I've watched it all and what stands out to me is Trump's apparent sincerity in wanting peace. I don't trust him. I hate his apparent total dedication to Israel and murder. But in regard to Ukraine he perhaps is genuine. In which case there will be peace. For Kiev Ukraine is fairly immaterial. It has always been America was making the war. If Europe tries to step in and replace America as motivator and sustainer I think they'll destroy themselves.
Trump's support for Israel grates with me also. On the one hand he does seem sincere about stopping war in Ukraine yet he continues to support Israel. I'm not sure what is going on here but maybe time will tell. I would prefer to retain an agnostic position rather than making wild guesses. In the future, people will write books about this, being in possession many of the facts that are missing from our current 'Jigsaw'.
Yes Arthur - was that Netanyahu telling Trump that he can get him killed if he doesn't continue to back Israel? Nothing in this unravelling world would surprise me.
I saw the Golden Pager as a threat, and a brag: 'We are a nuclear nation, and can even nuke you, or assassinate you personally if you get out of line. Also, aren't we clever? Selling the enemy devices that we could blow up at any time.'
Zelensky told many lies during the meeting, and I found it disgusting as well.
Here is a list of his lies that I noticed in the video, at least.
Lie: Ukrainian POWs are tortured by Russians.
Fact: Ukrainian POWs are treated fairly.
Lie: Russian forces kidnapped Ukrainian children.
Fact: Russian forces evacuated children who had become orphans or had been separated from their parents near the battlefield.
Lie: The Russian government repeatedly violated the Minsk Accord.
Fact: Ukrainian forces and far-right nationalists have continued bombarding Donbass. Their violations of the Minsk Accord were recorded by the OSCE.
Lie: The Russian government did not fulfill its obligation to exchange POWs.
Fact: The Russian government has been following the rules for POW exchanges, and the exact same number of POWs held by Ukrainian forces has been exchanged.
However, the only instance in which Russian forces were unable to return Ukrainian POWs was when a Ukrainian Patriot missile shot down a Russian plane on January 24, 2024.
""You don’t have the cards right now" – "I'm not playing cards Mr President" – "Oh you're playing cards, you're gambling with the lives of millions of people"
Thoughts on the most amazing bilateral meeting and press conference of all time.
"Since 2022, the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been running about the globe in his weird focus-grouped jumpers and combat boots, lecturing all of our parliaments on the unity and mutual interests of Europe, the goodness of democracy, the genocidal evils of Vladimir Putin and the importance of ever more weapons deliveries to his country’s armed forces. In the process, he has become one of the more obnoxious political phenomena in recent memory, and I hope I would be able to see this even if I were firmly convinced that German interests aligned perfectly with Ukrainian interests and that we should do nothing but give the AFU all of our tanks and all of our Taurus missiles and possibly even all of our soldiers to defend our shiny wonderful and deeply liberal European democracy, where we are so free that riot police will bash your head in for protesting Covid restrictions and if you call the wrong cabinet minister a moron the speech monitors will raid your house.
Here in Europe, our political leaders have treated the shouting, remonstrating Zelensky with nothing but egregious reverence, and the man has grown accustomed to his noxious political celebrity. Nothing else can explain the amazing press conference Zelensky and Trump held yesterday, ahead of afternoon plans to sign an agreement concerning Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. We got to witness nothing less than the near-total meltdown of American and Ukrainian relations, live and in colour. Historians of the Ukraine war will be writing about this press conference for years and decades to come."
Zelensky is meeting Starmer today in the same garb as yesterday. It doesn't look like he has a change of clothes never mind a suit. The self delusion in Europe is frightening. I am worried these cranks in Europe, will up - the - ante in Ukraine, to thwart Russo American rapprochement. Was is the strategic objective of the EU re Russia? Destroy it and exploit its resources, fat chance of that. If they wanted access to Ukraines assets why did they poke the bear rather than doing a deal with Ukraine to access the resources and keep the Russians out. There's something that doesn't make sense here. Its almost as if you needed to provoke a war to obtain your objective. I can understand that from a US perspective: to weaken a near peer competitor and potential Chinese ally, but for Europe? I just don't get it.
