Paul Craig Roberts – paulcraigroberts.org April 26, 2025
The details of the peace deal presented by US special envoy Steve Witkoff are consistent with the report in the Financial Times discussed in my previous article and with Larry Sparano in the posted interview. Putin will halt the Russian advance prior to driving Ukrainian soldiers out of all of the territory that has been reincorporated into Russia. It appears to be the case that the borders between Russia and Ukraine will be the current front line, so Putin is withdrawing Russia’s claim to the Russian territories still under Ukrainian occupation.
In exchange Washington will give de jure, that is legal, by right, recognition to Crimea as a constituent part of Russia, and Washington will give de facto, that is accept the facts on the ground whether legal or not, recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye, and Kherson as provinces of Russia according to the present boundaries in the conflict.
By withholding de jure recognition of Russia’s battlefield gains, Ukraine can continue to claim, and demand return of, Russia’s battlefield gains. In other words, the agreement evades the central issue.
According to the agreement, Ukraine must renounce all NATO aspirations. But Putin’s other demands, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine are apparently not included in the agreement.
Washington will lift the sanctions against Russia, and there will be US-Russia economic cooperation, which seems to mean that Russia will open aspects of its economy to foreigners for exploitation, a disastrous Russian decision.
This is what the Russian oligarchs and Atlanticist Integrationists, who have never supported the war, want. How the Russia’s military feels about victory being shoved aside by a negotiated settlement is unknown.
But is it a settlement? Zelensky’s latest statement at this time of writing is that he will not concede a square inch of territory to Russia. If Zelensky has to be coerced, and as he is not legally or constitutionally the current president of Ukraine as his term of office has expired, successive Ukrainian governments can legitimately claim that the agreement is not valid.
Moreover, Ukraine and Europe have placed themselves behind an alternative agreement. In their proposed agreement, Ukraine will consent to begin talks with Russia, Europe, and the US about the territorial issues. Moreover, Ukraine will be granted US security guarantees similar to Article 5 in the NATO treaty. In other words, Ukraine becomes essentially a de facto member of NATO. Additionally, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces or on the operations of foreign forces on Ukrainian territory, and Russia will compensate Ukraine for war damage.
Clearly, the two proposals have nothing in common. Unless Europe gives in to Trump, a split is implied between the US and NATO, a split that could leave the US and Russia in an alliance that excludes Europe. I have no explanation why Europe is taking this risk.
As we can see from the facts, only two of the four parties agree to the deal. Moreover, even if there is a deal, in the absence of de jure recognition of Russia’s territorial claims, the deal amounts to little more than kicking the can down the road.
In fact, John Helmer says that the deal is just a mechanism, a cover, for moving Russia aside so that Washington can get on with its war with China.
Here is how Helmer describes the situation:
“The politico-military strategy driving the US negotiators and prompting Trump’s tweets, is not a peace deal with Russia, nor even US withdrawal from the war in Europe. It is a strategy of sequencing one war at a time – the war in Europe to continue in the Ukraine with rearmed Germany, Poland and France in the lead, supported by Trump; and the US war against China in Asia.
“Sequencing these wars so as not to fight both enemies simultaneously – that’s the formula devised for Trump by Wess Mitchell, a former State Department appointee in the first Trump Administration, and his business partner Elbridge Colby, now the third-ranking Pentagon official as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. ‘The essence of diplomacy in strategy,’ Mitchell has just declaimed in Foreign Affairs, ‘is to rearrange power in space and time so that countries avoid tests of strength beyond their ability.’ . .
“Mitchell and Colby have convinced Trump and his negotiators that Russia has been badly damaged by the Ukrainian war which the Obama and Biden Administration have fought. Russian weakness, especially the perception that President Putin is both politically vulnerable and personally susceptible to US business inducements, is Trump’s strong card, and he should play it now.”
The goal is not peace, but to make money off of two wars: Europe and Ukraine’s war with Russia, and Washington’s war with China. And perhaps a war with Iran for Israel thrown in.
Readers can listen to Helmer’s presentation of what he says is actually occurring in his discussion with Ray McGovern on Nima Alkhorshid’s program ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgG4ZmTZQww )…
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and they can read it in several of Helmer’s recent articles in Dancing with Bears ( https://johnhelmer.net/one-war-at-a-time-and-plenty-of-money-to-be-made-in-the-meantime-this-is-trumps-game-as-the-russian-and-chinese-general-staffs-understand/ ).
