My headline is NOT a fiction…..
Since Putin sent ‘little green men’ into the Crimea?
Things have NOT been what one would think the Russian Leader thought it would be…..
President Putin would like to win something that he he probably KNOWS ain’t gonna happen,,,
Could he be moving to cut his loses?
Or could this NOT be serious?
- Zelensky HAS United Europe…
- Two MORE countries are NOW memebers of NATO something Putin did NOT want…
- The Russian Economy is suffering due to sanctions impossed on it due to its Ukraine actions…
- Ukraine IS the largest European country bedside’s Russia…Russia now control’s about 20% of the country since the 2014 Crimea grab…
- Putin and Russia is isolated on the world stage….
- Putin almost had the Warner Group overrun him…
- BIG Russia has been stalled in it’s efforts to advance deeper into the Ukraine…
- The Russian attacxks on Civilian targets had NOT broken the Ukraine’s will….
- Efforts to get Trump walk away from Ukraine have failed with Europe AND the American Congress standing behind Ukraine forcing Trump KEEP support sending aid and weapons to Ukraine…
- Things are SO Bad that Putin just flew into a US Military base in ALASKA , Ride in a Limo W Trump, NOT his own, and NOT have a presser afterwards…
- Putin NOW says Ukraine CAN have Foreign troops deployed something PUTIN was animate he would NOT agree to…
IMPORTANT…
In the fine print for a Ukraine ‘Security Guarantee’ IS a Russian demand that deals with worries of a ex-KGB Russian leader….
Russian wants a ‘Guarantee that the West will NOT attack Russia….
(This is NOT a Bull Shit request…Russian leaders have been worried about such a even for ages….Nazi German marched on Russian soil…Ukraine IS sendinmg drone’s deep into Russia…
Ukraine DID march in Kursk and still holds some Russian territory…(Russia wants to Keep Ukraine territory and have Ukraine give them back Russian territory?)
The attacks from/against both sides continue….
Folks?
I don’t care what the media is selling….
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia IS and has been striking out in his effort to try and put the old Soviet Union Back together…..
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and people ARE holding their own…..
This time, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrives in the Oval Office, he will come with backup.
An array of European prime ministers and presidents are flying in for the meeting on Monday to make sure that a viable, defensible Ukraine survives whatever carving up of its territory is about to happen at the negotiating table.
But they are also there to make certain that the trans-Atlantic alliance emerges intact. President Trump’s instant reversal on the critical issue of obtaining a cease-fire before negotiating over land or security guarantees has left many of them shaken, and wondering whether Mr. Trump had once again been swayed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
By most accounts, the European officials want to ensure that Mr. Trump has not pivoted too close to the Russian side, and does not try to strong-arm Mr. Zelensky into a deal that will ultimately sow the seeds of Ukraine’s dissolution. And they want to safeguard against the risk of the United States, the linchpin of European security since NATO’s creation in 1949, undermining that interest….
Ukraine to get ‘Security Guarantee’s’ Essential to its future?….
Under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, if a member country is attacked, each member of the alliance “will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary.” Ukraine is not a member of NATO but has been seeking support from allies since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
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Working out the precise implementation of security guarantees is likely to be a lengthy process, which could allow Putin to continue his war while details are finalized.
Zelensky, speaking alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Sunday, said it was impossible to enter into negotiations with Moscow “under the pressure of weapons,” insisting, as before, that a full ceasefire must be in place before any discussions….
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hailed the decision to offer security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace deal as he prepared to meet Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. “Security guarantees, as a result of our joint work, must really be very practical, delivering protection on land, in the air and at sea, and must be developed with Europe’s participation,” said the Ukrainian president.
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Trump’s Ukraine envoy, the real estate developer Steve Witkoff, said Vladimir Putin had agreed that the US and European allies could offer Ukraine a Nato-style, “Article 5-like” security guarantee as part of an eventual deal to end the war. It appeared to be a major shift for Putin, but Witkoff has previously got it wrong when announcing what has been agreed in talks with the Russians – he does not speak Russian and has walked into meetings with Vladimir Putin without a translator of his own.
