the Ukraine/US/EU position. Ukraine and most of the European states will not accept a neutral Ukraine and in particular, a commitment that it not eveh join NATO (or a militarized EU as way to evade the requirement). Ukraine has autonomy; the US cannot do a deal with Russia over Ukraine’s head. Admittedly, the US could compel Ukraine to fall into line by cutting off all intelligence but Congress would not tolerate that. Recall Lindsey Graham threatened Trump with the claim that he had 80 votes, as in more than enough to prevail in an impeachment trial, for his “bone-crushing” sanctions. Graham can presumably round up the same suspects again.
If you look at the Alaska summit, it did accomplish two small things. First, Putin did manage to persuade Trump to drop his insistence on “ceasefire first, negotions next”. Keep in mind that this is a process issue, and not a substance (what does a peace amount to?) issue. As skeptics correctly pointed out, this looked simply like a gambit for Ukraine to regroup and attempt to rearm.
Second, recall that right before the Alaska gathering was set up, Trump was under very heavy pressure by Graham and Richard Blumenthal to impose those “bone crushing secondary sanctions on nations that traded in Russian oil, which would kill trade with China and many others stone cold dead. Trump may have believed other nations might knuckle under but was in the process of finding with India that they were a backfire. So the summit also allowed him to hold off the demands of the Russia hawks. Buying time was productive. First, it became evident at least to some that they had failed with India. Second, the Trump team finally came up with its show-stopper: it would impose them only if the EU did too. Their refusal enabled Trump to wave off Graham’s and Blumenthal’s demands.
Recall that the new escalatory demand has been for the US to equip Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles. The pretense that little green men other than Americans can operate them is even more ludicrous than with other US systems.
Even though experts have debunked five ways to Sunday whether this can even be done. One of many issues: to keep the pretense is that Ukraine is operating the missiles, it would need to be a ground-launched system. The only one that maybe exists now is ginormous and Russia could almost certainly destroy the platform. On top of that wee problem, there are too few missiles to make any difference. See Black Mountain Analysis for an exhaustive analysis of the general issue.
However, this step is massively provocative as a mere idea. Tomahawks are nuclear capable. Even if Russia is absolutely certain none of the Tomahawks fired at it were nuclear-equipped, it cannot allow this precedent. Putin and others have been walking the line of not getting hair-on-fire about this (which would embolden the many nutters in the US and NATO states) while trying to convey that this would be a Very Bad idea.
Putin appears to have made progress on that front in his conversation:
One phone call and Tomahawk Missiles are off the table and Trump is hustling to Budapest to meet with Putin. pic.twitter.com/tkU2qLKbIg
— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 16, 2025
And the mere timing of the call is a kick in the head to Zelensky, who is in Washington today to demand those Tomahawks. From the BBC:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday, as Trump weighs whether to arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russia.
Of course, Zelensky tried spinning that Russia was operating from weakness. From the same account:
As Zelensky arrived in the US, his third visit since January, he said Moscow was “rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks”.
But we need to step back and look at the bigger context of the on-again, off again US-Russia talks. Since meetings started in Istanbul, Russia has been trying to get the US to negotiate in a grown-up manner, as in a way that will produce adequate understanding between the two sides so as to lead to detailed agreements that both sides can and will respect.
Here I fail to understand why Russia bothers, save to somewhat reverse the very bad baseline between the two nations. The US has established repeatedly and consistently that it is utterly untrustworthy. So unless the Russian side are idiots, the purpose here is not to reach an agreement, but to improve communications and somewhat reduce the level of misunderstanding and friction, particularly so as to avoid a nuclear war (remember every war game the US has played out between the US and Russia has ended in a nuclear conflagration).
Russia has proposed that each side pursue three tracks and had identified what each team should pursue. When criticized that this was all too low-level, Russia had even offered to deploy more senior officials (even though its team actually was heavyweight; the US suffers from Big Man syndrome, as so apparently anyone less that foreign minister Lavrov will not do).
It was evident that the US was not prepared to do anything. Russia has some initial demands, including returning its impermissibly seized US diplomatic property and re-opening direct flights. The failure to do either points to US unseriousness and/or considerable bureaucratic opposition. I would keep an eye on those two matters as indictors of whether this new initiative is getting anywhere.
Now with that background, where do things actually stand? First from Trump:
So Trump admits to making a “shape of the table” concession to Putin, that there will be lower level discussions first, albeit not all that much lower, before a summit.
Given the US pattern of not preparing for discussions, I would not hold my breath about progress being made quickly. Putin has said he was always willing to meet with Trump if groundwork were laid. One has to wonder what Steve Witkoff said in his three hours in person at the Kremlin to get Putin to relent and commit to the Alaska summit. It took Witkoff five hours to tee up this conversation.
As you can see from Ushakov’s summary below, Putin has not yet agreed to a summit:
In this context, it is worthy of note that the presidents discussed the possibility of holding another personal meeting. This is indeed a very significant development. It was agreed that representatives of both countries would immediately begin preparations for the summit, which could potentially be organised in Budapest, for instance.
Notice the inconsistent tone: “immediately” teeing up an even that is merely a possibility. The squaring of that circle may simply be getting some national leader to agree to be a host if and when things progress. In keeping, Putins’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov is talking down timing expectations. From TASS in Putin-Trump meeting to be prepared gradually, many issues to be resolved — Kremlin:
Preparations for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump will be in several stages, as the leaders of diplomatic agencies are working on resolving a large number of issues, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing, replying to a question by TASS.
“The thing is that the issue will be worked out by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Rubio,” the Kremlin official noted. “First, they will have a phone conversation and meet, and hold discussions on the topic, begin discuss all issues,” he noted.
