It was inevitable. We have been together from the outset of the conversation where we admitted to ourselves that sooner or later the pretending was going to have to stop. Well, here we are.
President Donald Trump begins a very uncomfortable process to peel back the mask that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy represents.
If you haven’t read this consider having a look – How the U.S. Government Controls the Ukrainian Media
USAID funded the vast majority of ‘independent’ media in Ukraine. What American taxpayers don’t realize is that their money went to suppressing the truth.
The camera was rolling when chaos erupted. It was January 21, 2024, and an independent Ukrainian journalist named Ostap Stakhiv was livestreaming a call with Vasyl Pleskach, a man claiming he was being illegally detained by Ukraine’s infamous military conscription unit, the TCC. The agency has been accused of kidnapping men from the street and forcing them to the front lines. Those who resist have sometimes been tortured—and in several well-documented cases—killed.
In the middle of the interview, Stakhiv called the police to see if they would free Pleskach from the clutches of the TCC. Just then, with the police still on the line, a burly figure entered Vasyl’s frame, walked over to Pleskach, and struck him hard in the face. His phone tumbled to the ground, landing sideways, but still recording. “They’re beating him right now,” Stakhiv told the police, as Vasyl’s picture went haywire. “People are watching it live. They’re beating him as we speak. Go to my YouTube channel and see it for yourself.” Off-screen, Pleskach’s screams were audible for another minute before the line was disconnected.
Volodymyr Zelensky will be forced to hold elections which could oust him from office as the price of peace, under a provisional agreement reached by the US and Russia.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, met in Saudi Arabia for the first time on Tuesday to discuss terms to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
After more than four hours of talks, it emerged that both sides had agreed elections should be held in Ukraine before a final peace settlement is reached.
Alarmed that a Trump-Putin deal could be cut without input from Europe or Ukraine, President Macron is gathering today leaders of Europe’s largest nations for an emergency meeting at Paris. Their parley will coincide with the arrival of President Trump’s negotiating team in Saudi Arabia to jump-start talks with their Russian counterparts ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, starting in ten days.
To build on these preliminary talks, President Trump predicted to reporters yesterday that he could meet “very soon” with President Putin. The goals of the parley at Paris include forging a common negotiating position on Ukraine, selecting a European envoy to participate in peace talks, advancing a military aid package for Ukraine, and rethinking European defense in the event that, after 75 years, Washington goes wobbly.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the creation of an “army of Europe” to challenge Vladimir Putin. Presumably, this would resemble a Europeanised Nato, to which Zelensky would expect an invitation. Later in the day, Poland’s Foreign Minister swatted away the idea.
Excluded from talks between the U.S. and Russia, European leaders consider dramatic and immediate change
MUNICH—As the U.S. and Russia begin negotiations this coming week about the fate of Ukraine and European security, the shared view in Washington and in Moscow these days is open contempt for the leaders of Europe.
What happens next will determine whether the alliance of European democracies, inside and outside the European Union, will remain a significant player on the increasingly brutal international stage, where the niceties of the post-World War II international order no longer apply.
“Denial is no longer possible. The message is clear: It’s time to take our responsibilities, to safeguard our own security,” said France’s European affairs minister, Benjamin Haddad. “The first test would be to refuse a capitulation in Ukraine.”
(Link fixed)
The Trump administration has reportedly called on European nations to outline the number of troops and weapons they are willing to commit to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine amid growing complaints from the continent of being sidelined from negotiations.
According to German broadcaster NTV, Washington has told Berlin and other European capitals to complete a questionnaire detailing the strength of their potential military commitments to Ukraine.
Negotiations aimed at freezing the conflict could finally put an end to the fighting – and lay the foundation for a new world order
It is the ending no one in Ukraine wanted, and few believe can last. Kyiv will surrender 20 per cent of its land to Russia as it is partitioned along an 800-mile, heavily militarised border.
The peace will be secured by Vladimir Putin’s word as a gentleman, and a multinational force with no American involvement. Neither America nor Nato at large will be obliged to defend Ukraine should Russia attack again.
The obvious risks of such a settlement are one thing. But what has shocked European governments is that Donald Trump and Putin appear to have hammered it out without talking to anyone else. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky only met vice-president JD Vance as an afterthought, on Friday. But it was clear the real action had taken place between the two presidents – Trump and Putin – elsewhere. “Bastards” one British defence official said of the Americans on hearing of the purported plan.
