We thought it was important to highlight some minority reports on the Trump Administration’s foreign policy posture, above all with respect to the Ukraine conflict, because many commentators seem to have been swept along by Trump messaging, particularly about the hope of a negotiated settlement. Trump’s fondness for bluster, his deliberately overwhelming “flood the zone” approach, pugnaciously breaking with norms, and his reflex to try to take ground tactically, even when it may be disadvantageous strategically have muddied both the Trump strategic continuity with the US desire to dominate geopolitically and his confused approach to the negotiations over the Ukraine war.
Because the Trump Administration has no clear idea of what it wants in terms of a Ukraine end game, save being able to claim that Trump ended the war and is therefore a great deal-maker, it is at serious risk of falling into the behavior Sun Tsu warned about: “All tactics and no strategy is the noise before the defeat.” Specifically, we’ll discuss how oddly under-amplified assessments by Brian Berletic and John Helmer, show that the idea, popular in the independent media, that Trump represents a great foreign policy break from the past is exaggerated. His difference in methods are being unduly confused with differences in aims. But we’ll first address the way a new Administration pet fixation, that of wresting a minerals/other economic rights deal from Ukraine, is contrary to the aim of reaching an agreement with Russia.
Ukraine Minerals/Rights Deal as a Tar Baby
Your humble blogger had warned that what then seemed like an outlandishly improbable idea, that of the US obtaining some sort of legal rights to or other economic claims on Ukraine mineral deposits (and potentially related production facilities) looked as if the US was not just receptive, but working to make it happen. Remember, Trump sent Scott Bessant, his Treasury Secretary, with a document for Zelensky to sign the rights over. There were plenty of US officials attending the Munich Security Conference who could have been dispatched with a document if the point simply was to rattle Zelensky and remind him the US called the shots.
And indeed, the flurry of reports in the mainstream US press (including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times) and the Ukraine media show that the US is now browbeating Zelensky,1 hard, over his refusal to agree to a deal, with admittedly some marked differences in the accounts as to what the pact might amount to. Since this is an overly dynamic situation, forgive us for not trying to reconcile the various reports. However, the New York Times claims to have sighted draft terms from the US:
The terms of the new proposal, which is dated Feb. 21 and was reviewed by The New York Times, call for Ukraine to relinquish to the United States half of its revenues from natural resources, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure. A similar demand was made in a previous version of the deal, dated Feb. 14 and reviewed by The Times.
Admittedly, Zelensky is fighting mighty hard not to sign anything along these lines. His latest gambit is a fake resignation offer (a trade for membership in NATO). But him putting that idea in play signals that he suspects or knows that agreeing to give rights to Ukraine property that almost certainly has Ukraine oligarch claimants would put his survival at risk.
As much as it is entertaining to watch Zelensky struggle, the far more important matter is that any such deal is contrary to what many had assumed the Trump aim to be, of freeing itself from Project Ukraine. Note the tidbits from the same New York Times story:
On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to sign the minerals deal, which has now been under negotiation for more than 10 days. Several draft agreements have already been rejected by the Ukrainian side because they did not contain specific U.S. security guarantees that would protect Kyiv against further Russian aggression…
On Friday, the United States proposed a new draft agreement, obtained by The New York Times, which still lacked security guarantees for Ukraine and included even tougher financial terms. The new draft reiterated a U.S. demand that Ukraine relinquish half of its revenues from natural resource extraction, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure.
The fact that uber-Russia hawk Boris Johnson supports this deal should tell you everything you need to know. From the Kyiv Independent:
“The deal should be signed,” Johnson said, speaking at the YES conference event held in Kyiv by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation on Feb. 24, the third anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion. “It commits the U.S. to a free and sovereign Ukraine. A continued American support is well worth the price for Ukraine.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration’s minerals plan was to create a U.S.-Ukraine partnership, calling it a “win-win.”
“We make money if the Ukrainian people make money,” Bessent told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures program.
Keep in mind what this implies:
The US will have incentives to keep funding Ukraine, not just economic but also Trump regime prestige
The US will not want to concede that the four oblasts that Russia now deems to be part of Russia, namely Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporzhizhia, are indeed Russian. Remember, having them recognized or at least not actively contested as being Russia would be highly problematic. Many of the prized mineral deposits, such as two of Ukraine’s four biggest lithium deposits, are in those oblasts. Alternatively, the US will insist on a financial settlement or exclusive/preferential mineral rights. If it is Zelensky who signs this deal, recall that Russia does not recognize him as able to make binding commitments on behalf of Ukraine. Mind you, this is a secondary leg of the argument but will further poison any talks.
The US wants rights to earnings from ports. That includes Odessa. Even though taking Odessa would be some ways away and Putin has not put it on the menu,2 many Russians are attached to the idea of Russia again controlling this historically Russian city, particularly after the Maidan coup massacre at its Trade Union. Other commentators had thought it would be strategically important for Russia to take the entire Ukraine Black Sea coast to guarantee that rump Ukraine would become landlocked and dependent on the kindness of Russia.
In other words, a mineral pact will create a US investment in Ukraine, whether realizable or not, beyond the considerable Biden Administration sunk cost. And it will be subject to the cognitive bias called endowment effect. From Wikipedia:
In psychology and behavioral economics, the endowment effect, also known as divestiture aversion, is the finding that people are more likely to retain an object they own than acquire that same object when they do not own it…
One of the most famous examples of the endowment effect in the literature is from a study by Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch & Richard Thaler, in which Cornell University undergraduates were given a mug and then offered the chance to sell it or trade it for an equally valued alternative (pens). They found that the amount participants required as compensation for the mug once their ownership of the mug had been established (“willingness to accept”) was approximately twice as high as the amount they were willing to pay to acquire the mug (“willingness to pay”).
Other examples of the endowment effect include work by Ziv Carmon and Dan Ariely,[9] who found that participants’ hypothetical selling price (willingness to accept or WTA) for NCAA final four tournament tickets were 14 times higher than their hypothetical buying price (willingness to pay or WTP).
We warned from the outset that this scheme would mire the Trump Administration in Ukraine. From a February 15 post:
Most commentators took the Trump talk of owning or getting rights to Ukraine’s minerals to be bluster. Yours truly remarked otherwise, that this looked like a way for Trump to justify and get funding for a continued US participation, even if at a lower level than under Biden, by presenting it as a loan. This would make it the bastard cousin of the Ursuala von der Leyen plan to issue bonds against Russian frozen assets to which it does not have good title.
But this approach would appeal to Trump by virtue of first, creating an option (options have financial value) and second, making possible Trump posturing about continuing the war seem dimly credible by providing a way to get funding through Congress. Even if the US and its Western allies can only dribble arms to Ukraine out of current production, more money would allow it to continue to prop up the regime in Kiev.
Now of course there is the wee problem that the UK and EU states are pretty much out of weapons and the US is almost entirely supplying Ukraine out of new production rather than stocks. Plus the Trump Administration certainly acted as if it wanted to settle or exit Project Ukraine because China.
Now this Ukraine minerals deal may be an example of Trump habits operating to his detriment. Consider how the Trump approach of maximizing his possible negotiating space by advancing all sorts of frame-breaking ideas is not such a hot idea when done reflexively, as seems to be the case in Trump 2.0, as opposed to deliberately. Trump himself regularly threatens radically extreme actions, like ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and browbeats heads of state to try to get his way. Not only is Trump not getting his Riviera development there, but his bullying makes him look like a petulant jerkface. Why should anyone want to get in any relationship with a partner who relishes not just crass dominance displays but even humiliating heads of state (witness King Abdullah of Jordan) and is indifferent to destabilizing the entire region? These actions are inimical to building trust and dealing with anything other than subservient parties.1 Mind you, Kissinger warned long ago that being a friend of the US is fatal but Team Trump is putting that front and center.
Or perhaps Trump and his operatives still believe that Russia is having trouble sustaining its war effort, and so shoring up US credibility and commitment will lead Russia to make concessions. Or perhaps, as some hard core pro-Russia hawks believe, Putin has not been as aggressive as he should have been in prosecuting the war because he is in the pocket of the oligarchs, and they don’t like it much.3 So according to them Putin would back down in the face of a US show of resolve, or alternatively, won’t press his considerable advantage.
Is Trump’s America First Really About Giving Up US Aspirations to Dominance?
Many commentators correctly made much of Marco Rubio’s extended remark that the unipolar moment was an unnatural episode in history, and the US recognized that it was operating in a multipolar world. But has this new perception been matched by a big shift in behavior? Has Team Trump changed its mind but not changed its heart?
One can look at Trump’s extreme shows on belligerence on the international stage and argue that the US is as committed to being a dominant power as before, but is having to adapt its playbook considerably in light of its military over-extension and the continued rise of China. A Trump that had reconciled himself to multipolarity would not have said:
Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS and countries that challenge US dollar dominance.
Trump falsely claimed, "BRICS is dead". (On the contrary, the Global South-led group is constantly expanding, and now represents 55% of the world population and 42% of global GDP.) pic.twitter.com/Fj6zOnlJA6
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 15, 2025
Similarly, would a US not bent on more than regional dominance be engaged in a tariffs and trade war with China, or threatening to impose tariffs on European countries, or bizarrely bullying South Africa over supposedly being mean to whites?
