Putin still doesn’t want NATO ‘Peace Keeping Troops in Ukraine after a cease-fire….
For Zelensky?
Western Troops deployed to Ukraine for ANY a DEAL is a MUST ….
Rebuilding Ukraine maybe as much as $500Billion….
Trump is making the US availabe to get some of that money , which Europe will be lookinbg for also….
Who will want to rebuild Russian captured Ukraine territory?
Trump ‘Protection Money’ Deal?
The idea originated in a plan floated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last year, in which his country’s untapped mineral wealth would be used to help fund its war effort. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took a plan to Kyiv this month that shocked Ukrainian officials because it demanded unchecked access to their country’s resources but offered little in return. One person compared it to a 19th-century imperial demand for resource extraction from a colony….
Terms of the Deal as we know ?….
…Mr. Trump had insisted he wanted “payback” for past military aid to Kyiv, shifting America’s alliance with Ukraine to a nakedly mercantile footing.
The Ukrainians became more comfortable with the deal in the past few days after the Americans removed some of the more onerous conditions.
While the final terms of the deal are not clear, a draft agreement discussed on Tuesday no longer included the demand that Ukraine contribute $500 billion to a fund owned by the United States. It also did not include a request that Ukraine pay back the United States twice the amount on any future American aid — a demand that Mr. Zelensky had compared to imposing a long-term debt on Ukraine.
Instead, the draft agreement said Ukraine would contribute to a fund half of its revenues from the future monetization of natural resources, including critical minerals, oil and gas. The United States would own the maximum financial interest in the fund allowed under American law, though not necessarily all. And the fund would be designed to reinvest some revenues into Ukraine.
The United States would also commit to supporting Ukraine’s future economic development….
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The White House has argued that even without specific security guarantees, the mere presence of American economic interests in Ukraine would deter future Russian aggression….
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Calls are growing for hundreds of billions in Russian government wealth frozen in the international banking system to be used in full for Ukraine’s defence. Europe and the G7 have found ways to use interest from the financial assets to help Ukraine in the war, but the capital has remained locked up since the February 2022 invasion. The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on Tuesday: “Europe has to act quickly, and I believe we should move from freezing assets to seizing assets. It’s not an issue on which any government can act alone. We must act with European allies.” Petr Fiala, the Czech PM, also said the west should use the money to finance military supplies for Ukraine. European leaders have so far failed to reach agreement on how to seize the money without facing legal challenges or setting a problematic international precedent.
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Ukraine received 500,000 artillery shells bought outside Europe in 2024 under an initiative run by the Czech Republic, said its prime minister, Petr Fiala. Overall, the Czechs co-ordinated the supply of about 1.5m shells in total in 2024. Eighteen countries including Canada, Germany and Portugal collected about $1.8bn by June 2024 to buy 155mm shells under the banner of the “Czech ammunition initiative”. The Czechs continue to send tens of thousands of shells a month. It marks an improvement from a European effort to send Ukraine a million shells by March 2024 – that stretched out to December 2024 because of production shortages.
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Moscow has dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that Russia would accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, Pjotr Sauer writes. Addressing reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin had nothing to add to the foreign ministry’s position on the unacceptability of Nato peacekeepers in Ukraine.
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Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, said that after he returns from seeing Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, “I am hosting a number of countries at the weekend for us to continue to discuss how we go forward together as allies in light of the situation that we face”.
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The cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine after three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion will be $524bn over the next decade, according to a report released by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission, and the United Nations.
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A Russian drone attack injured a 19-year-old woman and set a house on fire in Kyiv oblast, said Mykola Kalashnyk, the regional governor. The city, the region surrounding it and the eastern half of Ukraine came under air raid alerts starting on Tuesday night.
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A Russian attack on the town of Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s east on Tuesday killed one person and injured at least 14, including four children, Ukrainian national police said. Russian fire hit a residential district, damaging 17 houses. Kramatorsk, part of the Donetsk region, is about 17km from the active combat line and remains a constant target of Russian military attacks.
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A Russian military court sentenced a man to 16 years in jail after he was accused of providing Ukraine with data on a military site near Moscow and preparing attacks, authorities said on Tuesday….
- Russian President Vladimir Putin implicitly acknowledged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the legitimate president of Ukraine and Russia’s future negotiating partner while promoting a new information operation that aims to destabilize Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian military from within.
- Putin attempted to use new language to repackage the calls for regime change in Ukraine that he has demanded since 2021.
- Putin offered to make a deal with the United States on Russian rare earth minerals as part of efforts to outbid Ukraine on this matter and to push the United States to accept Russian offers of economic measures in lieu of any actual Russian concessions on Ukraine.
- Putin attempted to claim that he supports Europe’s participation in negotiations on Ukraine while continuing to show his unwillingness to make concessions and seemingly proposing Russian allies as possible future negotiating parties.
- Kremlin officials continue to exploit diplomatic engagements with Russia’s allies to reinforce Moscow’s narrative that Russia invaded Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine.
- A delegation from North Korea’s Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) arrived in Moscow on February 25 at the invitation of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, amid reports that North Korea may be shipping more material to Russia.
- Western officials continue to highlight the scale of European military aid to Ukraine.
- Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Kupyansk, Lyman, and Velyka Novosilka, and Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk.
- Samara Oblast authorities reduced one-time payments to soldiers who sign military service contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) after temporarily increasing these payments in January 2025.
- The BBC Russian Service reported on February 25 that over 100 Russian government, military, and security officials accused and convicted of various corruption charges are fighting in Ukraine.
- The Kremlin continues efforts to use its “Time of Heroes” program, which places veterans of the war in Ukraine in government positions, to form a new Russian elite composed of loyal and ultranationalist veterans that will continue to militarize Russian society over the long term.
- Russia may be reopening a Soviet-era submarine base in occupied Crimea…
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