Posted on 08/16/2025 8:23:15 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
During a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the Alaska summit with Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the Russian leader insists on gaining control over the entire Donbas region
Bloomberg reported the information.
According to sources, during the phone call, Trump noted that the final decision on the territories should be made by Kyiv, but Putin’s position remains unchanged. Russia wants full control over Donetsk and Luhansk regions, even though its forces have currently captured only part of these areas.
If Kyiv agrees, Moscow is ready to drop claims to the parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions still under Ukrainian control, effectively freezing the frontline there.
President Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected any possibility of ceding territory.
Additionally, sources said that in talks with European leaders, Trump expressed willingness to support security guarantees for Ukraine, provided they do not involve NATO. The president suggested that Putin would agree to this.
Trump claims Putin open to new written agreement
Moreover, as Trump emphasized in talks with European leaders after the Alaska summit, the Russian leader is reportedly even willing to provide a written guarantee of no further armed aggression against Ukraine or any EU country, if he is given full control over the territories of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including areas currently under Ukrainian control.
This information was reported on the evening of August 16 by New York Times correspondent Steven Erlanger in Berlin.
“In return, Mr. Putin offered a cease-fire in the rest of Ukraine at current battle lines and a written promise not to attack Ukraine or any European country again, the senior officials said,” the NYT article states.
In response, European leaders reportedly reminded Trump that Putin “has broken similar promises before.”
(Excerpt) Read more at global.espreso.tv ...
4th time we have had to ne involved in thier dumb wars!
I happened to spend a lot of time studying the Battle of Tsushima Island. It ended that war.
The best info I found was the diary of a Russian naval officer of that war. Condensing, the Russian fleet was smashed completely by the Japanese fleet in that battle.
Neither side built their own ships. Both bought. Japan from Brits, Russia from whoever would sell, mostly South American countries.
Background details of corruption at the naval ministry in St Petersburg decided the battle before it started. They were given money from the Tsar’s treasury to buy “cruisers”. They went to South America and bought cheap, pocketed the difference, and brought home wooden hulled ships with weak engines.
But I digress. What I wanted to mention was Prisoners of War, which you mentioned extensively. This naval officer diarist had been at the battle of Port Arthur that was besieged and Japan won that from both the sea and land side. This officer was captured.
As an officer POW it was permitted in those days to offer parole. The officer could swear he would not return to the war to fight again. If he did and was captured again, it would mean execution. This guy was captured at Port Arthur, eventually gave parole, and fled to the long train ride from Vladivostok to St Petersburg.
No work for his credentials so he rejoined the Navy and found himself on the Russian fleet headed out of St Petersburg, south around Africa and then north and east. Sweltering heat. Difficult re-coaling because countries wanted to be neutral. Sickness in all the crews.
The admiral had no choice. His career and pension and maybe life were at stake. He sailed the fleet into battle, nearly infinite supply lines, vs Japan’s fleet with all their supplies a stone’s throw away. They got wiped out.
The diarist was captured. By grace of God, the Japanese recording of names of Russians who had given parole did not match his own identity precisely so he escaped execution. And went home. The war was over and the Admiral had also survived and was sent home. He thought to execution by the Tsar.
Didn’t happen. But he was old and had no clout. The diarist officer attempted to foolishly expose the corruption at the naval ministry and discovered various difficulties with his pension and disability compensation evolving.
Quite a story, that war. But there is one other thing about it. It was that time frame when the Chinese ceded Formosa to Japan. It was not conquered land. It was properly documented payment to the Japanese for . . . something.
And so it (Taiwan) became Japanese. The Japan culture was brought to the island’s natives and that was how life was for almost 50 years. Then WWII and even though there was nothing in any armistice or peace treaty with Japan concerning it, Chiang Kai Shek declared that all Japanese citizens must leave Formosa/Taiwan, that it was again Chinese.
When Mao forced him to leave China and he fled to Taiwan, his Army generals that went with him brutalized the populace there because the civilization there was modeled on and had become Japanese in culture.
His officers did mass executions of people who were not even from Japan. They were native. So Chiang’s officers took over the government, and land and everything, and kept it. Winning all elections. Controlling everything. Only early this century did opposition parties appear and begin to compete for control with Chiang’s people’s offspring.
And somehow we are supposed to defend this culture?
Chiang was every bit the thug that Mao was.
That’s pretty objectionable.
Glad you’re looking out for Russia
Spit.
At the end of such a headline stated as fact, there used to be a colon and then the word “sources”. Your brain had already read the made up statement before it got to the word. “sources The propaganda media has even dropped that. In this article you have to read a few sentences in before you see “according to sources”.
No, but had Trump been President in 2022, Putin probably would not have invaded. I would be willing to give Ukraine all the arms and ammuntion it needs to defend itself, including long range missiles, artillery, and air defense systems.
Biden was worse, far worse than Chamberlain in encouraging aggression.
