patrick.net

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/poly-something-wednesday-july-16

That’s it, Trump said, and announced that, if V. Putin does not concede to a ceasefire within 50 days, then Russia will receive dreaded 100% tariffs.

And, Trump said, we’ll sell all the weapons we could spare to NATO, to forward on the annoying green-sweatshirted gnome, who’d just extended his long-expired presidency again by signing another new martial law order in Kyiv (a rare but exciting new form of democracy without elections). ...

Actually, global necons experienced a rush of adrenaline followed by a sensation best described as rapturous ecstasy. They could hardly speak from the joy of the moment. Finally! Haha, Russia, they crowed, dancing awkwardly with each other, high-fiving, pointing and laughing. Putin, you’re in for it now!

But we who remain skeptical about Project Ukraine experienced bemusement. 100% tariffs? On what? Russia’s already been sanctioned to Siberia and back. They can’t even use SWIFT. U.S. firms can’t legally do business with them. The supposed “tariff” would apply to what, exactly? Schrödinger’s shipment?

Once upon a time, the people of the United States were promised by the Trump administration that there would be a complete audit of the funds going to the Ukraine. Remember that ????

Like there was going to be a paper trail of funds that led back to the VIPs in the government both in Congress and the prior administration.

People actually believed that rampant corruption would ferreted out and the perpetrators brought to justice.

.... so naive

Fortwaye says

with guys like that, it’s transactional. no pay till they fulfill.

Good. I want a wise statesman, not an ideologue.

Misc says

Once upon a time, the people of the United States were promised by the Trump administration that there would be a complete audit of the funds going to the Ukraine. Remember that ????

I would also like to see an audit of the Pentagon with people held accountable.

Misc says

the people of the United States were promised by the Trump administration

And an audit of Fort Knox, correct?

Nothing quite says "Safe and Effective" use of government funds like having multiple raids on your Anti-corruption Bureau.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-anti-corruption-bureau-raided-in-russian-infiltration-probe/ar-AA1IZxec

https://www.kunstler.com/p/the-artificial-demon

@Cernovich

The Russiagate hoax wasn't limited to Trump. It was also used to create
animosity towards Russia, which would allow the deep state wage war
with Russia. Sad to say, it worked. Ukrainian lives lost. Trillions of U.S.
dollars laundered to deep state "contractors."
5:48 PM • Jul 31. 2025

By now, it must be kind of obvious that Mr. Putin of Russia was staged-up into a demon for the convenience of Hillary Clinton — resulting in a decade of deformed US foreign relations that has dragged us to the edge of a third world war. Nice work, Democratic Party!

I will proffer a harsh truth to you: the best outcome in Ukraine would be for Russia to win the war as expeditiously as possible, neutralize and disarm the place, change-out its illegitimate government, and let it revert to being the frontier backwater it was for eight decades previous, when it was not a problem for the other nations of the region.

Mr. Putin has put up with our country’s psychotic nonsense with remarkable patience. The idea that he seeks to conquer western Europe was a preposterous confection of the neocon crazies in our State Department and Intel “community.”

The long game for the neocon crazies has been to use NATO as the instrument to break up Russia and gain control of its resources. This was after Secretary of State James Baker told Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, in discussions over German reunification, that “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Starting in 1999 with the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, sixteen additional nations were induced to join NATO, encroaching on Russia’s borders, with new military bases and missiles. It was a stupid game.

And it failed. Ukraine was the final gambit. The US destabilized it on purpose in 2014, installed a series of governments we could control, made it a ward of US taxpayers, sprinkled it with bio-weapons labs and money laundries, and gave Mr. Zelenskyy the go-ahead to start shelling the Donbas provinces adjacent to Russia. After years of that, Mr. Putin moved to stop it in 2022. The development of drone weapons, along with US-based satellite targeting tech, has prolonged the war. But, of course, the Russians, too, have modernized their own weapons arsenal to match that. The current state of things is a slow Russian grind to defeat a Ukraine that has run out of available fighting men and is apparently short of all weapons besides its drones.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump promised to end the Ukraine war in a New York minute. That proved more difficult and complicated than he realized. He said lately in so many words that he has “lost patience” with Mr. Putin for failing to join a ceasefire as a prelude to peace talks. Accordingly, Mr. Trump set a fifty-day deadline and then shortened it to twelve-days, running out on August 8-9 (accounting for time zones). Failure to comply will cause Russia to suffer a new round of sanctions. Mr. Putin has shrugged off that threat, saying that time has proven Russia to be sanction-proofed.

