Wanting to move on is tantamount to voluntarily leaping from the frying pan to the fire. If a US-led NATO couldn’t beat Russia, it hasn’t a hope in hell of defeating China, even if Beijing goes it alone; i.e. doesn’t ally with Russia, Iran and/or the North Koreans. Trump has made what will turn out to be a tariffic blunder.
I dropped Frontier for Starlink because of slow Frontier speeds and very bad, slow service. Starlink cost me $600 for the gear and is $120/month. I hear Starlink gear is cheaper now. Frontier was $50/month for 4Mbps. With Starlink I run ~150Mbps down and ~20Mbps up. I have had 3 outages in the ~2 years I have had it, 2 in the last month but they only last hours. Starlink is very picky about obstructions, trees are a problem. Starlink is too expensive but much better than Frontier DSL. If I could get buried fiber landline internet I would dump Starlink in a heartbeat.
I can see no reason at all why Russia would agree to other countries providing Ukraine with NATO-level security guarantees when Russia manifestly opposes Ukraine joining NATO in the first place. Whether the hostile soldiers are NATO-deployed soldiers or they're deployed from individual NATO nations (wink, wink) it's all the same thing.
Russia will never agree to a peace where soldiers from hostile lands are in Ukraine. That's not peace. It's just the prelude to the next war. To move forward, Russia requires a pan-European security architecture that provides indivisible security for every country on the continent, including itself.
The borders of Ukraine are utterly porous and 7000 km long. The country will never be able to field a military that can protect it all against an invader. The best security guarantee that Ukraine will ever get is to declare its neutrality, as other respected European nations have done. And it costs nothing to do so.
As there is now a large majority of the Ukrainian people that are in favor of an end to the fighting, many of them might be okay with Chinese troops keeping the peace. However the Nazis that control the government of Ukraine would never be okay with it.
The matter of stationing troops in Ukraine is secondary. The fundamental issue is the security guarantee, and who makes it. What those countries would be doing is prioritizing Ukraine's security over Russia's. That's antithetical to what Russia seeks, which is security for all on an indivisible basis. (My understanding only, of course.)
I believe Russia would 100% be open to creating security guarantees. But any guarantees that benefit Ukraine would have to benefit Russia equally. That is the principle of sovereign equality at work. The kind of mutual security Russia envisions can only come about through a continent-wide security framework that includes all nations. And that's exactly what Russia has been proposing for a long time. But the Europeans had deaf ears.
You have to be careful with timelines because an author/historian can skew consideration of the issue by leaving certain details out. That timeline, however, is a good one imo.
Hey why not have Russian peacekeepers in ukraine? They seem to have been very much the most honest/straightforward of all the players in this debacle in a fiasco within a sh1tshow.
Of course, as though the “genesis and root causes” of the conflict could be ignored - but then the Euros are suffering from a bad case of Freudian transference, or projection! To think introducing Nato troops into Ukraine would guarantee “security”? I think they just want to tie the US in, keep the war on simmer lightly…it reality it is their own insecurity they’re afraid of - political, military, economic and spiritual.
That it would be according to the Istanbul framework makes perfect sense.
I expect that the European leaders and press will try to intentionally confuse the public by not differentiating between a truce (or ceasefire) and a permanent peace agreement. The Europeans have wanted only a temporary ceasefire all along and still want that no matter what one might call it. They also still want European and/or American troops in Ukraine.
The thing is, if you have a permanent peace treaty that is truly made in good faith by both parties in the spirit of compromise, there is no need for foreign military enforcement of its security guarantees. If either of the parties violates the terms of the treaty by attacking the other, well, you have yourself a new war and each party is then free to do what it needs to prevail in that case (including getting foreign assistance if needed). Until then, you have peace - not a ceasefire - that is defined by the terms of the treaty.
Retired ATT cable splicer here Mark. I feel your pain. Too bad the company ignored your neighborhood and never upgraded it to fiber broadband. The old copper was meant only to be a temporary bridge until they got around to upgrading. Their definition of temporary is similar to the Fed’s definition of temporary and transitory inflation I guess.
Copper works fine in place where it's still properly maintained instead of abandoned, as it has been in the majority of the places where it is decaying. It might not be cost effective to maintain twisted wire cables where only a handful of pairs, at most, will be used. There would be, on the other hand, a plethora of spares in place.
AT&T has stated that they're shutting down copper by 2029 in all states but California, due to that state denying the application to decommission the traditional landline.
