The Ukraine-Russia Peace Process Is a Trap

Housing prices are through the roof in several countries, spiking rents and making homeownership a fading dream for many. Our feature story this morning looks at causes and attempted cures in Australia: “Feeling the Squeeze: Australia’s Rental Emergency,” by Callum Wood.

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Vladimir Putin is playing Donald Trump: Signs are becoming clearer that all the muscle Trump is applying to the Ukraine-Russia peace effort isn’t swaying Putin’s mind one iota. In response, the White House is sending mixed signals, both frustrated and optimistic, not having yet conceded that this process is doomed.

• Trump officials JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff were all over the Sunday talk shows insisting the process is working and that Trump’s pressure, including economic leverage, was getting results. Putin has showed flexibility and made “significant concessions,” like agreeing to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

Putin could have ended this war long ago and hasn’t. In fact, since Trump started his latest round of peace efforts, Putin has escalated his offensive. The “security guarantees” Trump’s men are touting are essentially no different from those Putin agreed to before and then violated.

Putin is highly skilled at telling people what they want to hear—then doing what he wants to do. With an American president convinced of his personal ability to “solve anything” and eager to cement his legacy as a peacemaker, and a team of diplomats with little experience and a lot of credulity, Putin has a lot of leverage.

As Owen Matthews writes in the Spectator today, Putin is setting a trap aimed at dividing America from Europe. All he has to do is convince Trump he’s doing all he can to make the process work, while laying down “a series of conditions that Zelenskyy will refuse to accept.” Trump would be far likelier to agree to this to get his deal—while Europe would have to choose between sticking with Ukraine and making “an ignoble compromise with the Kremlin.”

Take the “land swaps” which Trump has mentioned so many times. In reality, that’s a reference to Putin’s demand that Kyiv surrender control of the third of Donetsk and a small sliver of Luhansk provinces that he has so far failed to take. In exchange, Putin proposes to withdraw from small chunks of Sumy and Kharkiv provinces that he occupies and also drop his claim on the remainder of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Effectively he’s demanding some very valuable and heavily defended real estate—including the fortress cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Kostyantynivka—in exchange for land that he has not yet been able to conquer.

Amazingly, Trump has reportedly agreed that this is a reasonable price for Kyiv to pay for peace. Yet Zelenskyy cannot surrender this territory either politically or practically. …

Putin has laid a similar political minefield for Zelenskyy and his European allies over legal recognition of the territories he has occupied. Again, Trump is reportedly in favor of forcing Kyiv to de jure recognize Crimea as Russian, while leaving the rest of occupied Ukraine in a legal limbo. Again, such a humiliation would be political death for any Ukrainian leader who made it ….

Putin has dozens more such humiliations in store for Kyiv and its backers before he is ready to end his assault on Ukraine. On the economic front, his wish list includes the lifting of sanctions, a resumption of flights, and the unfreezing of billions of Central Bank assets. On the geopolitical front, he wants a constitutional guarantee that Ukraine will never join nato and restrictions on weapons and troops nato can deploy to border countries such as the Baltic states, Romania and Poland, as well as an assurance of no more nato eastward expansion to Moldova and Georgia.

Putin has a long list of demands he can make that Trump would be unwilling to stand against. The U.S. has already said it wants Europe to look after its own security. Trump wants to make a deal and walk away. What will Europe do then?

Vladimir Putin is the prophesied “prince of Russia.” Truly, the Trump administration does not recognize what a canny liar and committed murderer he is. Gerald Flurry writes in his free booklet on this subject,

Putin has long known that if Ukraine allied with Europe, it would significantly diminish his power. His goal is to resurrect the Soviet empire. The architecture of that empire was built around Ukraine being a part of it. …

Putin applied all that pressure on Ukraine because that nation is the linchpin of his goal of a renewed imperial Russia!

This peace process is a trap. The question is what will happen when President Trump recognizes it at last.

UN declares “famine” in Gaza: Friday marked only the fifth time in the last 20 years that the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (ipc) has declared a famine. In Gaza City itself, the famine is at level five, the highest possible level. Yet the UN seems to be tailoring the crime to fit their man.