Some kind of game is afoot in all this. Neither Trump nor Putin could possibly want to turn this fiasco in Ukraine into a greater war that will destroy what’s left of Western Civilization. You might find this startling, but for all our efforts to anathemize Russia, it is still a part of Western Civ. After its soviet experiment failed, Russia wanted above all to reintegrate economically with Europe, but the neocons here and the globalists of Europe would not allow that. They became determined instead to wreck Russia — a vicious ethos likely to have emanated from the UK, with its lingering imperial delusions. (For Germany, it has brought only economic suicide.) ...

The major news organs, who were accomplices in RussiaGate, won’t publish or broadcast any of the recent discoveries about exactly how the hoax evolved into a body of delusion that took over the brains of half of the country and led to a string of additional vicious hoaxes including the Covid-19 operation, the stolen election of 2020, and the J-6 prosecutions. Maybe nothing can be done about the perfidious New York Times or Washington Post because the First Amendment allows lies to be printed within the limits of the libel laws. But the TV networks have additional obligations to the public interest under the broadcast regulations and they can lose their licenses. Perhaps they should and will.

Looks like WSJ is cutting their Neocon losses in Ukraine:

Ukraine’s military has slipped back into a more rigid, top-down mode of fighting with roots in the Soviet era, creating mounting frustration about unnecessary casualties while hurting civilian morale and army recruitment. Without overhauls, the Soviet-style habits could undermine Ukraine’s ability to sustain its defense against Russia, which shows no sign of relenting in its quest to conquer the country.

Ukrainian officers and infantrymen complain of a centralized command culture that often punishes initiative and wastes men’s lives. Generals order repetitive frontal assaults that have little hope of success, and deny requests from beleaguered units to carry out tactical retreats and save their men. Casualties accumulate on operations with little strategic value.

https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1955490948198154381

MolotovCocktail says

Casualties accumulate on operations with little strategic value.

Maybe the real strategy was to have as many Slavs kill each other as possible, just out of hatred for Slavs.

Armistice lines being discussed:









All four are pretty close to this one I posted ~2yrs ago:



Which means:



Or, to be more blunt:

MolotovCocktail says

Armistice lines being discussed:

This is not enough of a buffer as Russia would have to extend that new buffer from Lugansk all the way north to Kharkiv and the Belarus border.

Unless they plan on taking that next by claiming Ukraine is still a threat to Russia ? So its an incremental land grab ?

I know people from western Poland and they don't consider themselves culturally as Polish.

.

Be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

I should check Polymarket, but my bet is on Donbas and Crimea, maybe parts of Zaporizhiya and Kherson closer to the Sea of Azov, making it a Russian lake.

But that's it. No Kharkiv or Dnipro or Poltava or anything west of the Dneipr.

@RWSGFY

I was trying to read an article in French about the war, and see that the French spell Putin as "Poutine", which is funny for two reasons:

1. poutine means French fries and gravy in Quebec
2. Putin looks like it could mean "small whore" in French, because pute is whore

I don't like to personally insult anyone, but that was too funny not to point out.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/sledge-hammer-thursday-august-14

The Times explained that Trump broke the meeting story last Friday in a call to Zelensky. The former funnyman freaked out when Trump announced two things: (1) he planned to meet with President Putin, which breaks the rule of ostracizing the Russian president. And (2), Trump advised the little leader that he might have to consider letting the Russians keep some of the formerly Ukrainian territory.

Those two facts, the story said, led to all the mania and mayhem on the European continent over the last few days, culminating in the gang call yesterday between Trump, Vance, and over a dozen European officials.

They don’t seem to realize how childish and ineffectual the call made them look.

First of all, if they have great ideas for settling the war in Ukraine, why pitch them to Trump? They have phones, don’t they? And they are much closer to Moscow. Why not pitch their ideas directly to Putin? A big call to “Daddy” to whine about their classmate Russia makes them seem more like bullied fifth graders rather than heads of state.

