📰 Missiles, Sanctions, and Boeing Dreams: Trump Flirts With Tehran Inc.

Iran’s latest message to Washington sounds less like “Death to America” and more like “Let’s talk joint ventures.” Tehran is now openly selling its nuclear compromise in the language Trumpworld understands: oil and gas fields, mining deals, even aircraft purchases on the table — but only if sanctions really start to melt, not just get repackaged in nicer press releases. The pitch from Iran’s economic diplomats is brutally transactional: for the agreement to last, the U.S. has to make money too. The 2015 deal failed, they argue, because it never created serious American economic interests in keeping it alive; this time they want Exxon and Boeing as human shields for the regime.

On the other side, Trump’s team is playing good cop / airstrike cop. Marco Rubio tells the world the president would “prefer diplomacy” and “no one’s ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran but we’re going to try,” while the Pentagon quietly lines up a second carrier and plans for “weeks‑long” operations if talks crash. Kushner and real‑estate pal Steve Witkoff are flying to Geneva as unofficial dealmakers, because in this administration even a nuclear file gets handled like a distressed property auction. At the same time, Washington is hammering Iran’s real lifeline by pushing to choke off oil sales to China, which buy more than 80 percent of Tehran’s crude; when your only real customer is being targeted, “flexibility” on uranium suddenly sounds patriotic.

Iran’s diplomats now talk about diluting highly enriched stockpiles in exchange for relief, but they still refuse the one thing Washington and Israel actually want: zero enrichment on Iranian soil. Tehran insists it’s not seeking nuclear weapons, points to U.S.–Israeli airstrikes in June as proof it’s the one under attack, and frames any rollback as a sovereign concession, not a capitulation. Trump responds by doubling sanctions pressure and promising “traumatic” consequences if there’s no deal, while his envoys chase a grand bargain that would somehow satisfy Netanyahu, scare Beijing, calm the Gulf monarchies and still let Iran rebuild its economy.

Strip away the spin and you get the familiar pattern. Washington wants a trophy agreement that neuters Iran’s nuclear options, starves its proxies and keeps U.S. leverage intact. Tehran wants sanctions relief deep enough to survive the next American mood swing, plus enough centrifuge capacity to stay a screwdriver‑turn from the bomb if things go bad. Both sides say the “ball is in the other court.” Both threaten pain if talks fail. And both are quietly trying to make sure that if this deal ever gets signed, it comes stapled to enough oil, mining, and aircraft contracts that breaking it next time will hit someone’s balance sheet — not just someone else’s cities.

#iran #usa #trump #sanctions #nuclear #fakeDiplomacy

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“Ukranian forces are slogging through their battlefields”
Russian and Ukrainian Officials Are To Meet This Week

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They vwill meet this week in Switzerland for a second round of talks brokered by the Trump administration, days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The two-day meeting, kicking off on Tuesday, is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance.

Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.

While the Abu Dhabi discussions were largely focused on military ceasefire proposals, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday the Geneva talks would address a “broader range of issues”, including territorial questions and other demands put forward by Moscow.

Vladimir Medinsky, an arch-conservative Putin adviser who has previously questioned Ukrainian sovereignty, will head Russia’s negotiating team.

He will be joined by Igor Kostyukov, the chief of Russian military intelligence, and the deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin, among nearly two dozen officials, Moscow has said.

Ukraine is expected to send the same delegation as in earlier rounds, to be led in Geneva by Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council.

The choice of Switzerland marks the first time the talks will be held on European soil after earlier rounds in Abu Dhabi and Istanbul.

The choice of Geneva appears to have been pushed by Washington. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are expected to lead US engagement with Russia and Ukraine, are scheduled to hold separate meetings with Iranian officials in the city later this week.

Trump, who throughout his second presidency has veered between criticising Moscow and Kyiv, reverted this weekend to placing blame on Zelensky, suggesting Ukraine was holding up efforts to end the war.

“Zelenskyy needs to act. Russia wants to make a deal. He needs to act, otherwise he will miss a great opportunity,” he said in comments to reporters.

But Rubio, speaking at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend, said Washington remained uncertain whether Russia was genuinely serious about ending the war in Ukraine.

#russian #ukrainian #officials #putin #zelensky

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2.
Ahead of the Geneva meeting, Zelensky made clear Ukraine was unwilling to give up territory in the Donbas – a key Kremlin demand. He cited previous Russian land grabs in Chechnya, Georgia and Crimea and said that “allowing the aggressor to take something is a big mistake”.

“That is why now I do not want to be a president who will repeat the mistakes of his predecessors or other people (…) Because Putin cannot be stopped with kisses or flowers. I have never done this, and therefore I do not think that this is right. My advice to everyone: do not do this with Putin.”

He said Russia was currently losing 30,000-35,000 people a month (unreliable statement), with its attempt to seize more territory over four years of full-scale war staggeringly costly and mostly unsuccessful.

There were no expectations in Kyiv that the latest round of trilateral talks would led to a political breakthrough.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Zelensky said his country would not give up the heavily defended north of Donetsk oblast, including the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, or abandon the 200,000 civilians who live there.

He said Ukraine would play a “constructive” role in the trilateral talks but acknowledged there were differences with the US over security guarantees.

