Impasse over land-grab in Ukraine

A long time ago a very sensible chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said that the war in Ukraine would come to an end only through a diplomatic deal and that such a deal would inevitably require compromise on both sides. Are we now at a pivotal point where a deal is at least theoretically on the cards? Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are to meet in Alaska on Friday to go through the possible deals and all of them will include some form of land-swap, or land-grab, to put it more honestly. Sources from within the Trump admnistration have said that Trump will be ready to accept the reality that to get a brokered aggrement, Putin will have to be allowed to hang on to some of the territory his troops have seized both before and after the February 24 2022 invasion. In other words, the whole of Crimea, annexed illegally in 2014, and much of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, some of it grabbed before 2022 and most of it since the invasion. This has been in Trump's thinking ever since he promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office for his second term in the White House. But President Zelensky who has not been invited to the Alaska summit, has now said, as he has always said, that no peace can ever be achieved if the aggressors - ie Moscow - are gifted chunks of Ukrainian land. Europe has always said the same thing, so there won't be any European leaders who will agree to what Trump appears to have in mind. The Alaska summit will, therefore, be a total waste of time. Or will it? Zelensky has understandably taken his position on land because it is his country which is the victim of Moscow's aggression and he cannot voluntarily agree to hand Russia the land which his army has fought over so hard and with such sacrifice. But the reality is that if he wants "peace" he will need to compromise. There will be no deal without compromise. What Zelensky needs to focus on is what he can get in exchange from Moscow if he concedes some territory. Russia MUST be seen to have compromised as well. Even if it's not on land it will have to be something else that is important to Ukraine, such as its survival as an independent country and protected by some form of Western-backed structure.

Fifty million dollar bounty on Nicolas Maduro's head

How Nicolas Maduro has survived for so long as president of Venezuela is hard to fathom when the United States thinks he is a major drug trafficker and nearly every impoverished citizen of that desperate country hates him. He is a monster of a leader and should have been behind bars a long time ago. He has destroyed his country and put fear into its population, driving hundreds of thousands of people to leave the country and find succour almost anywhere else in central and south America. Now Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has upped the bounty for his arrest from $25 million to $50 million. Surely that will provide enough incentive for someone to plot his arrest. But, as with all dictators, Maduro is protected by a well-paid army and police force whose livelihoods are dependent on staying loyal to him. Previous coup attempts, whether engineered from overseas or from within Venezuela, have all failed. Donald Trump has probably had thoughts about sending in the Marines to grab him but so far has kept such a plan on the shelf. So the $50 million bounty is seen as the next best thing to root this dictator out of his luxury palace and see him taken away in handcuffs. The whole of Venezuela, except the military and police, would applaud.

Trump and Putin to meet in UAE?

So it's going to happen at last, a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It's obvious why Trump wants the meeting but why has Putin agreed finally? What does he have up his sleeve? Will his message remain the same as ever re the war in Ukraine. Sorry, HIS war in Ukraine. He might possibly agree to give up the objective of conquering/destroying Ukraine but he will never give up his main red lines: that Ukraine can never ever ever join Nato, and preferably not the European Union either, and that the army must demilitarise, and, probably above all, that Volodymyr Zelensky must step down as president. Trump can probably give Putin something on the Nato question because he has hinted at it in the past. He doesn't envisage Ukraine becoming part of the alliance. But he can't force Zelensky to resign and he will surely argue that a country the size of Ukraine has the right and necessity to maintain armed forces to protect its sovereignty against aggressors. ie against any future Russian invasion. If Putin is not prepared to concede on these key issues then I can't see the summit between Trump and Putin getting anywhere. So why has Putin agreed? Because, despite everything, he wants to keep in with Trump. Never in more than 20 years of being Russian leader has Putin had a man in the White House he could actually do business with, and he wants to keep the relationship going somehow. So he will arrive for the summit seemingly ready to talk about a peace deal but I reckon we are still a long way from a Putin signature. As for the proposed meeting betwen Trump, Putin and Zelensky, it won't happen if the UAE summit goes badly and either Trump or Putin walks out.

Trump "probably" won't go for 2028 election

The word "probably" has so much depth to it. It's probably no but not necessarily no, it could be probably no but depending on the political and constitutional situation at the time, or it could probably be no unless the nation appeals to him to stay on for another four years. It's the last one which will attract Trump's ego. If he has had a relatively successful second term, he might think every American will want him for another four years by which time incidentally he would be approaching his late-80s. However, on balance, he appears to be coming round to the view that he won't stand again, either because the constitution says he can't or because he is happy with his potential successor, provide of course it's a Republican. So, when asked outright whom he wants to succeed him he puts JD Vance first, because as vice president that is his right. But in his latest comments, he couldn't resist praising Marco Rubio who is still combining three jobs. secretary of state, national security adviser and head of international aid. Trump seemed to be suggesting that Marco Rubio could be Vance's running-mate. Vance might have other ideas. It all shows that Trump is already thinking ahead. He wants a Trump III in the White House in three and a half years, and clearly thinks Vance and/or Rubio will just carry on the MAGA momentum. If that is what happens, then the Trump brand could be here (well, in the US) for another eleven and a half years. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS. BUY FROM AMAZON.