Seriously, behold this picture the Times included in the story, showing the Europeans sitting at a table that looks like it was decorated for the first day of kindergarten:




I wish I were making that up. It’s not AI. And if you still think I’m exaggerating, check out how the Times described one of the most recent meetings:

On Saturday, senior European and Ukrainian officials met outside
London with top American officials, including Vice President JD
Vance, to try to dissuade the United States from cutting a peace
deal with Russia behind their backs.

Trying to “dissuade” us from cutting a deal with Russia behind their backs? It’s just like fifth-grade mean girls. You can’t talk to Rebecca about Rob unless we all do! ...

“I was at the G7 meeting in Canada, with President Trump,” Bessent said, chuckling. “And the Europeans kept talking about Senator Graham’s bill to do the secondary tariffs, and I looked at all the leaders around the table, and I asked, ‘is everyone at this table willing to put a 200% secondary tariff on China?’ And you know what? Everybody suddenly wanted to see what kind of shoes they were wearing.”

Bessent continued. “President Trump is meeting with President Putin, and the Europeans are in the wings carping about how he should do it, and what he should do, but the Europeans need to join us in these sanctions. They need to be willing to put on these secondary sanctions, too.”

Haha! Boomerang! Checkmate! The Europeans have been crying in their room-temperature beer (ugh) for months demanding that America slap the “bone-crushing sanctions” on all the countries —like China— that buy Russian energy products. Well, how about them? Will they walk the talk, or are they just pasty blowhards demanding that America go fight that guy?

Bessent answered his own question: They are just pasty blowhards demanding that America go fight that guy. It’s nuanced! And complicated! And nuanced! We just got our nails done! ...

Since the whiny Europeans won’t agree to join in them, then Trump needn’t threaten “bone-crushing” sanctions at tomorrow’s meeting. It’s over. Trump can do whatever he wants.

https://www.kunstler.com/p/carefully-and-gracefully

Mr. Trump must appear strong with Russia because his appointees are commencing to go medieval on the folks who called him “Putin’s Puppet” nine years ago — and subjected him to a series of epic torments including the subversion of his whole first term in office, nonstop obloquy from the media, impeachment (X 2), home invasion, and a grotesque set of malicious, nitwit prosecutions that have either failed completely (Fani Willis, Jack Smith) or will be subject to humiliating reversals in the higher courts. Not to mention two attempted assassinations.

AD says

I know people from western Poland and they don't consider themselves culturally as Polish.

May have to do with the fact western Poland was part of Germany before the Soviets moved the Polish border about 120 kilometers into Germany.

Minsk Protocol 2014

2025

Doesn't de-Nazify Ukraine, tho.

https://www.kunstler.com/p/an-offer-he-cant-refuse

Ukraine needs help formulating terms that are not preposterous. Russia’s terms have been clear and precise for years, most particularly: no NATO for Ukraine. What part of that is hard to understand? The EU wants missile bases on Russia’s border. It wants to draw Ukraine into its sphere of influence. Ukraine has been in Russia’s sphere of influence since. . . forever.

The US helped start this conflict in 2014, when Mr. Obama was in charge. It was always a cynical operation, in concert with the cynics of the EU. To put it as plainly as possible, Mr. Trump has called it off, recognizing the foolish futility of the scheme. But the EU players persist maniacally, even though they don’t have the money or the armaments to keep it up, and are otherwise jointly committing slow suicide of their own societies.

Anyway, Ukraine is exhausted. Ukraine has lost. Sheer intransigence could keep it going a while longer, but then Russia will sweep west with more pointless bloodshed. The argument is over. Territorial realities must be faced. Agreements must be made.

For the moment, Mr. Zelenskyy is the one who must be brought to agreement. His position as leader of Ukraine is, shall we say, squishy. His term as elected president of Ukraine ended in May 2024, and he only continues to occupy his position under martial law, self-declared. The Russians recognize his leadership as a contingency, because there is nobody else just now. ...