The Trump administration is offering 15 years, with Ukraine wanting an American commitment lasting 30-50 years. Kyiv hopes the war will end this year, Zelensky has indicated.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the presidential office, posted a photo of his departure by train for the talks with a Ukrainian delegation.

He wrote: “On the way to Geneva. The next round of negotiations is ahead. Along the way, we will discuss the lessons of our history with our colleagues and seek the right conclusions. Ukraine’s interests must be protected.”

The history reference appeared to be a jibe directed at Medinsky. The former culture minister is believed to have written the 2021 essay which argued that Ukraine and Russia were a single people and state, with a common origin in the ninth century.

Yet, “It was Putin’s idea first, and he is right about this issue,” says the leading Ukrainian political analyst Vladimir Fesenko.

#russian #ukrainian #officials #putin #zelensky

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📰 The Geneva Peace Circus: Now with Extra Kushner

Geneva again — the world’s favorite stage for moral theater. This Tuesday, they’re running a double feature: Iran in the morning, Ukraine-Russia in the afternoon. Same hotel, same country club diplomacy, different blood on the floor.

“We are ready to discuss this… if they are ready to talk about sanctions,”

said Iran’s Deputy FM Majid Takht-Ravanchi.
Translation: You drop yours, we drop ours. Let’s pretend it’s progress.

Front row: real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, Kushner the Eternal Son-in-Law™, and Oman’s Badr al-Busaidi as spiritual referee. The mission? Convince Iran to be reasonable right after threatening to bomb it. Washington calls this “strategic patience.” Tehran calls it “the same movie, new cast.”

Then the circus rolls to Act II — Ukraine and Russia. Same Americans, different stage. Kushner goes from nuclear deals to trench warfare in a single lunch break. Trump wants “the right deal” with Iran, peace in Ukraine, and probably naming rights on both.

What’s actually happening? The U.S. is trying to launder influence through the language of peace — again. Geneva just sells the illusion better.

If any agreements come out of this, they’ll fit neatly on a cocktail napkin — right next to the receipt from the hotel bar.

#war #diplomacy #usforeignpolicy #iran #ukraine #russia

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📰 Meloni’s MAGA Love Letter vs. Merz’s Therapy Session

Europe’s new “power couple” just filed for ideological separation. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz flies to Munich to announce that “the culture war of the MAGA movement is not ours” and that U.S. leadership may already be gone. Giorgia Meloni? She’s busy in Addis Ababa saying: actually, I’m good with MAGA, thanks.

“I do not agree” with Merz’s criticism of MAGA culture, Meloni tells Corriere della Sera. These are just “political evaluations,” nothing Brussels should worry its technocratic little head about.
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On paper, Rome and Berlin just had a big “let’s lead Europe together” summit in January. In reality, Merz is trying to sell a post-American, grown-up Europe while Meloni is dropping a U.S. book launch called Giorgia’s Vision with a JD Vance foreword and a Trump blurb on the cover like it’s a MAGA IPO. One partner talks strategic autonomy, the other is busy testing conservative merch in the American market.

Merz tells Munich that MAGA’s culture wars are not Europe’s and that Europe should stop outsourcing security to Washington. Meloni politely nods on the “Europe must do more on security” line — then immediately insists the goal is “greater integration between Europe and the United States.” Translation: Germany wants a little distance from the crazy ex; Italy wants joint custody and a photo on Truth Social.

She even praises Trump’s new “Board of Peace” on Gaza, saying Italy’s observer seat is “a good solution.” Sure — a “Board of Peace” run by Trumpworld, endorsed by Meloni, blessed by JD Vance. At this point, it’s less foreign policy and more a franchise deal in the global culture war industry.
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So who’s lying to whom? Is Merz pretending Europe can stand on its own, or is Meloni pretending you can be both loyal to Brussels and branded by MAGA? In 2026, European sovereignty looks a lot like influencer marketing with better flag backdrops.

#MAGA #Meloni #Merz #EU #US #culturewars #fakeSovereignty

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No Golden Toilet on the Train: Zelenskyy’s ‘Ally’ Tries to Cash Out

Herman Halushchenko didn’t make it to his destination. Ukraine’s ex–energy minister and longtime insider was dragged off a train at the border, accused of trying to slip out of the country while Operation Midas — a probe into alleged 100 million dollars in kickbacks at Energoatom — closes in on him. Wartime infrastructure money was supposed to keep the lights on under Russian fire; investigators say a nice slice was allegedly rerouted into the usual private pockets.

NABU and SAPO had already spent over a year dissecting the Midas network — “shadow managers,” kickback tariffs of 10–15 percent on contracts, a whole laundromat built into the state nuclear company. Now the same man who resigned in 2025 over the scandal gets caught at the border while Parliament hears that the new border chief is “not loyal to Zelenskyy but to institutions.” Even Fox’s source spells out the subtext: if an “unofficial but direct subordinate” to Zelenskyy goes down for this, it becomes very hard to sell the story that the president knew nothing.

The presidential PR line is “fighting corruption in wartime”; the reality looks more like the state fighting for control of a money machine it lost years ago. NABU says it is dismantling the scheme; Western partners say this proves Ukrainian institutions work; Moscow says “told you so”; Western skeptics say “why are we financing this?” Everyone gets talking points, nobody gets their money back.