Helmer’s source for his explanation of what is really happening is an article in Foreign Affairs by West Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia in the first Trump term. Mitchell is currently working with Trump’s current Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby to sequence America’s wars with Russia and China as the US lacks the power to take on both simultaneously. Mitchell’s article was published on April 22, 2025, in the May/June 2025 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Mitchell writes that the process of sequencing the wars with Russia and China should begin “by bringing the war in Ukraine to an end in a way that is favorable to the United States. That means that when all is said and done, Kyiv must be strong enough to impede Russia’s westward advances” [for which no evidence exists, showing Mitchell’s mind to be controlled by the false narrative]. Washington should use the Korean War formula: “prioritize an armistice and push questions about a wider settlement into a separate process that could take years to bear fruit, it it ever does.” This, of course, is what Washington’s de facto recognition of Russia’s territorial claims ensures.
Mitchell carelessly then reveals the intended deception of Babe-in-the-Woods Putin: “The United States should pursue a defense relationship with Ukraine akin to the one it maintains with Israel: not a formal alliance, but an agreement to sell, lend, or give Kyiv what it needs to defend itself. But it should not grant Ukraine [ de jure ] NATO membership. Instead, the United States should push European states to take responsibility for Ukraine—and for the security of their continent more generally.” This strategy capitalizes “on Putin’s special relationship with the Russian oligarchs” and dupes Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s negotiator, ” into pressing the Kremlin to accept a short-term military armistice which stops well short of the demilitarization and denazification goals of the Special Military Operation.”
So, as Mitchell describes it, the “peace agreement” is a Washington deception to set up, yet again, “Babe-in-the Woods Putin” for the eventual destruction of Russia.
Can I believe this? Yes, I can. Helmer has been watching things for a long time and reporting on them. This scenario is not a product of Helmer’s imagination. It is spelled out in an article in Foreign Affairs, long the arbiter of American foreign policy. The author, West Mitchell, a former Trump high official, clearly holds to the neoconservative policy stated by Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfwitz that the purpose of American foreign policy is hegemony over the world. If American hegemony requires war, war it is.
The Russians, with a large part of the mindless Russian establishment so desirous of being part of the West, have never paid any attention to the implication for Russian sovereignty of the neoconservative doctrine of US hegemony. This doctrine has not been denounced by President Trump. Consequently, Russia will be destroyed as the Russian government stupidly walks into deception after deception. Under Putin and Lavrov it will be one Minsk Agreement after another.
The question I have is: Is Trump a part of the deception not only of Putin but also of the American people, or is this a deal he has accepted without realizing its consequences because he is desperate to end the conflict as he promised? If Trump himself is part of the deception, then we have the explanation why the American Establishment did not prevent his reappearance in the Oval Office.
“The Return of Great-Power Diplomacy, How Strategic Dealmaking Can Fortify American Power, by A. West Mitchell, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/return-great-power-diplomacy-strategy-wess-mitchell?utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=article_link&utm_term=article_ema
I read some of this, but this is a case of Nazis dancing around their handbags.
This is not just about UKrain, which is an unsigned member of Nazi NATO, just like Israel.
Putin won’t push the fact that Nazi NATO has been defeated in UKraine, and Donald Hitler admitted this while berating Joolensky in the Oval Office.
Oh for God why isn’t Putin rubbing the Nazi nose in their own shit???
Before the SMO, Putin asked Biden for proper talks about UKraine, and the wider European security deal. Please note, Putin didn’t treat these two as separate, they were supposed to comprise a complete deal which protected Russian sovereignty. Biden ignored Putin in its totality.
The United Nazi Deep States of Amerika, are totally responsible for the war in UKraine, but Putin the Weak won’t stick the dagger where it belongs.
What a laff, Donald Hitler has two deals, his own, and Kellogg’s, but utterly daft, and you must reach the conclusion that just as DH says he’s talking to Xi, a monumental lie, he’s also talking bullshit about peace in UKraine.
The Nazis know exactly what the Russian terms are. Mind you, they aren’t the terms that Putin should be demanding. This is the problem. The Nazis can’t even accept half baked Russian terms.
Let’s say Russia gets their half baked terms. The Russians will want unrestricted access to every inch of Western UKraine, whatever is left, and they’ll comb every inch with a nit comb, so that there’s no military infrastructure, and that Gladio drops and cells are destroyed.
Until the Nazis withdrawal from Easter Europe, there’s never going to be a deal.
My view, Russia should roll over all of UKraine, which could happen by the end of October, bar some mopping up, and any Nazis, military or civilians, can flee over the border into the Nazi EU.