He can pretend to parlay in Washington, and then direct his return flight to some country other than Ukraine and seek asylum there, leaving his position vacant and inviting chaos in Kiev. Or. . . he can just play it straight and face the territorial realities.

Namely, that 1) Russia occupies most of the eastern frontier provinces at issue and intends to keep them, since they are inhabited by speakers of Russian who, remember, Mr. Z outlawed some years ago, and who were subject to relentless artillery and missile attacks prior to February, 2022, which prompted Russia’s Special Military Operation. . . that 2) Crimea belongs to Russia. . . that 3) Ukraine will not join NATO. . . that 4) Ukraine will hold new elections ASAP. . . and that 5) Ukraine will substantially disarm. . . . Surely, I left some lesser details out, but that’s most of the meat on the table. ...

Perhaps Mr. Trump will ask the Eurolanders to wait in the nearby Roosevelt Room while he confabs one-to-one with Mr. Z and makes various offers that Mr. Z can’t refuse. Then, they can all convene together in the Oval for coffee and donuts and review the results of that confab.

If ever a situation for the mass humiliation of European heads-of-state had been conceived previously, this will be the topper played out on CNN in real time. You have to wonder if any of them will survive another month in office after that psychological beat-down. And then let’s stand by to see whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s airplane flies back to Kiev or takes an unexpected detour to, say, Abu Dhabi.

Patrick says

The US helped start this conflict in 2014, when Mr. Obama was in charge. It was always a cynical operation, in concert with the cynics of the EU.

yep, then the President of Ukraine wanted a trade deal with Russia and did not want Ukraine to become part of the EU

that is what set off the Obama admin

.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/peace-and-security-tuesday-august

At the end of the day, no deals were struck. President Trump interrupted the meeting at one point and spectacularly phoned President Putin, to coordinate a three-way meeting between himself and the two Vlads.

But yesterday’s real action lay in the show. The entire visit was scripted and theatrically framed like an episode of The Apprentice—World Domination Edition.

The optics were perfect for President Trump. He sat alone at the Resolute Desk —the undisputed center of the world’s solar system— while a line of Europe’s top leaders and Zelensky slouched in smaller chairs across from him, leaning back or leaning in, attentive, sober, notepads in hand, like they were attending a parent-teacher conference to endure a difficult conversation about little Vladimyr’s toilet habits. ...




This photo practically bursts with America First symbolism and illustrates the imbalanced power dynamic even more intensely.

Trump sat squarely behind the Resolute Desk, in his high-backed leather executive chair, flags and awards flanking him, busts of a furious Lincoln scowling at them from Trump’s right and Ben Franklin soberly gazing at the detritus of his beloved Europe from the left, a portraited Ronald Reagan peering down approvingly from on high and overlooking the giant Ukraine battlefield map propped below him— Trump’s map. Across from the President was the half-circle of European leaders and a now-suited Zelensky, all crammed into identical wooden chairs like dutiful students at Bedtime for Bonzo. ...

They thought they were “backing Zelensky,” but instead they ended up being human props in the photo op of the century: America in command, Europe bowing.

Time to cue Prodigy - "Smack my Bitch Up."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW17jtkjvvg

Patrick says

This photo practically bursts with America First symbolism and illustrates the imbalanced power dynamic even more intensely.

Trump sat squarely behind the Resolute Desk, in his high-backed leather executive chair, flags and awards flanking him, busts of a furious Lincoln scowling at them from Trump’s right and Ben Franklin soberly gazing at the detritus of his beloved Europe from the left, a portraited Ronald Reagan peering down approvingly from on high and overlooking the giant Ukraine battlefield map propped below him— Trump’s map. Across from the President was the half-circle of European leaders and a now-suited Zelensky, all crammed into identical wooden chairs like dutiful students at Bedtime for Bonzo. ...

They thought they were “backing Zelensky,” but instead they ended up being human props in the photo op of the century: America in command, Europe bowing.

Trilateral summit: where two pedophiles and a 12 yr old girl plan a gang-rape.

Greek isle of Skelos, where trilateral summits usually occur:



- MolotovCocktail

Trump just ripped the facade off the Euro bullshit. Europe destroyed its ability to lead after 2 genocidal wars. Any men who could be leaders were killed in those wars; all the men now are the left-behind pussies, raised by war-widows. I spent over a year in Germany back in the early 90's - it's definitely there; you have to watch carefully to see it in action.