If this is how a key ally behaves on a random Sunday — hopping a train with a scandal at his heels — imagine what the real insiders are doing by private jet. And if the war ever ends, who will have stolen more from Ukraine — Russian missiles or Ukraine’s own “patriotic” elite?

#ukraine #zelenskyy #corruption #warEconomy #Midas

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Syria Reunified, Kurds Liquidated: Trump’s New ‘Stability Product’

Northeastern Syria just got “liberated” — which in local translation means: the flag changed, the poverty stayed, and the Kurds’ decade-long autonomy project was taken out back and shot. President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the ex-rebel with the Islamist past now rebranded as national unifier, has rolled the army into Hasakah, Raqqa and Deir al Zour, chasing out the S.D.F. under the cover of a U.S. policy pivot.

On the ground it’s classic postwar Syria: mines, tunnels, blown bridges, blacked-out towns, trash, and people lining up to reconcile with a state they neither trust nor can escape. Former S.D.F. fighters are told to sign up, hand over weapons and get papers; Arab residents cheer the end of Kurdish rule they describe as a police state; Kurdish shop owners talk about confiscated property and blockades; everyone complains about prices. The “unified national project” looks suspiciously like the old centralization game with better PR and an American logo on the top.

The Kurds are being offered the usual consolation package: long-denied citizenship, language and cultural rights, some local admin posts — while their armed forces are folded into the Syrian defense and interior ministries. In corporate terms, this is not partnership, it’s a hostile takeover dressed as a merger. Their flags still hang over martyrs’ billboards, their fighters still say they’ll “fight again if needed,” but the real decisions are now made in Damascus and Washington, not in Hasakah assemblies.

Meanwhile, Washington sells this as “stability” and “ending endless wars”: Trump drops the loyal S.D.F. — the very force that did the dirty work against ISIS — and backs al-Sharaa as the new “one phone number” for Syria. Turkey is thrilled, Arab notables talk about a “wonderful future” under a united Syria, and Western think tankers write pieces about “transition” while quietly admitting Kurdish autonomy is dead on arrival.
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So yes, nearly the whole country may soon be under one flag again. The question is brutal and simple: is this “peace,” or just the latest version of the same old Middle Eastern business model — crush your local allies, centralize the guns, and call it a national project until the next rebellion?

#syria #kurds #trump #war #autocracy #fakePeace

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Anthropic vs. the War Machine: When ‘Ethical AI’ Meets ‘All Lawful Purposes’

The Pentagon is basically threatening to put Anthropic in the same penalty box it reserves for hostile states — not because Claude failed, but because it refused to be a fully obedient digital mercenary. After months of bad-tempered talks, defense officials are “close” to cutting ties and slapping the startup with a “supply chain risk” label, a bureaucratic curse that would force any Pentagon contractor to dump Anthropic or kiss military work goodbye.

At the core of the fight is a simple sentence with nuclear implications: the Pentagon wants to use Claude for “all lawful purposes” — weapons development, intelligence collection, battlefield ops — while Anthropic insists on red lines against mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. In other words, the U.S. government is saying: if Congress hasn’t banned it, we want your AI to help us do it; Anthropic is saying: if it looks like a Black Mirror episode, maybe no.

The fury really spiked after Claude was used, via Palantir, in an operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — an episode so sensitive that a senior official is now leaking about it while another swears Anthropic didn’t even want to know the details. One Pentagon source promises it will be “an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle” and vows Anthropic will “pay a price” for forcing their hand — language usually reserved for enemies, not vendors that market “responsible AI.”

The contract at stake is reportedly worth up to 200 million dollars a year, pocket change next to Anthropic’s roughly 14 billion in annual revenue — but if the “supply chain risk” scarlet letter sticks, the real damage comes from everyone else being scared to touch them. Meanwhile, other giants — OpenAI, Google, xAI — are described as more “flexible” on letting their systems serve “all lawful purposes,” waiting to see how far Anthropic gets punished for pretending that ethics clauses in tech aren’t just marketing copy.

Strip away the press releases, and you get a very 2026 spectacle: a “responsible” AI unicorn trying to draw a moral line, the War Department insisting morality ends where legality begins, and the rest of Big Tech quietly taking notes on how expensive it is to say no to the world’s largest weapons customer.

#AI #Pentagon #Anthropic #warTech #surveillance

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Rubio Arrives in Munich to Save “Western Civilization” From… Europe

Marco Rubio didn’t show up in Munich as a diplomat; he walked in like a preacher delivering last rites over Europe’s liberal order. From the main stage he told a room full of globalists that the real threat to the West isn’t Russia or China, but the ideology they’ve been selling since 1989: open borders, free trade, green self‑harm, and the fantasy that history ended with them in charge. In his telling, globalism isn’t a mistake, it’s assisted suicide for Western power.

He laid out the charge sheet. After the Cold War, the West shipped jobs and factories overseas, handed key supply chains to China, and called it efficiency. Then it tried to “appease a climate cult,” as he framed it, de‑industrializing itself while rivals burned coal and turned energy into a weapon. And in the “pursuit of a world without borders,” Europe and America opened their doors to a wave of migration that he says now threatens social cohesion, cultural continuity, and “the future of our people.” Border control, Rubio insisted, is not hate but the basic act of sovereignty; refusing to enforce it, he warned, is an “urgent threat” to the survival of Western civilization.

