Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (2 year anniversary)

November 21, 2025

Trump’s 28-Point Ukraine Plan

There seem to be several version or translation of Trump’s new ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine.

I believe that the one below, originally published (archived) by the Financial Times, is the most accurate version.

The plan as it is is dead in the water, stillborn or however you may want to characterize this collection of ill-defined, non-binding and ridiculous clauses. No one will ever accept it.

But it includes a few U.S. concessions to Russia that will be taken and preserved for later negotiations.

Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed.
A comprehensive and comprehensive [sic] non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.
It is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries and NATO will not expand further.
A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development.
Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.
The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.
Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.
NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine.
European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.
US guarantee:
1. The US will receive compensation for the guarantee.
2. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee.
3. If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked.
4. If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.
Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.
A powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to:
1. The creation of a Ukraine Development Fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centres, and artificial intelligence.
2. The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernise, and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities.
3. Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas for the restoration, reconstruction and modernisation of cities and residential areas.
4. Infrastructure development.
5. Extraction of minerals and natural resources.
6. The World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts.
Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:
1. The lifting of sanctions will be discussed and agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis.
2. The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centres, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.
3. Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8.
Frozen funds will be used as follows: $100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine. The US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture. Europe will add $100 billion to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine’s reconstruction. The remainder of the frozen Russian funds will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas. This fund will be aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.
A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement.
Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.
The United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons, including the START I Treaty.
Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The Zaporizhzhya [sic] Nuclear Power Plant will be launched under the supervision of the IAEA, and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine — 50:50.
Both countries undertake to implement educational programmes in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice:
1. Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.
2. Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education.
3. All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.
Territories:
1. Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian, including by the United States.
2. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact, which will mean de facto recognition along the line of contact.
3. Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions.
4. Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarised buffer zone, internationally recognised as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarised zone.
After agreeing on future territorial arrangements, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.
Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities, and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea.
A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding issues:
1. All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on an ‘all for all’ basis.
2. All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children.
3. A family reunification programme will be implemented.
4. Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the conflict.
Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.
All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.
This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J. Trump. Sanctions will be imposed for violations.
Once all parties agree to this memorandum, the ceasefire will take effect immediately after both sides retreat to agreed points to begin implementation of the agreement.