And let’s not forget that the US still fantasizes about military action against China despite our inability to win (as war games have repeatedly shown) and quickly escalated after the Trump defense and security teams were in place?
🇺🇸🇨🇳Trump admin continues US tip-toe to war with China…
US State Dept. has JUST removed explicit rejection of Taiwan independence from its "US Relations with Taiwan" page.
The US "One China" policy recognizes Taiwan as part of China in principle, but in practice the US has… pic.twitter.com/qP9mbdDesG
— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) February 15, 2025
And what is Trump trying to achieve? Brian Berletic contends that most independent commentators have fallen for the MAGA/America First hype when Trump represents strategic continuity for the US by trying to maintain dominance, particularly vis-a-vis China. In particular, Berletic described, based on watching the full confirmation hearings for Trump defense and intelligence picks, that the US was not getting rid of the USAID regime change/messaging apparatus, merely shuttering its DEI and other MAGA-disapproved elements.
See this interview with Glenn Diesen starting at 6:07:
Just to address this situation with Ukraine, with these groups losing their funding. It didn’t work, they lost the war and so they’re just pulling the plug on it. I’m in a country where the the US is still very much so promoting political interference here. All of the so-called independent media are completely dependent on Washington and Western private foundations. They’re still very much in business, they still continue to pursue regime change, US-backed regime change, here in Southeast Asia.
And at 11:35:
The 4 to 5 hour, I know it’s a long hearing, but there was a US Senate hearing for this USAID so-called defunding. All throughout the hearing, and it was chaired by a Republican who supported the Trump Administration’s supposed defunding of the organization, and all throughout the hearing, they reiterated that they have not defunded all of these programs. They only defunded the programs dealing with DEI, transgender issues, other types of issues, the political wedge issues the left and right use to distract at home. And also try to create the same dynamic in targeted countries. They’re only defunding that. Everything else is still going to be funded, all of the evasive, manipulative, interfering programs the US has been funding all along continue, unabated, around the world. I can’t even remember how many times the chair of the hearing said, “We need USAID to be countering China and its Belt & Road Initiative and not talking about DEI or funding transgender operas around the world.” So if people really listened to what they are saying, this isn’t about defunding or stopping US interference abroad. It’s making it more efficient, getting rid of the political bloat that became attached during the Biden Administration it, streamlining it, sharpening it if you will so it can do a more efficient job of cutting down a targeted a nation’s sovereignity.
Needless to say, this assessment, based on what the Trump Administration has said it intends to do with USAID operations, is very much at odds with the conventional, complacent view that Trump has gotten the US out of the regime change business. Why pray tell, would it have been in the US’ strategic interest to do so? It’s not as if we could win any concessions for eliminating that apparatus.
John Helmer on the Shambolic US Negotiations with Russia
Due to this post having become a bit long, we’ll cover John Helmer’s careful reading of what happened at the US-initiated talks with Russia in Riyadh last week. Helmer based on his own experience in the Carter Administration as well as input from Russian sources confirming what could be inferred from the remarks of various participants afterwards was that the session, from the Russian vantage, was a train wreck. Even if you didn’t have the benefit of the reports afterwards, the way the US went about it was nuts. The US side demanded an immediate high level session, when those typically do not happen before adequate ground work has been undertaken. On top of that, the key members of the Trump foreign policy team had only just been installed. And with DOGE running a bulldozer through State, it’s not as if Rubio and his colleagues had any expertise (such as from career staffers who’d been there before Team Biden came in) to draw on.
Helmer provided a fine write-up, with an explanation of his sources and methods, at Dances with Bears in
TRUMP TRIES GRANDSTANDING IN RIYADH – RUBIO STEPS DOWN. He reprised some of its findings, and added new observations, in a talk with Nima of Dialogue Works.
From the very top:
Helmer: The Russian perception is that the American side is a kasha, is a porridge, is a mess. But it’s necessary not to be impolite and say so…..First, what should the Russian side do next?
This problem is actually serious. The US called for a high-level meeting and had no idea what to do then, no agenda, no asks, no proposals. The point seemed to be to create a perception of momentum and pretend that Trump was making serious progress on ending the war. Helmers points to the almost desperation of the US side in saying the fact of this meeting proved that Trump was the only man who could end the war…in lieu of having anything else to say.
I have occasionally dealt with negotiators who were seriously over their heads (as in they might have had expertise in other area but were total newbies to the matter at hand). It’s difficult to move things forward without winding up insulting them by having to ‘splain things they ought to know. But even then, they had clear objectives, namely wanting to complete a transaction while making sure they had adequately protecting their client, even if they didn’t have the foggiest as to what the latter might require on a “fine points of contract” basis. This is much worse due to the lack of a notion of what success would look like to them. The Russians might have inferred prior to the minerals deal fixation, that the Trump goal was “Get me out of Ukraine in a way that allows me to pretend I got a win.” It’s become even harder to fathom what the US wants.
Confirming this general take, from Helmer at 29:50:
Rubio looked as nervous and inexperienced as I’ve ever seen a Secretary of State in such a meeting
Helmer also argued that the Russia side missed a chance to test the US on the military side, as in suggest what amounted to trades to build trust (“If we do this, will you do that?”). While that may be true, the flip side is that hindsight is always 20/20 and the Russian side may not have been imaginative enough to anticipate that the Americans would show up having no idea what they intended to accomplish. Nevertheless, Helmer also contends that Russia had already been making concessions to the US when the US had made no commitments at all, via slowing its prosecution of the war (measured in a marked drop in casualties on the Ukraine side). I’m not sure about this metric. More Ukrainians may be running away or surrendering. And some experts say the weather has also slowed Russia of late. Nevertheless, from Helmer at 26:30:
Why is Pakrovsk not Russian yet? For six months, the advance has been slow, along the line but Pavrosk was to have been Russianized, an recaptured, and recivilized months ago. It’s still about six kilometers away from the advance line of Russian forces? Why is there any significant Ukrainian resistance, as there is, in Kursk? Why are they continually able to be resupplied?….What are the political constraints on Russian tactics and strategy at this point?
Mind you, Helmer is close to the General Staff, and they, like our correspondent quoted in footnote 3 below, are not happy at the refusal to prostrate Ukraine via sustained power system attacks. I can see the cynical logic in not clearing Ukraine forces out of Kursk. Zelensky has been so desperate to keep the Kursk incursion alive that he’s been pouring too much of his remaining men and materiel into that effort. Even if it looks bad to the Russian public, from a military perspective, this is close to a turkey shoot. What’s not to like?
Helmer also said that Lavrov admitted that Russia had cut back the power system attacks by responding to a Rubio request to stop them by saying that Russia was not attacking civilian infrastructure. He then chided the Russians for not getting anything in return for that act of restraint. I read Lavrov’s answer as a dodge. Russia’s position has been that it has only hit military-related targets….which can and does include dual use infrastructure. But even assuming Helmer is right here, what about the US stopping deep missile strikes into Russia? Was Russia attempting a qui pro quo here? Mind you, I don’t pretend to have answers, but want to point out that there are a lot of unknowns here.
If anyone other than Trump were president, we might be on more certain informational ground after the next set of US-Russia talks, apparently on for Tuesday. But being sure of anything with Trump is a gamble.
_____
1 Looking at the timeline, the recent verbal abuse of Zelensky by Trump, such calling him a dictator and blaming him for the lack of peace in Ukraine (whether by being responsible for the war, as some have read Trump’s remarks, or by refusing to negotiate with Russia) is reminiscent of how Trump upbraided Netanyahu by putting a blistering take by Jeffrey Sachs in his Truth Social. The verbal brutalizing, in the case of Netanyahu, was to bully him into accepting the Gaza ceasefire. Notice here that despite calling Zelensky a dictator, the US is pushing very hard for the minerals deal, while not demanding that Zelensky hold elections or revoke the decree that prevents the Ukraine government (and arguably him too) from negotiating with Ukraine.
Some of the media accounts:
Wall Street Journal U.S. Doubles Down on Demand That Ukraine Sign Minerals Deal February 20 and White House, Ukraine Close In on Deal Related to Mineral Rights February 21
New York Times U.S. Pressing Tough Demands in Revised Deal for Ukraine’s Minerals February 22 and Zelensky Pushes Back Against U.S. Mineral Deal and Announces European Summit February 23
2 IIRC, it was in an interview that Putin described Odessa as a possible “apple of discord”. That seemed to signal that he regarded Russia taking it as having the potential to create ongoing friction.
3 It is true Russia could have forced Ukraine to its knees some time ago by ramping up its electrical war. But here I don’t think the impediment was the oligarchs. First, too many forget that Russia is fighting a coalition war. It needs the support of China and India in particular to continue to circumvent Collective West sanctions. Neither is comfortable with Russia gobbling up Ukraine even if they accept intellectually that that became Russia’s least bad option. So Russia also needs to have facts or developments that justify to them why Russia needs to occupy more rather than less of Ukraine. Another issue may be divisions in Russian leadership over what the ideal end state would be in terms of Russia’s long-term security and ability to administer any occupied territory beyond the four oblasts.
