US & Russia Talk while "Mad King of Kiev" Hatches Escape
Dima of the Military Summary Channel titled his early morning broadcast today “The Mad King of Kiev,” although it was possibly The Hill that first came up with this soubriquet.
It was certainly Dima at midday today (Monday February 17) whose report was the first I had seen concerning Zelenskiy’s visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) today, accompanied by his wife. Its ostensible purpose was to sign a “comprehensive economic partnership agreement” between the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
On the face of it, the agreement would seem like a fairly conventional trade pact. But why now, for goodness sake?
It includes clauses that offer Ukrainian businessmen the opportunity to own up to 70% of businesses in the UAE (and in some cases up to 100%); and also eliminate duties on digital trade, and guarantee protection of personal data.
Dima speculates that Zelenskiy is planning his escape by means of setting up a conduit for the transfer of his wealth from Ukraine to safety in the UAE. I thought the wealth was in Mediterranean mansions, but I guess some of the cash would have to be networked via Kiev.
On Wednesday, Zelenskiy, in a visit that his office says has long been planned, will travel next door to Riyadh, a day after Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz and Steve Witcoff begin their talks in Saudi Arabia opposite the negotiating team from Russia headed by Sergei Lavrov and Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov.
This crucial meeting between the US and Russia has three main objectives: to talk about the restoration of relations between the two countries, prepare for a meeting (by the end of this month, I have heard) between Trump and Putin (also to take place in Saudi Arabia), and resolution of the Ukraine issue.
Predictably, Europe and Zelenskiy are extremely upset to be excluded from these talks. Conceivably, Zelenskiy’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday is to be available in the event that he is ushered in to talks determining the future of a country of which Zelenskiy was once a legitimate leader but is now just a citizen who has outstayed his elected time. His predecessor, who doubtless hopes to be a successor (but the Kremlin has its own friendly Ukrainian in mind, Viktor Medvedchuk), Petro Poroshenko, has said that there will be elections held next October 26 (how on earth Petro has determined that, I have no idea; perhaps it is a date as far as possible into the future selected by Zelenskiy).
That date would seem to entirely wipe out the possibility, slim at best, that Russia would ever sit opposite Zelenskiy given it currently considers him illegitimate and given that the future of Ukraine is about to be determined by Trump and Putin.
Zelenskiy’s visit to the UAE, as his front lines collapse almost without resistance to advancing Russian forces at all points, coincides with the three-hour meeting of European leaders in Paris today. This follows hard on the heels of the Munich Security Conference where the Trump administration asked European leaders to identify what kind of resources they would invest in a putative peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
Russia has already objected that any peacekeeping force in Ukraine should be set up by the UNSC, in which Russia of course has a veto, and that any such force would have limited mandate. This is presumably why the Trump administration in the form of Hegsteth statement last week, I believe it was, made a specific reference to a peacekeeping force of non-Europeans, that would specifically NOT be a NATO force and involve NO Article 5 protections, and would NOT enjoy US guarantees.
Anyway, Keir Starmer, who has again assured Kiev that Ukraine is on an irreversible course to NATO membership has already volunteered a force of 25,000; Macron is thought to be ready to offer something similar. Germany has said No. Poland, to everyone’s surprise, has also said No. So too, most likely, will Sweden.
European leaders are totally opposed to a Trump-Putin deal, because they want the war to continue for as long as possible, and they want this because they believe that it the best way of keeping the US in Europe. They want to continue to be the vassals and stooges of Washington. It appears to be the only thing they know.
Britain’s obstinate determination - as it would seem from the words and behavior of its prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer - to bring the UK into direct conflict with Russia and thus be destroyed, is on a par with a long history of craven British subservience to Washington empire as shown in its enthusiastic support for the US in Vietnam, and again in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and in Ukraine (where it has helped author fatal raids in Bryansk and Krynky and Kursk, fired Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia, trained Ukrainian troops) and its role with the US in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians (on whose territory the UK was once itself an occupying force prior to the birth of Israel) prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the UK is an intimate and unremitting arm of US empire and whose elites, in their deepest fantasies perhaps, would love to recreate British Empire 2.