Ukraine’s Military Losses Exposed: 1.7 Million Dead and Missing

Russian hackers have reportedly breached the Ukrainian General Staff’s database, revealing catastrophic losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to the compromised digital registry, if the data is correct, Ukraine lost 1,721,000 troops killed or missing over three years of the conflict. The breakdown is:

118,500 in 2022
405,400 in 2023
595,000 in 2024
621,000 in 2025 — the heaviest year yet

Each record contains names, circumstances and locations of death or disappearance, personal details, family contacts, and photographs.

The hack was carried out by groups including Killnet, Palach Pro, User Sec, and Beregini.

The hackers now hold terabytes of sensitive material: full loss registries, personal data of Ukraine’s Special Operations and intelligence command, as well as lists of all foreign arms suppliers and the weapons delivered from 2022 to 2025.

https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1958095123352301682

Even if half this count is true...

Posted something similar before, but still 100% true:

As shit like this keeps happening, Ukraine is fucked:





FYI: They don't burn naptha for power but to crack heavier oil to use for such fuels.

The worst offenders on the hypocrisy scale are the Europeans, tho.

Ukraine is scraping the bottom now.

They changed their laws so that 18 year olds are now draftable.

Before this they targeted those in their 50s, 40s, 30s and then 20s. And the mentally ill.

But the Russian meatgrinder ate all of them up.

Look at these stupid kids. They have no clue.





Grok:

The post features a video from a Ukrainian paratrooper account showing young-looking soldiers, likely 18+, in camouflage on a transport truck, smiling nervously amid rural terrain, to critique Ukraine's mobilization of youth.

Ukraine's February 2025 law introduced voluntary one-year contracts for 18-24-year-olds, building on 2024 reforms lowering the draft age to 25, addressing severe troop shortages after over three years of war with Russia.

https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-sanctions-former-business-partner-implicated-100m-corruption-scandal/

Zelenskyy sanctions former business partner implicated in $100M corruption scandal

Tymur Mindich fled Ukraine for Israel as authorities closed in on him.

Mindich was implicated in a $100 million corruption scandal in Ukraine’s battered energy sector, where prosecutors alleged this week he masterminded a scheme manipulating contracts at Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company to extract kickbacks worth 10-15 percent of contract values.

Mindich — co-owner of production company Kvartal 95 Studio, which Zelenskyy co-founded — fled Ukraine to Israel the day before the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) launched raids.

Fled to Israel… keyword Israel… people who are involved in all these things.

FortWayneHatesRealtors says

Fled to Israel… keyword Israel… people who are involved in all these things.

There is no love lost between Ashkenazis and Ukrainians. Ukrainian kulaks were among the first mass victims of Bolsheviks. Engineered famines under Lenin in the early 1920’s, followed by the Holodomor under Stalin. Though Ukrainians seem distinctly unaware that Bolsheviks were not standard-issue Russians — they instead elected a descendant of the former and “hate” the latter. To tragic effect.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/coach-jeffrey-saturday-november-15

Remember that brave outpost of democracy, courageously and single-handedly holding off the Russian dictator? The UK Express ran an awkward story this week, headlined, “Chaos in Ukraine as corruption scandal threatens to bring down Zelensky.” But this time, the hit piece didn’t just run in one cooperative outlet. This time, all corporate media platforms are carrying the story. And someone has served reporters salacious details, not just snack packs, but full Thanksgiving dinners, in the form of things like pictures of gold-plated toilets and shrink-wrapped bundles of embezzled cash.

The $100 million dollar scandal was broken by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or “NABU,” which this week “conducted raids on seventy Ukrainian businesspeople and energy sector insiders.” To be perfectly clear, after the 2014 coup, NABU was established by the US State Department, with on-the-ground assistance from USAID, the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and DoD. Various memoranda and agreements have maintained U.S. oversight and information sharing.

In other words, though it is ostensibly a Ukrainian anticorruption unit, the U.S. actually runs NABU. Remember that.