Some of the argument made by one of the Russia hawks, hoisted from e-mail (mind you, there is a lot more where this came from):
Vladimir Putin’s June 2024 terms [for a ceasefire and starting talks: Ukraine commits to never enter NATO, Ukraine withdraws all its forces from the four oblasts Russia considers to be Russian]:
That was Putin begging to be allowed to surrender, not expressing a position of strength.
Again, the minimal winning condition for Russia is that Ukrainian statehood ends. Maybe you hand Galicia over to Poland, but that’s a difficult proposition now given that there are barely any Poles left there after the mutually agreed ethnic cleansing on both sides of the border precisely in order to make it permanent and irreversible. But there is no such thing as an independent Ukraine with a capital in Kiev that will be friendly to Russia and not immediately rearmed and prepared for another war. The only way to prevent that is if Russian troops are controlling the borders, and the presence of the Russian army in Kiev is dictating what laws are written, what the schoolbooks teach children, and what is on TV. In which case you might just as well annex the whole thing, it is core historic Russian territory to begin with anyway.
Where do Putin’s June 2024 terms stand with respect to that minimal winning condition? They are very far from it, thus the war would be a catastrophic loss if it ends now…
More generally, even if Russia somehow took over the whole of Ukraine (which, again, Putin’s words do not suggest and actions clearly show is not going to happen), there is the question of loss of deterrence.
Extremely unfavorable for Russia precedents have been established — first it was artillery shelling across the border, then small kamikaze drones started being launched, then long-range drones, then GMLRS missiles, then heavy cruise and ballistic missiles, and not just from Ukraine either (we are basically 100% certain about drones launched from Finland towards Murmansk, and only slightly less certain about drones from the Baltics). Plus an outright NATO invasion…
So we have:
1) the gigantic geostrategic defeat that is not taking over all of Ukraine
2) the geostrategic defeat that is Sweden and Finland joining NATO and the US right now being in the process of situating missiles there
3) the loss of deterrence.Maybe the Kremlin can recover some ground on #2, but the rest it appears to have conceded defeat on before the “negotiations” have even started. By the mere fact of agreeing to negotiations, because there are no conceivable negotiations that will resolve issues #1 and #3…
If you are not from the region and have not witnessed events since 1989 first-hand and if you are not reading primary Russian sources (and not even the more popular ones, you have to dig a bit deeper), you have no idea about reality.
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The handy thing about minority reports is that they are like the proverbial conk on the head with a two-by-four: They get your attention.
Yes, the U.S. of A. is still determined to be dominant. The U.S. government still wants the wars to pay for themselves — we recall Rumsfeld and Iraq and who would pay for that war. It is all magical thinking, yet it is magical thinking armed with bazookas. It’s Calvinists who love only money trying to advertise their tattered principles.
With regard to Trump, what we are seeing is his years of training as (1) a bad negotiator and (2) real estate as be-all and end-all.
1. I hate to generalize, but I will: Americans, by and large, are terrible negotiators. It’s all “do what I say and we’ll get along.” The Russians may not like this style. Now and again, a highly placed Italian will drop a comment like, “you know how Americans are.” This flaw is well known, except to Americans.
2. After Canada and Greenland, and the proposal to turn Gaza into Las Vegas, we see that Trump is all about real estate. The idea of mineral rights is poor enough, but rights to revenues from ports? Why would the Russians ever agree to that? And even less likely, why should the Ukrainians agree to that?
Nevertheless, to have people talking seriously about negotiations is much better than Biden’s endless sneering, Kamala intoning “the premier lethal fighting force,” and Blinken eating Pizza à la Azov under Nazifascist medallions. Are the Trump negotiators markedly better? No. But that’s a consequence of a uni-party and a culture that has been monocropped into all greed all the time.
I am probably completely mistaken but I saw Trump’s deal as exactly the contrary to Mario Puzo’s offer that cannot be refused. I thought it was the deal that Zelensky would never accept giving Trump good excuses to dump Ukraine to the bin. I though that after all that Ukraine meddling against Trump, this would be absolutely unacceptable as it should appear for Trump himself, any MAGA follower, and any proud American. That was a big political mistake asked by the democrats. This is probably why Z “offered” his resignation in exchange of NATO membership knowing that Trump cannot stand him and his regime. It would then be indeed problematic if the deal is finally signed.
Except Zelensky made this offer (admittedly in return for security guarantees, which are absent here) in his “Victory” plan.
I’m thinking along the same line as Ignacio in general. In this context, I thought Trump’s proposal was a deliberately and grossly exaggerated version of Zelenski’s original proposal–you say you are gonna pay us? We don’t work cheap–we demand all your earning potential for next 1000 years or some other grotesquely inflated demand. This is intended to be rejected, so that Trump could turn around and tell the domestic audience: these people are not serious–they say one thing, but are really trying to cheat us and rob us blind. The only logical thing is to wash our hands of them (and Biden et al were foolish or worse to be dealing with people like that.)
At this stage, if I were dealing with Trump, I’d be wary of making him any offer as he may twist it around and turn it into a counter offer that cannot be accepted and paint me a liar to boot. (I’m thinking of the way Trump is seemingly entertaining favorably Macron’s proposal for French “peacekeepers” or whatever in Ukraine. I’d be extremely worried if I were a French military man–it’s badically a scheme to destroy the French military by having it annihilated in Russia and crush whatever autonomy France will have for a generation. I exaggerate, obviously, but at this stage, I don’t expect Trump to just approve of whatever proposal others make to him without some scheme of his own to mess with it.)
I do not understand why readers keep giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. This is the man who pushed repeatedly and extremely aggressively to get his outrageous ethnic cleansing/Gaza redevelopment scheme done. Even after Jordan and Egypt had refused to take Palestinians under Biden and each country repeated that position when Trump first came up with his ethnic cleansing plan, he then summoned King Abdullah of Jordan to the US for what was supposed to be a private talk. He instead humiliated him with calling the press in and announcing before Abdullah that he’d agreed to the ethnic cleansing! Abdullah didn’t have the cojones to contradict Trump live but immediately issued statements rejecting what Trump said.
El-Sisi of Egypt was set to come to the US to see Trump shortly thereafter. He canceled his trip so as not to be subjected to the same abuse.
Shortly after the King Abdullah stunt, the entire Arab League (importantly, including Saudi Arabia) issued a statement denouncing the Trump scheme.
Trump sent Scott Bessant with a legal agreement for Zelensky to sign. That is unheard of, Mafia level thuggery. Sending Bessant is a bigger show of force than sending Rubio. And in keeping, Bessant was so insistent that that meeting devolved into a screaming fight.
Guardian Reporter:
“(do) you consider the Skripal case or the Crimea annexation to be closed or no longer issues?”
Skripal…is that a new IA rollout? Talk about stuck in the past. The Guardian would have had more resonance had they asked Rubio about the decades old court case surrounding Budweiser stealing that brand name from Czechoslovakia bear makers.
If the Skripal affair has a live Christopher Steele connection, it may still be useful in shorting the entire Russiagate circuit.
As far as I’m concerned The Guardian will never resonate again. -a.v.
Did it ever? The Guardian is a de facto MI5 cutout.
The Skripal case is absolutely crucial to the British government’s attempt to get the world to sanction Russia and Putin, expel diplomats etc. The fact that the numerous holes and inconsistencies in the entire case have never ever been considered by western mainstream media is a complete tell as to allegience of such media.
Quoted from your 2/15 post: “…Trump talk of owning or getting rights to Ukraine’s minerals… looked like a way for Trump to justify and get funding for a continued US participation,…” “….This would make it the bastard cousin of the Ursuala von der Leyen plan to issue bonds against Russian frozen assets to which it does not have good title.”
That jumped out at me at the time, and crystalized the (now) somewhat neglected theme that the core driving force behind the Ukraine adventure is precisely to cripple Russia (and defenestrate Putin) by draining its military capability, domestic support for the SMO, and, primarily, economic sanctions. Remember when Blinken and Austin said so right out loud? That may have backfired so spectacularly that it instead threatens NATO and the US/EU alliances, but the necessity of weakening Russia to facilitate the “pivot” to China remains.
And yet, is it conceivable that Trump, however dimly, recognizes that browbeating EU/NATO to ramp up military spending and reinforcing belligerent posturing along the much longer NATO/Russia border all the way to Finland is another means to this end? Or are other, more strategic minds utilizing his reflexive tendency to grab anything of value he sees to undermine his apparent efforts to settle Ukraine and normalize relations with Russia.
Yes, with the latest events I find myself checking out Brian B. (articles and the New Atlas on YouTube) more often. He’s the Missouri (the “show me” state) among many commentators.
I’ve also been impressed with Helmer’s assessments on many of the subjects. This interview on Dialogue Work is plenty of food for thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwpuoOvU2KU/
John Helmer: Russia-Iran Pact Explained
I took out the part about Trump in the title of the video because it is hardly the main subject of the interview.
It’s always good to read a minority report; the contrarians are often right.