I agree that neither Zelensky nor the Europeans/UK would accept any 3 of the above terms, but people are missing the points:
1) As Mercouris correctly notes: this is a set of negotiating points in writing. No more ambiguous verbal agreements.
2) If Europe AND Ukraine refuse to join in on this agreement, then Trump can legitimately say that he tried very very hard to achieve peace in Ukraine, that Russia had agreed in principle to the effort and that it is the Ukrainians who don’t want peace.
3) If only minority elements of Ukraine (ie the neo nazis, the existing power structure that gets replaced) and/or the Europeans refuse to join, then they are just out. As I noted before: Europe was presented with the opportunity to back up its Foghorn Leghorn chicken hawk talk with money and arms – and has failed to deliver either in sufficient quantities to matter.
4) Notice the complete absence of ceasefire mention in the negotiation points. It means Russia will continue its military negotiation track ie facts on the ground, even as the above points are negotiated between the US and Russia, with Ukraine and Europe looking in from a significant remove. That plus Kellogg’s resignation does mean something. And fuck him anyway.
5) notice also the complete absence of Western troops in Ukraine and the absence of US security guarantees for Europe. This is another indication that Europe has the option of jumping in itself, but at entirely its own risk. Which, of course, chicken hawks will never risk.
In general, the TDS still prevails among the commentariat – especially so in the alternative community. For some reason, the alternative commentariat seems to think Trump is an absolute monarch, a king, and furthermore should act like the tip of the elite spear which Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin operate as. Neither of these people are puppets, but both are working as the heads of multi-decadal organizations.
Trump has no multi-decadal organization; if anything, significant elements of his own organization are working against his goals. And there are multiple different groups of elements. Trump is balancing them against each other to try and achieve what he wants; the style exhibited thus far is very much in line with his business style as demonstrated in his TV series. Trump is perfectly open to letting anyone with credibility (as determined by Trump alone) to try anything so long as it does not obstruct the strategic path he has determined. This means lots of false starts, of swaying back and forth between different tactics, of a lot of hot air. It can absolutely result in stupid appearing attempts, because Trump is very much a believer in “if it is stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid” as well as testing the credibility of the presumed credible by giving them leeway to succeed or fail.
I repeat what I have said many times already: if we look at the US Senate and its control by both Democrat and Republican neo XXXs:
Why did this Senate approve so many of Trump’s very controversial cabinet? Why did they pass his budget bill on July 4 2025, when Biden – with a Democrat controlled Senate and House of Representatives – not get his budget approved until December 2021?Why did neither the House nor Senate significantly push back against so many of Trump’s domestic policies particularly around immigration?
And most importantly: what were the favors given/promises made in return for the above support?
So is the above plan going to be implemented? Certainly not as is. That’s what negotiations are about.
But in this case, IMO, the actual negotiations are not about what Russia wants – because that is crystal clear and Russia will achieve most of its goals regardless of what anyone in the West does. These negotiations are about giving those who are not top of the teat/base of the trough the chance to break through the present logjam of corrupt, self-enriching bastards in charge of Ukraine now. The replacements may well also be corrupt, self-enriching bastards but they would have to get into power by changing at least some of the official Ukrainian rhetoric.
Equally for Europe and the UK: these losers have already proven that they cannot handle the ongoing financial drain of monetary support for Ukraine, or have the military logistic capability of supplying Ukraine.
To obstruct the negotiations, they have to publicly commit to even more than what they have already failed to deliver. I see this as putting more straws on these camels’ backs, to ideally break them by giving their respective domestic opposition the ultimate proof of existing EU/UK leadership incompetence and fecklessness.
No one can say Trump did not publicly and repeatedly try to push India and China to stop supporting Russia by buying Russian oil.
No one can say that Trump is “soft” on Russia given Tomahawk threats and sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil and the refinery infrastructure attack.
That’s how I view it.
What the precise outcome is – impossible to predict because of the cascade of decisions that have to be made in Ukraine, in the EU, in the UK.
To quote V for Vendetta: “So do you know what’s gonna happen?”
I don’t need to guess that Ukraine will lose. The only question is what and how fast. The how fast is clearly in the 6 months to 1 year, that I have been predicting. The what encompasses Kharkiv, Sumy, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk. Zaporozhie and Kherson cities are a done deal.
I don’t need to guess that Farage is going to become the next UK prime minister. He is mouthing the right words of not-not supporting Ukraine, but it is far from clear to me that he actually wants to support Ukraine – unlike Starmer and Sunak and Truss and Johnson.
I don’t need to guess that Macron is going to hold onto the French presidency until he has to be booted out like the former Georgian prime minister. And France will continue sliding down the stairs, banging its head on each step along the way, the entire time. If France is lucky, they will makes changes so this travesty won’t happen again.
I don’t need to guess that bankster Merz is going to bankster. That Germany will continue to deindustrialize even as its debt skyrockets. That AfD will eventually get into coalition with BSW and boot Merz out.

Putin said to himself -
“Self, since I am Vlad the barbarous, I will sell off this barbarous relic from me personal piggy Putin bank” “I will send me slaves out to mine some more, when they return from me meatgrinder” “For now I get me gold miners from Lil Kims rent-a-Nork”