Then he switched from indictment to love story. America and Europe, he told the room, are not just allies of convenience but “one civilization” — Christian, Western, tied together by ancestry, culture, and shared wars. The United States, he claimed, wants Europe strong, because the last century’s world wars proved their destinies are fused. But under the poetic language sat a blunt message: Washington has “no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.” If Europe’s current elites prefer managing decay to “fixing” it, America is ready to “renew and restore” the West on its own.

The performance wasn’t about policy detail, it was about ownership of the story. Rubio took vocabulary that used to live on the nationalist fringe — demographic threat, civilizational survival, Christian heritage — and moved it to the center of U.S. statecraft in one speech. Europe’s establishment hears it as alarmism dressed up as concern; Europe’s right hears confirmation that Trump’s Washington is finally speaking their language. And somewhere beneath all the rhetoric, neither side is eager to admit the obvious: the same West now warning about mass migration and collapse is the one that spent decades designing the wars, markets, and climate games that pushed people to move in the first place.

#Rubio #Munich #migration #Trump #WesternCivilization #globalism

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Ukraine’s Ex-energy Minister Has Been Accused of Laundering Money


Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency accused an ex-energy minister on Monday of laundering €200 millions of kickbacks in a corruption case that has shaken the wartime government, a day after he was detained trying to leave the country.

German Galushchenko, who served as energy minister from 2021-2025 and then briefly as justice minister until he resigned over the scandal last year, became one of the most senior officials detained in the “Midas” case, over an alleged $230 million kickback scheme at the state nuclear company.

The case has ensnared senior officials and members of Ukraine’s business elite — including a former close associate of Zelensky from his pre-political media career — and caused concern among Kyiv’s Western allies.

Galushchenko “was exposed for money laundering and participation in a criminal organization” by corruption investigation agency NABU and its prosecuting sister agency SAPO, according to a statement from NABU.

It said more than $7 million had been transferred to foreign accounts naming Galushchenko’s wife and four children as beneficiaries.

Some was spent on educating the children at elite schools in Switzerland and some placed in “a deposit, from which the family of the high-ranking official received additional income and spent it on their own needs.”

Galushchenko has denied wrongdoing. There was no reply to a message sent to him seeking comment and Reuters was unable to locate a lawyer representing him.

NABU had said on Sunday that he was detained “while crossing the state border,” without specifying where the arrest took place.

Prosecutors say participants in the Midas scheme squeezed nuclear company Energoatom’s contractors for bribes to complete projects, including structures to protect energy facilities from Russian airstrikes.

They had previously said the plot was organized by former Zelenskyy associate Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel before he could be arrested in November.

Mindich, who founded the TV studio behind the hit sitcom that brought Zelenskyy fame as an actor before he entered politics, has denied wrongdoing.

A former deputy prime minister was arrested in November and NABU has said other former senior officials are under investigation.

The case sparked a political scandal last year that led to the ouster of Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and fueled new public anger at lingering corruption as Ukraine fights Russia in its four-year war.

Zelensky had tried to limit the independence of the anti-corruption agencies last year before reversing in the face of public protests and pressure from Western allies.

Energoatom CEO Pavlo Kovtonenko told Reuters last week that the company had taken a number of steps to prevent the recurrence of corruption schemes in the future.

Battling corruption is a key priority in Ukraine’s reform effort as it eyes membership of the European Union, which requires the country shake off the decades-old scourge of graft.

#ukraine #energy #minister #aundering #money

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Orbán’s New Script: Brussels Is the USSR, Trump Is the Model

“The real threat facing Hungary is not Russia but the European Union,” Viktor Orbán told his supporters, eight weeks before the April 12 election that could finally break his grip on power. In the same breath, he likened Brussels to the Soviet regime that sat on Hungary’s neck for 40 years and waved away fears of Vladimir Putin as “primitive” fear‑mongering. Those who “love freedom,” he said, should fear the EU, not the Kremlin.

This isn’t strategy, it’s franchising. Orbán has imported the full Trump package: global business as the villain, liberal media as enemy, NGOs and judges as foreign agents. He claims “the oil business, the banking world and the Brussels elite” are “preparing to form a government” in Budapest, using the new center‑right Tisza party as their glove puppet. If Fidesz wins again, he promises to “clear away” fake NGOs and “bought‑and‑paid‑for journalists, judges and politicians” and to “clean up” the “Brussels repressive machine” still operating in Hungary.

Trump’s endorsement is written into the script as holy writ. Orbán praises the U.S. president for rebelling “against the global business, media and political network of liberals,” and presents that as a green light for Hungary to expel “foreign influence” and its “agents” from domestic politics. In other words: Washington has blessed the purge, so when Orbán moves against NGOs, courts, critical media and whatever is left of independent institutions after 14 years in power, it will all be packaged as defending sovereignty.