Starmer was thrilled with the crossdresser when he arrived, making a point to loudly declare that he was most welcome at No. 10 Downing Street. To my chagrin, a sizable crowd had gathered to cheer for Zelensky's arrival, a scene that the green goblin promptly uploaded to X. Sadly, a large number of British citizens have been so thoroughly indoctrinated about the Russian Special Military Operation that the real facts remain hidden from them, as they lack the intelligence to conduct their own research and engage in critical thinking.
Simplis76 has an excellent post today on this event.
There is a continuing debate: Did Trump and Vance plan an ambush, or did Zelensky think that he had a different audience and could use his tried and true the tactics in the White House? Several people agree that Trump and Vance had rehearsed some of the lines they used.
Also, the Forbes video shows the various participants during the 49 minute session. It also shows some views of the photos (propaganda) that Zelensky brought to the meeting without clearing them beforehand.
One would have to say that so far it has to qualify as a contender. It was certainly a 'wow' moment.
It was also, perhaps, his first 'Presidential Moment' following a flurry of 'emperor-like' pronouncements since January 20th.
'Jane' @ MoA provided a link to an Alaister Crooke article in Strategic Culture that was published a couple of days before the debacle of t' Green Goblin, which provides a sound background to the event of three days ago.
Zelensky clearly wants the war to continue - at America's expense. He knows that the minute it is over he will have to stop strutting the world stage with its leaders, and will be relegated to the dustbin. Tomorrow's feather duster.
Yesterday one of his ministers was calling for Zelensky's impeachment.
Putin must be having several Pass the Popcorn moments.
In the meantime Vance is coming across as intelligent, and a realist, in spite of the MSM portrayals of him as a religious nut.
Zelensky is meeting Starmer today in the same garb as yesterday. It doesn't look like he has a change of clothes never mind a suit. The self delusion in Europe is frightening. I am worried these cranks in Europe, will up - the - ante in Ukraine, to thwart Russo American rapprochement. Was is the strategic objective of the EU re Russia? Destroy it and exploit its resources, fat chance of that. If they wanted access to Ukraines assets why did they poke the bear rather than doing a deal with Ukraine to access the resources and keep the Russians out. There's something that doesn't make sense here. Its almost as if you needed to provoke a war to obtain your objective. I can understand that from a US perspective: to weaken a near peer competitor and potential Chinese ally, but for Europe? I just don't get it.
Could it be that the West believed its own propaganda that Russia was weak and the the West was strong enough to weaken Russia. How important was the Rand report?
"Overextending and Unbalancing Russia
Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams
Is the West so enamored with finance that they thought that sanctions could bring Russia to its knees?
Now that both assumptions have been proven false, when will Europe realize this failure and look at their domestic economies. Will doubling down in support of Ukraine hasten the revolt of Europeans?
I have been thinking about Starmer and Macron's peace force: can it not be deployed to Gaza, Syria and Lebanon to safeguard the peace there? You know some place(S) where we actually have negotiated ceasefires.
Good point: the Israelis are continuing to ignore the ceasefires and have stopped aid getting to Gaza - which is a war crime. Everything appears to be coming to a head in Ukraine with the RADA supporting Trump's peace initiative. I really thought that the once great Z would be gone by now but he's hanging on by his fingernails.