“There are a lot of issues – it is necessary to determine negotiating teams,” Peskov said. “Everything will be in stages,” he added.
As to Budapest, perhaps Putin was too polite to point out in real time, assuming Trump suggested Hungary on the call, that Trump is map-challenged:
It is still not known how Putin intends to get to Budapest for a potential summit, considering that Hungary is a landlocked county and all of the countries surrounding it would probably refuse to allow an aircraft operated by the Russian Government, especially one carrying Putin,… https://t.co/BL3kSk4cnA pic.twitter.com/5MzJ06VKlQ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 16, 2025
And this is just tacky:
It is noteworthy that one of the US President’s key arguments centred on the premise that the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine would open up tremendous – and he stressed this – tremendous prospects for the development of US-Russian economic cooperation.
Those impatient with the progress of the conflict may be frustrated that these talks will help Putin in slow-walking the war, which is what they believe he has been doing. But one has to note that even before this call, Mark Sleboda, who has been the most accurate English-speaking commentator in projecting how it would advance, is now discussing Russian operations continuing into 2027. Of course, that pre-supposes no collapse, which could come about due to the electricity war, as opposed to the pace of operations in the east.
However, recall that to Trump’s considerable anger, Russia did not slow its conduct of the war after the Alaska gathering. But there is a case to be made for Russia continuing to (merely) attrit Ukraine. We are seeing government in Europe start to break under the pressure of hysterical demands for more guns as opposed to butter as standards of living are already falling due to the reverberating impact of the rejection of cheap Russian gas. A “right wing” as in not-keen-about-fighting Russia coalition under Andrej Babis is forming a new government in the Czech Republic. Macron is a dead man walking in France. It is an open question as to whether he can hold off calling Parliamentary election until his term ends in May 2027, but both the left and Rassemblement Nationale are against more spending for Project Ukraine. The longer the war continues, the more EU member states will go into revolt. So as much as patience is maddening, there is method to this madness.
____
From the Kremlin website, Commentary by Aide to the President of Russia Yury Ushakov following a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and President of the United States Donald Trump:
Aide to the President of Russia Yury Ushakov: Colleagues,
Today in the afternoon, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation, the eighth one, with US President Donald Trump.
The conversation lasted almost two and a half hours. Clearly, it was a rather substantive and at the same time very open and frank exchange.
Our President started out by congratulating Donald Trump on his successful efforts to normalise the situation in the Gaza Strip. The US President’s peace work has been duly appreciated in the Middle East, in the United States itself, and in most countries around the world.
Naturally, the Russian side outlined its principled position in favour of a comprehensive Middle East settlement on a generally recognised international legal basis that would ensure lasting peace for all the peoples in that region.
A special emphasis during the conversation was placed on the Ukraine crisis. Vladimir Putin provided a detailed assessment of the current situation, stressing Russia’s interest in achieving a peaceful resolution through political and diplomatic methods.
In particular, it was noted that during the special military operation, the Russian Armed Forces hold full strategic initiative along the entire line of contact. Under these circumstances, the Kiev regime resorts to terrorist methods, attacking civilian targets and energy infrastructure facilities, to which we are forced to respond accordingly.
Donald Trump repeatedly emphasised the imperative of establishing peace in Ukraine at the earliest opportunity. The notion that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has proven the most intractable issue in all peacekeeping efforts of the US President was palpably evident throughout his remarks during the conversation. In this context, he naturally mentioned his successes in settling eight other regional conflicts.
It is noteworthy that one of the US President’s key arguments centred on the premise that the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine would open up tremendous – and he stressed this – tremendous prospects for the development of US-Russian economic cooperation.
Incidentally, both sides spoke of the profound mutual affinity between the peoples of the two countries, which was so vividly demonstrated during the Second World War. It was underscored that the current state of bilateral relations appears paradoxical against this backdrop.
The issue of potential supplies of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine was also raised. Vladimir Putin reiterated his position that Tomahawks would not change the situation on the battlefield but would inflict substantial damage to relations between our countries, to say nothing of the prospects for a peaceful settlement.
In this context, it is worthy of note that the presidents discussed the possibility of holding another personal meeting. This is indeed a very significant development. It was agreed that representatives of both countries would immediately begin preparations for the summit, which could potentially be organised in Budapest, for instance.
On a separate note, it should be mentioned that our President highly praised personal efforts of the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump in reuniting Russian and Ukrainian children with their families and asked the US President to convey his very best wishes to his spouse.
Overall, I would say that the telephone contact between the presidents of Russia and the United States was quite useful, and the two leaders agreed to maintain contact.
Thank you for the attention.
Putin going to Hungary is an extremely risky move. I can only assume that he will fly over Croatia and direct to Hungary. But if I were him, I would bring along a full air wing of Russian fighters to do a goodwill tour of Hungary. Why yes, that is a lot of good will but he seems to like Orban. But the temptation for the EU to do something stupid will be enormous. They are already setting up war crimes tribunals in the Netherlands to try Putin and the rest of his government and the British are training the members of the court in how to proceed and I am sure that they will do just as good a job as they did with Julian Assange.
So why is Putin doing this and making himself vulnerable to criticism at home for his soft stance? I can only think that Putin realizes that after the war in the Ukraine is over, that the US will still be there with all its bases, nukes, etc. and feeling burnt because they lost. That some sort of relation has to be established to make the world a bit safer. If he could have dealt with a normal President it could happen. Unfortunately he had to deal with a dementia patient and now he has to deal with a carnival barker that acts like he is off his meds. It’s not a lot to work with but I think that Putin realizes that you cannot just let both countries go their own way without some sort of disasters developing, hence this forlorn hope of diplomacy.