Re the minerals deal: my sense is that Trump is looking for a way to dump UKR on the EU, and this deal is the equivalent of the USA making an offer that UKR cannot possibly accept. And even if UKR does sign it, how could it even be enforced? Aside from the fact that lots of these assets are already under RU control, many of the UKR-controlled assets are privately owned; hence, the UKR government would have to confiscate (i.e., steal) private property in order to satisfy Trump’s insatiable appetite. I just don’t see it happening. Note that the Trumpians actually pulled a bait and switch once they saw that UKR did not outright reject the first draft offer; the second draft of the deal was even harsher.
Re the seeming slowdown in RU combat activity: I can only say that this winter in Moscow was weirdly mild. At our dacha, we had green grass most of January-to-mid February, as opposed to the usual 30-50cm of winter snow cover. As UKR is further south, I would imagine that the mud and gunk rendered many offensive operations impossible. Still, RU allegedly launched its biggest drone attack ever on Saturday night. So I wouldn’t read too much into this alleged pause.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-launches-267-drones-ukraine-setting-new-record/story?id=119093732
Re the email you quoted: that’s a bit over the top for me, especially the idea that RU was hit with tactical nukes. And I certainly wouldn’t classify Finland/Sweden joining NATO as a geostrategic defeat for RU, given that both countries were already de facto NATO allies. Adding Finland means that an already-stretched NATO must now defend an extra 1000+ km of border. Not that RU intends to repeat the Winter War of 1939-40, but still…..
Trump’s eagerness to exit UKR reminds me of Nixon’s post-election attempts to exit Vietnam, which negotiations (some public, some secret) dragged on for years. As did the slaughter. I don’t see the fighting in UKR ending anytime soon.
Except the US is really browbeating Zelensky to sign up to the agreement. This is not theatrics. You don’t send the most senior Cabinet member (Treasury has come to outrank State) who has no business being in Europe as your opening gambit, and then keep ratcheting up pressure.
Supposing Trump is acting rationally rather than on impulses and reflexes (if we assume irrationalty there would be hardly a base for talking any better than flipping a coin), forcing Zelensky to sign such a deal perhaps does not necessarilt mean Ukraine would fulfill it.
Frankly, Trump knows how shallow this deal would be better than anyone – he personally killed JCPOA, which was signed by a legitimate president. It would be weird if he really believes Ukraine can be milked continuously for decades and for $500B in total.
Could it be that Trump wants the deal signed but not to be executed?
Indeed, would Zelensky anyhow succeed to materialzie such a deal and to keep paying USA for about a year, the sunk costs fallacy would kick in, and also this would become “Trump’s war”, and so forth. But could Trump be gambling on the deal failed by Ukraine? Remember those very Minsk-2 accords Putin forced out of Poroshenko? Ukraine never could deliver them and Russia at least tried to use it time and again to press “deals-incapable Ukraine” points. Such a trick, cornering Zelensky into “damned if you do. damned if you do not” position, does not look too complex an intrigue for Trump to understand.
Let also recall 2013, when Germany kickstarted the EuroMaidan positioning their boxer Klitschko to rule Ukraine, who had then a huge advantage of not being marred in the politics thus having minimal anti-rating. Germany run the show for the opening weeks, but it did not took long untill UK+USA said their famous “Yatz is the guy and f-k the EU” and pushed Germany out of driver seat. Can it be that UK+USA are doing a similar thing now, inflating and fixing in paper their own “rights” to Ukraine’s legacy, however big or small it would be, to overrun EU claims when the vultures would start ripping the body?
Really, can Zelensky anyhow enforce the deal terms without explicit help from Trump, which Trump explicitly denies for know? This “security warranties” point seems to be the fork between two roads:
1. Trump fights for the assets using American power and entangling himself, while Zelensky merely legitimizing it internationally and domestically playing the “nobody ever could make GI to fight for us, but i did” card
2. Zelensky fights for the assets using his power and then hands them away, and Trump merely legitimizing it, would Zelensky manage to do so
And i think that is why them both are so struggling over inking that “security” point officially.
There is a saying attributed to Stalin about “logic of circumstances” coexisting with “logic of desires” and in the long run trumping the latter. Can Trump be creating those circumstances, not profit sources? What can happen after Zelensky signs such a deal?
1. Zelensky tries to rob his own fatcats and succeeds. He hands out to Trump – which he boasts a lot about. When Ukraine collapses, it would habitually been blamed on Putin, but Trump can always say “i recovered at least a share of American money Sleepy Joe lost in Ukraine”.
Then he can take part in robbing Ukrainian oligarchs, including Elena Zelenskaya, who are years into spending spree in UK and US. Zelensky himself might eventually end in USA prison, like Pavel Lazarenko and Manuel Norriega did, which USA would habitually use to whitewash themselves of prior participation.
The documented $500B debt of Ukraine would help to force EU into giving USA the lion’s share of whatever robbed from those naive ukroligarchs in EU and in Ukraine. Would EU somehow manage to find and steal “Russia’s $300B” the Trump would again play the deal card: “Russia owes to Ukraine, so EU can not have any share of those, yet Ukraine owes to USA and USA takes it all” – EU did the crime and did the laundry and carries the risks while all the loot lands in USA.
2. Zelensky fails (gets killed or ousted) or does not even try to rob anything of value for Trump. Trump breaks the scene “Ukraine betrayed America AGAIN” and gets rid of “Biden’s war” immediately. He also immediately triggers hunt fror ukr-olirach both cashing out and reinforcing the waning “USA the only land fighting corruption” myth. The deal would be used the same way as above, but more swiftly.
3. Zelensky fails to hand out cash, but indeed signs out ports and railroads as slow but long revenue sources, however the war continues. There is no revenue as Russia keeps targeting power grid and depots, which Trumps non-public aproval. Then “Ukraine betrayed America” drama kicks in and see above.
4. Zelensky manages to squeeze every penny from starving Ukraine for Trump for few months and then is forced to have election, which he looses spectacularly. New president denounces the cabal deal, like Trump himself killed JCPOA. Trump to breaks the scene, etc, etc.
By deliberatly striking out all security promises Trump manufactures the situation when Ukraine – whoever sitting at the throne – both fails the deal and holds the bucket.
It looks this little Napoleon Zelensky forthe first time talked about resigning, perhaps he realized he is being rendered into a Zugzwang position. Basically his only valid strategy left seems dragging things out until everybody got used to the new “Trump and Ukraine are warring Russia” state. Half a kingdom for quagmire. The harsh conditions of the deal might be a device to force Zelensky into quick actions, which today all would be loosing, or at least dangerous, for him.
I cannot believe the tortured intellectual exercises readers engage in to try to defend Trump. This idea is similarly to Trump’s barmy plan to get Egypt and Jordan to facilitate ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and have the US and Israel steal the Palestinian land and develop it. It’s might makes right + profit motive. And just as in Gaza, it just made Trump look bad and also showed he didn’t even dimly comprehend the limits of his muscle. He kept doubling down as opposed to trying to find a way to back out and make his scheme look less terrible and stupid than it was.
And in keeping, you don’t even have transaction nomenclature correct. A signed deal is an executed deal. The signed copy is referred to as the execution copy. There is no difference between “signed” and “executed”.
First, if Zelensky were to sign the deal, he would probably not live out the week.
Second, assuming despite that he survives as opposed to flees, the oligarchs all have their own muscle. What forces would he use to try to expropriate their assets? His depleted army? Do you seriously think they’d follow those orders? This is a rampantly corrupt country. There is no scenario under which the US gets any meaningful extraction. On top ot that, the Ukraine courts would happily block any US efforts to perfect their legal claims. Yet more bad look for the US, that it is engaged in extra-legal exproproiation.
Third, you talk ENTIRELY past the elephant in the room, that this deal would greatly complicate and probably be fatal to a settlement of the war with Russia. It would give the Trump team an incentive to fight Russia territorial acquisition, or alternatively, have Russia buy off those property claims when per #2 above, they were highly unlikely to be able to perfected.
Fourth, comparing this to Minsk is absurd. Ukraine had the entire collective West behind them, albeit covertly in snookering Russia. And that exercise was bolstering Ukraine to weaken Russia. This effort is to pillage Ukraine, as in make it even more of a failed state than it is already on the way to being. No one but some members of the Trump team are on board with that. It’s a terrible look for the US and the EU is opposed.
Fifth, Trump said he might send troops to protect his Ukraine assets. This is how he could get really mired. And he could go to Congress and depict the funding as a loan against these never-gonna-be-any-good property rights.
Mind you, the US is too weak for any effort like #5 to go anywhere militarily. But that would be more than sufficient to make the US come around to opposing a settlement v. its current desire to normalize relations with Russia.
Yeah, what is it about pundits on the left and the putative right and Trump? Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking? After all, does the US have a racist, narcissist, arrogant know-it-all as prez of the most powerful country in the world, or not? It’s like reading the tea leaves and calling it diplomacy. As you say, abolishing USAID? Gimme a break! It’s just been relocated is all. This is a USA in retreat and extremely dangerous with an idiot like Trump apparently in charge? (Is he really, in charge?)
@Yves, regarding the part where you quote an email:
the way everything Is formatted it looks like the email quote goes all the way to the end of the article. But on the other hand some of those final paragraphs sound like your voice.