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 22, 2025

Russian officials and state media continue to set information conditions to reject the US-proposed 28-point peace plan, indicating that the Kremlin is actively conditioning the Russian people to not accept anything less than a full victory in Ukraine. Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee First Deputy Head Alexei Chepa commented on the peace plan, stating that any plan must adhere to Russia's full demands.[1] Chepa reiterated that Russia's objective is for any peace settlement to address the alleged “root causes” of its war in Ukraine, a deliberately vague term that the Kremlin has long used as shorthand for its original war justifications and demands, such as the destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and the NATO alliance.[2] Chepa implied that the proposed peace plan offers more concessions to Russia than previous proposals but is still insufficient to address Russia's maximalist demands. Russian state TV channels and milbloggers highlighted similar narratives, including those about how Russia would only participate in a peace plan that eliminates the root causes of the war — implying that Russia is not interested in any peace negotiations until it accomplishes its goals on the battlefield.[3] State Duma Defense Committee Member Andrei Kolesnik claimed that Russia will not give up any territories in Ukraine that it has illegally annexed, even areas that Russia does not fully occupy such as Zaporizhia Oblast.[4] Kolesnik’s statement indicates that the Kremlin is uninterested in making any territorial compromises. Kolesnik also reiterated the false narrative that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable, such that Ukraine should submit to Russia's full demands now.[5] Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Head and Duma Deputy Leonid Slutsky stated that the peace plan is a “good basis” for a settlement but that Russian advances in eastern Ukraine are “equally compelling arguments” — implying that Russia remains committed to continuing its war in Ukraine on the battlefield.[6] ISW continues to assess that a Russian victory is not inevitable, however, and that Ukraine and the West can leverage several key Russian weaknesses to force the Kremlin to negotiate and make real concessions.[7]

Ukrainian, American, and European delegations will meet on November 23 to discuss the US-proposed peace plan to end the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on November 22 that Ukrainian Presidential Office Head Andriy Yermak will lead a new Ukrainian negotiating delegation.[8] The delegation includes: National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Major General Andriy Hnatov, Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) Head Oleh Ivashchenko, First Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya, First Deputy National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevheniy Ostryanskyy, Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Deputy Head Oleksandr Pokland, and Advisor to the Ukrainian Presidential Office Head Oleksandr Bevz. Zelensky stated that Ukrainian, American, British, French, and German delegations will meet on November 23 in Switzerland to discuss the proposed 28-point peace plan.[9] Reuters reported that a US official stated that US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, whom US President Donald Trump reportedly appointed as a special envoy in the peace negotiations, will attend the upcoming talks in Geneva alongside US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.[10]

Ukrainian military officials continue to indicate that Ukrainian forces are pushing back Russian efforts to seize Kupyansk — in contrast to repeated Russian claims of seizing the town. Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force Spokesperson Colonel Viktor Trehubov stated on November 21 that Russian forces continue to try to infiltrate into Kupyansk, but that the number of Russian soldiers in the northern part of the town has decreased to about 40 personnel.[11] The Russian military command began to exaggerate Russian successes in Kupyansk in late August 2025 — a narrative that the Kremlin has only intensified in recent weeks.[12] Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov and Russian Western Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Sergei Kuzovlev notably claimed to Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 20 that Russian forces had seized Kupyansk, and Russian milbloggers subsequently denied this claim.[13] ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian forces in the Kupyansk direction continue to contest the town and are in the process of rolling back a Russian effort to infiltrate the town.[14] ISW has not observed sufficient geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces have seized close to all of Kupyansk as of November 22.

The situation in the Pokrovsk direction remains serious and dynamic as Russian forces continue attempts to seize Pokrovsk itself and encircle Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad (east of Pokrovsk). Russian milbloggers claimed on November 21 and 22 that Russian forces seized Pokrovsk and advanced north of the town.[15] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces advanced along the T-0504 Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad highway in southern Rivne (between Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad).[16] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces have begun attacking into Myrnohrad along the T-0504 from Rivne and advanced in eastern Myrnohrad, likely in an attempt to fix Ukrainian forces within Myrnohrad while also tightening the encirclement around Myrnohrad and blocking Ukrainian egress routes from the town.[17] A Ukrainian servicemember acknowledged on November 21 that Ukrainian forces “completely” lost Pokrovsk and noted that Russian forces are attempting to narrow the egress route near Myrnohrad and Rivne.[18] The servicemember further stated that Russian forces have cut off all logistics into Myrnohrad and that Ukrainian forces will likely be unable to withdraw from the remaining, limited opening in the pocket.