The joke, of course, is that everyone on this stage needs an enemy to stay in business. Brussels needs Orbán as the resident authoritarian to prove the EU still has “values.” Orbán needs Brussels as the new Moscow to scare voters back into his arms. Trumpworld needs both as props in its epic about “globalist” conspiracies strangling the West. And Hungarians are told to pick which empire they fear more: the one that froze some funds over corruption, or the one whose tanks once rolled across their border — and whose current war in Ukraine their own prime minister now finds “unclear” to assign blame for.

#hungary #orban #eu #trump #elections #fakeSovereignty

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Geneva Is Not About Peace. It’s About Real Estate.

In Geneva today they’re not really talking about “peace,” they’re haggling over square kilometers. The third round of U.S.-mediated talks between Ukraine and Russia opens with one central question: how much of Ukraine’s land can be carved off and still be sold as an agreement. Moscow is demanding formal control over the remaining parts of Donetsk it hasn’t managed to seize by force; Kyiv is still saying no, even with Washington breathing down its neck.

The cast is already a punchline. On the Ukrainian side: Rustem Umerov, the national security chief, flanked by presidential power broker Kyrylo Budanov and other officials who spent four years promising “no concessions” and now sit in a Swiss conference room arguing over slices of their own map. Across from them: Vladimir Medinsky, the Kremlin aide famous for explaining why Ukraine supposedly isn’t a real state, now helping decide which parts of that “not real” country Russia gets to keep.

Over all of this hangs Donald Trump’s timetable. His administration has set a soft deadline of June for a deal and is pushing “end of war” packages built around security guarantees. Washington is talking about a 15‑year guarantee plan. Zelenskyy is asking for 30 to 50 years and warning of “unprecedented external pressure” on Kyiv to give up territory first and patch up security later.

Officially, the agenda has “expanded”: energy ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, and the status of occupied territories that now make up around a fifth of Ukraine when you count Crimea and everything already grabbed. Unofficially, everyone understands the trade being tested is brutal and simple: land for signatures, electricity for recognition, time‑limited guarantees in exchange for permanent losses. All this while Russian strikes still hit Ukraine’s power grid and civilians sit in the dark.

Geneva is the perfect stage for this version of geopolitics: a TV‑friendly hotel, a war rebranded as “too expensive to continue,” a U.S. president impatient for a deal, a Kremlin that senses fatigue, and a Ukrainian leadership told to be “realistic” about borders that every Western speech since 2014 swore were untouchable.

#ukraine #russia #geneva #trump #war #landForPeace

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Golden Midas, Rotten System: Ukraine’s Ex-Minister Caught at the Exit

German Galushchenko almost made it out. The former energy minister — later briefly justice minister — was grabbed at the border on Sunday, accused a day later of laundering millions in kickbacks from the “Midas” scheme that has haunted Zelenskyy’s wartime government for a year. Investigators say the network skimmed around 100 million dollars from contracts at Energoatom, the state nuclear company, including projects meant to harden plants against Russian strikes.

According to NABU and SAPO, over 7 million dollars went to foreign accounts listing Galushchenko’s wife and four children, paying for elite Swiss schooling and sitting on deposits that quietly generated extra income for the family. Galushchenko denies everything, but he is now one of the highest‑ranking names formally pulled into a case that already features a former deputy prime minister, other senior officials, and businessman Timur Mindich — Zelenskyy’s old media partner from the TV studio that made him famous, now in Israel and also insisting he’s innocent.

The scandal has already taken scalps at the very top. It helped push out Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak last year and triggered public fury over wartime corruption at the exact moment Ukraine is begging for weapons, cash and EU membership. In parallel, Zelenskyy briefly tried to bring NABU and SAPO to heel through legislation that would have gutted their independence, then beat a retreat under pressure from street protests and Western partners who made clear that anti‑corruption bodies are now part of the terms of support.

So on paper this is a success story: institutions catching crooks, ministers being detained, money trails exposed, corporate CEOs promising new safeguards. In reality it’s a more uncomfortable picture: a “reform” state at war, whose president ran on cleaning up oligarchic rot, now watching his own pre‑politics circle and senior officials dragged into a laundromat built on nuclear safety contracts — and only really slamming on the brakes when the streets and the donors start to growl.

#ukraine #corruption #Midas #Zelenskyy #Energoatom

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Russia Is Up To Deploy Navy To Protect Vessels from the West


A senior Russian official has said Moscow could deploy its navy to protect Russian-linked vessels from potential European seizures, raising the prospect of retaliatory action against European shipping as pressure on the Kremlin’s so-called shadow fleet intensifies.

Nikolai Patrushev, a former FSB director who heads Russia’s maritime board, said on Tuesday that the country’s navy should be ready to counter what he described as “western piracy”.

Patrushev added that any attempt to impose a maritime blockade on Russia would be illegal under international law, claiming that the EU’s use of the term “shadow fleet” had no legal basis.

His comments came as senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are met in Geneva on Tuesday for the latest round of high-stakes talks brokered by the Trump administration, as the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine draws near.

Ahead of the talks, Russia carried out heavy airstrikes overnight across swathes of Ukraine, inflicting severe damage to the power network in the southern port city of Odesa, which Zelensky said left tens of thousands without heat and water.

The term shadow fleet refers to an estimated 1,500 ageing or lightly regulated oil tankers operating under opaque ownership structures to help Russia export crude to buyers such as China and India while circumventing western sanctions.

