Putin is going to offer concessions to Ukraine, says Trump

Well, here is a turn of events. Someone has been talking to Putin, either Trump or one of his envoys, and the Russian leader has apparently suggested that he is prepared to be kinda nice to Zelensky. I simply don't believe it. Is Trump really hinting that Putin who by the way is continuing to kill and maim in Ukraine right now, is going to give back some of the territory his troops have seized in order to forge a peace deal? Really? That would be against everything Putin has ever said in the last three years. He believes he is winning on the battlefield at the moment, so what could Trump or Zelensky offer him in retun if he gives up a square mile of seized territory? Trump is extraordinary. He loves to have these little chats in the Oval Office with selected reporters and hints at all kinds of things going on but never really gives anything away. He just says it will be beautiful whatever it is. What it does seem to suggest is that there is a helluva lot going on behind the scenes in phone calls and meetings which at some stage might bear fruit. Beautiful fruit, as Trump would say. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine carries on unabated, thanks to Putin's rockets, missiles and drones. It's a cruel and tragic business.

Putin's response to Trump's peace moves - bombs Ukraine

It's not exactly surprising, but the former KGB lieutenant-colonel who is president of Russia had only one response to Donald Trump's appeals for peace and a cessation of fighting. He ordered his invaders to attack Ukraine's energy grid, cause death and destruction and set buildings on fire. Presumably all in the name of the search for a negotiated settlement to end the war. Even Trump got angry about it, threatening more sanctions against Russia, not that that will mean anything. The reality is that this is the way war is fought in the lead-up to a potential peace deal: cause as much destruction as possible to weaken the case of your opponent. It's cynical, it's brutal, it's the opposite to peace-seeking but it's the way Putin does business. Most people., apart from Trump, say Putin cannot ever be trusted. He's not really interested in developing a love relationship with Trump. He is already bethrothed to China's leader, Xi Zinping.

The worst thing to be right now in the US - a probationary

Thousands and thousands of people in the US are currently being fired. The hardest hit are the so-called probationaries, young men and women who have qualified academically with pretty smart CVs and have started to learn their profession, whether in the Pentagon, the State Department, the education department or the CIA. If they have only completed a couple of years or so, they are getting summarily fired. It's the most devastating time for these young people who got their jobs with stars in their eyes and dreams of a wonderful career. All they have done wrong is to get their foot on the first rung and then they have been shoved off. Every profession, whether it be in the intelligence world or other government work, needs a new influx of the next generation of recruits to keep ideas fresh, to give new energy and vision and enthusiasm and to learn from their more experienced colleagues. It's a natural and vital process. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump - yes, that way round - are just carving the federal workforce into ittle bits to save a huge amount of money, never mind the disillusion they are creating among young Americans. It's both short-sighted and cruel.

American and Russian shadow cyber war put on hold

The fighters of America’s invisible war rarely emerge from the shadows. And almost never get caught. Unlike the Kremlin’s cyber-army, which has carried out high-profile efforts to disrupt the West with seemingly little care for the repercussions, the military unit based at Fort Meade, Maryland, takes pains not to get discovered and even more pains to avoid ending up in the headlines. However, on Monday it is in the spotlight after Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s defence secretary, ordered them to “pause” operations against Russia amid warming ties between the White House and the Kremlin. Hegseth’s order appears to be another sweetener to Moscow to encourage President Putin to come to the negotiating table and bring the war in Ukraine to an end. The directive is said to have been made even before President Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday. No public explanation has been given for the instruction and it is not clear how long the moratorium may last. The US defence department declined to comment. According to The Record, the cybersecurity publication that first reported the news, hundreds or thousands of personnel could be affected. Operations aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s digital defences are likely to be among those to be halted. Former officials told The New York Times that it was common for leaders to order pauses in military operations during sensitive diplomatic negotiations to avoid derailing them. The decision has provoked condemnation from Democrats who accuse Trump of going soft on Moscow. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Trump had given Putin “a free pass” to carry on launching cyberoperations against the US. “Russia continues to be among the top cyber-threats to the United States,” James Lewis, a former diplomat in the Clinton administration and a former UN cyber-negotiator, told The Washington Post. “Turning off cyberoperations to avoid blowing up the talks may be a prudent tactical step. But if we take our foot off the gas pedal and they take advantage of it, we could put national security at risk.” Officials said the operations being paused could include exposing or disabling malware found in Russian networks before it can be used against the US, blocking Russian hackers from servers that they may be preparing to use for their own offensive operations or disrupting a site promoting anti-US propaganda. “I have seen many times when we are in some type of negotiation with another nation, especially if it’s one that is considered an adversary, that we stop operations, exercises, we even cancel speeches sometimes,” said one retired general within Cyber Command. Officials suggested one risk associated with reducing operations was losing track of adversaries. However, a former senior British intelligence operative told The Times that as long as the pause was not too long, it would not have an impact on the US’s ability to remain vigilant towards Russian cyberattacks. “It’s understandable that the US has imposed a temporary pause in its own offensive operations against Russia because of the intensive efforts now under way to get Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. For that reason, the move is actually sensible,” the source said. “But that will have no impact on the US Cyber Command’s ability and determination to counter cyber-threats directed at America from Russia,” the source said. America’s cyberoperations, linked to similar capabilities developed in the UK as part of the special intelligence partnership between the two countries, have played a crucial role in stemming a multi-agency state-funded programme by the Russian government to spy on and deliver malicious damage to computer networks, energy grids, transportation systems, personnel files and businesses in the US, Britain and other western allies. The former official said cyberoperations between the US and Russia had proliferated in recent years, making it likely that the temporary suspension would not last for a long period. Both the US and the UK reserve the right to counter foreign cyberattacks with an offensive capability that has been rapidly developed over the years. There is little doubt that the threat from Russia is malevolent and one that, on occasions, has caused extensive disruption in the US. The Russian agencies involved include the Federal Security Service (FSB), the foreign intelligence service and the general staff main intelligence directorate (GRU). The FSB’s “Centre 16” cyber-unit was behind a malicious intrusion programme codenamed Berserk Bear that targeted critical infrastructure facilities in western Europe and North America. Although its agents lurk in the shadows, the US is heavily involved in the invisible war. The most notorious example was the infiltration in 2010 of the Stuxnet malware into Iran’s gas centrifuge systems, severely disrupting its uranium-enrichment programme. In 2019, after Iran shot down an American military drone over the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf waterway, Trump, in his first term of office, ordered a retaliatory cyberattack against Iranian missile and rocket forces, putting them out of action. The cyberoffensives taken against Russia are highly classified, but officials have never denied they take place. A special unit, “Russian small group”, was established when there were fears of Russian interference in the midterm elections in 2018. It consists of intelligence analysts and cyberspecialists from Cyber Command and the NSA. The unit was maintained to watch for Russian cyberoperations aimed at disrupting the 2020 and 2024 elections. Details of their work, however, remain secret.