The Russian military command continues to focus a significant number of forces to close the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad pocket, which is resulting in heavy Russian losses. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported on November 22 that Russia has concentrated over 150,000 servicemembers for offensive operations in the Pokrovsk direction.[19] Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Major General Andriy Hnatov told German outlet Die Zeit on November 20 that the Russian military command has amassed a large number of troops to take Pokrovsk and that there are about 400 Russian soldiers within the town.[20] Hnatov noted that urban areas are easier to defend and more difficult to seize, resulting in high Russian losses. The Ukrainian Eastern Operation Task Force reported on November 22 that Russian forces are maintaining a high intensity of attacks and are primarily concentrating efforts on seizing Pokrovsk itself, despite heavy losses forcing the Russian military command to tap into operational reserves.[21] The Russian military command notably redeployed elements of the relatively elite 76th Airborne (VDV) Division to the Pokrovsk direction to support Russian efforts to seize the pocket, likely due to the slowing tempo of Russian advances in the area.[22] ISW continues to assess that Russian forces will very likely complete the seizure of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad after a 21-month campaign, though the timing and operational implications of these seizures remain unclear at this time.[23]

Authorities recently reported multiple drone sightings over air bases and airports in the Netherlands. Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans reported that authorities observed unidentified drones flying over Volkel Air Base near Eindhoven, a Royal Netherlands Air Force base that hosts a US Air Force squadron as part of NATO, on the evening of November 21.[24] Brekelmans reported that attempts to shoot down the drones were unsuccessful and that authorities never recovered the drones after they flew away. Brekelmans reported that authorities also observed multiple drones at Eindhoven Airport on November 22 and subsequently suspended civilian and military air traffic.[25] Dutch authorities have not identified an actor behind the drone overflights as of this writing. These are the latest in a series of drone sightings over European airports and air bases in recent weeks, which come against the backdrop of Russia's intensifying “Phase Zero” campaign to destabilize Europe, undermine NATO's cohesion, and set the political, informational, and psychological conditions for a potential future Russian war against NATO.[26]

Ukrainian forces reportedly recently downed at least 19 Kinzhal ballistic missiles with electronic warfare (EW), likely in response to Ukraine's Patriot air defense interceptor missile shortages and Russian Kinzhal modifications. Servicemembers of the Ukrainian Night Watch EW unit told online outlet 404 in an article published on November 20 that the unit downed 19 Kinzhals over the past two weeks (roughly from November 6 to 20) and later revealed to Forbes that the unit may have downed 21 Kinzhals over an unspecified time period.[27] Night Watch servicemembers stated that they use the Lima EW jamming system, which spoofs the Kinzhals’ navigation system by creating a disruption field that prevents the missile from communicating with satellites within the Russian GLONASS system. The Lima EW system causes the missile to become confused about its location and rapidly change direction at a high speed, putting excessive stress on the airframe that causes the missile to ultimately fail to reach its target. A Night Watch servicemember noted that Ukrainian forces began to jam Kinzhals with the Lima system as an adaptation to Ukraine's shortage of Patriot interceptors and limitations of the air defense systems, likely referring to Russia's new technological innovations that allow Kinzhals to bypass Patriots. The Financial Times (FT) reported on October 3 that Russia likely recently modified its Iskander-M and Kinzhal ballistic missiles to execute unexpected diversionary maneuvers during the terminal flight phase to “confuse” Ukrainian Patriot interceptor missiles.[28] Ukrainian forces have still been able to down Russian ballistic missiles with Patriot systems since the reported Russian modifications.[29] Ukrainian forces will continue to need both new EW systems and Patriot systems to repel persistent Russian drone and missile threats, particularly Russian ballistic missiles, despite these successful Ukrainian adaptations, in order to ensure continuous and reliable defenses throughout the country.

Russian forces are continuing to commit war crimes on the battlefield in Ukraine, particularly near Pokrovsk. The Ukrainian General Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation on November 22 into a video showing Russian forces executing five captured and unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) near Kotlyne (southwest of Pokrovsk) on November 19.[30] Article 13 of the Geneva Convention prohibits any unlawful act or omission by the detaining power which causes death or seriously endangers the health of a POW while in custody.[31] ISW has observed an increase in Russian war crimes in the Pokrovsk direction in recent weeks as Russian forces have approached and infiltrated the town.[32]

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-22-2025/

Day 1,367 of the Muscovian invasion. 920 [average is 851] i.e. more than 38 Russians, Norks and Cubans/h. Vehicles and fuel tanks more than 60% above average

A year ago 11NOV2024: Aide to the President of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev on the situation in the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Arctic

At present, ensuring security in the Baltic is the most important military-political task. Since Sweden and Finland joined NATO, as well as against the backdrop of the Nord Stream explosion, Russia has taken additional measures to protect its territorial integrity and economic sovereignty. — As far as I remember, you were one of the first to question the “Ukrainian trace” of the explosion of pipelines. There is a lot of contradictory information from Western officials and in the media about this story. Have you changed your mind about the fact that Ukraine is not behind this?