More than 600 vessels have been targeted by sanctions from the EU, UK and US. These measures have helped curb Russian oil revenues.

Despite growing political pressure, European governments have struggled to develop a coherent legal mechanism for physically stopping or confiscating the ships, relying instead on sanctions, insurance restrictions and inspections.

Western allies have warned that vessels lacking proper documentation may be treated as stateless ships, potentially widening the scope for intervention at sea.

The British defence secretary, John Healey, met European counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the weekend to discuss possible moves to seize tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet.

Earlier this year, the French navy briefly intercepted a tanker suspected of operating within the shadow fleet before allowing it to continue its journey.

The US has, in recent months, moved to physically interdict and seize several tankers linked to shadow fleets carrying sanctioned oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran.

Patrushev’s comments, however, appeared to focus primarily on Europe, suggesting the Kremlin is wary of escalating tensions with Washington while delicate negotiations over Ukraine continue.

#russia #deploy #navy #protect #vessels #patrushev

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Trump Did Not Wring the most Concessions out of Iran — What’s Next?


The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon.

A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.

The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that's much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran's underground nuclear facilities.

Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency.

With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.

Trump came close to striking Iran in early January over the killing of thousands of protesters by the regime.

But when the window of opportunity passed, the administration shifted to a two-track approach: nuclear talks paired with a massive military build-up.

By delaying and bringing so much force to bear, Trump has raised expectations for what an operation will look like if a deal can't be reached.

And right now, a deal does not look likely...

#trump #concessions #iran #war

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Is Rubio a Would-Be Cuban President?


Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding secret talks with the grandson and caretaker of Cuba's aging de facto dictator, Raul Castro, as the U.S. puts unprecedented pressure on Havana's regime, according to Axios.

The talks between Rubio and Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro are bypassing official

Cuban government channels. They show that the Trump administration sees the 94-year-old revolutionary as the communist island's true decision-maker.

“I wouldn't call these 'negotiations' as much as 'discussions' about the future,” a senior Trump administration official said.

Rubio and his team see the 41-year-old grandson and his circle as representing younger, business-minded Cubans for whom revolutionary communism has failed — and who see value in rapprochement with the U.S.

"Our position — the U.S. government's position — is the regime has to go," the senior official said.

"But what exactly that looks like is up to [President Trump] and he has yet to decide. Rubio is still in talks with the grandson."

Called "Raulito," the younger Castro is known in political circles by his nickname "El Cangrejo" ("The Crab") because he has a deformed finger.

After 67 years of U.S. sanctions and Cuban mismanagement, the totalitarian government appears closer than ever to collapse as the island teeters on the edge of a humanitarian crisis.

The power grid is failing. Hospitals are limiting surgeries. Food and fuel are increasingly scarce. Tourism is drying up. Uncollected garbage is piling up on some street corners.

The troubles accelerated after Trump ordered the Jan. 3 abduction and extradition of Venezuela's indicted socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro, who essentially supplied free oil to Cuba.

On Jan. 29, Trump threatened sanctions on the island's other large oil supplier, Mexico.

The U.S. military's success and technical superiority in the Maduro operation shook Cuba's leadership after American forces suffered no losses and killed at least 32 Cuban intelligence and military officials who were supposed to be guarding Maduro, U.S. officials say.

#rubio #cuba #trump #administration

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Zelensky Was Upbeat Before the Last Peace Talks — Wants To Meet Putin

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The latest round of talks to end the war in Ukraine concluded on Wednesday without any sign of meaningful progress.

But behind the scenes, negotiators have been trying to find a compromise on one of the biggest obstacles to a peace deal: control of territory in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has demanded that Ukraine hand over the land it controls in the Donetsk region as a condition for ending the war.

This is a strip of territory about 50 miles long and 40 miles wide that includes dozens of towns and villages, and sits between the frontline and the administrative border of the region.

Ukraine has refused to withdraw unilaterally, saying that ceding land would embolden Russia to attack again, in Ukraine or elsewhere. Kyiv has asked for security guarantees to deter Moscow from violating any cease-fire.

In negotiations over recent weeks, officials have discussed the idea of forming a demilitarized zone controlled by neither army, according to three people familiar with the talks who would only speak anonymously to discuss sensitive negotiations.

This revives a proposal that was included in prior peace plans, including a 28-point one floated by the Trump administration in November.

Over the past week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has repeatedly downplayed the prospects of surrendering land for peace. “Allowing the aggressor to take something is a big mistake,” he wrote on social media on Monday.

Last fall, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was noncommittal when asked about forming a demilitarized zone in the Donbas region.

The 28-point plan would have put Russia in charge of the area but prohibited it from deploying military forces there. Mr. Putin said the details needed to be discussed.

The Russian president’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, was later more positive, saying Russia could accept the formation of such an area if Russian police or national guard soldiers were allowed to patrol it.

A demilitarized zone could become part of a viable settlement, said William Taylor, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think-tank, and a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv.

But Ukraine’s interests would have to be protected, he said, and that would require the Trump administration to apply additional pressure on Russia.

“It is important that it be a real solution, not a forced solution, not an unbalanced solution,” Taylor said. “Any forced solution will not be stable. It will not last.”