So I’m really confused about what comes from the email and what is part of your concluding paragraphs. I hope that it can be cleared up, because I know that these articles are saved to an archive in the Library of Congress. Saludos
It should be clear that the comment via e-mail is the indented part of footnote 3. None of his text is in the main article.
Yes, the browbeating is obnoxious. Which puzzles me, because I simply don’t see how this minerals deal (even if UKR is desperate enough to sign off on it) can be implemented in our legalistic modern world. Surely the Trumpians’ lawyers understand this (one would hope so, anyway!), which leads to my view that it’s more theater than substance. Or tactics without strategy, as per the Sun Tzu quote near the top of this post.
Thank you for the sober evaluation of the situation. Even now, many take the inconsistent, often irrational and contradictory rhetoric of con-men, oligarchs and politicians at face value. Lack of genuine alternatives, along with desperation, will make people engage in wishful thinking and delusions. Also, many completely forget historical context and act as if they have severe memory loss.
I completely agree that the DT2 regime does not represent a significant shift in long-term US foreign policy. The hollow rhetoric and BS is different of course. The transition between JB and DT is timely and convenient: the US “saves face” by having a new leader appear to negotiate from a position of strength (especially for domestic consumption) when the US is in a position of weakness. The Ukraine project failed to achieve its goals, and so the next step is to try to drive a wedge between Russia/China. Very conveniently, the JB “bad cop” is replaced by the DT “good cop”. But the end-goals are the same. The ultimate rival/enemy is China – both the previous and current regimes stated this. Since Russia and China are well aware of all this, and have endured the serial mendacity and duplicitous US for a long time (including “Pivot to Asia” (Brzezinski) Obama, DT1, JB, regimes) it will be very difficult for the US to divide the two. After being stabbed in the back several times, Putin declared the US “incapable of agreement” so it’s not like he is going to fall for any more BS, especially after all the nonsense during the DT1 era.
“The ultimate rival/enemy is China.”
Recent events are moving me closer to the camp of the enemy being people in the USA. IMO, that’s the project with priority over China.
Think about it. I see constantly in the comments and posts from writers about how so much of what the USA is doing isn’t really moving the USA closer to “winning” a big war with China. All the supply chain issues still abound, all of the profit over purpose still abounds…
What actually DOES happen is more money thrown at “AI” as the main option for “competing with” and “defeating” China. Be scared. Throw money at “AI”.
That’s a main thing that people can see ACTUALLY happening.
Interesting point.: my negative/pessimistic view is that the oligarchy are attempting to negotiate the slow dismantling of the US “empire”, disguised as “winning” (for domestic consumption), while maximizing their wealth and power in the process.
The people of the US are the real losers, I agree. One could crudely say the US is being asset-stripped and the domestic population fleeced and extorted for as much as can be extracted. Throwing huge amounts of resources at AI to “compete” with China looks like it is part of the asset-stripping.
All of the BS and superficial drama in the mass media is to distract and divide the domestic population, and not just the plebs, the PMC and the upper-middle classes as well. The public must be told that our problems are due to hostile foreign countries, and the domestic Internal Other. There is no institutional corruption, or illegal activity from our fearless political and business leaders, it’s always someone else’s fault.
Asset stripping by our oligarchs in the same way Russia’s (then newly-minted by the West) oligarchs asset stripped the former Soviet Union? If history doesn’t repeat itself, but rhymes, then the obvious parallel to our present predicament is to events in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. One difference: we’ve had no Gorbachev before, nor likely to get a Putin after, only a series of Andropovs and Yeltsins ever since Nixon. Indeed, it could be Yeltsins all the way down.
Andropov may well have been a great gen-sec had he had some more time.
On the other hand, Gorbachev was his protege, which does not speak well of his cadre selection judgement…
I have no evidence, but suspect that the deal that started as for mineral rights might be, in Trump’s thinking similar in intent to Zelensky’s invasion of Kursk—a grasp at a potential bargaining chip for negotiations with the RF. At least for domestic consumption.
I think it was Alistair Crooke last Monday that speculated that, to sweeten a deal for Trump that otherwise meets RF objectives, Putin might offer to let Trump keep the frozen RF assets. They’ve already written them off. Perhaps that could be traded for relinquishing the mineral agreement with Ukraine.
Agree that skepticism toward all narratives continues to be the best approach right now.
“Similarly, would a US not bent on more than regional dominance be engaged in a tariffs and trade war with China, or threatening to impose tariffs on European countries, or bizarrely bullying South Africa over supposedly being mean to whites?”
And the Panama Canal…Panama, with its history, knows what the real threat would have been if the country hadn’t changed its position on some aspects of the canal.
The commentators I read–Alastair Crooke, Gilbert Doctorow, Larry Johnson, Patrick Lawrence–all say the significance of Riyadh is the detente analogy and not the likelihood of a peace deal. So I would take that as the “majority report” rather than what Helmer describes. Doctorow, who speaks Russian and watches their media, says that in Russia they are saying Trump is a Gorbachev figure. When it comes to the war Putin will do what he always said and Trump–who may be sincere about nuclear disarmament–will agree since why wouldn’t he? Ukraine is not his fight. He has Gaza to beat up on (the optimists would be those who say he’s not even going to do that).
You don’t show up to a negotiation totally unprepared. And the patter from Rubio et al is the business/normalization deals are in parallel with the peace track, which they mean as one does not get done without the other.
To put it another way, merely rolling back to the total and very very dangerous freezing of all communications under Biden to merely the level under Obama does not = detente, not even close.
And as much as I like Johnson, our Russian-reading and former Warsaw Pact resident/interlocutor singled him out and was exceedingly critical, citing multiple and basic errors he had made. This is one of his less caustic remarks: “… he knows absolutely nothing about the region and about the military-technical issues.’
My take on those commentators was a little different. They were offering reassurance that Trump was not cutting Europe out of peace negotiations, not suggesting a new detente was at hand. The meeting, contrary to European fears, the meeting was not about a peace deal in Ukraine but reopening dialogue between the two powers.
I believe I have read that it was the RF side that mentioned possible deals such as arctic oil, not our US contingent. They do seem to have prepared nothing much beyond the photo ops.
To the best of my knowledge none of my mentioned commentators described last week as a negotiation and said instead that it was about re-establishing relations, re-opening embassies, etc. Compared to Biden/Blinken this would indeed be something like detente. When it comes to the war they say it may drag on for months and that Putin almost surely won’t give Trump the ceasefire in place that he has proposed. Patrick Lawrence is just out with a somewhat rambling column on the state of play including the German elections.
https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/23/patrick-lawrence-what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/
at least they’re talking…jaw-jaw, war-war and all that.
That was my argument in my last essay as well. In his press conference Lavrov talked about “consultations,” and effectively restoring relations between two major powers that have differences, but agree to behave like grown-ups to each other. He said they were waiting for the US to propose someone for talks about Ukraine, ie the initiative is coming from Washington, and the Russians are in no hurry.
Sorry, I do not like readers butchering terms to try to defend their positions. As Confucius said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.”
Merely restoring normal communications between great powers is NOT detente. All sorts of commentators, like Scott Ritter and Larry Wilkerson, went to some lengths to depict the Biden shutdown as extremely dangerous as well as childish. Rolling that back to a level of normalcy is not detente.
Trump may fantasize that he can get there, but this Administration’s erratic and thuggish action (the tariff threats and actions, the bullying of Greenland/Denmark and Panama, his appalling Gaza redevelopment scheme and his overkill measures against state leaders to try to force them to comply) will confirm and then some the decades of Russian experience that the US cannot be trusted. How can you engage in detente (if relations could unthaw to that degree, which I doubt) with an utterly untrustworthy party, who is GUARANTEED to knife you in the back at the first opportunity?
I don’t know: in 1956, Japan and USSR declared peace and normalized relations without a peace treaty as the negotiations got bogged over the Kuriles. Far from the Kuriles getting resolved, peace declaration meant that Kuriles would never be dealt with and there’d be no formal peace treaty since there was no longer a good reason to deal with either.
The analogue here would be that once peace is declared, so to speak, and the relations are normalized, US would be freed from having to deal with Ukraine and thus be able to wash our hands of it no matter what becomes of it. Ukraine is worth less to US than the Kuriles are to Japan.
I don’t think we are disagreeing. “Normalizing relations” means having some minimal civilized diplomatic dealings. Japan was even more so then a military protectorate of the US than now and rabidly hostile to the US. We’d also even brought in many people who were in official posts during the war to keep Japanese socialists and Commies from taking power. So any relations were pretty sure to be very distant.
“Plus the very serious suspicion that Russia ate a few tactical nukes too, but the Kremlin covered it up in order to not be obliged to respond by the admission.”
That’s a bombshell tidbit to drop and just move along…
The largest explosion during the Toropets strike was likely over 10 kilotons given how far it blew windows (there is a video of that happening at a place some ten miles away) and how large that mushroom cloud was.
Hardened ammo depots simply don’t explode all at once. We have seen many ammo depot explosions in this war, and it is always a slow cook off and many secondaries.