They plan to run fiber to the extent possible and serve smaller rural area with wireless home phone and wireless internet.
Mr. Wauck,
Have you considered AT&T Internet Air? I'm including a link for your convenience.
I'm not sure it's "just another use of their existing cellular network" because while Internet Air is only available in about .6% of the country (!) ATT's wireless is widely available. My understanding is that 5G (Internet Air) requires its own infrastructure. The other carriers have beat ATT to that. Actual wired connection seems best as long as it works. We may end up switching to wireless if we experience more problems.
When the lineman was here yesterday two ATT reps showed up to sell us plans. The one we already have is the only one available in our area. Internet Air was mentioned specifically as not available. If we can make do until fiber optic is in our area that looks like the best option for the internet. I checked out Verizon and T-Mobile 5G plans in our area. We're still better off in terms of performance with what we have, as best I can tell. We'll just have to see.
Ex-GTE here. Temporary in phone company lingo can mean anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. Ever watch Green Acres? In the first season Oliver gets his telephone service connected. They run short of wire so his phone is on top of the pole in his yard. Oliver is assured that the situation is temporary, it stays that way until the show ends. One of the writers must have been an ex-Telco employee.
Be happy you don't live in Frontier DSL territory. It takes about two weeks before they will even dispatch a tech.
Backing the 80s, I worked with a GTE engineer in central Texas, who brought out his zapper to clear my radio station's quarter mile dry lines to the FM transmitter up the hill from the studios. He said that GTE stood for for Garbage Trash and Excrement, especially when referring to unmaintained buried cables.
GTE Michigan walked out in the late 80's. After the strike some of our guys (Wisconsin) went there to help clear the backlog of work built up during the strike. Michigan's plant was really bad compared to Wisconsin. Interior wires laying in the ditches all over the place because of bad cable sections. They called it "low level construction".
IIRC deregulation occurred in the early 80's, that's when telcos cut back on employees and maintenance and quality of service started getting bad.
The cables that AT&T deployed in the early 20th century were akin to the trans-Atlantic cables they laid across the pond. The only place where anything could gnaw on a buried cable was in a pedestal or undersea repeater.
It is ridiculous that in a rich country like the US that every time a storm rolls through an area there are massive power outages. These power lines are on wooden poles and very unreliable. In the 60's, phone companies decided to bury their plant and they wanted power companies to join the effort, sharing the cost. The power companies declined. And here we are with early 20th century electricity technology in the 21st century.
My power is out 10-12 times per year sometimes for 2-3 days. We had a power outage where the lines were basically in the woods and the linemen had to become loggers just to get at their poles. I talked to them. They said they wanted to have the pole lead moved out into the road Right Of Way. I suggested burying it (this spot is a source of an outage, every storm, every time). The lineman responded, "That costs money". I responded, "Everybody in this area has generators because the power company can't keep the lights on, that costs money!"
People think fiber is the solution to all of our internet woes in the under-served areas of the country but what will happen is these cheap, penny-pinching companies will place fiber on the power company poles, instead of burying ALL of it. I could go on about Biden's BEAD program but this comment is way too long already. To sum it up: The US is a third world country.
We used to be that way but in recent years it's better--mind you, I'm in a major metro close in suburb, not out in the country. Privatization is way overrated when it comes to basic infrastructure.
This is an area where China is way ahead of us. If you haven't recently, just search "china fiber optic network".
HL, you must check out JNap and Amb Freeman today! I’m sure Mark will cover this, but he deftly dismisses the idea that “sec guarantees” mean boots on the ground, citing the “precedents” of Austria and Belgium. It’s a political, not a military, arrangement. Leaves the Euros out in the cold holding their security blankets!
As Crooke insisted yesterday, according to Istanbul, Ukraine must accept the terms and conditions re NATO, demilitarization, denazification, etc. and abide by them for any "security guarantees" to mean anything. Only recently, btw--just a few weeks--Russia issued a warning to Austria's FM to stop talking about NATO because Austria had signed a formal agreement of neutrality--not the handshake deal that Gorbachev did.
I imagine an intrepid journalist, in a meeting of PDJT, the green gollum and the Euro flotsam, ask about the NordStream gas pipeline - who dunnit? And why??
Yeah, there are so many issues still out there, and Trump is pushing for the big agreement by the end of the week so he can move on to finish the genocide and start a war on Iran. Hard to see Russia playing along with that.
All this talk about the HISTORIC Putin/Trump summit, the HISTORIC White House meeting is all a bunch of BS to, like you say distract from the genocide, Iran, AND Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
Zelensky is not an elected president. He went against the Ukraine constitution and called off elections, then declared himself president.