- In the case of the terrorist act on the Nord Streams, interesting details really emerge. Even the Danish naval authorities do not hide the fact that the American ships were in the area of the explosions the day before. At the same time, anyone interested in the capabilities of the naval forces of foreign countries knows that the Ukrainian Navy has neither the equipment nor the trained specialists to carry out a deep-sea terrorist attack. Only special forces units of NATO countries could carry out sabotage of this scale. It is known for certain that such combat swimmers and the corresponding equipment are available to the American and British special services. Therefore, the calls of Chancellor (German Olaf - Kommersant) Scholz to conduct an allegedly unbiased investigation, accusing some Ukrainians of sabotage, sound ridiculous.

The United States is deliberately depriving Germany of Russian energy resources so necessary for its development, and the current leadership of Germany is playing along with those who are actually destroying the German economy. According to available information, the Americans and the British consider the sabotage of the Nord Streams as one of many methods of promoting their economic interests. New infrastructure, including marine fiber-optic cables that provide connectivity around the world, could come under attack.

— And what is the plan behind all this, in your opinion?

— It can be described in one word — chaos. Since the hegemony of the West has been shaken, Washington has decided to chaotize the energy market, including by destabilizing maritime transportation.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7296438

Mid November Review

Former CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is now advising a heavily scrutinized Ukrainian defense firm called Fire Point — which will allow him to benefit directly from the Western military aid to Ukraine he has frequently advocated for since the start of the war in 2022.

Pompeo's new role on Fire Point’s advisory board would essentially place him on both sides of any future deals. As a U.S. government official under the first Trump administration and former U.S Congressman, his frequent wartime calls for further military aid to Ukraine bear considerable influence in Washington — priming Fire Point to reap the benefits as it leads the Ukrainian market for long-range drones.

Quickly rising to prominence in war time, Fire Point is currently under scrutiny for its alleged price gouging practices, and for its ties to Tymur Mindich, a Zelensky associate being investigated for corruption charges. Critics also charge that the company has an unfair monopoly over the drone market. Earning about $1 billion this year, Fire Point is now constructing a factory in Denmark.Pompeo’s new role continues a pattern of reported wartime conflicts of interest. RS reported last summer that Pompeo stood to benefit from the “Trump Peace Plan” he proposed in the WSJ, which called for Ukraine to join the EU, and for a $500 billion "lend lease" program for Ukraine to buy U.S. weapons. As a director at prominent Ukrainian telecom company Kyivstar, Pompeo would have stood to gain from the economic benefits Kyivstar realized through Ukraine’s EU ascension, had his “Peace Plan” been realized.

From Your Site Articles

Trump's '28-point plan' for Ukraine War provokes political earthquake

Europe

When it comes to the reported draft framework agreement between the U.S. and Russia, and its place in the Ukraine peace process, a quote by Winston Churchill (on the British victory at El Alamein) may be appropriate: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” This is because at long last, this document engages with the concrete, detailed issues that will have to be resolved if peace is to be achieved.

The plan has apparently been worked out between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev (together reportedly with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner) but a great deal about it is highly unclear (Update: On Thursday night, Axios reported the full plan, which reflects earlier reporting, here).

The Trump administration reportedly believes that a deal is imminent, but the Russian government has been at pains to stress that no agreement has yet been reached. We do not know if Moscow will try to exact further concessions; the details of several key points have not been revealed; and above all, it may be impossible to get the Ukrainian government to agree to essential elements, unless the Trump administration is prepared to bring extremely heavy pressure to bear on both Ukraine and America’s European allies.