Not individual giant mushroom clouds:
https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1836278994985210269
There is just no way for dozens of hardened bunkers separated dozens of meters from each other and designed specifically to prevent a chain-reaction cook off to explode simultaneously and to produce this kind of explosions and result in this level of damage:
https://x.com/georgewbarros/status/1838280143837823384
https://x.com/georgewbarros/status/1838280146433847597
Tac-nuke airbursts, on the other hand, explain everything perfectly well.
There were three to five other such events in August and September 2024, on a lower scale though. As well as one even more concerning in August 2023; more concerning because it was on the northeast side of Moscow and the delivery means are much less clear (Toropets was most likely air-launched cruise missiles from the Baltics).
“Hardened ammo depots simply don’t explode all at once. We have seen many ammo depot explosions in this war, and it is always a slow cook off and many secondaries.
Not individual giant mushroom clouds:”
That’s BS, I’ve seen few ammo depots that exploded into huge mushroom clouds coming out of this war on Telegram, usually the mushroom cloud is orange.
It seems very unlikely.
There is an extensive series of international networks monitoring for nuclear explosions, both military and civilian, and they use overlapping sensors including seismic monitoring, satellite monitoring, radiological testing, etc. They are generally very effective, although there have been a few alleged ‘false alarms’, such as in 1997 when the US (probably falsely, but its still not clear) accused Russia of an underground test.
Nuclear explosions do generally have a distinct seismic signature from a large conventional blast, although its not always clear if this distinction can be made in all geologies and circumstances, especially if the site is a very long way from the monitoring stations and if the underlying geology is unknown. If the explosion is atmospheric or on the surface, especially if its a fusion device, there will be an unmistakeable radiological signature, although it may take some time for this to be detected from a long distance. Nuclear devices also generate much more raw heat than a conventional explosion – IR satellite images should be able to detect this difference.
It should also be said that big conventional explosions have a very wide range of seismic signatures. Historically there have been some very intense ‘fast’ explosions in accidents, such as the 2020 Beirut explosion (around 1 Kiloton of ammonium nitrate) and several incidents during WWII – at least one of which (an ammo ship hit with a kamikaze) generated a distinct mushroom cloud – it can be seen on YT and it looks exactly like a nuclear test. The 2015 explosion in Tianjin involved around 3 kilotons of ammonium nitrate, but seems to have been ‘slower’ in that it exploded in a few rapid blasts so didn’t do as much damage as the Beirut explosion. Both were immediately identified in seismic stations around the world.
So in simple terms, it seems to me to be very unlikely that nuclear devices could be passed off as ammo dump explosions unless there was a pretty much universal agreement by the major authorities to suppress the story, and they got lucky with winds not spreading radioactive dust sufficient to set off monitors downwind. Not impossible, but unlikely.
Reply to Mikel: That’s for sure. Is there even a shred of evidence that it’s true? If so, I would expect some sort of independent verification or evidence. I have no expertise, but I would think that even “tactical nukes” emit detectable radiation and fallout, although much smaller than “strategic nukes”
I meant to edit that out. I had chewed him out over that before since mere big explosions will produce a mushroom cloud. But this view does seem to have a pretty decent sized following in Russia.
If there is any truth to it, It would be interesting to know if it was before or after the “threshold” for Russia using nukes was “lowered”?
https://apnews.com/article/russia-nuclear-doctrine-putin-91f20e0c9b0f9e5eaa3ed97c35789898
The only speculation about use of tactical nukes that I have seen was their use in Syria by Israel late last year. And the consensus, for what’s it is worth concerning that country, was that they did not, citing insufficient spikes in radiation detection.
There’s no way Trump doesn’t understand this, and it’s odd that he hasn’t called out and threatened the Ukrainian oligarchs he actually has to negotiate with.
With all due respect, you harbor delusions about US power. He has no ability to threaten them. They have their own private armies in Ukraine. What does the US have?
It’s so interesting to see Lithium keep coming up as if this is an important rare mineral. It’s not. the main producers are in south america and Australia all in the US sphere of influence. Production is plentiful. The main issue with lithium is that about 95% of it is refined in China.
In looking at the oil and gas which seems to be in the north side going east/west is that a lot of it is in the new Russian territories.
But begs the question why hasn’t it been developed already? Of which I can’t find an answer anywhere.
If there are rare earths, again same issue. Digging them up isn’t all that difficult to do. But refining is again almost exclusively in China.
It is hard work requiring an intelligent and dedicated workforce. Every lithium deposit is different and needs its own variations on the processing and refining side, the processing side is often the key not the refining. People in the west commanding large capital accumulations now require monopoly profits to deploy it.
In short it is all too hard and everyone just wants the rights to the profits and not the operating rights. Russell Napier has this right but only after the speculative markets we have at the moment break.
A percentage of “revenues” seems like it could be a symbolic humiliation being inflicted on Ukraine rather than anything of substance. 50% of nothing is still nothing. 50% of even millions would not have much significance for either Ukraine or the US. Russia should take more territory for its own security, at least Sumy, Kharkov, Mykolaiv, and Odessa. Maybe Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, and Chernihiv too. The lion’s share of the alleged “rare” resources will be there. And a Russia-friendly (or “neutral”) government in the rump Ukraine might not be inclined to sell off those resources to the West anyway. Presumably they would already be getting exploited if it was economical to do so, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case. Maybe this is just picking an argument for the sake of showing dominance and indicating who’s boss.
I’m not sure the critics who think Putin is being weak in his prosecution of the war are being realistic. He has to keep his BRICS friends onside and minimize the hit from sanctions. If he treated Kiev the way we treated Fallujah, a lot of his allies might recoil and some of Russia’s revenues could take a big hit. And maybe the Ukrainian military, even getting clobbered like it is, is still putting up a good enough fight that there isn’t all that much more Russia can do except keep grinding on. And some of the “lulls” that critics mention may not be one-sided, like maybe there was a quid pro quo among them sometimes (like “we stop attacking your electrical grid if you stop attacking our refineries”). What other nation has fought a comparable enemy, supplied by other major powers, and come out on top in the last half century? I can’t think of one.
I cannot find the tweet but one of the Z-sphere (Lord Bebo? Armchair Warlord) posted a take that US and Russia are negotiating on the mineral rights, the deal being Russia gets the oblasts it wants and the US gets the mineral rights.
It sounds outrageous but actually, if Zelensky signs everything away to USA at step one, Trump can then claim a win in ceding Novorossiya to Russia and obtaining a retrocession of half its mineral rights to Ukraine (e.g. USA) and then releasing some fraction of the rights in rump Ukraine.
Zelensky loses some territory but “keeps” mineral rights in it; Trump gains partial mineral rights throughout Ukraine, Russia gains territory but shares mineral rights, which aligns US interest with Russian control (assuming the rest of the deal deNatofies Ukraine acceptably).
Stranger things have happened….
Same with energy revenues. I just thought of this while writing this comment. USA wants Europe to buy expensive LNG and move industry to USA. So USA is going to insert itself in the Ukrainian gas business (that minerals treaty includes energy). Russia will sell gas to Europe with a US vig on top, justified as repaying US support to date and funding “reconstruction” of Ukraine.
I was going to mention that angle. Trump is setting up a negotiating position with Russia for those resources. Zelensky reported already signed them over to Starmer to some degree. Then Russia gets everything to Transnistria, and signs a deal for US companies to exploit the resources.
The more I think about it, the more I think the “minerals” are a red herring. The real prize for Russia and the US here is to resume Russian gas exports to Europe at a higher price because the US is taking a commission on the Ukrainian transit:
– Europe pays the same high price for Russian gas as for US LNG, levelling the playing field for US energy exports
– Russia and US split the premium between them
– European industry continues to relocate to the US with its low domestic energy prices
– Russia has a higher paying customer than China, to use in negotiations with China
This peace treaty will be an energy treaty of Brest-Litovsk:
– establishing US and Russian spheres of energy influence in the EU and the Ukraine
– shoring up their Eastern/Western fronts so they can focus on their relationships with China (and enabling the US to pull resources back from Europe)
– dividing EU wealth between them
It is to be hoped that the China factor means the treaty holds and it is not like the actual treaty of Brest-Litovsk and a prelude to a doomed US invasion of Russia. :-)
EU countries with domestic energy assets (Norway) or on friendly terms with other pipeline producers (Algeria, Turkey etc.) will be the lesser losers here. You can expect the coal mines to reopen throughout the EU for “clean coal” power stations (to be fair, China has some highly clean and efficient super-critical coal-fired power stations so this would not be an environmental disaster other than for the Net Zero lobby).
If the US can control EU import prices of Russian gas, they will invest their energy in frustrating other pipeline schemes. The various schemes to ship gas through Turkey / Israel or from the Maghreb may all be dead, unless the US gets its vig. Watch the fate of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Azerbaijan etc. closely.
Russia is not going to trample over the rights of existing owners. Putin is fetishistic about the law, plus expropriating assets without compensating the owners would send a very bad signal to Russia’s own oligarchs.
This may be a Trump side fantasy just like his Gaza redevelopment plan, which created outrage because it ignored the property rights of Palestinians.
Maybe Revenant is not to far fetched. Gerald Markel, an astute businessman from Austria thinks this possible as well. We are talking here about Ukrainian oligarchs and not Russian oligarchs. Oligarchs which established their own private armies which no Russian oligarch would dare to do. I don´t think the fate of these troublesome oligarchs are any concern to Putin.