Or he agreed to meet in Budapest because he knows nothing will come of the prior meetings with Rubio. Keep the demented president happy… just nod your head and say yes… sure I’ll meet you in Budapest if there is anything of substance to finalize (not).
#Buy
Same vibes here.
“Yeah bro … no probz bro … Hungary for sure, bro …”
Putin will fly to Hungary just like Lavrov flew to Serbia in 2022.
Did you bother reading the post?!?! Putin never agreed to any, let alone in Budapest. Peskov is already walking the idea of any meeting back until groundwork has been laid, which is won’t be.
This seems to be a Schrödinger’s summit. Yes, there is some walk back but on the other hand they are talking about this going ahead in the next two weeks-
‘In a post on Facebook on Friday, Szijjarto said he has spoken by phone with Putin’s chief foreign policy adviser, Yury Ushakov, and confirmed that “preparations are in full swing.”
The Kremlin later also confirmed the planned summit, with Ushakov stating that preparations would start “without delay.” He noted that Budapest was proposed as a meeting place by Trump and that Putin immediately supported the idea.’
https://www.rt.com/news/626608-szijjarto-russia-us-summit/
So maybe it will go ahead or maybe not. It might be that Trump wanted this meeting as a number of Ukrainian fortified cities in the Donbass are about to fall and he wants to get ahead of it.
There will be no meeting unless the lower level talks show enough progress, which is unlikely given past performance. Getting some state to agree to be a host and booking some hotel rooms is all that needs to be done to say you are preparing for a physical meeting.
As Aurelien points out, the Russian desire is to keep Trump away from the Europeans. So the Russians will do as much teasing as they can.
Yes, it was clear that Putin did not agree to a meeting in Budapest.
“which could potentially be organised in Budapest, for instance.” is a bit of a giveaway.
With Trump one never knows from minute to minute, but it looks like Putin may have gotten what he wanted: No Tomahawks in Ukraine.
Flying via Serbia is the more obvious route to Hungary if President Putin were to meet Trump.
My own thoughts are that, Hungary or not, the EU, Trump, Israel and Taiwan have introduced unnecesary friction into their relations with Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela, and have become so irrational and reckless about declaring their future and current warplans against all four countries that there are probably intensive planning meetings taking place between Russia and China on how best to fight a preventative multi-theatre war in order to avoid a nuclear showdown.
This means offering a firm smack of “shock and awe” by taking out non-military and military sites in Europe, including US bases throughout the NATO countries including Turkey, and US bases and operations threatening Chinese and Russian interests in other parts of the world now that the Collective West has been ruthlessly weakened by the conflict in the Ukraine.
Give the technologies available to the conduct of modern warfare, I think that if you are dealing with irrational (and, in some cases, unutterably stupid) opponents, it is nontheless possible to create an immediately painful military construct reminding them where the escalation advantage lies by using the current moment to clarify the reality facing them. Anyway, that’s the drift of my thinking and I am pretty sure that the Chinese and Russians reached that point at least two years ago.
Saw Donnie on the teevee last night bragging that he had threatened to send Zelensky “a couple of thousand Tomahawks” and that Vlad really didn’t like that.
Do I recall that the U.S. only produces 200 of these per year and that he only has 20 or 30 available to send?
It’s like the DOGE “savings”.
It’s a new branch of math, “Cayfabulous”.
Good discussion on that topic on Nima’s show today with Wilkerson and Johnson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1MYt24aWWQ
According to them, Tomahawks with conventional warheads don’t do all that much damage. They are meant as bunker busters and they mention that the US already fired 50+ of them at Syria recently and you had to look real close on satellite photos to see any damage from them at all. So even if the US could make more of them, they still wouldn’t flip the war in Ukraine’s favor.
The threat is due to the fact that they can be armed with nukes, and you don’t know which warhead will be used until the big kaboom.
Can we just let go of the “they can be armed with nukes” already? And first I’ve heard of tomahawk as “bunker buster”.
Let go? Of what? The statement is 100% true, kind of in the ‘no sh!t, Sherlock’ category.
Or you’re perhaps suggesting we should expect the Russians to not care that potentially nuke armed missiles *will* be launched at their territory in a ongoing shooting war?
Or are you just annoyed we’re not following the White House press script?
Really hard to parse your comment. Please clarify.
1. Tomahawks are cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles. The difference is substantial. For one, this means that the US would be intimately involved in programming and approving every launch and every target, using US satellite maps for navigation; Ukraine would have zero agency here other than to possibly, maybe, propose a wish list of things they wanted to hit to US planners.
2. I believe I have posted here on this before; the “hardliners” and the military guys are not the only stakeholders or factions in Russia. We know that at least some of the oligarchs are pining for the days when “everything goes back to normal” with the West, and I stress that Putin’s literally very first televized meeting after announcing the SMO was with the top 50+ oligarchs. As well, not just the press but Lavrov himself has officially stated that significant chunks of the government bureaucracy are similarly hopeful for a rapprochement with the West (largely on the West’s terms), and I personally would start here with the Central Bank, which had been a neoliberal hotbed for decades, and which Putin continues to protect despite growing rumblings – on television, on the record – from senior members of the otherwise staunchly loyal Duma (e.g. Babakov, the deputy speaker).
So maintaining a ready-to-negotiate stance and putting Russia in a position of being rejected is actually something that helps Putin manage that side of the equation. However…
3. …There are also Putin’s personal biases, which he has publically spoken about of late (not something he had done previously). Every time he mentions how in the 1980s “we thought if we ditched socialism the Americans would treat us as equals”, that’s what he is referencing. He personally is of that generation and mindset, and he has admitted as much, as recently as in his Valdai speech. [Funnily enough, the Russian-language Kremlin transcript of that speech…cut those words entirely. Thankfully, the press covering the event still reported them.] To his credit, he is smart enough to understand the actual situation, but I believe he, in his heart of hearts, would still have preferred to have talked the issue out (a la Minsk-Infinity) over taking the hard line. So the Americans are doing the hardliners a favor by not just stringing him along, in other words.