I am quite sure the Chinese would be very happy to offer the Chinese, the opportunity to live in UKraine and this would be a fantastic foundation for the Belt & Road policy.
I am sure MI6 is just waiting to see how the debris falls, before making their move, and my hot tip, don’t buy into this big US/EU fracture. It’s policitcal, it’s a fake news thing.
As Russia said just the other day, nukes are on the front burner. Putin can do the right thing, or be booted out so someone else can do it.
I’m not even 99% sure, I am 100% certain that if Russia nuked the UK, absolutely nothing militarily would happen to Russia. No article 5, because Nazi Amerika would be voting for its own death. Article 5 is a myth.
I also get deflated by Putin’s messing around but we don’t know the reasons for it so it may be a practical thing that serves Russia. Perhaps with a lull in intense fighting Russia can observe what Ukraine and the west get up to, moving men and materiel around, exposing new tactics or unknown positions of NATO officers and assets that had slipped their notice before. And they can do their own moving around.
I doubt Russia will waste this victory. It’s surely some kind of scheme.
LOL..
There’s an old saying that sums up this rigged game..
“fool me once, shame on you”..
“fool me twice, shame on me”..
of course the only people being fooled are the imbeciles that ‘buy’ the official narrative, that is. pay for it with indebted servitude..
The garrulous and rather unwitty imbecile over at the slavlands slugstack, lulu shittalker, has it right ..finally..Pooty wrings his hands everytime he supposedly gets owned and pleads moral high ground..
Of course Bad Vlad is really just a spook gangster working for the global central bank mafia.. set up by the yankees to use Mother Russ as a strip mine. strip club and gas station..while gulaging nationalists and patriots..
who does as he’s told..for example picking up operation chaos when the convid lark was unravelling..
By the way…’Modern’ Russia was always a yankee creation in as far as it was ALWAYS bankrolled by the jews that run themepark Amerika, ever since the Federal Reserve coup in 1914 which was required for WW1… most of the Bolshevik leadership were Noo YoYk joooz…. given cash and training by bankster frontman Yakov Schiff.. Soviet infrastructure built by American companies etc etc..
Anthony Sutton exposed it all half a century ago losing his career in the process and nothing’s changed, including the gullibility of the common man…
Hello Everybody, Carl Jones mum here
he is such a good boy, every day he goes to where those men meet up
in the public toilets, and keeps them company
i guess he thinks they are lonely.
A policeman looking in accused him of sucking their dicks
but he said its OK mum i was only tasting them
to make sure they were ok.
He is such a good boy
Putin always boasted that he had utter contempt for his predecessors Tsar Nikolai II and Gorbachev who capitulated and resigned from office. His reluctance to press the war to a decisive conclusion-which he could still do- thereby cowing the EU and NATO will be his and Russia’s undoing. To cave in now and try to acquiesce to a figure so untrustworthy and prone to reneging as Trump is a catastrophe.
The Russian military may have to take matters into its own hands and oust Putin so serious is this insane non peace deal for Russia’s very existence. But will it ? Uncertain.
An interesting parallel can be drawn with the 1916 Brusilov Offensive. This was a spectacular success for Russia and the only allied offensive to dramatically alter the front-lines. Compare this to the futile efforts of France & Britain to advance a few metres….Meddling by the Tsar and jealousies of rival generals meant the offensive was stalled at a crucial time, Russia was on the very brink of breaking into and breaking up Austria-Hungary but in the end it was put on hold and died out due to dithering. Others wanted to contain Germany more, rather than strike the death blow to its ally Austria Hungary which would’ve caused collapse. Instead, Russia’s offensive was wasted and the country dissolved into revolution early the next year.
Likewise, Putin’s failure to demonstrate that he can and will inflict an unambiguous defeat on Ukraine, remove Zelensky from any negotiating capacity and humiliate the EU will be his undoing. Zelensky will sign the ‘legal’ document Putin stupidly covets, then resign and Ukie will say it’s invalid, NATO will station troops begin subversion and re-arming on a massive scale and Russia will be unable to do anything short of resorting to nukes. None of this is necessary but Putin’s obdurance is the real obstacle now. He should also exploit the weaknesses and divisions in NATO not try to cozy up to the EU, SMO begins to look like SOP to decisive action and for what?
Would the Red Army have negotiated a peace deal with Hitler in January 1945 and stayed in Poland only for the West to arrange a nice convenient temporary peace deal ? Well, thus began NATO a bit later as the Soviets should never have allowed the Americans or British to have sectors in Berlin, their armies never got anywhere near it.
