G-7 member’s have been approached for a ‘Deal’…..
Help Trump with Strait of Hormuz and he’ll help against Russia for the Ukraine…..
Trump sits down with Zelensky at the G-7 Meeting in France….
Ukraine and Russia keep shooting at each other….
Russia has a worsening gas situation due to Ukraine attacks….
A Trump RUSH to get more tankers thru the Strait of Hormuz…..
Trump’s apparent openness to increasing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war against Ukraine, and his need for help from allies to stabilize a framework ceasefire agreement with Iran. The contours of a deal in which Trump backs Europe on Ukraine in exchange for European help securing the Strait of Hormuz — the major waterway whose closure during the war with Iran sent energy prices skyrocketing — appear to be taking shape.
“The discussions we’ve had among ourselves and with the U.S. president — both in official meetings and in informal encounters on the sidelines — give me a certain sense of optimism,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told journalists on Tuesday.
While diplomats cautioned against being too optimistic, pointing out that Trump has previously reversed himself after making pro-Ukraine statements, they also echoed the German leader’s assessment of transatlantic relations despite Trump’s individual spats with many of the G7 leaders.
The sense of relief was palpable among the five diplomats and officials who spoke to POLITICO, all of whom were granted anonymity to candidly discuss closed-door discussions.
A day earlier, Trump had triggered a wave of anxiety by suggesting that the pact between Washington and Tehran would allow him to refocus his attention on a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Concern that the U.S. president could unwind months of efforts by Ukraine’s allies to ramp up pressure on Moscow added to bad blood over the Iran war — which had widely criticized by EU leaders, including Merz — as well as individual spats with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron…..
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“He [Trump] will need the capacities of his allies of the G7 and others … to clear Hormuz of mines,” said one of the diplomats.
In exchange, “there’s got to be some give on Ukraine,” added the diplomat. “There’s a very strong expectation that he will stand by Ukraine. That’s what he told the leaders.”
G7 leaders, in response, signaled they were ready to help — under certain conditions…..
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The charm offensive had a political aim: keeping Trump firmly inside the camp of Western powers ahead of a critical NATO summit taking place next month in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
“We just have to get through this and get to Ankara,” one senior EU official quipped ahead of the G7.
It seems to have worked, for now…..
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The US could soon reinstate sanctions on Russian oil shipments, Donald Trump indicated, as leaders at the G7 summit moved on Tuesday to put the war in Ukraine back on top of their agenda. Trump said the sanctions on Russia – partly waived by the US due to the Iran war, ostensibly to help lower oil prices – can go back in place as more oil moves through the strait of Hormuz. “Soon we’ll be able to do that because the oil is now flowing. We’re in a position to do that soon.”
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Russia should make peace with Ukraine, the US president said after a “very good” meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Look, Russia should make a deal,” Trump told reporters, adding that too many young men were dying on the battlefield on both sides. “I’m gonna do whatever I can.” The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said of Trump’s statement: “I found him to be very cooperative, and I also saw him listening very attentively. And in that respect, once again, it gives me a certain degree of optimism that we here, as Europeans and as Americans, are now doing everything we can, together, to end the war.”
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Zelenskyy told Reuters that G7 leaders agreed Russia was not winning the war and they discussed additional sanctions targeting Russia’s oil exports, its banking sector and its military production. Two European diplomats, however, told Reuters that Trump had been noncommittal on imposing further US sanctions on Moscow. A French diplomat said G7 leaders committed to providing Kyiv with more air defence capabilities.
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A Ukrainian Su-24M bomber aircraft crashed on a mission in the Khmelnitskyi region in western Ukraine on Tuesday and its two-member crew was killed, the Ukrainian air force said. Ukraine is estimated to have about a dozen of the ageing SU-24 family of warplanes. They are used to launch the Scalp/Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied by Britain and France.
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Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least eight people on Tuesday, officials said. A drone strike in Nikopol, central Dnipropetrovsk region, killed “a mother and son – a woman of 87 and a 51-year-old man” as well as a third person not immediately identified, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Hanzha. “The enemy targeted people walking along the road with an FPV drone,” Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram. He posted a blurred photo of a wheelchair on a road and what appeared to be a body underneath.
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Russian shelling of the Donetsk region city of Sloviansk killed three people, while drone strikes on the southern Kherson region killed two people and wounded 16, according to officials. Five Russian attacks on the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia left one person dead, three injured and set ablaze a home and a shopping centre, said Ivan Fedorov, the regional governor.
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Repairs to the nearly 1,000-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv could take around two years, an official said on Tuesday. A Russian attack on the complex set fire to the roof of the Dormition Cathedral within the vast Unesco world heritage site. More than 80% of the 11th-century cathedral’s roof had been damaged, but firefighters managed to prevent the fire from spreading inside the cathedral, Maksym Ostapenko, director general of the complex, was cited as saying by Interfax Ukraine news agency.
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A Russian artist critical of Vladimir Putin and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been shot and killed in the eastern Polish town of Biała Podlaska, a prosecutor has said. Local media identified the victim as Robert Kuzovkov, who was also known by his artistic pseudonym, Semyon Skrepetsky. Pjotr Sauer writes that five shots were fired at the victim, including one to the head, in the attack on Monday, according to Marcin Kozak, a spokesperson for the district prosecutor in Lublin. Two Belarusians had been detained but no one had yet been charged. Other Russian exiles suspected Kadyrov was responsible.
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The Chinese embassy in London said it had complainedto British authorities about sanctions on several entities, including four from China, for allegedly supplying key military equipment to Russia. “China has consistently promoted peace talks and strictly controlled exports of dual-use goods,” an embassy spokesperson said. “Normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Russia should not be disrupted or affected.” Britain’s latest sanctions package, announced on Tuesday, includes cracking down on third-country suppliers of critical military equipment to Russia in China, Thailand and Turkey.
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The US extended by 15 days until 1 July a sanctions waiver on Serbia’s Russian-controlled oil company NIS, allowing it to continue importing and processing crude, the firm said. Washington has demanded since early 2025 that Russia’s sanctioned Gazprom Neft sell it stake in NIS, which has been threatened by US financial sanctions that have been repeatedly postponed. Talks on the sale of the Russian-held stake in NIS to Hungary’s MOL energy company have gone on for months, with the US Treasury’s foreign assets control office extending the deadline for their completion until 16 June…..
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ISW…Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 16, 2026
- Russian authorities and energy companies are increasingly restricting the sale of gasoline and diesel in Russia as Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russian oil infrastructure cause shortages.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to express willingness to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin — an invitation the Kremlin continues to reject.
- Russia reportedly has one remaining operational Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) left in its arsenal but will likely seek to manufacture more.
- Neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces recently advanced.
- Russian forces launched two ballistic missiles and 132 drones against Ukraine overnight.
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Daily Kos grunt Report for Today….
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