4. And, of course, I recall that a year or two ago there were articles here and there about how some members of the BRICS – Brazil and India, specifically – were expressing their preference that Russia negotiate the problem away rather than continue to force the issue militarily. Mind, this was under the shambling corpse of Joe Biden, when negotiating slash being strung along by the Americans was still a thing, as opposed to the current regime’s bluster and flailing about. But again, extending the hand and having it slapped away also helps Putin on the international arena.
5. On a separate note, Russian government-linked TV is currently in a sort of a two-tier pattern. The top-mainstream-whatever news programs are sticking to reporting statements by Trump, Ushakov, whomever, verbatim, with little to no editorial commentary. Meanwhile, just below that level, Solov’ev and other cohorts (e.g. on the “Solov’ev TV” channel”) are letting talking heads on who claim that the Tomahawks are already in Ukraine, the Americans are just trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes while selecting a time and place to strike. And in general being significantly more hawkish than the Channel 1 nightly news people allow themselves to be. It’s almost as if groundwork is being laid for something…
6. The key question, really, is what the hell are they going to use to fire the Tomahawks. There just aren’t many Typhons available – I would argue, there aren’t any available, since a) as of March, there were only two batteries that have been officially “stood up”; b) the Pentagon had originally wanted four batteries around the world, but now may be hinting it wants more; and c) the 2025 budget had money for procuring exactly one battery with exactly one reload (so 16 + 16 missiles total) for that fiscal year. Unless someone plans to hand over an American ship to the Ukrainians, or unless that newly procured battery is going to “visit” Ukraine (see below), I don’t get it. Other than if the whole thing were a bluff, of course.
7. Speaking of. “The Russians will knock it out” is a bit of a red herring, if the Americans don’t play complete dum-dums. What you do is smuggle the thing into the L’vov region, pop up and launch your payload of 16 missiles, then immediately run across the border into Poland. Or hide in the local woods, I guess, to the extent there are any woods in the L’vov region. Because Russian recon drones as of now do not fly that far, or, at least, not that the Russians have admitted to in public, and that’s the only way you could realistically track these things on the move for an “Iskander” or “Kinzhal” strike (which, in turn, is the only realistic way to reach that far beyond the frontline in a reasonably quick fashion). Now, if like with the Patriots, they set these things up in a stationary position in the open, and somewhere next to Kiev, then yes, all bets are off. But I repeat, the Pentagon would be a special brand of stupid even by its own lofty standards of idiocy to allow its precious Typhon launchers anywhere within 500 miles of the frontline, (a), or to linger anywhere inside an active warzone, (b).
8. This last one is a pure guess. I am not sure how keen the Pentagon would be to lend its little toy to Ukraine, because of the potential bad press if the launch “fails”. Say, they launch the things at the Kerch bridge, and fail to bring it down. Can you imagine the peals, gales and howls of laughter and mirth from the Russian media? Can you imagine what that would do to any “deterrence value” Typhons would have against China, which is where the brass wants the things pointed (I believe the very first battery was sent to the Philippines, guess why)? Then again, maybe I am overthinking it.
I will correct per your first comment. However, per #2, it was Putin himself who told businessmen after the Alaska summit that the West was not going to undo sanctions quickly if ever. He reiterated that message just yesterday: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/78233. So these oligarchs can want their pony. Putin has been telling them they won’t get it.
And as various commentators who are closer to Russia than I am, the “hardline” sentiment is now well shared among Russia voters generally, as witness the almost hostile questions to Putin of late. This is no longer a minority view.
In addition, I did not include because I did not have time to track down who said what where, but one of the YouTubers opined that the US would be reluctant to send Tomahawks because they knew how vulnerable the ground launcher would be.
No doubt there is much more to it, but one thing that the US has actually accomplished with its cowboy act vs. Russia is to greatly increase the political capital Putin has to invest, even as Trump demonstrates that in today’s media environment he can tack violently and even reverse himself without much loss of political capital to himself.
No, Putin was still throwing verbal bouquets to Trump at the recent Valdai conference, to the degree that it annoyed a lot of participants and even weirdly resulted in Lavrov and another Foreign Ministry official to declare the Alaska summit process to be dead. Was this a public show of internal differences, or the Foreign Ministry doing damage control?
In any event, Putin is almost romantically attached to the highly desirable but utterly non-starter of a new European security architecture. So he keeps flogging any avenue that might enable it to come about, including continuing to kiss a toad like Trump.
The new European security architecture is the end game. As Russia is by far the dominating nation in Europe, it is mere logic of the things that eventually the others just have to listen to it.
A big part of the multipolar world is individual states starting to respect and listen each other and act according to their own interests. That’s really not gonna work without US, Russia, China and EU coming to some sort of terms with each other.
I’d say it’s utilitarian attachment rather than romantic.
I think if putin can get trump to bury the tomahawk idea, much like he got trump to finesse out of the ‘bone-crushing’ sanctions idea, then, that is just enough of a result for putin to continue his approach of sweet-talking trump to get the US to back off the craziest of crazy ideas that get floated among western hawks.
Trump is probably looking for a way out, just as he was before. And, instead of getting blamed for being weak and backing off…he offloads some blame onto putin for being talked out of it.
“I don’t get it. Other than if the whole thing were a bluff, of course.”
This actually makes a lot of sense coming from the Trump administration. Of course you can only TACO and cry wolf so many times before everyone else knows you are always lying/bluffing.