ANTI GENOCIDE PROTESTERS
Threw red powder on Tower Bridge during London Marathon
Two pro-Palestinian demonstrators have thrown red powder on Tower Bridge – just moments before leading runners in the London Marathon went past.
To cheering and clapping from the crowd The protesters were arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and remain in custody, said the Metropolitan Police.
A video shared by Youth Demand, which is calling for a trade embargo on Israel, shows two people jumping over a barrier that separates spectators from the race course and tipping out red powder
Enough’s enough!’ Britain ‘way beyond’ point of return as thousands descend on Dover to ‘stop the boats’ and halt ALL immigration
Story by Susanna Siddell •
Thousands have descended on Dover to “stop the boats” as activists declare “enough’s enough” over the governments import of migrant crisis.
The event, called “Stop the boats now! 10,000+ bikers and friends, possibly 15000 people came to Dover”
Advertised on Facebook, encouraged other activists to play their part as many hundreds arrive in the coastal town. Attending the protest on Sunday, Reform’s Dover & Deal chairman told GB News that migrat dumping in the UK was “way beyond” a point of return.
“There’s a point with migration in the country where we say enough’s enough, and we are way beyond that,” Paul King told GB News. “This is what today is about.”
How convenient. Following the insane provocations against Russia committed by the US-ZOG-controlled regime of Zio Zelensky appointed on Trump’s watch in 2019, Russia in February 2022 under the watch of the demented fake president Biden, marches into the Ukraine. Comments on this site at the same time was that the entire affair smacked of a deal between the US and Russia, whereby Russia takes those same four Ukrainian territories in exchange for getting out of Syria.
“Coincidentally”, once Russia firmly secures those territories in their military sweep (followed by the extremely inept military aid and logistics provided to the Ukrainians by ZOG US in the proxy war they started), Mr. Trump is “reselected” in November 2024, and right on cue to complete the “peace deal”, Russia in December 2024, for no apparent reason, abandons Syria.
And such a very strange war in the Ukraine. According to all Western media and political sources Russia in its defeat of the Ukraine had such an invincible and formidable military force in its sweeping up that large hunk of the Ukraine, that it just had to quietly cower out of Syria with its tail between its legs.
Meanwhile, Syria’s new leader just happens to be pro Israel and even wants Syria to be a part of the Greater Israel Project – such that the Israelis can do the same to some 23 million Syrians as they are doing to the 4.2 million Palestinians they are presently systematically exterminating.
NICO X maybe anything , hasbarah, shill of any
organisation nevertheless he spoke EXACT TRUTH !
Truth is the only important + must be repeated
thausandfold that the most sleepy sheeple understand .
peace dont comes by brainapes trickiness . Vietnam, Irak,
Afganistan, WW1+2, 30years war 1618-48 in germany
have shown :peace comes only automaticly when all
contrahents are exhausted after long period .
Not only is Donald Hitler a liar, but so is Pete Hegseth, who says a deal on UKraine ceasefire closer than ever, as Donald Hitler needles Joolensky.
Why, because they need time to hide their monumental failures.
While I’m not sure, I think Donald Hitler will give his blessing to Nazi NATO forces from the UK and Europe going into Ukraine, thus forcing Putin to engage.
Donald Hitler has the worst polling/approval numbers in recorded history.
Let me be clear, all polls are suspect, as is all data. But I think these are close to the mark, but also, we are talking about thicko US sheeple, who have absolutely no idea of the MAGA shit hole that is the US economy. For generations, the sheeple of the world have been bankrolling Nazi Amerika, and now it’s coming to an abrupt end, even more abrupt, because of Donald Hitler’s policies.
I say this in light of Nazi Amerikas massive budget increase, most on defense, when Donald Hitler planned to make 9% year on year cuts to the defence budget. More lies, and did DH always want WW3?
Carl Jones mum ?
please just stop him writing nonsense
on here
maybe he should spend more time hanging about in the public toilets ?
Carl, for one reason of a few reasons Putin likely has zero desire to lose more of his navy. A good chunk of the Black Sea fleet are already out of commission or sunk. If Trump let’s Germany sell Zelensky Taurus missiles many of those boats and ships sent to Novorossiysk for relative safety will be immediately put in extreme harm’s way.
Ukraine should be utterly destroyed and then reduced to its historical rump. If anything more is allowed to remain, it will be built up again and used as base for terrorism.