The US is “not impressed” with Ukraine’s “win plan” ahead of the Biden-Zelensky meeting, The Wall Street Journal writes.
According to the publication, the Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian president’s plan to win a military conflict against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is nothing more than a “repackaged request” for more weapons and lifting restrictions on long-range missiles, US officials told the WSJ.
For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the plan the foundation for defeating Russia, and he plans to brief President Biden on its details during a meeting at the White House on Thursday.
But senior U.S. and European officials familiar with the outlines of the plan say the document does not offer a clear path to victory for Ukraine, especially as Russian forces slowly but surely make gains on the battlefield.
“I’m not impressed, there’s nothing new in it,” said one senior U.S. official.
The US and Ukraine had hoped for unity in choosing their path forward, but now they find themselves at a decisive stage of military conflict without a common vision, the publication notes.
In a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, Zelensky warned of looming Russian threats to his country’s energy infrastructure and nuclear plants, but he stopped short of laying out any details of a peace plan or making weapons-related requests.
Behind the scenes, Zelensky is pushing a maximalist proposal in the hope that the United States and its allies will give Kyiv everything it wants, according to American and European officials.
But the current state of the Ukrainian framework has disappointed senior Biden aides, according to U.S. officials who have traveled to Kyiv in recent weeks to review elements of the plan.
They were hoping to hear something tangible that the Biden administration could support as it faces just four months of its term.
Earlier, other Western media outlets also wrote that Western officials did not see any prospects for a breakthrough in the war in Zelensky’s “victory plan.”
US Senator Lindsey Graham has openly said Washington needs Ukraine’s natural resources and that, therefore, military aid to the country must continue until Kiev is able to “win” its conflict with Russia.
The South Carolina Republican, one of the top backers of Kiev within the US establishment, made the remarks on Friday in Kiev, speaking alongside leader Vladimir Zelensky. He praised the Ukrainians and their purported resolve to fight Moscow no matter what, noting that this means that Americans themselves don’t have to do this, only to provide the weaponry.
“They [the Ukrainians] are sitting on a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals that could be good to our economy. So, I want to keep helping our friends in Ukraine. We can win this. They need our help,” Graham stated.
The senator has long been very open about Washington’s true goals in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, repeatedly bringing up the “trillions worth” of resources in the hands of the Ukrainians as a crucial asset and the ultimate prize for the US. He also previously described the deaths of Russians in the conflict as “the best money we ever spent” and an all-round solid investment for the US.
Pompeo’s peace plan for Trump, according to Markov:
Stop hostilities along the existing front lines.
Ukraine joins NATO as soon as possible.
Ukraine receives 500 billion dollars for a powerful army, 300 billion from Russian money.
The West does not recognize that the former regions of Ukraine are part of Russia.
Crimea and Donbass and other former regions of Ukraine – propose demilitarization.
After this, sanctions against Russia are lifted.
Powerful investments in the US military-industrial complex. Preparing for a new war.
An alliance between the United States and Israel with Saudi Arabia in order to jointly lower oil prices and thus ruin Russia. And also weaken Iran.
Conclusions.
This Pompeo-Zelensky plan, because Pompeo receives money from Zelensky in Ukraine through Kyivstar, where he became a member of the board of directors.
This is a strong plan. Its purpose is to encourage the Russian elite to betray: a quick lifting of sanctions is proposed, which is what the Russian elite dreams of.
The result of this plan will be a very strong army of Ukraine in 5 years and demilitarized Crimea and Donbass and, with a high probability, a new big war in 5 years.
For those among you who still believe that my high expectations of a Donald Trump 2.0 administration in the domain of foreign relations are misplaced, I offer some considerations based on the ‘warts and all’ presentation of Trump’s thinking and belly-led inclinations coming from his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell. See
Sadly this two day old English language video has received only 22,000 views [the German language version has received 10 times that number[. It merits vastly more attention from an American audience. What you get here is the underlying logic of what the mainstream media falsely denounce as the ‘isolationism’ of MAGA. In fact the isolationism is nothing more than drawing back from the overextended position as global policeman that the country cannot afford financially.
This video provides a wealth of clues as to how Trump’s promise to snuff out the wars that Biden lit can be achieved quickly. Most importantly it allows us to see beyond the bravado of transactional foreign policy based on overwhelming U.S. strength and bullying. What we see instead is the fundamental weakness of the U.S. position that necessitates the turn away from military solutions in favor of diplomacy and, second, the realization that the United States has no fundamental interests at stake in how the diplomatic solution is structured other than to see that both sides make compromises that ensure the deal will stick and be properly enforced by global powers in a way that Minsk-2 was not.