Ironically, back when Zelensky was a comedian who played Ukraine’s president on TV, his platform was anticorruption. And he leaned into the same fake TV platform when he ran for real president, convincing Ukrainians that his acting experience would translate into progress against one of the country’s longest-lasting and most pernicious problems.

In other words, if Zelensky has a political weakness, it’s corruption. He was elected to stop corruption. That’s basically his entire political portfolio.

The highest-profile target of NABU’s new investigations is one Tymur Mindich, who —presumably tipped off— fled to Israel the morning of the raid, leaving his gold-plated bidet behind. (Mindich is a dual citizen, and Israel does not cooperate with extraditions. I know, I know.)

Mindich and Zelensky have been best friends since back in the old days; they were business partners who jointly owned Kvartal 95, the comedy television studio and production company foundational to Zelensky’s entertainment career.

As you can imagine, after Zelensky somehow became president, Mindich somehow became a government expert, and his grubby hands grasped some of Kyiv’s most profitable government agencies, including banking and energy. Ukrainians nicknamed Mindich “Zelensky’s wallet,” since Mindich was always the money man. (Zelensky isn’t great at math. He’s the comedian.)

In July, Zelensky suddenly tried to shut down NABU. Just as suddenly, Kyiv’s capital square was packed with angry protestors. Zelensky backed off.

NABU was preparing to take out most of Zelensky’s remaining team, inlcuding his alter-ego. In other words, the bullet of accountability struck right next to Ukraine’s green sweatshirt. It also swept in many of his other friends and provoked immediate resignations by spooked cabinet members.

Even the New York Times ran the story, calling the president’s problems a “remarkable reversal,” as if he were previously the paragon of honor and reliability...

“Ukrainian investigators (NABU) say that a criminal organization led by a business partner of Mr. Zelensky (i.e. Mindich),” the Times reported, “siphoned off and then laundered $100 million from the country’s publicly owned nuclear power company and engaged in other fraud and financial crimes.” ...

The released recordings were uglier than stink on a Ukrainian private. Here’s how the Times described part of one of the recordings:

A payment of $6 million to purchase a property in Switzerland is
discussed in one recording. On another, two voices have an
exchange about the difficulty of transporting large volumes of cash.
"How do you carry the box?" a voice on the tape asks.
"Oh, it was nothing to carry," another man answers.
They discuss more than a "million," though don't say in which
currency. Packing the money in a computer case with handles
made it easier to tote, one man says.

If the NABU disclosures were a military operation, it might be called a decapitation strike. It sent a broad message: first, it enraged a Ukrainian public, who have been living on scraps and donating small amounts to the war effort wherever they can. It also instantly made all Kyiv’s other corruptocrats paranoid, wondering how many of their own phone calls were monitored, too.

The scandal makes it much more difficult for Ukraine’s NATO allies to continue demanding billions for the war-torn country. Whether it will starve the war effort to death remains to be seen. But it seems more likely that the comet will turn out to be aliens than the U.S. will put any more cash in the ushanka the next time it’s passed around.

Whoever is pulling the strings behind the scenes just yanked Zelensky’s leash, hard. It is impossible to know whether this was intended to end his presidency or just send him an irresistible message, to compel him to do … something. Make a deal? Either way, Zelensky’s circle of corrupt friends just significantly shrank.

As they always say at this stage of the shrinking dictatorship, he’s increasingly isolated. Ukraine has reached the Baghdad Bob stage. It’s just a matter of time.

Patrick says

Whoever is pulling the strings behind the scenes just yanked Zelensky’s leash, hard. It is impossible to know whether this was intended to end his presidency or just send him an irresistible message, to compel him to do … something. Make a deal? Either way, Zelensky’s circle of corrupt friends just significantly shrank.

Speaking of which...

Lol! But what about Hunter's incredible talent? Don't companies want to benefit from that anymore?

MolotovCocktail says

Patrick says

Whoever is pulling the strings behind the scenes just yanked Zelensky’s leash, hard. It is impossible to know whether this was intended to end his presidency or just send him an irresistible message, to compel him to do … something. Make a deal? Either way, Zelensky’s circle of corrupt friends just significantly shrank.

Speaking of which...