In reality, he is a puppeted dictator who is also a raunchy 'entertainer' and a goblin.
Pres. Putin is correct in not meeting with Z. Such a meeting would give Z legitimacy.
Z has persecuted the Orthodox Church, killed a journalist, overseen assassinations in Russia, and been complicit in massacres and terrorism in both Russia and Ukraine.
Not one nation's leader should meet with, shake hands with, or hug the Green Goblin.
Wanting to move on is tantamount to voluntarily leaping from the frying pan to the fire. If a US-led NATO couldn’t beat Russia, it hasn’t a hope in hell of defeating China, even if Beijing goes it alone; i.e. doesn’t ally with Russia, Iran and/or the North Koreans. Trump has made what will turn out to be a tariffic blunder.
Starlink satellites don't cross over your location?
Starlink looks expensive for the equipment. I'm not sure how that would work out over time.
I dropped Frontier for Starlink because of slow Frontier speeds and very bad, slow service. Starlink cost me $600 for the gear and is $120/month. I hear Starlink gear is cheaper now. Frontier was $50/month for 4Mbps. With Starlink I run ~150Mbps down and ~20Mbps up. I have had 3 outages in the ~2 years I have had it, 2 in the last month but they only last hours. Starlink is very picky about obstructions, trees are a problem. Starlink is too expensive but much better than Frontier DSL. If I could get buried fiber landline internet I would dump Starlink in a heartbeat.
Which is why I'm not inclined to make any big change until I have to.
A 16 year old girl from Lugansk wrote a letter to Melania Trump. The girl spent 11 years of her childhood hiding in basements to attempt to survive shelling by Ukraine. https://www.lugansk.kp.ru/daily/27739/5129588/...(Headline) "“Reminded Mrs. Trump, who started this war and who she needed to turn to”: 16-year-old Faina Savenkova told why she wrote a message to the wife of the President of the United States,"...Читайте на WWW.LUGANSK.KP.RU: https://www.lugansk.kp.ru/daily/27739/5129588/...Link via 8/18/25 Moon of Alabama commenter #101....https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/08/europe-demands-security-guarantees-for-ukraine-russia-can-give-those/comments/page/2/#comments....Poroshenko 2014 speech in Odessa in which he bragged that Donbass children would "grow up in basements"...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk
I can see no reason at all why Russia would agree to other countries providing Ukraine with NATO-level security guarantees when Russia manifestly opposes Ukraine joining NATO in the first place. Whether the hostile soldiers are NATO-deployed soldiers or they're deployed from individual NATO nations (wink, wink) it's all the same thing.
Russia will never agree to a peace where soldiers from hostile lands are in Ukraine. That's not peace. It's just the prelude to the next war. To move forward, Russia requires a pan-European security architecture that provides indivisible security for every country on the continent, including itself.
The borders of Ukraine are utterly porous and 7000 km long. The country will never be able to field a military that can protect it all against an invader. The best security guarantee that Ukraine will ever get is to declare its neutrality, as other respected European nations have done. And it costs nothing to do so.
If you want to remain ignorant of the Ukrainian timeline, you'll just have to keep wondering why Russia sees the situation as existential. On the other hand, you could read and understand https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/25/ukraine-timeline-tells-the-tale/
Obviously Russia's not gonna agree to any NATO presence--given that part of the Istanbul framework here is no NATO for Ukraine. Maybe Chinese troops.
The Ukraine wouldn't be any happier with Chinese troops than they are with Russian troops, both being founding members of BRICS.
As there is now a large majority of the Ukrainian people that are in favor of an end to the fighting, many of them might be okay with Chinese troops keeping the peace. However the Nazis that control the government of Ukraine would never be okay with it.
The matter of stationing troops in Ukraine is secondary. The fundamental issue is the security guarantee, and who makes it. What those countries would be doing is prioritizing Ukraine's security over Russia's. That's antithetical to what Russia seeks, which is security for all on an indivisible basis. (My understanding only, of course.)
I believe Russia would 100% be open to creating security guarantees. But any guarantees that benefit Ukraine would have to benefit Russia equally. That is the principle of sovereign equality at work. The kind of mutual security Russia envisions can only come about through a continent-wide security framework that includes all nations. And that's exactly what Russia has been proposing for a long time. But the Europeans had deaf ears.