To make it easier for both sides to accept the idea, negotiators have also discussed forming a free-trade zone in any possible demilitarized area, though investment possibilities seem limited in a territory that would be wedged between two armies, even with a cease-fire in place.

Most industry in the area is in ruins, with only one coal mine still operational, and the risk that the conflict could be rekindled would loom for years.

Zelensky has also cast doubt on such an arrangement.

Another issue is the withdrawal of troops from the frontline. In December, Zelensky suggested Ukraine would not withdraw troops from the frontline unless Russia withdrew by an equal distance.

At talks held in Abu Dhabi this month, the Ukrainians discussed options for a partial Russian withdrawal from the frontline that would not necessarily be symmetrical, two of the three people familiar with the talks said. This would signal a softening of Ukraine’s position.

#zelensky #peace #talks #putin

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How a demilitarized zone would be governed has also been a sticking point. Ukraine has pressed for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region, which is home to 190,000 civilians including 12,000 children, according to the area’s Ukrainian governor.

The negotiators discussed forming a civilian administration to rule the area after the war, two of the three people familiar with the talks said.

This could include both Russian and Ukrainian representatives, one of the people said, but the person noted that the sides are far from an agreement.

Another issue that has re-emerged recently is the sequencing of the various steps, including accepting a demilitarized zone, formalizing security guarantees, creating a framework for postwar reconstruction funding and holding elections in Ukraine.

Last week, Zelensky said Ukraine wanted an agreement on security guarantees before committing to an election or any agreement on withdrawing forces from the Donbas.

“I would very much like us to sign security guarantees first and then sign other documents,” he said.

“In my view, that would be a good signal. This is not even a matter of fairness, but a matter of trust. More trust in partners — if guarantees come first, and then everything else.”

Zelensky said Ukrainians must “know — not just believe, but know — that in the future Russian aggression will be impossible or that if it does happen, we will not be alone.”

#zelensky #peace #talks #putin

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The Ex-Head of the Ukrainian Army Zaluzhny On How They Bickered With Zelensky

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Since he was ousted as head of the Ukrainian army in 2024 and appointed the country's ambassador to Britain, Valeri Zaluzhnyi has been widely considered Zelensky's main political rival.

Zaluzhnyi, 52, refuses to discuss his political ambitions, saying he does not want to risk damaging national unity during a war with Russia that is approaching its fourth anniversary.

Yet in a sign of his possible desire to run for president – once the war is over – Zaluzhnyi spoke publicly for the first time about a deep rift between himself and Zelensky in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

Tensions arose shortly after the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, and tempers often heated up between the two men over how best to defend the country, Zaluzhny said.

The tense relationship reached a boiling point later that year, when dozens of agents of the Ukrainian internal intelligence service raided Zaluzhnyi's office, he told AvD.

Zaluzhny alleges that the previously unreported incident was an act of intimidation. This risked exposing their rivalry at a time when national unity was paramount.

Ukraine's security service, known as the SBU, said no search had ever been carried out at Zaluzhny's office, although it acknowledged the address was part of an unrelated investigation.

Zelensky's office declined to comment for this story. The AP could not independently confirm Zaluzhnyi's account of the raid.

Even years later, the revelation threatens to polarize public opinion in Ukraine at a critical moment in the war.

Russian forces are making slow and steady progress on Ukraine's eastern front, and the two sides are clinging to incompatible demands as the United States presses them to reach a peace agreement.

Zaluzhny said that during the 2022 raid on his office, he called Zelensky's chief of staff to warn him that he was ready to call on the army to arrest him and protect the command center:

“I will fight with you, and I have already called for reinforcements to the center of Kiev for help.”

While that quasi-crisis at the beginning of the war had passed, disagreements between Zaluzhny and Zelensky on how to defend their country persisted, according to Zaluzhny, who said he often challenged the president's military strategy.

A dispute over a counteroffensive in 2023 that ultimately failed was particularly contentious, the former general said.

Although Zaluzhny's popularity with the public was cemented by several battlefield successes, Zelensky removed him from his post as army chief in February 2024, and later announced that he would visit London.

The move was widely seen by political analysts as an effort by Zelensky to limit Zaluzhny's potential as a political rival by keeping him away from day-to-day affairs in Ukraine.

Polls consistently give Zaluzhny a slight lead over Zelensky in a hypothetical race.

Zelensky's once robust popularity has waned as the war drags on. A corruption scandal involving several top Zelensky officials has eroded public trust, according to lawmakers and activists.

Zelensky recently reshuffled his leadership team in an effort to restore trust.

The United States has stepped up pressure on Russia and Ukraine to end the war. While an agreement remains elusive, Zelensky has accepted in principle a plan presented by Trump that calls for elections once the war is over and security guarantees are in place.

One evening in mid-September 2022, when Ukraine was mounting an effective counteroffensive in the northeast, Zaluzhnyi, then army commander, came out of a tense meeting at Zelensky's headquarters and returned to his office in Kiev.

A few hours later, dozens of Ukrainian security service agents showed up at Zaluzhnyi's office to search the premises, Zaluzhnyi says.