Zelensky should choose his words more carefully

It seems that whatever Volodymyr Zelensky says it somehow enrages Donald Trump. His latest faux pas was to predict that the war in Ukraine was going to go on for years. But Trump has made it clear he expects the war to end in a few months after a peace settlement with Putin. Trump and Zelensky are going along on parallel lines, never to meet at the end. Trump was furious with the remark, saying that it showed the Ukrainian president was not interested in a ceasefire or peace. Zelensky has got himself in a trap. He can't say the right thing, which, in the view of Trump, should be: "Thank you so much, Mr President, for all you have done and now where do I sign your peace deal?" Instead, he has reminded Trump that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 and got away with it because no one in the West did anything about it, apart from a few meaningless sanctions. Naughty boy stuff, in other words! Now, after three years of fighting the Russians in a war that no one can win, he wants Trump to produce a deal which will guarantee the security of his country for ever. But Trump is simnply not interested in that, unless it's the Europeans providing it. So Zelensky is doomed. However much support he gets from Keir Starmer and co, it's never going to be enough to save Ukraine's future. So, it really is time for Zelensky to choose his words more carefully and to sound the bell for peace. Of course he wants peace more than anyone, but he can't bear the thought of giving into Trump's demands which would inevitably give 20 per cent of Ukraine to Putin. So every time he opens his mouth he says something which infuriates Trump. Now all US military aid to Ukraine has been suspended. This is a disaster for Zelensky and for his loyal troops trying to protect Ukraine's sovereignty. For example, Patriot missiles, vital for defending the country from Putin's missiles and rockets, will soon run out. Zelensky has to find the right formula of words to show support for Trump without resorting to sycophancy. Good luck with that.

Sign the minerals deal, Trump/Zelensky

In hindsight, Volodymyr Zelensky got it all wrong in his session with Donald Trump. What he shoyuld have done was bite his tongue and not leave the Oval Office until he had signed the rare earth minerals deal. That would have transformed relations with Trump. Instead, understandardably however, he got all mixed up emotionally when he was literally attacked by some awful so-called reporter representing a far right media organisation who berated him for not wearing a suit and tie and by Vice President JD Vance who showed how much he loathed Zelensky personally by scolding him for not saying thank you every two minutes. Ben Wallace, the former Conservative British defence secretary, made the mistake of saying Zelensky didn't show enough gratitude for all the help he had had from the UK to fight the Russians and it wasn't long before he resigned. But with Vance, it seemed very personal and it provoked the angry words from Trump that overwhelmed the poor Ukrainian leader. So he left the White House without the one thing which could have saved him and Ukraine, the minerals deal. Now of course he is desperately trying to get the message across to Trump that he's ready to return to the White House and sign the deal. I don't think it's too late but Trump will probably make him sweat a bit before agreeing. If this deal is signed, a lot of other positive things might fall into place with any luck.

Will Trump want Europe to come up with a peace plan for Ukraine?

Donald Trump is a peacemaker, Donald Trump is a winner, Donald Trump wins the prize. That's basically how the 47th president operates. It has to be his idea, his negotiating, his deal-making and then he gets all the kudos. But after the bust-up in the White House on Friday with Volodymyr Zelensky, Europe has leapt into the vacuum and has pledged to come up with a ceasefire plan all of its own to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Really? Will Trump welcome this? Surely not. If Europe produces a cunning bluerprint, although for the life of me I can't imagine what it could be, and presents it to Trump as the way to go, the US president ain't going to like it. He wants to bring the war to an end, not the lilly-livered Europeans. If there's going to be a Nobel peace prize in the offing, he will want his name on the trophy, not Macron or Starmer or Georgia Meloni. So, bizarrely, any move by Europe to take over the peacemaking will go down about as well as an apple strudel covered in peanut butter. No way, he will be saying to his mates in his inner circle. And, as a result, it just might move things along between Trump and Zelensky and, of course, Putin. As long as Zelensky comes begging, as I suggested yesterday, then Trump will move fast to make sure the Europeans don't get their spoke in. Anyway, to be fair, there is no way Europe is going to be able to ring up Putin and, Trump-style, say: "Hey Vlad, we've got this great idea for a ceasefire. How about coming over to meet us in London/Paris/Rome and get it signed up." Putin will stick with Trump every day, and Zelensky knows this. So whatever Starmer, Macron and co produce, it's still going to be a Trump/Zelensky/Putin deal at the end of the day.