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Russia and China also have hypersonic missiles

I've said this before, but I suspect the things are connected via some phone call between Trump and Putin.

Trump: Listen Vlad, I'm not going to complain too much about your dealing with your own back yard if you'll let us deal with our own back yard.

Meanwhile, in late December, Russia had already begun a quiet evacuation of its Venezuelan diplomats’ families. “Moscow, which publicly denied a news report on the evacuation,” the Journal said, “didn’t inform the Chinese of its plan.” It sounds like Putin enjoyed the benefit of a heads-up— and didn’t tell anyone. Weird!

Here is a brief Proxy War update in three headlines. First, this morning, the Washington Post filed a chilling report from Ukraine’s capital city, Kiev:

Ukraine's politicians trade barbs as Kyiv shivers amid the loss of power
In Kyiv, a frigid lottery of sorts is playing out in which residents may have
power, heat or water but almost never all three depending on where they live.

Next, yesterday CNN reported that Ukraine’s military is shrinking faster than a puddle of water on the airport tarmac in Florida in August:

Ukraine's new defense chief reveals
200,000 soldiers have gone AWOL and 2
million are dodging draft

It sounds like a lot of Ukrainians don’t want to fight anymore.

The problem might seem obvious, but admitting the problem exists is brand new. “Rumors of low morale and high desertion rates have been swirling around for a long time,” CNN said, “but Fedorov’s comments mark the first time any Ukrainian official has disclosed the scale of the problem.” Defense chief Fedorov, 35, told Ukraine’s parliament that —I promise I am not making this up— Ukraine needs to replace its shrinking human army with robots.

Third and finally, Reuters ran an exclusive yesterday with this bold headline signaling a difficult audience for the former comedian:

Trump says Zelenskiy, not Putin, is holding up a Ukraine peace deal

Anyway, President Trump seems sure who is to blame for the lack of a peace deal: the country that has no power in its capital and is running out of soldiers. “Asked why U.S.-led negotiations had not yet resolved Europe’s largest land conflict since World War Two,” Reuters said, “Trump responded: Zelenskiy.”

Ukraine needs to replace its shrinking human army with robots.