AFP – March 2, 2025
Top Washington officials suggested Sunday that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky might have to step down if a peace deal is to be reached, underscoring President Donald Trump’s stunning shift in approach to the war with Russia.
“We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians, and end this war,” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told CNN.
“And if it becomes apparent that President Zelensky’s either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in this country, then I think we have a real issue.”
His remarks and those of other key Republicans follow Trump’s dramatic turn against Zelensky during a contentious Oval Office meeting on Friday.
The rare public spat — with Trump calling the Ukrainian “disrespectful” — resulted in Zelensky leaving the White House without the anticipated signing of a preliminary pact on sharing Ukrainian mineral rights.
Zelensky had tried, during the heated exchange, to say that Kyiv still needed security guarantees if it is to trust a peace deal with Moscow after a bitter three-year war sparked by the Russian invasion.
Significantly, given the uncertainty whether a deal can be salvaged, Trump on Sunday shared a reposting on his Truth Social platform arguing that the mineral agreement itself would provide the needed security.
“Trump ensures that Americans will be involved in Ukraine’s mining industry,” the message read. “This prevents Russia from launching an invasion, because attacking Ukraine would mean endangering American lives — something that would force the U.S. to respond.”
‘Arm of the Kremlin’
When Republican officials were asked on Sunday talk shows whether Putin could in fact be trusted, they instead suggested that Zelensky might pose the greater obstacle to peace.
“Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“I mean, it’s up to the Ukrainians to figure that out, but… we need President Zelensky to do what is necessary.”
And Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, told “Fox News Sunday” that Zelensky had “created a huge rift in the relationship.”
One Republican senator spoke out Sunday in defense of Zelensky, however.
Asked on NBC about calls for the Ukrainian to step down, James Lankford, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, replied, “I don’t agree.”
“Quite frankly,” he added, “I think that would spiral Ukraine into chaos right now trying to find who is the negotiator to bring an issue to peace.”
Senior Democrats also pushed back angrily after Friday’s diplomatic debacle.
“The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin,” said Senator Chris Murphy, who has emerged as one of Trump’s most outspoken critics.
“It appears America is trying to align itself with dictators,” he said on CNN.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted, however, that the White House was clear-eyed about Putin’s Russia.
“No one here is claiming Vladimir Putin is going to get the Nobel Peace Prize this year,” he said on ABC.
But Rubio added that “you cannot end a war unless both sides come to the table.”
“I’m not promising you it’s possible,” he added. “I’m not telling you it’s 90 percent likely. I’m saying it’s zero percent likely if we don’t get them to a negotiating table.”
European leaders have rallied around Ukraine, but the dizzying pace of events has left them struggling to make sense of what some fear could be the most tectonic change to Western security architecture since shortly after World War II.
Their latest cause for concern came late Saturday in a post on X from Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump supporter who has been given extraordinary powers to cut government spending.
To a post calling for the United States to withdraw from NATO and the United Nations, Musk responded simply, “I agree.”
Trump has repeatedly pressed other NATO members to spend more on defense, and has often seemed to chafe at the multilateralism inherent in the UN approach.
He told an NBC journalist in December that he would “absolutely” consider leaving NATO if fellow alliance members weren’t “paying the bills…(and) treating us fairly.”
But on Sunday, NATO chief Mark Rutte said after Ukraine crisis talks in London that the United States remains committed to the alliance. He also announced that European countries will increase defense spending.
Of the UN, Trump said on February 4 that it has “great potential, and based on the potential we’ll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together.”
“It’s not being well run, to be honest and they’re not doing the job.”
paul fuller
Donald Trump invited for Brick Lane curry during his state visit
Story by Katie Boyden Sadiq Khan has extended a delicious invitation to US President Donald Trump when he visits London on a state visit.The Mayor of London has offered to take Trump out for a curry on Brick Lane, a street packed with an abundance of Indian Pakestani and Bangladeshi restaurants. When i was a boy this used to be england, a foreign migrant telling the US president to come eat foreign food here is as racist as you can get
What’s the good of being uber-rich but too dead to spend it?
Starmer’s coalition of the willing trannie army is on standby. The Antifa tank brigade, Hope not Hate paratroopers led by the Crowley officer corps await his command. Cant wait for the show to begin.
Perhaps if thirteen leaders hadn’t been able to go to Kiev last week, had Russia been more ruthless in its response to Ukraine’s Nazi element supported by the west, then maybe they’d not be so keen to continue the war, but their reasoning seems irrational. They seem to confuse Russia’s courtesy of allowing them to move around Ukraine unhindered is the inability of Russia to finish off Ukraine–then extrapolate from this Russia is not only weak but it is facing collapse. That is the reasoning of unsophisticated people.
This bucket of political slop needs a reality check and it may soon get one. They couldn’t beat Russia with the US behind them and now they think they can beat Russia alone? They imperil all of Europe.
big rewards for killing Germanics
Want a good laugh, Stew Peters says the DC Draino guy is draining Jewish dick:
https://x.com/RedPillSayian/status/1895612972145463521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1895612972145463521%7Ctwgr%5E2609c54a6d9dc561a5f1b9c112473d859bd612b4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fkbarrett%2Ftrump-is-so-full-of-sht%2F
I WROTE A SONG “NAZI NAZI WHAT U GONNA DO WHAT U GONNA DO WHEN CARL JONES COMES FOR U, BONDAGE TROUSERS, PINK AND BRIGHT, DECEIVING TRUTHERS BY TALKING SHITE, WELSH AND PROUD, PUTINS KNIGHT, COMMUNIST AGENT, A FORCE OF PLIGHT, NAZI’S HAVE INVADED, TIME TO FIGHT, STALINS MY HERO, TTS ZERO”
I’M REPORTING THIS SITE BECAUSE IT’S NAZI SHITE
It is the understatement of the year that Zelenski, not Trump, not JD, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hopefully there are still men in Ukraine wise enough to see that. Have to agree with Linsey Graham, he is absolutely correct.
PEACE!
hopefuly some relatives of draft pressed dead ukrainians
will take revenge + shoot this bastard jew Zelensky + his
draft enforcers !
well we can see here how ill carl jones really is
i read that like zelenski he likes a quick one up the bottom
well do it well away from here please
Saw a very troubling video of Ukrainians with a large van travelling into the countryside and kidnapping young Ukrainian males who will then be conscript4ed into fighting in a lost and futile war.
Leave Zelensky in office
……..so that he gets taken out like the late Romanian dictator and his wife a while back who were arrested..tried and UNlived in a very short time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
Ukraine ‘ready’ to sign US minerals deal, Zelensky tells BBC
This means Starmer and Boris johnston have given away billions of our money
to prolong the war
and they get no mineral rights for the UK
Carl Jones should get into his big boy bondage trousers and just Eff Off
his constant stupidity is no longer funny
The Jones Prick is back…..who immediately skipped it?.
Trump wants a new “democratic” elected
ukrainian president .