It has already been reported that President Zelensky has rejected the plan and is working with European governments to propose an alternative — though so far, nothing that the Europeans have proposed stands the remotest chance of being accepted by Moscow.

Among the most difficult points for Ukraine will be the reported draft agreement that Ukraine should withdraw from the approximately 14% of the Donbas that it still holds, and that it has sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to retain. But with the key Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk seemingly close to falling, the Trump administration apparently believes that the rest of the Donbas is sooner or later bound to fall too, and there is no point in losing more Ukrainian lives in a vain attempt to keep it, and also risk Ukrainian military collapse and losing more territory beyond the Donbas.

The draft agreement also reportedly softens the blow for Ukraine by stating that the area handed over will be demilitarized and controlled by neutral peacekeepers. In the other two provinces claimed (but only partially occupied) by Russia, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the ceasefire line will run along the existing front line, and Russia will abandon its demand for the whole of these provinces.

In a huge concession to Russia however, the Trump administration — and possibly other countries like Turkey and Qatar, that helped mediate this proposed deal — is willing to recognize Russian legal sovereignty over the Donbas and Crimea (which would also imply the lifting of many U.S. sanctions on Russia) though it does not expect Ukraine to do so.

The draft agreement apparently excludes long-range missiles for Ukraine and would impose limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces, though we do not know how great these limits will be. The Ukrainian government agreed to the principle of arms limitations at the Istanbul talks in March 2022, but has since categorically rejected the idea.

The draft agreement also reportedly includes unspecified U.S. security guarantees to Ukraine, and a formal Russian acknowledgment (already stated by President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov) of Ukraine’s right to join the European Union, in return for the exclusion of NATO membership for Ukraine. It has not been revealed however whether this would require a change to the Ukrainian constitution to restore the previous commitment to neutrality, something that could be hard to pass through the Ukrainian parliament.

This is also true of another key element of the reported plan — the establishment of Russian as a second official language in Ukraine. This is a neuralgic issue for Ukrainian ethnic nationalists, but they should recognize and respond with gratitude to the fact that in the face of the Russian invasion the great majority of Russians and Russian speakers have remained loyal to Ukraine.

Predictably, the leaked plan has drawn immediate denunciation from both Ukrainian and Western sources, with it being described as a demand for Ukraine’s “capitulation.” This is mistaken. As the Quincy Institute has long pointed out, an agreement that leaves three quarters of Ukraine independent and with a path to EU membership would in fact be a Ukrainian victory, albeit a qualified one.

This should be obvious if you look at the Russian government’s goal at the start of the war of turning the whole of Ukraine into a client state, or alternatively of seizing the whole of eastern and southern Ukraine. It would also be a Ukrainian victory in terms of the 500-year-long history of Russian, Polish and Turkish rule over Ukraine. And by way of additional evidence, you would only have to listen to the howls of protest that an agreement along these lines will evoke from Russian hardliners, who still dream of achieving Russian maximalist aims. European comments that this draft agreement concedes Russia’s “maximalist demands” are therefore nonsense.

When it comes to the Western security guarantees to Ukraine promised (but not specified) in the draft agreement, it is crucial to recognize that in international affairs and in history there is no such thing as an absolute guarantee, let alone a permanent one. There are however a whole set of commitments that can be included in order to deter future Russian aggression: the peace agreement should be ratified by the U.N. Security Council and endorsed by the BRICS; Western economic sanctions should be not ended but suspended, with a snap-back clause stating that they will automatically resume if Russia resumes aggression; designated long-range missiles and other arms can be stockpiled with a legally binding guarantee that they will be provided to Ukraine if Russia restarts the war.

Above all, Ukraine should retain the complete and guaranteed right to receive and develop the defensive weapons that throughout this war have played a key part in slowing the Russian advance to a crawl and inflicting immense casualties on the Russian army. Because in the end, the greatest deterrent by far against Russia starting a new war is how badly its armed forces have suffered and performed in this war. If Russia has achieved its basic stated goals in Ukraine, would any future Russian government really want to go through this again?