#zaluzhny #zelensky #criticism #war #trump #army

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The raid was clearly a threat, Zaluzhny said. In the presence of the agents, he telephoned Zelensky's chief of staff at the time, Andrii Yermak, and issued a stern warning: “I told Yermak that I would repel this attack, because I know how to fight.”

Zaluzhny then phoned the then head of the security service, Vasyl Maliuk, to ask what was going on. Maliuk said he knew nothing about the raid and promised to take a look, according to Zaluzhnyi.

Later, he learned that Maliuk's agency had requested a search warrant from a Kiev district court two days earlier to inspect the address where Zaluzhny's office is located.

But the strip club named in the file had been closed at that location since before the large-scale invasion of Russia, two employees who work at the club's new location told the AP.

The SBU said that it was examining several addresses as part of an investigation into organized crime — unrelated to Zaluzhny.

In a statement, the agency said that one of the addresses listed in the criminal case turned out to be “a recently established secret rescue command post” from Zaluzhnyi.

The statement says that no search was carried out by the SBU at the address and that the situation was clarified after Maliuk and Zaluzhnyi spoke.

Zaluzhny believes that the search warrant was a pretext and that the agency could not plausibly be mistaken about the location of the country's main war command center.

Diluted strike force
The 2023 counteroffensive has drawn widespread criticism from military experts for being too ambitious and arriving too late, giving Russian forces time to fortify their positions.

Zaluzhnyi says that the plan he had developed with the help of NATO partners failed because Zelensky and other officials did not commit the necessary resources.

The original plan was to concentrate enough forces into a "single fist" to retake the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region — home to a vital nuclear power plant - and then advance them south to the Sea of Azov.

This would cut off a corridor of land that the Russian military used to supply Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. Success required a large, concentrated build-up and tactical surprise, Zaluzhny said.

His account of how the counteroffensive diverged from the original plan was corroborated by two Western defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

Zaluzhny's office at the Ukrainian Embassy in London reflects his years as a general.

The walls are adorned with posters of military aircraft, army medals awarded to him and children's drawings of battle scenes. There are toy drones on a mahogany table.

Behind his desk, screens broadcast in real time streams of drones flying over the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.

Zaluzhny's main criticisms of Ukraine's war strategy are that it depends on an unrealistic number of troops and that it is not well organized in the way it develops and deploys new technologies on the battlefield.

Zaluzhny said he and Zelensky had "not very friendly" conversations on the two occasions they have met since then.

Some analysts believe that Zaluzhnyi's lack of involvement in the day-to-day political affairs of Ukraine may weaken his popularity.

Many Ukrainians see him as a figure capable of changing the system, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst.

“People will vote not only for Zaluzhny but also against Zelensky — blaming him for the failures of his presidency”" he says.

Zaluzhny avoids discussing politics, he says, for fear of fomenting division among Ukrainians.

Despite his reluctance, a number of campaign consultants, party figures and political insiders continue to approach Zaluzhny and offer to help him develop a campaign.

Zaluzhny said that a “fairly well-known” American political consultant approached him in the spring of 2025.

#zaluzhny #zelensky #criticism #war #trump #army

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Kyiv’s Delegation Isn’t “Stuck.” It’s Protecting Its Own Survival.

On paper, the Geneva talks are about lines on a map: a strip of Donetsk 50 by 40 miles, a possible demilitarized zone, a “free-trade corridor” between two exhausted armies. In reality, for part of the Ukrainian establishment, any peace deal is a loaded gun pointed at their own heads.

A signed agreement means elections, audits, commissions, and the end of wartime immunity. It means people asking, in court not on TV, who lost which territories, who stole what under cover of sirens, and why the same names keep surfacing in scandals from Midas to Energoatom.

That’s why you see this strange dance in the reporting. Publicly, Zelensky keeps repeating the morally obvious line: “Allowing the aggressor to take something is a big mistake,” and insisting that any troop pullback or election must come only after hard security guarantees from the U.S. and its allies. Privately, negotiators have already discussed non-symmetrical withdrawals, a demilitarized strip in Donbas, a “free economic zone,” and joint civilian administrations for territory Russia wants in full.

Ukraine has inched away from its maximalist position — because the battlefield and Washington force it to — but the president also keeps adding new preconditions: guarantees first, elections later, only then any formal deal.

From the outside, that sounds like caution. From the inside, it looks like stalling. A real cease-fire freezes the front, but it also unfreezes domestic politics. Trump’s team wants a deal and a vote by specific dates; Zelensky’s camp wants “appropriate guarantees” before they even start that clock. And guarantees are the one thing the U.S. can always claim are not “ready yet.”

As long as there’s no final settlement, the war justifies delayed elections, emergency powers, opaque budgets, and the argument that any investigation or serious opposition “plays into Putin’s hands.”

So yes, Moscow is demanding more land than the current line of control and openly threatens to take the rest of Donetsk if talks fail. Yes, Trump’s people are pushing demilitarized zones and trade schemes that look suspiciously like dressed‑up partition. But Kyiv’s inner circle also understands one brutal fact: the moment “peace” appears on paper, Western backers will pivot from “how do we help you win” to “how did you govern under fire.”

For those who built their careers — and fortunes — on the war, that may feel more dangerous than another winter in the trenches.

#ukraine #geneva #zelensky #peaceDeal #warEconomy #accountability

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