There’s one problem though with revenant’s idea: why would the Russians agree to that? Militarily there is no reason. They are winning the war. But I think the Russians know very well they can´t occupy all of Ukrand end of sactions.aine. Remember conscription failed early in the war (riots in Dagestan and flight of young men) and they now fight with an enormously expensive volunteer force. They need an amenable regime there and that is where the US can be helpful. Also last summer the talks with China regarding the gas from Nordstream collapsed. China wanted the part of the pipeline through Mongolia to be her exterritorial property. And that just apart from the fact that China wanted to pay even less than the Europeans. So Russia might be ready for some deal if she gets regime change in Ukraine and end of sanctions.
Finally: I think the prevailing wisdom on Trump in Russia is right. In Moscow they see Trump as some sort of Gorbachev who tried to reform the empire but instead ended up burying it. And just as the US was afraid of post soviet chaos so is Moscow today afraid of what chaos the bumbling US administration might cause. For this reason alone they are prepared cut Trump some slag.
Forgive a basic question but: how can the US be helpful securing an amenable regime in the Ukraine? Given the repeated deceptions about NATO, the Maidan coup, the proxy war, missile attacks on the RF, etc. etc., I’m not seeing any reason for the Russians to trust any guarantees offered by the US over a future regime there.
They already stopped all USaid money to Ukraine. 9 out of 10 Ukrainian media was paid by the US. In Russian eyes this is huge and a good start.
Did you see Brian Berletic‘s report, that Yves summarized, above?
From today’s Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/25/ukraine-russia-trump-putin-zelenskyy-macron-ceasefire-latest-news-updates-live
09.45 GMT
Putin offers to sell rare earth minerals to the US, including from Russian-occupied Ukraine
Pjotr Sauer
Pjotr Sauer
Pjotr Sauer is a Russian affairs reporter for the Guardian
Vladimir Putin on Monday evening offered to sell Russia’s rare earth minerals to American companies, including those in Russian-occupied Ukraine, further underscoring his message to Donald Trump that there’s profit to be made in Russia.
“We are ready to work with our partners, including the Americans,” Putin said, adding Russia could resume selling aluminium to the US.
“We undoubtedly have, I want to emphasize, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine,” the Russian president said.
Vladimir Putin holds a video-conference meeting on the development of Russia’s rare earth metals industry at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow in Russia.
Vladimir Putin holds a video-conference meeting on the development of Russia’s rare earth metals industry at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow in Russia. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN/EPA
Putin said that potential rare earth metals exploration deals could also be extended to deposits in territory in eastern Ukraine that Russia occupies after three years of military action.
Earlier on Monday, Trump told reporters in Washington that “major economic development transactions with Russia” would take place. Within two hours of the US president’s statement, Putin chaired an unannounced meeting with his ministers and economic advisers on rare earth metals.
Russia has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of rare earth metals, according to the US Geological Survey data, after China, Brazil, India and Australia.
You are making my point.
Putin is reaffirming that Russia will have title to any mineral/natural wealth in the parts of Ukraine that Russia now deems to be Russian, as in the four oblasts. Putin has consistently maintained that Russia is a reliable trade/business partner and that it is the West that stole the $300 billion of Russian assets and precipitously broke all sort of other business relations via the sanctions. Putin has kept maintaining that he is still willing to traffic with the West despite that, such as his pointing out that Russia has perfectly good pipelines (the non-damaged NordStream 2 pipe and another one, I think Yamal, that Poland shut off) and is still willing to provide gas through them.
So Putin is throwing down a marker while trying to act cooperative about it.
Putin’s selling mineral rights to US companies. You said he wasn’t going to do that.
No, Putin said nothing of the kind. No Making Shit Up here. From RT:
https://swentr.site/russia/613253-putin-russia-us-rare-earths/
Please read up on mineral rights here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_rights
Putin is selling Ukrain mineral rights to US companies.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/24/putin-backs-trumps-proposal-to-halve-defense-spending-a88153
I provided a link on mineral rights. You evidently did not read it.
You are projecting your lack of understanding onto what Putin said.
Signing contracts for other parties to DEVELOP the minerals is not “selling” the mineral underlying rights, FFS. The rights owner retains the rights to the assets but gives the development partner a participation in the development project, usually based on a complex formula which includes performance on building out the development assets and performance of the project. Saying that an economic participation in development is tantamount to sale of the underlying mineral rights is incorrect. That is not likely to be the outcome with a sophisticated owner like the Russian state. Selling participations in the economic rights that ownership of a mineral reserve confers is not the sale of the asset.
To put it in simpler terms, the producer of a successful Broadway show has a whole set of right they can sell: sales of ads in the program, sales of the right to the script, sales of rights to perform the music, sales of rights to produce and sell a DVD or other digitized version, screenrights, the right to use any copyrighted or trademarked images (say for T-shirts). These are all separate economic rights whose value a competent producer will seek to monetize if possible. Monetizing these subsidiary rights does not amount to selling “the show” in exploiting the value of those rights. And further note that Putin only alluded to “partners” (I admit Putin ought to regard that word as toxic by now, given its history with his dealings), as in Russia would be a participant (and the history suggest the dominant participant) in any such arrangements.
The large case of a Western company having had an economic interest in underlying Russian assets was BP in Rosneft, and BP sold that stake back to Rosneft.
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/bp-divests-its-stake-in-rosneft/
However, the Rosneft interest was NOT conveyed to BP via the Russian state in 2003 but by billionaire owners, Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), a consortium of Russian billionaires. Access = Access Industries, owned by Len Blavatnik, who was my client on a small project in the 1990s. Blavatnink and others became fabulously wealthy by hoovering up what once were state asset in the US-encouraged privatization wave after the USSR dissolved.
Putin has not been keen about Westerners acquiring stakes in energy assets, see his long and successful row with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The Guardian is reporting that story this morning (yes, I know, I know). So is RTE.
Just some points on mining. I get a bit tired of pointing out that having big theoretical deposits of minerals or oil/gas is very different from being able to commercially extract them. So reports about Ukraine having lots and lots of rare earths, etc., have to be taken with a huge grain of saltpetre (yes, I know some are already mined, but these seem to be quite small scale operations). But lets just say that there are big deposits there that are commercially exploitable.
First off: The legalities. I’m no expert on Russian law, but from what I can find in a quick google it doesn’t differ that much from most other countries, in that underground minerals are considered strictly State property (apparently, the law was completely overhauled very recently). So Putin would likely be within his legal rights to negotiate licensed access without regard to existing landowners (existing rights owners are a different matter).
Now the technicalities – mining and initial processing of minerals is as much an art as a science. Every geological bed is different and requires different extraction/initial processing methods, some of which are open source information, some are highly proprietary. However, on the ground know-how is utterly invaluable, which is why almost all mining is carried out by specialist companies. You simply can’t magic up a crew of workers and tell them to go fetch the rare earths. This is why so many mining operations are joint projects – its rare that the particular know-how matches the license/land ownerships. The US even allowed Chinese companies to mine in Afghanistan during the occupation as western companies showed no interest. Russia of course has massive mineral resources and lots and lots of specialist knowledge, but is behind in a number of key extraction technologies – which is why until the sanctions they were very open to western joint ventures (the access to capital mattered too of course).
So in raw terms, a minerals for peace deal could make some sense. Its very unlikely there is something under Ukraine that Russia does not already have in its vast landmass, so I doubt if they see any minerals there as strategically vital – or put another way, if someone will pay to extract them, they may be happy to facilitate. The US does still have a lot of specialist knowledge in mining a range of minerals, plus of course, the capital resources for upfront investment. Plus the area undoubtedly needs investment and jobs and Moscow has plenty of other areas that need capital injections. And of course, a US – Russia deal would infuriate the rest of Europe which would appeal to both leaders.
*Sigh(*
The Guardian and RTE are misreporting what Putin said. to the degree that he looks to have arranged an interview with his favorite reporter, Pavel Zarubin, to clean thing up for the benefit of Russians (since the West is hopeless). Putin NEVER said he was selling or ceding mineral rights in the new Russian territories or anywhere in Russia.
See: https://swentr.site/russia/613253-putin-russia-us-rare-earths/
The turkey shoots are to the Russians’ liking and they have little reason to stop. They are bleeding Nato white and the political cracks are widening into maws.
From a Russian perspective, it makes sense to keep this going. Keep squeezing the US and EU just enough that they keep making mistakes and losing materiel, money, cohesion and influence, but not so much that they panic and do something rash(outside of rash concessions).
We have to remember that Natos goal was to take the Russians out. Break it all up and feast on the pieces. They tried and they missed. I don’t think the Russians are going to just forget that, nor simply let it lie or risk a second round. Better to press advantages now and go for maximum disruption. Perhaps peel off more allies from the decaying western sphere. If Putin lets Nato off too softly, or ends up with UK/US/EU divisions on the Dnieper, he will certainly face a coup the next morning.
Unfortunately they are not bleeding NATO in any way that actually matters.
A NATO-Russia war will not be fought with tanks, artillery and small drones in a slugfest on the ground.
It will revolve around the navies, air forces, missiles and air defense. None of that stuff above is relevant in any way.