Certain Western officials, politicians, and commentators believe, and have stated openly, that keeping the Ukraine War going is “money well spent” because it weakens Russia without sacrificing U.S. lives. But apart from the deep immorality of sacrificing Ukrainian lives for this goal, the longer the war goes on the greater the risk that Ukraine will suffer a far greater defeat, Russia a far greater victory, and the U.S. a far greater humiliation.

Given the growing evidence of Ukrainian military weakness and Russian ability to press forward with its offensives, simple prudence dictates the search for an early peace on reasonable terms. That is what the present plan promises, and everyone who truly has Ukraine’s and Europe’s interests at heart should support it.

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Top image credit: noamgalai via shutterstock.com

Trump buys millions in Boeing bonds while awarding it contracts

Military Industrial Complex

Trump bought up to $6 million worth of corporate bonds in Boeing, even as the Defense Department has awarded the company multi-billion dollar contracts, new financial disclosures reveal.

According to the documents, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of Boeing bonds on August 28. On September 19, he bought more Boeing bonds worth between $500,000 and $1 million. In total, Trump appears to have bought at least $185 million worth of corporate and municipal bonds since the start of his presidency.

Kedric Payne, Vice President of the Campaign Legal Center, told RS in a phone interview there is “absolutely” a conflict of interest in Trump’s purchase of Boeing, especially since it is “a government contractor that is connected to military actions that the president controls almost unilaterally.”

Trump also bought between $1 and $5 million worth of Intel bonds in August, a week after the Trump administration took a 10% stake in the company. “I love seeing their stock price go up, making the USA RICHER, AND RICHER,” Trump posted on Truth Social on August 25. Trump purchased Intel bonds on August 29.

The partial purchase of the chip manufacturer, done under the auspices of driving technology research vital to national security, drew praise from some advocates of corporate accountability, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Others raised concerns about how the U.S. government could maintain fairness. “Will the government favor firms in which it owns stakes over other competitors that might have better technology or processes?” asked Peter Harrell, a Non Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. Since the U.S. government’s partial ownership could give the Trump administration far more influence over the company, Trump’s personal investment in Intel could blur the lines between personal, corporate, and national interests. Intel has said the government’s partial ownership would be passive, with the government agreeing to “vote with the company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.”

Upon entering office, Trump did not move his assets into a blind trust run by an independent trustee that could not be directed by the Trump family. Instead, he opted to hand over his business empire to his sons. The White House did, however, insist that the bond purchases were made by independent financial managers “using programs that replicate recognized indexes when making investments.”

The White House also claims that the investment decisions were not made by Trump or any of his family members, though stopped short of claiming this is a blind trust. It’s not clear who these financial managers are, or how strict the wall of separation between them and the Trump family is.

While Trump is not violating any ethics rule, there is a norm that presidents do not own investments in individual companies. Trump does not appear to have bought corporate bonds or individual stocks during his first term. Former President Joe Biden said that he would “never own any stocks or bonds” as a public servant, and appears to have followed through on that promise according to financial disclosures.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has breathed a new life into Boeing. In March, Trump announced that Boeing would receive the coveted $20 billion development contract for the Air Force’s future F-47 fighter jet. The program is sure to be a cash cow for Boeing. Dan Grazier, a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center, told the Associated Press then that the $20 billion price tag is just seed money. “The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said.

After the government re-opened last week, the Pentagon announced a nearly $900 million sale of Boeing’s Chinook helicopter to Germany. In October, Boeing also won a series of contracts worth $2.7 billion to produce missile seekers alongside Lockheed Martin.

Last Monday, a White House official told Reuters that "President Trump fully complies with his reporting obligations and continues to demonstrate his commitment to transparency and accountability in the federal government.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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Top image credit: Security personnel interact with representatives from Baykar, a Turkish defence company, during the BAMEX'25 Defense Expo, in Bamako, Mali, November 12, 2025. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko

Militants' blockade of Mali capital is a test for the US

Africa

Since September, the al-Qaida affiliate Jama‘at Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims, JNIM) has been waging intensive economic warfare against the Malian authorities.

JNIM’s blockade on fuel supplies has upended daily life in the capital Bamako. Citizens queue in interminable lines for gasoline, Western powers have urged their nationals to evacuate, and major news outlets are speculating that Bamako — or Mali as a whole — may soon be ruled by jihadists.