Throughout the interview, Grenell takes as his point of reference the unsupportable 37 trillion dollar national debt, which must be cut back, not added to in the years of a future Trump administration. This can only be realized by ending the wars that Washington is fueling NOW.
I put this explanation of why the United States under Trump will cut all further assistance to Ukraine together with the explanation we heard from Senator J.D. Vance, now Trump’s running mate, in his speech on the Senate floor just before the fateful vote on an additional 60 billion dollars appropriation to Kiev: that in the ongoing war of attrition the United States simply does not have the manufacturing capacity to send to Ukraine the 155 mm artillery shells and other munitions and weapons systems that it needs to defend itself against the greatly superior Russian armed forces, which are backed up by the world’s biggest production of these necessities of war.
*****
Given the realism underlying these guiding principles of the future Trump foreign policy which will operate on the old truth that politics is the art of the possible, given the longstanding foundation of Russian foreign policy in the very same tradition of the Realist school that puts national interest foremost, what may we expect to find in the peace settlement that Trump may broker as from the days immediately following his election on 5 November?
I hazard the guess that notwithstanding the claims that Trump may make that he has forced concessions on both sides to reach a peace, that peace will be largely based on the latest proposal by Vladimir Putin on the day before the phony Summit on Peace held in Switzerland in June.
To be sure, the Russians will give up their territorial claims to the entirety of the 4 provinces they have already incorporated into the Russian Federation but never fully conquered. It may even be that they will keep only two of these, Donetsk and Lugansk, while Kherson and Zaporozhie are returned to Ukraine under conditions that guaranty substantial autonomy to them, in the sense of the Minsk-2 accords that were never implemented for lack of active intervention by the West European guarantors of the accords. After all, Russia’s national interest was never territorial aggrandizement but its security from NATO encroachment.
Why the distinction between the 4 provinces? Firstly, because Lugansk and Donetsk constitute the most heavily Russophone part of Ukraine and suffered the greatest losses of people killed and property destroyed from the 8 years of shelling and ‘anti-terror’ marauding by Ukrainian military units as from 2014 to the start of the Special Military Operation in 2022. They are also the most valuable territory for their metallurgical and general manufacturing traditions. And they are essential to ensure the viability of Russia’s hold on Crimea. Letting go Kherson and Zaporozhie would return to Ukraine valuable Black Earth land which is essential to ensure the economic viability of the rump state.
At the same time, surely the Russians will set as a non-negotiable demand the formal refusal of Ukraine to ever seek NATO membership, a prohibition on the placement of foreign military infrastructure or personnel on Ukrainian territory and limits on the size and capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces.
It is virtually certain that Russia will raise no objections to Ukraine joining the European Union. And it is conceivable that Russia will contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine by ceding part or all of the 350 billion dollars in frozen Russian state assets now in the West as an act of good will, not as war reparations. Russia can well afford to do this because it recouped a large part of this amount in the first year of the war from the vastly inflated prices of the hydrocarbons it sold on world markets as a result of global disruptions in energy supplies. In return, Russia will surely demand, and likely the West will agree to rescind all economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country.
I believe that a package closely resembling what I have outlined above can be sold to the American public, especially if there is provision of massive funding for the reconstruction of Ukraine using the frozen funds with Russian consent and thereby avoiding the risks of overturning the global financial system inherent in the presently discussed outright confiscation of Russian state assets. Moreover, the exchange of land for money is a widely accepted solution that even the much abused Ukrainian citizenry might well accept, were they to be asked in a plebiscite.
Everyone is now discussing a new peace plan for Ukraine. Boris Johnson wrote it, this is his plan. But he wrote it after meeting Trump and it is a plan for Trump.
1. Dramatically increase arms supplies to Ukraine.
2. Remove all restrictions for Ukraine on the use of weapons. That is, let the Ukrainian Armed Forces fire missiles at Moscow and St. Petersburg.
3. Help the Armed Forces of Ukraine push the Russian army to the start line of the Northern Military District.
4. Throw out the demand to return to the 1991 borders. That is, leave Crimea and Lugansk plus Donetsk to Russia.. 5. Give special guarantees to the Russian-speaking population inside Ukraine. 6. Remove sanctions against Russia. Restore good relations with Russia. 7. Admit Ukraine to NATO and the EU.
8. The huge and experienced army of Ukraine should partially replace American troops in Europe.
9. Johnson constantly emphasizes that this plan requires will power, and only Trump has it.
Zelenski’s ‘peace summit’ in Switzerland had failed:
The reviews of Zelenski’s latest show ain’t positive:
…
The summit served warmed up bullshit without any significant nutritional value. The most important points weren’t even discussed:
…
The war will continue until the complete destruction of the Ukrainian forces can no longer be ignored.