Russia has always had an advantage in missiles and air defense, but has been weaker in its air force and navy. After the USSR collapsed, the disparity became really drastic — it is 5:1 NATO advantage in air force and even worse in naval assets.
Guess how much attrition there has been of NATO’s air force and navy? Zero.
Russia, on the other hand, lost quite a few ships. And planes too.
The only attrition NATO has suffered is in air defense systems, but that is also irrelevant, because what they had to begin with left them defenseless anyway. Thus them losing it does not make any difference.
Russia’s air defense network, on the other hand, does provide meaningful defense, thus losing air defense systems and, most importantly, trained crews for them, is a significant loss, and it has been happening at a steady rate throughout the war.
NATO’s strategy is to carry out a lighting quick decapitating first strike, for which purpose thinning out Russian air defense and probing its weaknesses by launching drones and cruise missiles on a smaller scale deep into Russia is very helpful. And is exactly what has been happening.
Oh, come on. This is delusional. It’s been repeatedly shown that you can’t win wars form the air. You need ground forces. Europe can’t even muster 30,000 for a “reassurance” force for Ukraine. And Russia has also been taking down F-16s. They are apparently afraid to get anywhere in range of Russian air defenses. Experts have repeatedly derided the caliber fo Western air forces.
And Russia has been having more and more success in signal-jamming, now even to Starlink in targeted locations.
It’s not going to be a long war, it will last a couple days at most.
The rest will be clearing the rubble and decontamination.
Russian S-400s are the most critical asset in the whole calculation, thus the Kremlin allowing the US to do target practice on them inside pre-war Russia is outright criminal.
Also, regarding the part where F-16s are “afraid to get anywhere in range of Russian air defenses” — they have been flying planes right up to the Russian border for a year now. Old Soviet MiG-29s and Su-27s primarily, but in the last few days F-16s in Sumy too. Russian AD is nowhere to be seen to stop it, and it is a mystery where the hell the MiG-31s are either (who are in theory supposed to intercept them by flying very high and launching R-37M from a kinetically advantageous position).
Remember that apartment building that was destroyed in Belgorod city back in May 2024? That was a French AASM Hammer guided bomb launched by a MiG-29, which flew right to the border (it was tracked by Russian Telegram channels as it was doing it, so we know what happened, despite the Russian MoD never officially acknowleding it)
Words said at the beginning of every war.
Come on GM … no one has uncorked any real potential and only playing on the sidelines of potential.
Russia has 3 yrs to sort lots, Mfg, logistics, works or not, playing the international long game, all whilst it main goal was to deplete and show the world the NATO backed Military was a joke.
Russia can take out NATO Brass and key bases all over the EU in the time it takes to microwave a meal. Has not done so regardless of provocations as they don’t do zero sum games.
Not having any expertise in the area, this comment my be way off, but could the pushing of the minerals deal, which cannot be realistically implemented, simply serve as a useful impediment to any eventual foreign takeover of said assets come the time for reconstruction (whenever that eventually is)? It seems to me that sanctions and other forms of lawfare are becoming the go-to forms of defense of the US empire in the face of its steady and visible military decline. If Trump’s mineral deal were signed, independent of whatever happens to Zelensky, any usage of the included assets could be tied up interminably in USA courts, with risks of US asset seizures awaiting any company or foreign entity into whose hands those assets land. If nothing else it sets a trap for future US court issued sanctions.
The problem with Russian hawks is that when you leave them with a train of thought, they tend to destroy their own core arguments. One of the most oft repeated is “expansion of NATO threatens Russia” (that is pretty much one of the perennial elites, government and propaganda points). Annexing another huge chunk of territory would just literally bring NATO to Russia’s borders. Sure, now with Finland that ship has already sailed but bringing Russia closer to more NATO borders somehow seems counterproductive.
It is not bringing NATO to Russia’s borders, but pushing Russia’s borders towards NATO*, creating a “crumple zone”, a borderland. It should be obvious to anyone with basic historical knowlegde of the region.
* There is a quote of some Russian historical figure saying that “if we can not protect the borders then we will move the borders“, or something like that.
On the contrary, there are two basic arguments. One is missile flight time to Moscow and the other one is military invasion of Russian territory by an army. Ergo, if you expand Russia closer to NATO, it is obviously easier to be invaded. That quote is even funnier, if you move (expand) the borders, there will be more borders you cannot protect.
Well, than you shold write a letter to those in charge of Russia, explaining them that they have been wrong all along (i.e. for centuries).
NATO is a product of the last century. If it’s not at all about NATO like all the propaganda says, then why bother speaking about it? Why not just be honest and say “Europe has been our enemy for centuries and we will subdue or destroy it”?
You might have noticed by now that you won’t find fertile ground here for whatever you are trying.
1) How would have Operation Barbarossa gone if Hitler had started from Sumy instead of Brest? Those additional 800km buffer made a difference, didn’t they?
2) Russia is not expanding, it is defending itself and trying to recover what invaders have taken. Currently the frontlines are roughly where they were in late 1941, and it is largely the same people (the descendants of the Nazis, in Ukraine, in Europe and in North America) occupying the territory. If Moscow does not recover what is historically Russian, the country will have lost a quarter of its population and some its most productive and strategically important land, without a fight. Worse, it will have been turned into an anti-Russia. What Pakistan is to India, but much worse, as there is at least the religious division there, here there was no division originally. Everything well to the west of Kiev is ethnically Russian and historically Russian land, not “Ukrainian”; what language do you think they speak in Kiev even today?
3) Missile flight times. If you place nukes in Sumy, Moscow has two choices: either place second strike systems on full automatic, which in the long term ensures the end of the world, because they will 100% guaranteed malfunction one day (which we are certain of because of how many times early warning systems have malfunctioned in the past, but the human in the loop was there to save the day), or surrender. Because missiles fly from Sumy to Moscow in less time than it will take to wake Putin up and tell him what is happening, let alone formulate a response and launch it.
Do you want the world to end for Bandera, for the lunatic ravings of third-generation Canadian Ukronazis, for the grudge that some Moldovan and Ukrainian Zionist Jews still hold towards Russia four generations later because of some pogroms in the late 19th century (which by their official logic were not even carried out by Russians, but by “Ukrainians”), and for the business interests of Western capital?
Annexing another huge chunk of territory would just literally bring NATO to Russia’s borders. Sure, now with Finland that ship has already sailed but bringing Russia closer to more NATO borders somehow seems counterproductive.
Very common fallacy. Like in chess all areas of the chessboard don’t have the same importance/value.
Finland with 5 millions Finns will never let be used as a ramp against Russia. Because if for instance Sankt-Peterburg is hurt, then Helsingfors/Helsinki is done and with it alone 20% of Finland in population.
Also most of central and northern Carelian border is not logistics friendly.
Ukraine instead had an open steppe border with Russia, fast broad logistics to big Russian cities, and a significant population that we have seen has been on part brainwashed since the 2000’s and been providing hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
If NATO was in Donbass and Kharkov, then it was a serious conventional menace.
By retaking hilly Donbass and its web of industrial towns and cities, Russia repels NATO to the Dniepr.
The now three years of war in Donbass show what was the level of fortification done by NATO in 2015-2022 and the work it requires in order to remove it.
NATO can not do it the other way around because EU country can’t sacrifice their own populations like Ukraine has done/is doing.
It is interesting to review Putin’s latest public thoughts in an interview yesterday with Zarubin
He reiterated Lavrov’s view that the US talks were about building trust and starting to investigate areas of mutual interest. Nothing specifically about Ukraine yet, which would have to be between Russia and Ukraine ( but not Zelensky, who is toxic according to Putin). He sees no role for Europe in discussions with the US, but them and BRICS nations in any peace discussions with Ukraine.
When pressed on the US ‘deal’ on Ukraine resources , Putin opened up the possibility of US involvement and investment in capital projects in Donbass as well as throughout Russia. It sounded like an invitation. With regards to any US deal specifically in the rest of Ukraine, he said it was none of his business.
Putin regards the Europeans as unable to move position because of ‘face’, whereas Trump can because of his electoral victory as leader of a great power.
Two mafia bosses staking out their territory and looking at possible business opportunities for mutual advantage.
Trying to analyse this by conventional diplomatic criteria may be a waste of time.
I think you read this backwards: ” With regards to any US deal specifically in the rest of Ukraine, he said it was none of his business.”
That meant the US mineral deal was indeed none of his business because it would not impact Russia’s rights in the four oblasts. He was carving them out.
Thanks, interesting. Your take is mostly in line with my view that Trump is also essentially bipartisan, but simply now more realistic than Biden.
The US is Being Pulled, Kicking and Screaming, Into the Multipolar World
https://finnandreen.substack.com/p/the-us-is-being-pulled-kicking-and
the Trumpists may be just doing a diversion while they transfer the frontend from USA into EU.
May want to appear like they dropped the Ukraine operation.
the Russian offering parts in rare earths mining is a way to stress test Americans because these resources being also in Donbass means USA would recognize Donbass as Russian. Just the answer to Trumpists who shot first with the deal for Ukrainian rare earths, that are much in … Donbass.
Funny diplomatic game.