Russia Sticking To Maximalist Demands
I keep coming back to Russia’s two draft treaties (see more below) that Putin presented to the US and NATO in December, 2021—months before the Special Military Operation (SMO) was launched. Those two treaties have never been withdrawn, and they are maximalist—not just a neutral non-NATO Ukraine, but a pullback of NATO from its eastern expansion in the 90s. Nor, in my understanding, did the Istanbul negotiations with Ukraine supercede Russian demands of the West. A treaty with non-NATO Ukraine does not replace Russian demands for a new security architecture in Europe.
Now, as we await the official start of Trump 2.0—unofficially, it has already started in important respects—the Russians are keeping quiet, but all indications seem to be that they are sticking to their maximalist demands. They’ve won, they know it—Zhou and his Zionist regime will go down as the clownshow that led America to geopolitical defeat. Putin has largely held back from escalation in non-European theatres of the Anglo-Zionist war on the world, but the threat is there—as far back as 2018 Putin warned that if the collective West didn’t listen to Russia, Russia would make itself heard. He was referring to the new hypersonic weapons systems, which are now combat proven and developing in multiple directions. Putin’s preference is diplomacy, and he may have found a partner for that in Trump. Let’s take a look at what is being talked about.
After 3 years of smearing, censoring, and cancelling anyone who argued NATO expansionism was the source of the war, it is now suddenly allowed...
Keen Observer @kesarijournal
Looks like Putin, Trump and Xi are coming to an agreement or have made one. Europe for Russia, Asia for China and Americas for America. These are the only 3 great powers in the world that matter now.
A bit of an exaggeration. India? Brazil? But we get the idea.
Hector Wetherell McNeill @HectorWMcNeill
It is obvious that the "West" should have engaged with Putin in 2007 following his Munich Conference speech which means we would have all been in the same security framework.
Making the Ukraine catastrophe impossible as well as preventing the US act of war on Germany's gas supplies causing the current severe recession.
The Therapist @johann_theron
Trump is turning into Mackinder, and Putin understands that better than Trump. The difference is Culture, so Trump has a few hidden barriers to cross.
Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen 1h
100.000 people protesting in Bucharest after the election results were annulled. Complete silence from the EU, which did not want to see the pro-peace candidate win
But the EU says they can do this in Germany, too?
Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen 10h
Russian forces are only 6,5 km away from the Dnipropetrovsk region,where there are almost no Ukrainian fortifications or industrial zones to be used as defensive lines. NATO should start negotiations with Russia today on a European security agreement based on indivisible security
Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen Jan 11
The false narratives that conflict in the world derives from a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism create a dangerous Manichaean worldview. Peace then requires good defeating evil, while compromise and workable peace are derided as appeasement. Anyone contesting the Manichaean worldview can be accused of betraying liberal democratic values. Trump has many flaws, but his greatest strength is his ability to say what he wants and break away from the West’s ideological narratives and Manichaean worldview. By recognising the security interests of rival powers (a big taboo in the West), Trump can also mitigate these concerns as the foundation for any durable peace.
Although this [the FT, quoted by Diesen] is a dodgy source, if true this means the Russians have moved from their March 2022 position to keep Ukraine permanently out of NATO to their December 2021 demand to roll NATO back out of Central and Eastern Europe. Whoever said this isn't between NATO and Russia? ;)
Please read the details here carefully:
In fact, the demand to keep Ukraine permanently out of NATO was in the nature of a prerequisite to any negotiations. But, note that Warlord is saying what I said just yesterday—Russia will be making demands that go beyond the Anglo-Zionists’ Ukraine front, and probably beyond the entire European front of the war on Russia. It’s a global war and Russia is looking for a global peace:
Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW
Reading between the lines [the FT article quoted by Diesen], the key thing here is that the Russians seem to understand that they're in a position to make demands directly of NATO at large at the moment, ones which have little to do with Ukraine.