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Russia agrees that any future peace agreement on Ukraine must provide security guarantees to Kyiv but Moscow also needs credible security assurances, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Vienna, said early on Monday. “Many leaders of EU states emphasise that a future peace agreement should provide reliable security assurances or guarantees for Ukraine,” Ulyanov said. “Russia agrees with that. But it has equal right to expect that Moscow will also get efficient security guarantees.” Russia has not been invaded by another country since the end of the second world war – apart from the humiliating Ukrainian counter-invasion of Kursk – while having repeatedly invaded other countries and illegally annexed their territory.
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European heavyweight leaders will join Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House meeting with Trump on Monday, writes Luke Harding, in an extraordinary joint effort to push back on a US-backed plan that would allow Russia to take further Ukrainian territory. They are expected to argue against a land swap plan that rewards Russian aggression, and to seek further clarity on what security guarantees the US is willing to offer in the event of a settlement. The delegation includes the French president, Emmanuel Macron; Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz; Italy’s PM, Giorgia Meloni; Keir Starmer, the British PM; Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte; the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; and the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb.
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In a CBS interview after the Trump-Putin talks in Alaska, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, gave short shrift to the Russian ruler’s “long historical complaint” that “root causes” of the Ukraine war must be addressed as part of a peace deal. “We’re not going to focus on all of that stuff. We’re going to focus on this: are they going to stop fighting or not? And what it’s going to take to stop the fighting.”
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Rubio continued: “If we’re being honest and serious here, both sides are going to have to give, and both sides should expect to get something from this. And that’s a very difficult thing to do … Ukraine obviously feels, you know, harmed, and rightfully so, because they were invaded. And the Russian side, because they feel like they got momentum in the battlefield, and frankly, don’t care, don’t seem to care very much about how many Russian soldiers die in this endeavour.”
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Dan Sabbagh writes that Rubio gave the inbound European delegation some hope, insisting to NBC that a ceasefire is “not off the table” – despite Putin insisting it can only come after a complete peace deal – and confirming that the US is interested in contributing to western security guarantees to Ukraine. “It’s one of their fundamental demands is that if this war were to end, they have to make sure this never happens again.” The US secretary of state is a traditional Republican whose instincts towards Russia are hawkish, although he has a record of going with the flow when it comes to the president’s impulses.
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Russian attacks on Ukraine continued over Sunday night. A missile strike on Kharkiv city injured 11 people, said Kharkiv’s mayor. A guided bomb strike on a Sumy oblast community left a woman injured, said the head of the regional military administration, while civilian facilities were damaged in a series of attacks….
ISW…..Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 17, 2025
- US officials acknowledged that Putin has yet to demonstrate a willingness to offer the concessions necessary to reach a peace agreement.
- Russia will be unable to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast rapidly through force as Russian forces have failed to do for over a decade. Russia could only rapidly seize all of Donetsk Oblast if Ukraine concedes to Putin’s demand and withdraws from the remainder of the oblast.
- Russian forces have historically thrown themselves into costly campaigns to seize fortified or urban areas in eastern Ukraine, a reality far from Putin’s claims of rapid advances.
- Recent Russian advances northeast of Pokrovsk do not indicate that Russia can rapidly seize fortified or urban areas.
- Russia continues to deny Ukraine’s sovereignty and to demand the right to dictate Ukrainian domestic affairs.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that any peace agreement must address Russia’s perceived “root causes” of the war will make it difficult to reach a peace agreement as rapidly as Trump desires given the complexity of the “root causes.”
- Russia’s “root causes” extend beyond Ukraine and eliminating them would require substantial negotiations with NATO.
- Putin’s offer of a Russian law forbidding a future invasion of Ukraine is not credible because Russia has already twice broken previous binding international commitments to not invade and as Putin has shown that he can freely change Russian law as he desires.
- The details about Ukrainian security guarantees to which Putin may have agreed remain unclear at this time, but the Kremlin may be attempting to resurrect its demands about security guarantors from April 2022 that would have neutered such guarantees.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Toretsk. Russian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk.
Daily Kos grunt Report forToday….