There are certainly plausible scenarios that could bring a jihadist takeover, or a forceful attempt at one. JNIM could be waiting for a moment of maximum weakness to march into the capital, perhaps hoping that a desperate population would accept or even welcome jihadist rule as an alternate to the failing military junta in power since 2020. JNIM could be playing an even longer game, calculating that asphyxiating the capital will provoke a military coup, a fragmentation of the military into competing factions, a popular revolution, or a militia-fication of Bamako (akin to Tripoli).

Perhaps JNIM sees its path to power not as a matter of weeks but of months or years.

It is not clear, however, that JNIM could or would rule Bamako. As the researcher Boubacar Haidara and others have pointed out, basic mathematics make a JNIM conquest improbable: with an estimated total strength of 6,000 combatants, JNIM would face difficulty taking and holding a city of more than 3 million, even if it concentrated all of its forces (currently spread out across multiple countries) in one place.

Moreover, Haidara asks, why would JNIM skip over various “intermediate steps” — such as the conquest of regional administrative centers in areas where it already holds substantial sway — and instead make the capital the first place it conquers?

For context JNIM’s predecessor organizations did hold several northern Malian cities for months in 2012-2013, before a French military intervention dislodged them. Since then, Sahelian jihadists have refrained from overtly controlling major cities in the region. Other rebel forces that have seized capitals, such as the Séléka rebel coalition that conquered the Central African Republic’s Bangui in 2013, have had much higher manpower levels; Séléka may have had 20,000 fighters or more at its peak, and swept steadily across the country before taking the capital.

Another scenario for Mali, then, is continued degradation of security and economic conditions without, at least in the medium term, the collapse of the central government (as in CAR in 2013, Somalia in 1991, or Afghanistan in 1992). The Malian state, under its current military rulers, is already, to use an anatomical metaphor, skeletal. But that skeleton still functions in certain ways; indeed, we could say that parts of the nervous system and the musculature remain.

The brain (the military regime in Bamako) is not yet completely cut off from other parts of the country, as evidenced by recent drone strikes targeting jihadists (but, seemingly, killing civilians) in the Timbuktu Region, far from the capital. JNIM has disrupted some lines of communication and has forced the military out of some positions, but the Malian state possesses a few assets — formal control over cities, air power, and a degree of popular appeal in Bamako and elsewhere, mediated through state-owned and state-friendly media that broadcast a pro-government narrative as civil and political space remains closed to alternative perspectives.

Western powers, considering responses, find themselves awkwardly caught between various constraints. There is enough of the hangover of the War on Terror left that the prospect of Mali under the rule of “al-Qaida” (JNIM, in my reading, functions fairly autonomously, but the connection is there nonetheless) remains horrifying to many policymakers — yet it is not 2005, or 2013, or even 2020.

The War on Terror’s failures loom large, including in the Sahel where the French were expelled from several Sahelian countries (including Mali) after failing to contain the very jihadist insurgency that is now encircling Bamako; meanwhile, Western appetites for military intervention, especially troops on the ground, are low. Nor would the military government in Bamako welcome or even tolerate American, French, or other European soldiers.

Washington could attempt to revive security cooperation with Bamako, and there were signs in recent months that the Trump administration was interested in a transactional relationship with the junta there. Certainly the military authorities and their allies are hungry for military hardware, as evidenced at a Turkey-centric defense expo that just concluded in Bamako — featuring surreal scenes of slick conference halls and sleek weapons, as though the capital were not under siege. Washington could try to cash in on the Malian authorities’ desire for weapons, but that would amount to preying upon desperation and denialism.

Given that JNIM’s intentions and timetables are unclear, and given that full-fledged intervention is probably a non-starter, a “wait-and-see” approach is a sensible path on the political-military front. Propping up a failing regime is a recipe for being drawn into a complex conflict that one Western power, France, already fumbled.

If Washington wants to help, then the way to do so is by increasing humanitarian aid to the millions of people in the Sahel region who are displaced, hungry, out of school, and out of work. That sentiment runs counter to Trump’s approach so far, but the U.S. is much better positioned to alleviate suffering than it is to dictate who will rule Mali.

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