There are plenty of woods in the Lvov region
I was 12 years old when the Cuban missile crisis was talk of the lunch room. One of the guy’ s older brother was in the Navy…
What is less discussed too many years later is US nuclear armed missiles in Turkey.
Russian Federation responses could be to arm appropriately DPRK or Venezuela with systems that could carry nukes at “reach”.
DPRK could then have PRCs back vis a vis US for abandoning “one China”.
Maduro could be defended by RF just like Trump defends Zelenski.
Let’s see if the U.S. Navy would blockade Venezuela.
It’s fairly clear what’s going on here. The Russians are trying to split the US from the Europeans, which is a long-standing ambition of theirs, and they believe that they can use Trump’s absurd aspirations to be a bringer of peace to make this possible. Whilst the war can still be won with US assistance to Ukraine, it can be won faster if the US stops backing Kiev, in whole or in part. So expect the Russians to continue to flatter Trump, and to hold out the prospect of future recognition for his “peacemaking” activities over Ukraine. Meanwhile, they will continue to take a very hostile tone to the Europeans. Although, as I’ve pointed out many times, this will play into the traditional European fear of a US/Russia deal that affects their interests but that they have no influence on, the fact is that even the very limited help that the West can provide to Ukraine is largely dependent on the United States, and the Europeans will be easier to deal with if by that stage the US has been effectively castled. Indeed, I think both countries actually see advantage in winding down the tension and putting relations on a more normal footing. In the meantime, the Russians are prepared to indulge Trump and humour him, without necessarily seeing concrete results in terms of agreements. There’s a bigger strategic game being than that played here.
This seems plausible as an account of Russian strategy, and it is the reading of a large amount of the alt commentary on the war.
However, I have become convinced by Brian Berletic’s claim that there is no *split* between NATO/EU and the US. Rather, NATO and the EU are being tasked with the ongoing process of stretching and destabilizing Russia that has long been the stated policy goal of the US. On Berletic’s reading, I think, the end goal is a war between NATO and Russia that weakens both Europe and Russia while leaving the US unaffected. This is an insane goal, to be sure. But when has that mattered.
This is why I stopped listening to Berletic. He has no idea how international politics functions, and his talk of “tasking” is just silly. The international system doesn’t work like a Marine infantry platoon.
A “war” between Europe and Russia, instigated by Europe since Russia obviously doesn’t want one, is impossible to imagine even as a tabletop exercise. Barbarossa 2,0 is not an option, and the Europeans have no real way of striking at Russia on a more than nuisance basis. And what on earth would the objectives of such a war be?
In practice, there’s no way the US could stay out. They could, I suppose, contribute their single armoured cavalry regiment and as many aircraft as were serviceable that day. That would no doubt frighten the Russians.
<"They could, I suppose, contribute their single armoured cavalry regiment and as many aircraft as were serviceable that day."
Well, to be fair, they also have an armored brigade in Poland and airborne brigade in Italy. But sure, we would need a REFORGER effort to have any impact.
I think the hidden assumption here is that the initiative to make war lies with the Collective West. It may have been so once upon a time, but it’s long past it’s sell by date. Russian and Chinese minds were clarified in 2014 since when there has been the steady drumbeat of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda from the Collective West and, rather than respond with anything other than diplomatic courtesy and respect, Russia and China have simply prepared for the likelihood of war but the West has not: it has merely assumed invincibility despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Berletic has no idea how international politics functions, and still his predictions are more accurate than of those that supposedly do.
I think Brian Beretic understands military intelligence and war and he sees how NATO and the EU function, with the EU in a subordinate position, effectively the betrayal of national sovereignty throughout Europe that serious British politicians as different as Enoch Powell and Michael Foot, Neil Marten and Tony Benn knew and argued would be the certain consequence of membership of the EEC. And NATO follows the US’s lead like a poodle, and the EU is the saliva filled ragdoll the poodle likes to play with.
That was true of the war because he was not attached to myths about the West and looked at the balance of forces and weapons capabilities.
That is not a function of international politics. Those predictions were within his wheelhouse.
Is Trump’s international politics function of international politics? Berletic was one of the few that did not fall for it, not even for a second. Countless “experts on anything and everything” bought Trump’s junk, and asked for more. How’s that for silly?
Being down to the ground (and even naive) is what makes Berletic see trought the layers of nonsense. It’s often easier to fool “smart people that know everything” than those with small wheelhouse.
Plenty of people did not fall for it. Comparing Beletic to the MSM, which seems to be what you are doing, is disingenuous at best.
I am in Southeast Asia, where Berletic ought to have more insight, and he is very much wrong on a lot of his loudly asserted readings.
Plenty of people did not fall for it, but way too many did, in spite of it being a no brainer. I never mentioned MSM.
I also never said that he is never wrong, but only reacted to Aurelien dismissing him like he is an idiot that has no idea how international politics functions.
So who were these “plenty of people”? You don’t name names or give examples, and so ask readers to play mind-reader and get annoyed when I draw an obvious inference?
And what practical difference does your objection make?
As for your recap of Aurelien, that is a straw man and it DOES make a difference. You are now acting as if Aurlien depicts Berletic as always wrong, which he never did.
Aurelien said he did not know what he was talking about in international politics, which is not tantamount to saying he is ill informed on other topics, which is what your “idiot” amounts to. Admittedly, Aurelien was tart within his rhetorical bandwidth in pointing out amateur-hour errors by Berletic.
You also seem unaware of the fact that Aurelien was in the kitchens where the sausage was being made for his adult career, so he is competent to judge.