Has Trump now given up on Putin?

Ultimatums, deadlines, warnings, threats, none of them have changed Vladimir Putin's strategic objective which is to turn Ukraine into a vassal state. It doesn't seem to matter what Trump says, he is ignored by Putin. So, have we reached a point where Trump has officially given up on Putin and will push ahead with huge new sanctions to punish Russia and cripple its economy? He has been threatening to do it for weeks but he told the BBC in an interview recently that he hadn't yet given up on Putin. That may well have changed since the interview with the excellent Gary O'Donoghue in Washington. There is really very little point in giving Pytin one last chance. He will ignore that, too. He is just steaming ahead with trying to conquer Ukraine, in the hope that his former friend, Trump, will not go ahead with the new round of sanctions. But Trump has no other option. The bombs and missiles keep coming and hitting Ukrainian cities and destroying the infrastructure. Threats make no difference. Action might. If Trump imposes 100 per cent or 500 per cent tariffs on all countries who buy cheap Russian oil, it could very quickly undermine Putin's war machine. He needs the oil money to feed and arm his soldiers in Ukraine and produce more artillery shells, rockets and missiles. So, no more deadlines, Mr President, just go ahead and do it. Slam the biggest-ever tariffs on Russian oil and goods and, for heaven's sake, do something about the billions which the Russian elite have secreted away in overseas bank accounts. Freeze the lot and see if that takes the smile off their faces. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, FROM AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES ETC.

Netanyahu's all or nothing strategy

It's supposed to be a new strategy, with the Israeli prime minister now wanting all remaining hostages in Gaza released in one final batch and the demilitarisation of Hamas. Only then will the war be able to come to an end. Actually its pretty much what Netanyahu wanted from the beginning, although on day one of the war in Gaza after the Hamas atrocities of October 7 2023, he also said he wanted to kill every member of Hamas. Nobody know for sure how many Hamas fighters there are left alive after the onslaught by the Israel Defence Forces, but with all the extra recruits they got from the Palestinian prisoner releases, the designated terrorist organisation probably has between 12,000 and 15,000 members left. That's a lot of killing still to be done and as the IDF has failed to eliminate the whole organisation so far, it seems highly unlikely they can literally wipe Hamas off the map. But it looks like the IDF is under orders to do just that, so that means the war will carry on regardless. But will this persuade Hamas to hand over all the remaining hostages, only about 20 of whom are thought to be still alive. Again, it seems unlikely. Likewise, Hamas has already ruled out demilitarising. So the new all or nothing plan is really an acknowledgment that Israel will just carry on prosecuting the war until all the hostages are released and Hamas is destroyed. The only change is that it seems Netanyahu intends to use the military option to free the rest of the hostages. That means a massive ground operation with the likelihood of more civilian deaths. Nothing has really changed. The rhetoric is slightly different but Netanyahu still wants all-out revenge for October 7. While that sentiment is understandable, we all know by now that what that will mean for the non-Hamas Palestinians is a continuation of the nightmare they have faced for nearly two years. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS. Check out Amazon and Waterstones.

Trump and his two nuke submarines

Donald Trump sending two nuclear submarines to an appropriate region has got everyone very excited. In reality, it's a decision of no military or deterrence value. If the two boats are "boomers" - nuclear-powered ballistic-missile (nuclear) submarines which is presumably what Trump was hinting at - they can launch their Trident II D5 missiles from a range of about 7,000 miles. So, they could hit a target in Russia from any oceon, and even from an Ohio class boat moored in its home port in King's Bay, Georgia or at Banggor in Washington state. The one person who knows this Vladimir Putin. So he knows that the Trump announcement, delivered by social media, was a political statement, not a warning of potential military confrontation. Trump got the headlines he wanted, and Putin kept quiet. Whether it was a statement that was necessary or wise is difficult to say but the fact is, it reminded Russia and the rest of the world that the US is not pepared to put with the ridiculous, inflammatory, irresponsible comments from the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, now a flunkey official on the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Medvedev has become a laughing stock for his outrageous, bellicose comments. But this time Trump thought he had gone too far when he warned of nuclear war between the US and Russia. Perhaps Putin will now order him to quieten down or shut up. BUY MY NEW PAPERBACK SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, FROM AMAZON