The blunt announcement that there would be no Nato membership for the country was hard to take for those who are paying the highest price for freedom
Icy winds whipped at the forest of flags honouring Ukraine’s war dead on Friday as soldiers joined the bereaved in Kyiv’s Independence Square to contemplate the kind of peace that leaders in the White House and Kremlin were conspiring to force on them.
The blunt announcement that there would be no Nato membership for Ukraine, along with President Trump’s warm words for Vladimir Putin, hit with a heavy thud among those who have paid and are paying the highest price for Ukraine’s freedom.
“What can I say?” asked Yura, a middle-aged volunteer soldier home for two days from the front outside Pokrovsk where Ukrainian forces are battling to prevent Russian troops breaking through their last defensive lines.
Ukraine’s future is the focus of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), just days after a shock phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they agreed to begin negotiations to end the Ukraine war.
Describing the call earlier this week as “great”, Trump said there was a “good possibility of ending that horrible, very bloody war”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that his country must not be left out of any peace talks.
President Donald Trump recently told the press that he wants U.S. money back from the $350 billion that was sent to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/0x5ZoNaTG1
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 14, 2025
Our colleague Curtis Houck’s earlier writeup of the new but not improved CBS Evening News suggests that the ongoing turmoil is driven by the newscast’s new format, editorial choices, and anchor delivery. Tonight’s report on efforts to end the war in Ukraine confirms that thesis.
Watch as anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DeBois open the newscast with an introduction to the Ukraine story…
So, just like that, the fate of a nation is decided. After three years of bloody warfare Ukraine may finally have peace, something it desperately needs. But how, and on what terms? If Donald Trump gets his way, which is very likely, it will be imposed from above, with conditions highly favourable to the country that started the war in the first place.
The amateur historians out there can’t quite decide if this is Trump’s “Munich” (i.e. a sell-out of a small country to an aggressor, à la Neville Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler in 1938 to dismember Czechoslovakia) or his “Yalta” (the summit meeting in 1945 where the victorious American, British and Soviet leaders divvied up Europe into spheres of influence).
A Russian drone attack has hit the radiation shelter protecting Chernobyl’s damaged nuclear reactor, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
The overnight strike at the nuclear plant, which is the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, caused a fire that has since been extinguished, he added.
As of Friday morning, radiation levels inside and outside Chernobyl remain normal and stable according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog (the IAEA).
russians attack Chernobyl.
Images of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant sarcophagus after being hit by a russian drone, — YermakThis is further proof that russia is a threat to the whole world. putin's military deliberately attacked the Chernobyl nuclear power plant at night. pic.twitter.com/9tqsCyVloX
— Jürgen Nauditt (@jurgen_nauditt) February 14, 2025
The United States has proposed a resolution that would mean Kyiv ceding territory to Moscow, a move that has been met with anger and disbelief in Europe
Ministers in the British government had been warned something big was coming. On Wednesday morning, as John Healey, the defence secretary, prepared to address dozens of his counterparts at Nato headquarters in Brussels, US officials told him President Trump would be speaking later in the day.
As his team theorised about what he could say — checking Trump’s Truth Social platform for any sudden outbursts — none predicated the storm of controversy that came next.
The first thing Olena Litovchenko thought, when she read the news of Donald Trump’s phone call to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday evening, was that it may finally be time for her to leave Ukraine.
“It feels like Ukraine is being screwed,” said Litovchenko, a personal trainer who was born in Kyiv and has stayed in the city throughout the three years of full-scale war. Believing the prospect of a Ukrainian defeat to be closer after Trump’s call and statements on Wednesday, she thought for the first time that she perhaps ought to leave, for the sake of her daughter. “But then, leave and go where? Europe is most certainly going to be next. Go to Australia? I don’t know. I feel angry and betrayed.”
Hegseth softens stance on Ukraine’s potential NATO membership
BRUSSELS — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday walked back a key piece of his dramatic remarks here at NATO headquarters a day prior, leaving open the possibility of Ukraine joining the military alliance after previously saying the United States does not believe membership for Kyiv is a “realistic outcome” in any peace deal with Russia.
Hegseth’s clarification appeared designed to assuage the backlash, in Washington and in Europe, ignited by his remarks hours before President Donald Trump announced his administration had jump-started negotiations to end the three-year war.