I read the Rand document. Clearly a US designed policy to weaken Russia which begs the question again why Europe persists with a US agenda when the US under Trump pivots towards China. Callous Kallas: i might have guessed part Baltic German descent. Same with old Stoltenberg. Why do they hate the Russians so much: Oh i know, the Russians kicked the German populace out of all the East European countries 1945 and destroyed the old Hansa/Teutonic network
Let's start with Kvartal 95, The Oligarch’s Launchpad, Zelensky’s story starts not in politics but comedy. Born in 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, he co-founded Studio Kvartal 95 in the 1990s with a group of friends that had hit it big by the 2000s, ironically their big breaks were made in Russia, performing in Russian and focusing on Russian and Ukrainian political and cultural life. The key to all this success? Ihor Kolomoisky, a billionaire ukrainian oligarch with a laundry list of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and brutal violence. Kolomoisky then owned 1+1, the TV network that handed Zelenskys Kvartal 95 a national platform starting in 2012. He didn’t just offer airtime. He bankrolled Zelensky with cash, security, and legal and criminal muscle. This wasn’t mentorship. It was a transaction. Kolomoisky, later sanctioned by the U.S. for “significant corruption,” saw Zelensky as a pawn in his game. By 2019, when Zelensky ran for president, Kolomoisky’s DNA was all over the campaign providing vehicles, lawyers, bodyguards, and a media blitz. Zelensky was never an outsider; he was a "made man"
This is where it gets almost unbelievably bizzare. In 2015, Zelensky starred in "Servant of the People," a hit satire aired on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel, where he played a teacher turned president railing against corruption.
Ukrainians, tired of the endemic corruption in the post Soviet state, lapped it up. Then, in 2018, his Kvartal 95 crew decided to turn fiction into reality, registering a political party called, you guessed it, "Servant of the People." It had absolutely no manifesto, no policies, and no plan of action, just a TV title and Zelensky’s face.
Running in 2019, Zelensky promised to end corruption and the Donbas civil war, which had erupted after the CIA backed Maidan Coup, winning in a landslide thanks to Kolomoisky’s media machine. An actor who played a president on TV was now remarkably in the real job.
Zelensky didn’t waste any time handing power to his showbiz pals. Ivan Bakanov, a Kvartal 95 co-founder, became head of the SBU security service with no experience. Serhiy Shefir, another comedy crony, took a top aide role, no experience. And then there’s Andriy Yermak, a film producer turned Zelensky’s right-hand man, now head of the Presidential Office, dubbed Ukraine’s “shadow president.” Yermak, physically and intellectualy towering over Zelensky, controls policy and access, a fixer running the show while the president flounders. These weren’t appointments based on merit. They were loyalty hires, a Kvartal 95 clique utterly unfit for a grossly dysfunctional war-torn nation.
Zelensky’s laughable anti-corruption pledge met reality in 2021 with the Pandora Papers. The leak revealed he and his inner circle,including Bakanov, were funnelling cash to Kolomoisky with Zelensky stashing millions offshore.
Zelensky swore to end corruption and the Donbas war. Instead, he’s delivered more of both, a million lie Dead, the free Media crushed, billions stolen, languages and religion banned.
Thanks for that Pete. Some of it is familiar but not all. I bet the once great Z wished he had stayed in comedy: things are far from funny from where he is sitting.
I've watched it all and what stands out to me is Trump's apparent sincerity in wanting peace. I don't trust him. I hate his apparent total dedication to Israel and murder. But in regard to Ukraine he perhaps is genuine. In which case there will be peace. For Kiev Ukraine is fairly immaterial. It has always been America was making the war. If Europe tries to step in and replace America as motivator and sustainer I think they'll destroy themselves.
Trump's support for Israel grates with me also. On the one hand he does seem sincere about stopping war in Ukraine yet he continues to support Israel. I'm not sure what is going on here but maybe time will tell. I would prefer to retain an agnostic position rather than making wild guesses. In the future, people will write books about this, being in possession many of the facts that are missing from our current 'Jigsaw'.
a kinda 'missing piece' for me is the golden pager. what are the real significances of that? I know how I'd see it if I were in Trump's shoes.
Yes Arthur - was that Netanyahu telling Trump that he can get him killed if he doesn't continue to back Israel? Nothing in this unravelling world would surprise me.
I saw the Golden Pager as a threat, and a brag: 'We are a nuclear nation, and can even nuke you, or assassinate you personally if you get out of line. Also, aren't we clever? Selling the enemy devices that we could blow up at any time.'