There's an "or else" behind this.
Yes. Putin enunciated that “or else” back in 2018, and the West literally laughed in his face. Who’s laughing now? Zhou told Putin that ‘We will crush you’ with sanctions.
Quote
{belg.}°°®аdе @radezz
Replying to @ArmchairW
But this is a derivative of the 2 "ultimatums" [2 draft treaties] sent from the Kremlin 3 months before the SMO?
The key here is the buffer zone.
“Buffer zone” = NATO pullback
I'd sign it today.
But Putin will ask for more - after all he has won.
What about Kursk? Will it be a bargaining chip? Long answer: No.
Levan Gudadze @GudadzeLevan
The total losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kursk region exceeded 51 thousand servicemen, the Russian Defense Ministry reported
...
4:35 AM · Jan 12, 2025
So, prospects for peace on earth—or at least the US enlisting on the side of peace—looking up? Not necessarily. In addition to the US Congress threatening the ICC for labeling Netanyahu for what he is—a war criminal—there are other troubling signs of the times. We’ll close with those.
NEW:
Elon Musk has confirmed he serves Israel:
"We have no choice but to eliminate the people who would oppose the state of Israel."
He said this in the interview with the German AfD leader.
The United States Needs to Prepare to Kill Turks in Syria | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
The celebrations that ended the more than half-century of Assad family tyranny in Syria are over. In the short term, Russia and Iran are losers; Turkey is the winner. After all, Turkey was the prime backer of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham rebel group that swept through Syria.
Michael Rubin: Should Israel attack Turkey’s nuclear plant? - Analysis - ProtoThema English
A nuclear plant in Turkey will forever change the dynamics of the region. Turkey is both an irredentist power, openly challenging century-old agreements that define its borders …
KILLING FOR KILLING’S SAKE IN GAZA
A radicalized IDF sees all Palestinians as terrorists
What began as a retaliatory war … against a disciplined Hamas guerilla force turned into the systematic starvation of a society whose civilian survivors—men, women, and children—are the victims of an Israeli military whose combat units are often led by the second generation of Israeli settlers. These officers, increasingly prominent as the war in Gaza goes on, are religious zealot majors and lieutenant colonels who believe it is their calling to shoot and kill any Palestinian who moves, whether combatant or civilian.
There are more than 120 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including fifteen in East Jerusalem. There are also more than two hundred illegal outposts that are supplied with weapons by the increasingly radical Israeli government while not officially sanctioned by that government. Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has grown steadily, including Israeli Air Force bombing missions.
The IDF recruiting pattern explains the growing violence against Palestinian men, women, and children in the war. I was told that 40 to 45 percent of today’s higher officers in the IDF come from settler families in the West Bank who combine “deep religiosity with Netanyahu’s political fervor.’’ The Israeli veteran told me of watching in horror, with colleagues, as Israeli bombings and earth-moving machinery were continuing to, as he put it, “level” north Gaza and turn it into a dead zone. He said that there “have been more and more reports of colonels and even generals issuing orders to kill every Palestinian you see and destroy every building still standing. Israel’s war in Gaza has become fanatical. It’s apocalypse now. Killing for killing’s sake. It is corruption like never before.”
The ride will be bumpy. Do not expect the Israel Lobby—the owner of Congress—to renounce its genocidal mania willingly.
LA: The real red pill will come when people try to get permits to rebuild their homes and face multiyear waits.
Scott Adams:
1. It can take years to get anything approved in normal times in California. The backlog from the fire could push it out a decade.
2. The cost of building a custom home in California is roughly double the market value of the home when done.
3. The new home will get a property tax step-up to become unaffordable for anyone who owned the original home for a decade or more.
4. The fire risk will return once everything regrows, and insurance companies will not come back. Here I assume continued state incompetence.
5. There are not enough qualified builders to rebuild.
6. Owners would be rebuilding in the midst of unchecked and growing crime.