The whole problem exists because the West tacitly refused to negotiate security agreements for Russia. All of the details are clearly explained int the timeline: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/25/ukraine-timeline-tells-the-tale/
You have to be careful with timelines because an author/historian can skew consideration of the issue by leaving certain details out. That timeline, however, is a good one imo.
Yes. The devil is in the details, and the Russians will be VERY detail oriented going forward.
Hey why not have Russian peacekeepers in ukraine? They seem to have been very much the most honest/straightforward of all the players in this debacle in a fiasco within a sh1tshow.
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2025/08/18/russia-rejects-nato-forces-as-security-in-ukraine-n2192955
Of course, as though the “genesis and root causes” of the conflict could be ignored - but then the Euros are suffering from a bad case of Freudian transference, or projection! To think introducing Nato troops into Ukraine would guarantee “security”? I think they just want to tie the US in, keep the war on simmer lightly…it reality it is their own insecurity they’re afraid of - political, military, economic and spiritual.
Diss makes the point below about keeping US in Ukraine
That it would be according to the Istanbul framework makes perfect sense.
I expect that the European leaders and press will try to intentionally confuse the public by not differentiating between a truce (or ceasefire) and a permanent peace agreement. The Europeans have wanted only a temporary ceasefire all along and still want that no matter what one might call it. They also still want European and/or American troops in Ukraine.
The thing is, if you have a permanent peace treaty that is truly made in good faith by both parties in the spirit of compromise, there is no need for foreign military enforcement of its security guarantees. If either of the parties violates the terms of the treaty by attacking the other, well, you have yourself a new war and each party is then free to do what it needs to prevail in that case (including getting foreign assistance if needed). Until then, you have peace - not a ceasefire - that is defined by the terms of the treaty.
Retired ATT cable splicer here Mark. I feel your pain. Too bad the company ignored your neighborhood and never upgraded it to fiber broadband. The old copper was meant only to be a temporary bridge until they got around to upgrading. Their definition of temporary is similar to the Fed’s definition of temporary and transitory inflation I guess.
Copper works fine in place where it's still properly maintained instead of abandoned, as it has been in the majority of the places where it is decaying. It might not be cost effective to maintain twisted wire cables where only a handful of pairs, at most, will be used. There would be, on the other hand, a plethora of spares in place.
AT&T has stated that they're shutting down copper by 2029 in all states but California, due to that state denying the application to decommission the traditional landline.
They plan to run fiber to the extent possible and serve smaller rural area with wireless home phone and wireless internet.
Mr. Wauck,
Have you considered AT&T Internet Air? I'm including a link for your convenience.
https://www.att.com/internet/internet-air/
AT&T Internet Air is just another use of their existing cellular network. All of the cellular carriers offer something comparable.
I'm not sure it's "just another use of their existing cellular network" because while Internet Air is only available in about .6% of the country (!) ATT's wireless is widely available. My understanding is that 5G (Internet Air) requires its own infrastructure. The other carriers have beat ATT to that. Actual wired connection seems best as long as it works. We may end up switching to wireless if we experience more problems.
When the lineman was here yesterday two ATT reps showed up to sell us plans. The one we already have is the only one available in our area. Internet Air was mentioned specifically as not available. If we can make do until fiber optic is in our area that looks like the best option for the internet. I checked out Verizon and T-Mobile 5G plans in our area. We're still better off in terms of performance with what we have, as best I can tell. We'll just have to see.
I tried to reply and lost my connection. Twice.
Ex-GTE here. Temporary in phone company lingo can mean anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. Ever watch Green Acres? In the first season Oliver gets his telephone service connected. They run short of wire so his phone is on top of the pole in his yard. Oliver is assured that the situation is temporary, it stays that way until the show ends. One of the writers must have been an ex-Telco employee.
Be happy you don't live in Frontier DSL territory. It takes about two weeks before they will even dispatch a tech.
Backing the 80s, I worked with a GTE engineer in central Texas, who brought out his zapper to clear my radio station's quarter mile dry lines to the FM transmitter up the hill from the studios. He said that GTE stood for for Garbage Trash and Excrement, especially when referring to unmaintained buried cables.
GTE Michigan walked out in the late 80's. After the strike some of our guys (Wisconsin) went there to help clear the backlog of work built up during the strike. Michigan's plant was really bad compared to Wisconsin. Interior wires laying in the ditches all over the place because of bad cable sections. They called it "low level construction".
IIRC deregulation occurred in the early 80's, that's when telcos cut back on employees and maintenance and quality of service started getting bad.
Good point.