Zelensky told many lies during the meeting, and I found it disgusting as well.
Here is a list of his lies that I noticed in the video, at least.
Lie: Ukrainian POWs are tortured by Russians.
Fact: Ukrainian POWs are treated fairly.
Lie: Russian forces kidnapped Ukrainian children.
Fact: Russian forces evacuated children who had become orphans or had been separated from their parents near the battlefield.
Lie: The Russian government repeatedly violated the Minsk Accord.
Fact: Ukrainian forces and far-right nationalists have continued bombarding Donbass. Their violations of the Minsk Accord were recorded by the OSCE.
Lie: The Russian government did not fulfill its obligation to exchange POWs.
Fact: The Russian government has been following the rules for POW exchanges, and the exact same number of POWs held by Ukrainian forces has been exchanged.
However, the only instance in which Russian forces were unable to return Ukrainian POWs was when a Ukrainian Patriot missile shot down a Russian plane on January 24, 2024.
Well said Kumi - thanks.
Then we have: eugyppius: a plague chronicle
""You don’t have the cards right now" – "I'm not playing cards Mr President" – "Oh you're playing cards, you're gambling with the lives of millions of people"
Thoughts on the most amazing bilateral meeting and press conference of all time.
eugyppius Mar 01, 2025 ∙ Paid"
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/you-dont-have-the-cards-right-now
"Since 2022, the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been running about the globe in his weird focus-grouped jumpers and combat boots, lecturing all of our parliaments on the unity and mutual interests of Europe, the goodness of democracy, the genocidal evils of Vladimir Putin and the importance of ever more weapons deliveries to his country’s armed forces. In the process, he has become one of the more obnoxious political phenomena in recent memory, and I hope I would be able to see this even if I were firmly convinced that German interests aligned perfectly with Ukrainian interests and that we should do nothing but give the AFU all of our tanks and all of our Taurus missiles and possibly even all of our soldiers to defend our shiny wonderful and deeply liberal European democracy, where we are so free that riot police will bash your head in for protesting Covid restrictions and if you call the wrong cabinet minister a moron the speech monitors will raid your house.
Here in Europe, our political leaders have treated the shouting, remonstrating Zelensky with nothing but egregious reverence, and the man has grown accustomed to his noxious political celebrity. Nothing else can explain the amazing press conference Zelensky and Trump held yesterday, ahead of afternoon plans to sign an agreement concerning Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. We got to witness nothing less than the near-total meltdown of American and Ukrainian relations, live and in colour. Historians of the Ukraine war will be writing about this press conference for years and decades to come."
Eugyppius is a wise man.
If the clown would have wear a suit maybe thing would have turned out different? Whatever?
Good point - dress code is so important.
It comes down to the basic fundamental rule of "dressing for success".
Trump rubbished what he was wearing upon his arrival. Afterwards his visit was terminated early, and all other Zelensky events cancelled.
Apparently, Trump had asked him to wear a suit before hand.
Zelensky is meeting Starmer today in the same garb as yesterday. It doesn't look like he has a change of clothes never mind a suit. The self delusion in Europe is frightening. I am worried these cranks in Europe, will up - the - ante in Ukraine, to thwart Russo American rapprochement. Was is the strategic objective of the EU re Russia? Destroy it and exploit its resources, fat chance of that. If they wanted access to Ukraines assets why did they poke the bear rather than doing a deal with Ukraine to access the resources and keep the Russians out. There's something that doesn't make sense here. Its almost as if you needed to provoke a war to obtain your objective. I can understand that from a US perspective: to weaken a near peer competitor and potential Chinese ally, but for Europe? I just don't get it.
Starmer was thrilled with the crossdresser when he arrived, making a point to loudly declare that he was most welcome at No. 10 Downing Street. To my chagrin, a sizable crowd had gathered to cheer for Zelensky's arrival, a scene that the green goblin promptly uploaded to X. Sadly, a large number of British citizens have been so thoroughly indoctrinated about the Russian Special Military Operation that the real facts remain hidden from them, as they lack the intelligence to conduct their own research and engage in critical thinking.