When Ukrain surrendered its nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Britain gave them security guarantees, which Obama abandoned when Russia seized Crimea. Embolded, Russia sent in its Army, out of uniform, and portraying themselves as “rebels” in to eastern Ukraine. Further emboldened, Putin decided to attack Kiev and overrun the entire Ukrain. Ukrain had other ideas.
Russia sent in Russian speaking “managers” and political bosses into all the constituent Soviet republics. The fact that have substantial Russian minorities today is a byproduct of Soviet Russian imperialism, not natural or historical settlements.
Pahshli sabaku k Sibir. (Send the dog (Putler) to Siberia.)
[Redacted] is willing to sign a non-aggression deal, wants the Sudentenland in return.
History rhymes.
“He is running out of troops”
Putin has been getting 50,000 volunteers a month. He takes the best 35,000 and trains them for a year, which is how long it takes to properly train troops for battle so they have a chance to stay alive for a while. Each month 35,000 troops join the war effort. Putin’s losses are now down to single digits a day, a little know factoid.
The last published number for new Ukrainian troops in a month is 1,700. They will be sent to the front quickly and die quickly.
Russia sent in Russian speaking “managers” and political bosses into all the constituent Soviet republics. The fact that have substantial Russian minorities today is a byproduct of Soviet Russian imperialism, not natural or historical settlements.
It's not. It's between the USA and Russia. Period. If Trump wants a deal or wants the war to stop, HE can make that happen. Right away.
Trump knows this more than anyone; it's why the meeting was between the only two adults involved.
He simply can't come out and say this, for the simple reason that he needs to get Zelensky on board with it.
(Once Zelensky is on board, then Trump will be marketing it to the world as Zelensky's plan. Zelensky might even get a Nobel Prize out of it.)
There's more than enough precedent for this...
I haven't heard of Putin making any demands for us to atone for our own aggression in Ukraine; why are you so insistent that he atone for his?
After this stuff, I started looking for diaries rather than official histories.
A young lady in Shanghai was a diarist and she noted that Chiang (it was from her diary that I learned in Chinese the surname is first) took the country’s gold supply in the Treasury with him when he fled to Formosa/Taiwan. A great deal of the poverty of China when Mao took over could be assigned to that theft rather than purely the distaste of communism.
But what did he do with the gold? He gave about half to his wife, who was raised in the US. She was Chinese, but her upbringing was in the US. So she came to America, bought elaborate mansions and then began to invest . . . in Congressional bribery.
THIS was why that little island retained a seat on the UN Security Council for 8 years after mainland China had set off its first nuke. 8 years! Because she bribed Washington.
Yeah, and we are supposed to defend them from invasion.
Okay guys, one step at a time.
First, you have to go public and admit sanctions on Russia have no power. You won’t even get Congress to admit that, but until you do, you have no chance at all of sending troops.
Then if you have US troops fighting Russia troops, well, be aware that warhead counts for nuclear weapons generally talk in terms of the START treaties. Those are Strategic weapons. Not tactical. Russia has far more tactical weapons than the US, and if these US troops who’ve spent the past 4+ years being concerned about gender affirmation than marksmanship were somehow, some way to actually achieve some sort of winning posture, Russia would have no choice but to use its theatre warhead advantage.
And then the spiral upwards begins.
Over what? Ukraine? Seriously?
Very good points
So Russia grabbed Crimea under Obama. Then Russia invaded Ukraine under Biden and now wants most all of Eastern Ukraine. I’m just stating what I believe Russia will do if given Eastern Ukraine. Maybe Pres. Trump should just let the UK, Scandinavia, and the EU deal with Zelenskyy and Putin, neither who don’t seem to stop the war.
Simple internet searches show this "name" is associated with only EspresoTV.
After reading through these comments, I learn none have expressed curiosity about the website, offered as it is. So here's the FLORIDA website information.
whois query for espreso.tvThe website is hosted in Canad, having been registered in the State of Florida, and being presented "as if." Its an "Candian-American" enterprise for loyalists of the Zelensky government in Ukraine.Domain: espreso.tv
Registrar: Network Solutions, LLC
Registered On: 2013-10-27
Registrant Contact State: FLORIDA
Country: USNameservers show it hosted in AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc., CANADA.
Rather amusing that the "news" is in Ukrainian and English, while the website is essentially in the United States. Its links at the bottom of the page show a YouTube channel, but YouTube says "This page isn't available. Sorry about that." That is because the webmaster does not link correctly. The actual YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/@EspresoTv (Joined Nov 20, 2013) Want to hear live streams in Ukrainian? That's where.
Its web page Twitter link shows it "Joined February 2022" and currently has about a thousand followers, but the X link on the page states "@Espresotveng hasn't posted When they do, their posts will show up he.". Ditto the web page's Facebook link shows "This content isn't available right now When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted."
And the author is essentially anonymous. Propaganda, it seems, which is always the best source for "news." / sarc
Agreed. That should be the counter-offer if the evil green munchkin has any sense at all. Concede Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and keep the ones more useful to Ukraine, both ethnically and strategically. End the bloodshed. If he does not do this, Russia will get it all anyway.
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