The electric company similarly put one electrical outlet on the outside of his home when he and Lisa got electricity to the farm.
Everything had been perfect for years, now this.
Buried copper wires are still better than nothing at all, but Starlink is the best longterm solution in the middle of Alaska.
Blame a squirrel gnawing on the wires somewhere.
The cables that AT&T deployed in the early 20th century were akin to the trans-Atlantic cables they laid across the pond. The only place where anything could gnaw on a buried cable was in a pedestal or undersea repeater.
Years ago we had such frequent power outages that my wife used to joke (ha ha!) about squirrels peeing on the lines. Incredibly destructive rodents.
It is ridiculous that in a rich country like the US that every time a storm rolls through an area there are massive power outages. These power lines are on wooden poles and very unreliable. In the 60's, phone companies decided to bury their plant and they wanted power companies to join the effort, sharing the cost. The power companies declined. And here we are with early 20th century electricity technology in the 21st century.
My power is out 10-12 times per year sometimes for 2-3 days. We had a power outage where the lines were basically in the woods and the linemen had to become loggers just to get at their poles. I talked to them. They said they wanted to have the pole lead moved out into the road Right Of Way. I suggested burying it (this spot is a source of an outage, every storm, every time). The lineman responded, "That costs money". I responded, "Everybody in this area has generators because the power company can't keep the lights on, that costs money!"
People think fiber is the solution to all of our internet woes in the under-served areas of the country but what will happen is these cheap, penny-pinching companies will place fiber on the power company poles, instead of burying ALL of it. I could go on about Biden's BEAD program but this comment is way too long already. To sum it up: The US is a third world country.
We used to be that way but in recent years it's better--mind you, I'm in a major metro close in suburb, not out in the country. Privatization is way overrated when it comes to basic infrastructure.
This is an area where China is way ahead of us. If you haven't recently, just search "china fiber optic network".
Judge Nap had great interviews all day today. Right now the information space is so chaotic.
Personally I am VERY skeptical about the reports of a Putin / Zelensky meeting and even DJT cherished Trilateral meeting.
President Putin doesn't even consider Zelensky legitimate.
I think DJT is going to continue the 3 ring media circus and VVP is continuing on course militarily. Bombers are reported airborne now.
Hal Turner told the most believable story about yesterday's meetings at the White House.
HL, you must check out JNap and Amb Freeman today! I’m sure Mark will cover this, but he deftly dismisses the idea that “sec guarantees” mean boots on the ground, citing the “precedents” of Austria and Belgium. It’s a political, not a military, arrangement. Leaves the Euros out in the cold holding their security blankets!
As Crooke insisted yesterday, according to Istanbul, Ukraine must accept the terms and conditions re NATO, demilitarization, denazification, etc. and abide by them for any "security guarantees" to mean anything. Only recently, btw--just a few weeks--Russia issued a warning to Austria's FM to stop talking about NATO because Austria had signed a formal agreement of neutrality--not the handshake deal that Gorbachev did.
I imagine an intrepid journalist, in a meeting of PDJT, the green gollum and the Euro flotsam, ask about the NordStream gas pipeline - who dunnit? And why??
Yeah, there are so many issues still out there, and Trump is pushing for the big agreement by the end of the week so he can move on to finish the genocide and start a war on Iran. Hard to see Russia playing along with that.
All this talk about the HISTORIC Putin/Trump summit, the HISTORIC White House meeting is all a bunch of BS to, like you say distract from the genocide, Iran, AND Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
I'm trying to work this up today. A little longer presentation.
Zelensky is not an elected president. He went against the Ukraine constitution and called off elections, then declared himself president.
In reality, he is a puppeted dictator who is also a raunchy 'entertainer' and a goblin.
Pres. Putin is correct in not meeting with Z. Such a meeting would give Z legitimacy.
Z has persecuted the Orthodox Church, killed a journalist, overseen assassinations in Russia, and been complicit in massacres and terrorism in both Russia and Ukraine.
Not one nation's leader should meet with, shake hands with, or hug the Green Goblin.
Zelensky's term ended in May 2024, regardless of his legitimacy.
“The Elensky curse” - Christoforou
Agree.
Yes. The one with LJ was quite good.
BTW, it took me about half an hour to get this brief comment posted, due to the interruptions in internet connectivity.
I am sorry you are having such problems with connectivity! Hoping it can be resolved soon
Thank you for all your great work. I look orward to your postings each day!
The Mackinder Line lest we forget. From the Baltics to the Levantine.