I follow opinions of large numbers of experts and ‘experts’, significant percentage of them non-English speaking. Of course I don’t have a spreadsheet for arguing-on-the-Internet purposes (you wrote “plenty of people”, so you might have a list). I don’t ask readers anything. They can take it or leave it as they please. Obvious things are subjective, and everyone should draw their own conclusions.
I did not strawman Aurelien, but countered him strawmaning Berletic. Why you felt involved, I have no idea. Aurelien does not need a lawyer. If you want to play a roie of impartial moderator, you are not doing it properly. If Aurelien was tart and fine, so can be I. If I knew someone would be triggered by my tartness, I would have spared everyone the hussle. I surely have more important things to do than “arguing with the policeman”.
I am also very aware of the fact that Aurelien made lots of sausage from foreign meat, and has blood on his hands. That makes him the least competent to judge, and very suitable for the defendant’s bench. You being biased towards him would be fine if you were his lawyer, and not the judge. I guess this “international court” is also made for non westerners, like all the others. I rest my case.
It wasn’t just the MSM: a lot of people linked to and quoted in these pages – Mercouris, Christoforou, Diesen – fell for and touted Trump’s “antiwar” bs. Diesen seems to have come to his senses, but I gave up on the Duran and Mercouris a long time ago.
The significance of Trump as the antiwar candidate, going back to 2016, was not his sincerity – an oxymoron regarding Trump – but the overwhelmingly positive response that an ostensible peace and “anti-imperialist” position received… another missed opportunity for the D’s and what passes for the Left in the US.
You insinuate that I promoted these sources to amplify Trump’s peace blather, which I never did. If I were to point only analysts and commentators that had infallible records, there would be no one to cite at all.
I have clearly and frequently said there was no overlap between the positions of two sides and there would be no negotiated settlement. I said that even when there was widespread enthusiasm for Trump’s efforts.
Not to defend them, in fact the the parties you cited annoyed me too.
1. The Duran boys were Trump enthusiasts and were very slow to give up the Trump True Faith.
2. Mercouris loves negotiations and sees peace just around the corner even when it looks vanishingly remote. So by the way does Ray McGovern. This is a cognitive bias.
Your inference about my comment, let alone my intentions, is totally off the mark; my comment had absolutely nothing to do with you “amplifying” Trump, but with pointing out an obvious and huge hole in your response to Ksum Nole: that even people in the “alternative” media sphere, people you and others frequently quote despite fig-leafing now about your “annoyance” with them, were wrong about Trump as “peacemaker.”
Just wanted to support Aurelian’s viewpoint. Brian Berlectic should stick to military analysis and not dabble into geopolitical analysis, where he is terrible.
Brian Berlectic thinks that civil unrest in any developing country is the handiwork of the USA. He never grants agency to local actors in that developing country. For him, everything is black and white. No nuance. No shades of gray.
In his mind, United States has omnipotent powers to forment trouble everywhere, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in Indonesia, in Thailand, in Cambodia. Nevermind that these countries all have good relations with the United States.
Hilariously, Brian thinks that both Hamas and Netanyahu are mindless pawns of the Trump Administration.
Not really. He thinks that Hamas, Netanyahu, Trump Administration, and many others, are all pawns of the same policy that is created by none of them, and that predates all of them. It’s not exactly rocket science, but many fail to get the 30,000-foot view. Hilariously, some can’t see the forest for the trees.
You don’t need omnipotent powers in order to forment trouble everywhere, but something called soft power, and USA has it in spades. Soft power is what can make some Rusians think that they are not Rusians, and wage war against Rusians that think that they are Russians, for the benfits of those that hate both of them. Soft power is not omnipotent, but it’s more potent that any other power that USA has. Hilariously, soft power includes Samantha Power, and she have been formenting trouble everywhere, and even talked about it on video. She doesn’t hand out cookles, though.
EU is not Europe. Russians are also Europeans.
Russia is actually 40% of Europe’s area and 15% of the population.
Which kinda leads to the point that Russia doesn’t really give two hoots about the rest of the Europe strategically. Sure, it would prefer a security arrangement with everybody in Europe, but as long as the rest of the Europe prefers insecurity and fear, not much Russia can do but create buffer zones.
But they do think it’s a fundamental issue to have some connection to US leadership, as US is still a nuclear superpower. So negotiations, even ones that are pointless, have their uses.
On Trump’s side it is difficult to see what does he want to manage apart from being seen as the Great Negotiator in charge. I believe that the option of leaving it all to the Europeans has long gone. Might be wrong of course.
But the symbolism of the conversation with Putin while Zelensky was waiting at the airport was.. ouch!
The Russians need to focus on winning the war decisively (which means ending Ukrainian statehood altogether, nothing less will suffice) and on erasing Europe from the map because that is the only way they can ever have peace.
That is clear to anyone with a brain and with loyalty to Russia.
But clearly the current ruling compardor oligarchy in Moscow is not at least one of these things, likely both.
I have let this one of the several deranged comments you have left in the backstage through.
Russia has a population of about 140 million.
Europe ex Russia has a population of about 600 million.
Your rabid desire is unachievable ex nuclear war.
I will not tolerate advocacy for that or other mass extermination any more than I do defenses of genocide in Gaza.
I am not allowing any more comments from you on this topic. Your beliefs are not just unhinged but also vile.
If anyone is interested, those deranged comments can also be found in the comment section on Simplicious’ substack. I think Simplicious keeps them there because they boost the engagement. :)
We have house rules to promote informative discussion. Aside from the fact that I have tolerated far too much of GM getting flat out nasty, hogging bandwidth, and never once providing links. As part of this pattern, he has regularly been violating our overarching guideline:
His intense hatred of Putin has produced such a blinkered and biased perspective as to result in functional ignorance.