As just one other example, Klarenberg provides an eary account of British malfeasance in its role behind Gladio (Gladio). See below.
Until a peace agreement is signed - IF a peace agreement is signed - Russia must continue to advance in order to maximize its strength, to demonstrate to Europe what is now the utter uselessness and folly of their continuing resistance to the inevitable. Lavrov has said that “there will be no territorial concessions of the lands where the Russian people live.” There is considerable ambiguity behind this statement, of course, and perhaps it is only as a negotiating ploy, perhaps not, but I read it to mean that the futures of Khakiv and Odessa are still in considerable question apart from ALL of the four oblasts and Crimea that are now under Russian control. Indeed, I for one think it would be a significant error on Russia’s part to close this conflict without control over at least these two areas.
I’ve been reflecting today on how Europe is a nest of collapsed empires. One of them, Britain, really, really wishes it wasnt’ collapsed and keeps carrying on as though it hasn’t really collapsed or, even if it has, as though it can still be jolly useful to other empires, well one empire (the empire of bases where half of its military expenditure is about keeping the empire going with almost no benefit to the USA), that hasn’t quite yet but possibly will collapse. And they really feel miserable, the whole lot of them, when reminded that though of course they were once very powerful, and very fearsome, and were so, so …. how can I put it…..Civilized (exemplary, educated, well-dressed, good at building, moral and rich), now those days have passed.
The funny thing is that despite this shared experience the quality of their advice to potentially collapsing empires is, well, remarkably unimpressive, uninsightful and unimaginative and, quite possibly, lethal to their own interests.
I mean, in this instance, why NOT just be glad to be rid of US overlordship? Why NOT be intrigued by a world in which even the great powers have halved their military expenditure and can’t be bothered with all that regime-change, election-interference and media cooption stuff any more? Why NOT, you know, have tea with Russians and admire pictures from the Hermitage, wear fur hats and have a good laugh about Napoleon? Why NOT do the same with Chinese, when you’ve loosened up a little?
Why NOT try just not taking yourselves so goddam seriously?
As Wang Yi has just said, the future multipolar world does NOT have to be a world of desperate struggle between competitors for dominance. It can be a world of multilateralism driven by solutions of the kind in which we all survive. That is, solutions that work for everybody. Like - the species survives nuclear annihilation and global warming.
ALSO:
See David Stockman on how much better the world will be when military expenditure IS cut by 50% and how nobody will be any the worse off, except the leeches of the Military Industrial Complex: Stockman
Even the Neocon bible, The Economist, recognizes how badly Germany has hurt itself to please Washington: Germany lost its Business Model
And Israel has immediate plans to help out the US with the greatest war crime of the century in Gaza with nobody answering the question: where will the Palestinians actually go and why would the Palestinians trust their murderers and jailers? War Crime Planning
The Grayzone Blueprints for Ukraine reports on newly-leaked documents that reveal how a crew of military academics pitched the US National Security Council a series of extreme strategies for Ukraine, from IED’s inspired by Iraqi insurgents to sabotaging Russia’s infrastructure to propaganda “from ISIS’ playbook.” Conceived under the auspices of the UK’s University of St. Andrews, the plans were outsourced through third parties to ensure “plausible deniability.”
“Explosive leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how a shady transatlantic collective of academics and military-intelligence operatives conceived schemes which would lead to the US “helping Ukraine resist,” to “prolong” the proxy war “by virtually any means short of American and NATO forces deploying to Ukraine or attacking Russia.”
And even in 2024, the US spent $2.4 million on (anti-) Cuban media. Plus more revelations of how USAID has fought the Cuban revolution Funding Anti-Cuban Media.