To ensure that accusations of famine cannot be used as a political weapon, strict technical definitions must be met. As the UN itself explains, the criteria are:

• “At least 20 percent of the population in that particular area are facing extreme levels of hunger;
• “30 percent of the children in the same place are wasted, or too thin for their height; and
• “The death—or mortality—rate has doubled, from the average, surpassing two deaths per 10,000 daily for adults and four deaths per 10,000 daily for children.”

Hamas’s own figures do not support the last two points. However, the fine print of the UN’s rules allows an alternative for the second point. Instead of 30 percent of children being too thin for their height, 15 percent of children could have a mid-upper arm circumference that is too narrow.

• The UN used this lower threshold. It then relied an interim study from the ipc’s Famine Review Committee showing that 16 percent of children had reached it. It ignored the fact that the final study is already available, and instead puts the figure at 12.2 percent.

The Israeli prime minister’s office dismissed the UN’s report as “lies” and a “modern blood libel.” It wrote: “Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation.”

• Since May, 10,000 aid trucks have entered Gaza, 80 percent of them carrying food. Over 2.2 million family food parcels go out each week. In fact, more food is going into Gaza than before the war.
• Israel is almost unique in military history in trying to feed its enemy rather than to starve them.

Yet lies about Israel’s invasion of Gaza abound. They stem from the father of lies (John 8:44). Our January 2024 Trumpet issue exposes many of these lies about Israel and their evil origin.

IN OTHER NEWS

Israel and Syria becoming friends? U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack is negotiating a deal between Israel and Syria. On Sunday, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss a budding agreement with Syria, sources told Axios. Meanwhile, Syrian sources speaking with Independent Arabia said the Trump administration is hoping Israel and Syria will sign a security agreement on September 25. According to Sky News Arabia, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa claimed security talks with Israel were “advanced.” While ruling out a comprehensive peace agreement for the time being, he said he “will not hesitate to take” any deal as long as it’s in Syria’s interests. Syria may look like it is becoming a partner for peace with Israel. But as our article “Making Peace With Jihadists in Suits” elaborates, this is setting Israel up for a deadly trap.

Pope Leo sided against Britain and America, saying this weekend that he was “delighted” that Britain had agreed to give the crucial Chagos Islands military base to Chinese ally Mauritius. He called the move a “significant victory” that would “repair a grave injustice.” It’s hard to see how gifting an island to a country that never owned it does anything of the sort. It shows this pope is continuing one of Pope Francis’s most significant legacies: rallying the world against Britain and America.

German soldiers must mentally prepare for war, says German Army Chief Lt. Gen. Alfons Mais. While the German Army is making “great progress” toward combat readiness, Mais told Deutsche Presse-Agentur over the weekend that soldiers also must mentally prepare for conflict in less-than-ideal conditions. “Taking action takes precedence over going under cover, because there is no second winner,” he said. “When courage is added to bravery in a specific situation, we have people who are capable of extraordinary achievements.” Bible prophecy reveals that the day will come when Germany calls its people to war and the nation’s warrior spirit will once again overshadow our world. Closely watch Germany’s revived militarism.

The FBI raided John Bolton’s house on Friday. Critics are accusing President Trump of weaponizing law enforcement—which is rich, considering he isn’t doing even half of what his predecessors did against him. Bolton himself famously piled on against Trump when the fbi raided his Mar-a-Lago home. But the charges against Bolton appear to be warranted. After serving as national security advisor during Trump’s first term, he and the president had a falling out; the two are still arguing over whether he “resigned” or was “fired.” Like many former Trump employees, Bolton sought to cash in on his stint under Trump by writing a book. President Trump tried to block its publication, but a D.C. district court judge decided Bolton could continue. However, the judge noted in his decision that Bolton “likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.” In 2020, not even a year after leaving the White House, Bolton published The Room Where It Happened. Officials say Bolton e-mailed classified documents to his wife and daughter before he left the White House. Investigation into the matter stalled during the Biden years. Now, Kash Patel’s fbi is sorting it out.