Putin is brighter than all the western leaders put together and this isn’t his first rodeo with Trump. The over riding interest for Russia remains its security needs and there is nothing to gain in an aggressive response to Trump or the the Tomahawk threat. Trump can shoot off his mouth all he wants, but at the end of the day he will maintain a relationship with Putin because it’s good for his ego and his goal is to make a buck – he wants trade relations. This call was a strong message to Zelensky and the Europeans, and Putin will play whatever game he needs to play to try to settle the war.
It should be fairly obvious at this point that we all want trade relations with Russia.
As US capabilities and research and industrial base continue to sink, we need to have good relations with any country that still has its act together. Aside from the obvious oil, gas, and other natural resources, Russia as a country has many other things to offer it’s trading partners. One thing seldom mentioned that I think about a lot is the Russian public educational system.
Russians in general, and particularly technical professionals, are extremely well educated and possess high levels of expertise. That’s not only good for the society in general, but interesting for other countries that are watching in horror as their own educational system falls apart year after year. Exchange with Russian curriculum designers and teaching professionals could only be a good thing for countries looking to up their game.
I think more and more the US will have to get off its high horse and acknowledge that it has a lot to learn from other countries, and we had better get going sooner rather than later.
“demand those Patriots”
I think you mean to say “demand those Tomahawks”?
Excellent write up.
Thanks, fixing. I was going to say something about defensive systems and so the Patriot oopsie bled in.
Thank you for the attention.
Am I correct that those are Yuri Ushakov’s words closing his statement? Sounds familiar.
Yes, it is a copy and paste from the English language Kremlin site.
Trump could stop the US involvement in the war today. No intelligence, money, weapons support, remove all us people military or contractors and not sell weapons to Europe for Ukraine.
He could push the idea that it’s his only play for peace in Europe, and it’s probably true.
If he did that, Europe couldn’t keep funding Ukraine for very long in $ to keep the country open, or weapons.
So I think this is just more Trump keeping up the all about Trump media campaign. And as many of the military experts have pointed out, the continued talk of Russia losing, Ukraine winning, etc seems to actually be believed by Trump and the euro leaders. So it’s no wonder Trump thinks he has some
Kind of a winning hand to play and can force something from Russia.
I see no change in trumps play, and so it seems like more death and destruction
Yes. And I’d like to remind folks about Oreshnik. Putin said in turned the hardened industrial buildings in Ukraine to “dust”. Imagine what these things would do to Germany or France or the UK. There is no “winning hand” for the West. China will make sure of that.
“Thank you for your attention…” Donnie is sending us inter-office memos? We must attend to them? Attend to what? If Ushakov used the same phrase, sounds like mockery to me.
I have no military training or real knowledge of military history, but doesn’t strategic logic compel Russia to take back Odessa, and to be vulnerable if it doesn’t?
And how to take it back, short of an even larger military commitment?
My SWAG (I have no direct line to the Russian general staff) is to isolate Odessa from land resupply, and stand ready when attrition warfare causes a collapse of the Ukrainian Army. Then, internal forces with covert aid install a Ukraine-unfriendly government and give a surrender offer to all Ukrainian forces. Generally, most Ukrainian conscripts prefer surrender to fighting to their death (in droves these days) if they can without Azov’s shooting them in the back.
I guess you have not been following the drama playing out in Odessa? SBU came up with a poor photoshop of Odessa’s (thrice elected) mayor’s Russian passport and Zelensky immediately deprived the mayor of Ukrainian citizenship and thus removed him from the psotion.
Mayor told Zelensky to go pound sand and told him that only the city council can depose of him, and that the the picture is a fake. Citizens seem to be more or less supportive of their mayor.
Zelesnky has now nominated a new military governor to the Odessa district to sort things out, while SBU is now claiming that it’s actually the mayor’s wife that is Russian. Ukrainian opposition (Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, basically) claim it’s just Zelensky’s cynical plan to remove political opponents before elections – many Ukrainian politicians seem to believe the war is about to end!
It’s almost as if Odessa already has Ukraine-unfriendly government. At least the Ukrainian government is Odessa-unfriendly.
I believe the latest bill for extension of martial law in Ukraine is in the parliamentary pipeline. The current extension lapses November 05, so I wonder what shenanigans will ensue if Zelensky doesn’t ride back from Washington on a tomahawk, waving his cowboy hat?
This is quite the tidbit! Thanks! Where have all those bloviating YouTubers been?
To use the NC analysis approach to the latest, is there any sign of a Trumpian strategy or just the noise of (random) tactics. In domestic politics, Trump likes to throw ideas at a crowd (e.g., spaghetti or sh-t), see what they show a positive response to (sticks on the wall). The Trumpian off-again, on-again seems like the same tactical approach applied to foreign policy.
For example, summit preparation involves clearly defining the strategy. The absence of preparation consigns it to a PR stunt and, thus, tactics.
If there was any there to the there of a Trumpian strategy, the diplomatic property would be returned (by executive order), an action with zero geostrategy, which would be a clear confidence-building step.
I expect the President of the United States of Amnesia will, to form, reverse after meeting Z – just noise.
Perhaps more to try and goose the stock market after stating an intention to shut down China trade just before Christmas.
I’m not even sure how “absolute certainty” would be achieved here. One thing everyone knows about the US in general and Trump in particular is that they lie incessantly. Assurances that all Tomahawks being deployed and fired are conventionally armed are worth nothing.
Even an extreme arrangement where, say, one of Putin’s aides personally checks each Tomahawk as it is brought into the launching facility is subject to leaks; one of the strengths of the Tomahawk system is that it can be reconfigured quickly.