The last point may have come earlier than anticipated.
On June 27 Zelenski had changed tact (machine translation):
During a speech in Brussels, the president said that Ukraine wants to start negotiations on ending the war in the near future.“Ukraine does not want to prolong the war, we do not want it to last for years. We need to put a settlement plan on the table within a few months, ” he said.
Zelensky said that in the near future it is planned to develop a plan for the second world summit.
On June 28 he gave more details (machine translation):
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine will present its detailed peace plan “this year”.The President announced this during a press conference in Kyiv.
“It is very important for us to show an end-of-war plan that will be supported by the majority of the world. This is the diplomatic path that we are working on. Not everything depends on us, our production of technology, drones, and artillery is really increasing, because we need to be strong on the battlefield. Because Russia understands nothing but force. These are two parallel processes: be strong and develop a detailed, clear plan, and it will be ready this year, ” Zelensky said.
…
Note that the Ukrainian peace plan has long been presented by Zelensky. It implies the withdrawal of Russian troops to the borders. However, many countries of the world (especially representatives of the “global South”) consider it unrealistic.
In other words, a new plan will probably be prepared.
Earlier Russia’s President Putin had announced his conditions for a permanent peace agreement. How many of them will Zelenski accept within his new ‘peace plan’?
The West is “keeping the door slightly ajar” despite arming Kiev and squeezing Moscow’s economy, the Ukrainian president has claimed
Western countries have failed to pressure Russia into ending the Ukraine conflict because they are reluctant to fully sever ties with Moscow, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.
In an interview with the New York Times on Tuesday, Zelensky rebuked the West for what he called a fear of escalation with Russia. This is at the heart of Western reluctance to greenlight Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia with foreign-made weapons, the leader said.
“It’s like sanctions. They talk about the risk of economic escalation with Russia. This shows that our partners are afraid, in principle, of completely severed relations with the Russian Federation,” Zelensky complained.
He went on to say that while the West has achieved an exodus of foreign companies from Russia and has frozen Moscow’s sovereign assets in its jurisdiction, it has refrained from more decisive measures. “They do not transfer this money to Ukraine. Why?… Because it would mean a total rupture of economic relations with the Russian Federation.”
Russian Opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky says:
️ Putin spends about $120bn a year on the war – 5.4% of Russia’s $2.2 trillion GDP – with the most commonly used Russian shell costing about $500
️ European aid to Kyiv over two years amounts to $88bn – about 0.25% of the EU’s GDP – with shells that cost between $5,000 and $8,0002
️ This means that, if we include the American contribution, Putin is outproducing the West by at least 2.5:1. This year, without US support, that ratio jumps to 4:1
️ At the start of the war, Russia’s population was 142 million to Ukraine’s 40 million – a ratio of about 3.5:1. Now, two years later, that ratio is7:1. And yet, we demand that Ukraine continue to fight on – but with what?
️ At the current rate, Kharkiv will fall within the year, and Odesa – next year. By 2026, Ukraine will be capable only of maintaining a small-scale partisan resistance – and that is in the best case scenario
Sergey Markov comments:
Khodorkovsky’s forecast. If all trends continue, Ukraine will lose Kharkov by the end of 2024, and Odessa by mid-2025. From the end of 2026, all of Ukraine will pass to Russia. And Lvov will remain outside of Russia only if Poland sends troops there.
In fact, this is what Khodokovsky is calls for. This is in an interview with Bild.
In this case, Khodorkovsky simply conveys those conversations that Western politicians do not say publicly. They consider this a disaster and figure out how to avoid this disaster.
There are 3 options. 1. Send troops to Ukraine. 2. Offer a truce. 3, help Ukraine organize a massive terrorist war in all regions of Russia. The third option is the most likely.
Today, May 18, Ukraine is officially turning into a concentration camp. The most severe law on general mobilization comes into force. 1. The main goal of the law is to make Ukraine ready for a long war with Russia. 2. All men from 18 to 60 must indicate their place of residence themselves.
3. Mobilization summonses are considered served without actual delivery. And then criminal liability begins.
4. Dodgers lose their rights, including driving a car and receiving documents at the consulate. And many others. 5. All prisoners are in the army by order.
6. All disabled people of groups 2 and 3 go to military medical examinations again. And there new rules were adopted, so that 90 percent of disabled people go to the front. 7. Women also become liable for military service.
8. There are very complicated rules everywhere. 25 million Ukrainians are now sitting and reading complex instructions. 9. The law comes into force two days before the end of Zelensky’s powers. 10. The United States demanded the adoption of this law.
The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has requested council members to prepare for the fact that “very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime.”