Simplis76 has an excellent post today on this event.
There is a continuing debate: Did Trump and Vance plan an ambush, or did Zelensky think that he had a different audience and could use his tried and true the tactics in the White House? Several people agree that Trump and Vance had rehearsed some of the lines they used.
Also, the Forbes video shows the various participants during the 49 minute session. It also shows some views of the photos (propaganda) that Zelensky brought to the meeting without clearing them beforehand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_YtXWVfkJE
Zelensky showed his true colors and Trump was fairly decent.
T.S. Eliot may well have written these lines for “the once great Zelensky “:
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head grown slightly bald brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
Very apt - and vaguely familiar. Thanks.
"Press Conference of the Century?"
One would have to say that so far it has to qualify as a contender. It was certainly a 'wow' moment.
It was also, perhaps, his first 'Presidential Moment' following a flurry of 'emperor-like' pronouncements since January 20th.
'Jane' @ MoA provided a link to an Alaister Crooke article in Strategic Culture that was published a couple of days before the debacle of t' Green Goblin, which provides a sound background to the event of three days ago.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/02/26/america-as-republic-not-as-empire-europe-sound-and-fury-after-jaw-dropping-pivots-in-us-policy/
Great summary by the way.
Thanks for that Dude. Crooke, Baud and Doctorow are probably my favourite pundits. Good Crooke article which makes a lot of sense.
That is a very helpful summary, Dr. Rob, and thank you so much also for all our wonderful articles and your wisdom and insight.
Cheers Tilly. I thought it would be useful to people who don't do social media - and I hoped it would generate some discussion - which it has.
Zelensky clearly wants the war to continue - at America's expense. He knows that the minute it is over he will have to stop strutting the world stage with its leaders, and will be relegated to the dustbin. Tomorrow's feather duster.
Yesterday one of his ministers was calling for Zelensky's impeachment.
Putin must be having several Pass the Popcorn moments.
In the meantime Vance is coming across as intelligent, and a realist, in spite of the MSM portrayals of him as a religious nut.
Zelensky is meeting Starmer today in the same garb as yesterday. It doesn't look like he has a change of clothes never mind a suit. The self delusion in Europe is frightening. I am worried these cranks in Europe, will up - the - ante in Ukraine, to thwart Russo American rapprochement. Was is the strategic objective of the EU re Russia? Destroy it and exploit its resources, fat chance of that. If they wanted access to Ukraines assets why did they poke the bear rather than doing a deal with Ukraine to access the resources and keep the Russians out. There's something that doesn't make sense here. Its almost as if you needed to provoke a war to obtain your objective. I can understand that from a US perspective: to weaken a near peer competitor and potential Chinese ally, but for Europe? I just don't get it.
Could it be that the West believed its own propaganda that Russia was weak and the the West was strong enough to weaken Russia. How important was the Rand report?
"Overextending and Unbalancing Russia
Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams
Research Summary Published Apr 24, 2019"
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
Is the West so enamored with finance that they thought that sanctions could bring Russia to its knees?
Now that both assumptions have been proven false, when will Europe realize this failure and look at their domestic economies. Will doubling down in support of Ukraine hasten the revolt of Europeans?
Thanks i will have a read. But it has to be that nothing else makes sense and yet they are doubling down on a failed goal just as the US backs out.
Just madness, utter insanity. They must be completely blind to what the state of the UK & the rest of Europe is.
I have been thinking about Starmer and Macron's peace force: can it not be deployed to Gaza, Syria and Lebanon to safeguard the peace there? You know some place(S) where we actually have negotiated ceasefires.
Good point: the Israelis are continuing to ignore the ceasefires and have stopped aid getting to Gaza - which is a war crime. Everything appears to be coming to a head in Ukraine with the RADA supporting Trump's peace initiative. I really thought that the once great Z would be gone by now but he's hanging on by his fingernails.