We can imagine that hysteria in US leadership if Russia were to set up Tomahawk missile launching sites in, say, Cuba (!) or Mexico. Russia’s assurances that they were all conventionally tipped would make no difference whatsoever.
This is not my area at all but others have said something along those lines. I think it was Alexander Mercouris who is not a military guy but prides himself on weapons nerdery when he has studied up + he does have some very good contacts. He has gone through in some detail as to the various categories of Tomahawks (as in the missiles themselves as well as the launchers). They apparently are distinct. The US has a stockpile that included older ones. Not all are nuclear capable and Mercouris indicated that this was discernible. Admittedly how Russia could get that intel with high enough certainty even if so is open to question.
It’s less the systems than the warheads. The Russians know where US warheads in Europe are stockpiled (there aren’t that many) and they would quickly see whether nuclear warheads, or missiles with nuclear warheads (which is less likely) were being brought in. Any move of nuclear systems is done with extraordinary levels of security, and in ways that are highly visible. And constructing bunkers for nuclear warheads is not something you can easily disguise. A lot of this discussion tends to wind up in the “you can’t definitively prove …” area, but then with enough time, effort, money and misdirection almost anything is theoretically possible. That said, the idea that the US would supply Tomahawks to Ukraine and then have people rush around at the last moment swapping conventional warheads for nuclear ones seems so far out on the leading edge that it’s not really serious, and as a practical matter (ie not just for political trolling) I suspect the Russians think so too.
Then you haven’t been listening to the Russians (a common trait in The West since 14th century or so). For them it’s all about the flight time, the reaction time and nuclear blackmail.
I do believe that if US escalates by delivering nuclear capable missiles to Ukraine, Russia will think it has no other choice but to crush NATO – once and for all.
Oh, I’ve listened to them and I have the arguments off by heart. But just like the western fear of the SS-20s in the 1980s, it’s all based on a series of hypotheses chained together, which don’t have a lot to do with the real world. I think they are half-convinced of their own arguments, but no more, and quite a lot of it is trolling the West. As regards “nuclear capable” systems, we have to be very careful, since this covers a very wide range of equipment, especially aircraft and missiles, and as far as I know what’s being discussed here is not western “deployment” of missiles to Ukraine, but the theoretical delivery of missiles to Ukraine which could, with certain adaptations, deliver nuclear war-heads. And as I said, it’s the warheads that are the issue, and the Russians know this. Now nuclear armed missiles in Ukraine, which would have to be under US control would be quite a different issue, but I don’t think even the greatest weirdos in Washington are talking abut that.
Ah, the centuries old tradition of listening but not hearing. Which is why we have this current war in Europe.
If the WW3 begins only because The West once again though Russians were not serious when they said the umpteenth time they are serious, well, I’ll be pretty mad.
Well, do you believe everything governments say?
The centuries old tradition of listening but not hearing, and ruling by blind madness and pure greed (as a Queen song would say). I guess you can’t teach centuries old dog new tricks.
The theoretical delivery of missiles to Ukraine that Ukraine could not theoretical operate by itself. So, not western deployment, but western “deployment” with subterfuge that fools no one. The USA wants to take (nuclear or not) potshots at Russia, and pretend that it is not. The USA wants to piss on Russia’s leg and tell everyone that it’s raining. Well, what USA really want is to piss on Russia’s leg and Russia to say thanks and ask for more, but Russia is not EU.
<"one of the strengths of the Tomahawk system is that it can be reconfigured quickly. "
I have no idea what this means. If you are suggesting you just slap a W80 warhead in an existing missile and you are good-to-go, well I just have to shake my head. Writing as someone who, back in the day, had to get the launcher side of tomahawk through the Nuclear Technical Proficiency Inspection (NTPI) for the then-new DDG-51 class ship with Mk-41 VLS.
Not sure what’s going on here, but the discussions (and possible work) have been going on since Trump I:
Big move by US as it arms submarines with nuclear cruise missiles, first time in 30 years; Iran, China, or Russia, who is the target?
https://www.india.com/news/world/united-states-arms-submarines-with-nuclear-cruise-missiles-first-in-30-years-iran-china-or-russia-whos-the-target-slcm-n-tomahawk-missiles-tlam-russia-ukraine-war-iran-israel-war-us-nuclear-weapons-7417907/
Russia sees the UK as the major instigator of Ukrainian resistance and European intransigence.
Along with Israel it also continues to have considerable influence within the US.
Splitting the Trump admin from the UK is worth the effort.
For ‘UK’ read City of London who dream of adding the financial benefits of Russia’s ( and Ukraine’s) natural resources to their bottom lines.
A second meeting between Putin and Trump, if that happens, to be fair it should take place on Russian territory, possibly another “frontier” city, for example Vladivostok.
A long time ago, a police officer advised me: “Never , ever trust what a con artist says.” Ergo, IMO, anybody who trusts Trump is a fool.
A long time ago, a con artist advised me: “Never, ever trust what a police officer says.” Ergo, IMO, anybody who trusts Trump is a fool. :)
If one trusts the opinion of American Gilbert Doctorow, he paints a very alarming picture of the attitude in Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pUbyemlm6s
Larry Johnson went after Doctorow with both barrels:
https://sonar21.com/when-an-expert-loses-his-footing/
Both barrels indeed:
This adventurous so-called “Sovietological” theory has no factual basis whatsoever, but springs from a dangerously hyperventilating brain prone to megalomania.
I don’t think it’s Johnson writing this piece though:
“By Peter Hanseler / Andreas Mylaeus / Denis Dobrin via Forumgeopolitica.com”
The job of experts is to give their opinion, and ours is not to trust them. :-)
P.S. The good thing about expert opinions is that there are so many of them to chose from. One can always find those that say just the right thing. :-)