Re Zelensky, i bought this just as things kicked off in 2022: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/from-the-fires-of-war/9783838215082
I read the Rand document. Clearly a US designed policy to weaken Russia which begs the question again why Europe persists with a US agenda when the US under Trump pivots towards China. Callous Kallas: i might have guessed part Baltic German descent. Same with old Stoltenberg. Why do they hate the Russians so much: Oh i know, the Russians kicked the German populace out of all the East European countries 1945 and destroyed the old Hansa/Teutonic network
Cheers Mike
Some background on Zelenskyy
Let's start with Kvartal 95, The Oligarch’s Launchpad, Zelensky’s story starts not in politics but comedy. Born in 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, he co-founded Studio Kvartal 95 in the 1990s with a group of friends that had hit it big by the 2000s, ironically their big breaks were made in Russia, performing in Russian and focusing on Russian and Ukrainian political and cultural life. The key to all this success? Ihor Kolomoisky, a billionaire ukrainian oligarch with a laundry list of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and brutal violence. Kolomoisky then owned 1+1, the TV network that handed Zelenskys Kvartal 95 a national platform starting in 2012. He didn’t just offer airtime. He bankrolled Zelensky with cash, security, and legal and criminal muscle. This wasn’t mentorship. It was a transaction. Kolomoisky, later sanctioned by the U.S. for “significant corruption,” saw Zelensky as a pawn in his game. By 2019, when Zelensky ran for president, Kolomoisky’s DNA was all over the campaign providing vehicles, lawyers, bodyguards, and a media blitz. Zelensky was never an outsider; he was a "made man"
This is where it gets almost unbelievably bizzare. In 2015, Zelensky starred in "Servant of the People," a hit satire aired on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel, where he played a teacher turned president railing against corruption.
Ukrainians, tired of the endemic corruption in the post Soviet state, lapped it up. Then, in 2018, his Kvartal 95 crew decided to turn fiction into reality, registering a political party called, you guessed it, "Servant of the People." It had absolutely no manifesto, no policies, and no plan of action, just a TV title and Zelensky’s face.
Running in 2019, Zelensky promised to end corruption and the Donbas civil war, which had erupted after the CIA backed Maidan Coup, winning in a landslide thanks to Kolomoisky’s media machine. An actor who played a president on TV was now remarkably in the real job.
Zelensky didn’t waste any time handing power to his showbiz pals. Ivan Bakanov, a Kvartal 95 co-founder, became head of the SBU security service with no experience. Serhiy Shefir, another comedy crony, took a top aide role, no experience. And then there’s Andriy Yermak, a film producer turned Zelensky’s right-hand man, now head of the Presidential Office, dubbed Ukraine’s “shadow president.” Yermak, physically and intellectualy towering over Zelensky, controls policy and access, a fixer running the show while the president flounders. These weren’t appointments based on merit. They were loyalty hires, a Kvartal 95 clique utterly unfit for a grossly dysfunctional war-torn nation.
Zelensky’s laughable anti-corruption pledge met reality in 2021 with the Pandora Papers. The leak revealed he and his inner circle,including Bakanov, were funnelling cash to Kolomoisky with Zelensky stashing millions offshore.
Zelensky swore to end corruption and the Donbas war. Instead, he’s delivered more of both, a million lie Dead, the free Media crushed, billions stolen, languages and religion banned.
Thanks for that Pete. Some of it is familiar but not all. I bet the once great Z wished he had stayed in comedy: things are far from funny from where he is sitting.
Mir scheint, dass die Dokumentation von Scott Ritter über Zelenskyj ‘Agent Zelensky’ weitgehend unbekannt ist:
https://rumble.com/v2zs3r0-a-scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-1.html
https://rumble.com/v30nd8w-a-scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-2.html
Cheers for that.
Yesterday reminded me of the last scene from the Dead Pool-Zelensky met his Martin Sheen moment yesterday.
He sure did.