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Posted on 10/24/2026 6:22:31 AM PDT by tlozo
US President Donald Trump renewed calls for a change in Ukraine’s leadership on Monday as his war of words with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to intensify. “I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine,” Trump stated in Washington DC following criticism from Zelenskyy over the US leader’s decision to ease sanctions pressure on Russia.
These latest comments followed on from Trump’s recent accusation that Zelenskyy “doesn’t want to end this war,” and his suggestion that Ukraine should get a new president “who can make a deal.” Many of Trump’s most prominent supporters have backed his hardening stance toward the Ukrainian leader. “And so the slaughter continues. Time for Zelenskyy to go,” Elon Musk wrote on October 15.
The US President’s attacks on Zelenskyy closely mirror Russia’s own position. Speaking last week in Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was “in complete agreement” with Trump regarding the Ukrainian head of state. Days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Zelenskyy “obviously has no desire even to move towards reaching an agreement.”
This is nothing new. Since the early stages of the invasion, Moscow has consistently sought to position Zelenskyy as an obstacle to peace, with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin repeatedly questioning the legitimacy of the Ukrainian president and pointing to the absence of democratic elections in wartime Ukraine. “You can negotiate with anyone, but because of his illegitimacy, Zelenskyy has no right to sign anything,” Putin stated last year. Stay updated As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.
It is not difficult to debunk portrayals of Zelenskyy as the main obstacle to peace. In reality, the Ukrainian leader has agreed to every single ceasefire proposal put forward by the American side, while Moscow has rejected them all. Crucially, he has offered major territorial concessions that would allow Russia to retain control over almost a quarter of Ukraine. Zelenskyy has also repeatedly declared his readiness to meet face-to-face with Putin anywhere in the world to negotiate an end to the war, only for the Russian ruler to firmly decline. It should be clear to any objective observer that Ukraine’s wartime leader is actively seeking pathways to peace.
Trump and Putin’s over-emphasis on Zelenskyy’s personal role in the Ukrainian war effort reveals a fundamental failure to grasp what Ukrainians are actually fighting for. Many in the White House and the Kremlin appear to believe that the removal of Zelenskyy would somehow pave the way for a Russia-friendly peace. This is delusional. Ukrainians are not fighting for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They are fighting for national survival.
Recent polling indicates strong Ukrainian public support for Zelenskyy, suggesting that he would be very likely to win a wartime election. But even if Zelenskyy was ousted, it is virtually impossible to imagine any replacement emerging with a mandate to make peace on Russian terms. While most Ukrainians favor a negotiated settlement of some kind, surveys indicate strong opposition to any peace deal that fails to provide Ukraine with long-term security or potentially sets the stage for further Russian aggression.
This uncompromising stance reflects widespread Ukrainian perceptions of the current war as an existential struggle that will determine whether Ukraine continues to exist as a state and as a nation. Most Ukrainians are in no doubt that Putin ultimately intends to destroy their country, and regard Western talk of limited Russian territorial ambitions as hopelessly naive. They have grown accustomed to the genocidal anti-Ukrainian messaging that dominates wartime Russia’s public discourse, and take it for granted that the Kremlin’s end goal is a Ukraine without Ukrainians. Eurasia Center events
Online Event Wed, October 21, 2026 • 9:00 am ET How is Europe responding to hybrid warfare? Europe Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy Security & Defense
Ukrainians have reached this chilling conclusion based on years of bitter experience. Long before Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine with the 2014 seizure of Crimea, he was already notorious for insisting that Ukrainians were in fact Russians (“one people”). Since the outbreak of hostilities, Putin’s rhetoric has grown ever more extreme. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, he published a 5,000 word history essay that read like a declaration of war against Ukrainian statehood. He routinely describes the occupied regions of Ukraine as “historically Russian lands,” and boasted last year that “all of Ukraine is ours.”
Putin’s obsession with the destruction of Ukraine has set the tone for the entire invasion. Wherever Russian troops have established control, the occupation authorities have sought to erase all traces of Ukrainian language, history, culture, and identity. For the past two years, international human rights watchdog Freedom House has ranked Russian-occupied Ukraine as “the least free place on earth.”
Throughout the occupied regions, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been detained and imprisoned in a campaign of mass arrests that UN officials have classified as a crime against humanity. Those who remain face ruthless russification in every sphere of daily life and are forced to accept Russian citizenship. Meanwhile, a whole generation of Ukrainian schoolchildren living under occupation are being stripped of their nationality and indoctrinated to celebrate the invasion of their own country.
Ukrainians know what is happening in the occupied territories and are under no illusions about the fate that awaits them if Russia is not stopped. Twenty percent of Ukraine is already being subjected to a form of brutal national identity erasure that may qualify as genocide. If Putin is able to extinguish Ukrainian independence and install a puppet regime in Kyiv, there is every reason to assume that the Kremlin’s actions in the remaining 80 percent of the country will be just as severe.
This understanding of Russia’s genocidal intentions is one of the key factors driving Ukraine’s much-hyped resilience. Ukrainians are not superheroes with special powers of endurance. They are ordinary people who recognize that they are facing an extraordinary threat.
After almost five years of staggering sacrifice and unimaginable trauma, most Ukrainians are utterly exhausted. And yet somehow they fight on. Putin’s well-documented determination to wipe Ukraine off the map leaves them with no real choice but to keep resisting until the Russian dictator is finally forced to acknowledge the impossibility of conquering their country.
Trump and Putin are deeply mistaken if they think replacing Zelenskyy would change anything. Ukraine’s struggle for national survival reflects the will of millions and does not depend on any one man. This struggle will continue, regardless of who holds the office of the presidency.
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'Wherever Russian troops have established control, the occupation authorities have sought to erase all traces of Ukrainian language, history, culture, and identity.'
'Ukrainians know what is happening in the occupied territories and are under no illusions about the fate that awaits them if Russia is not stopped. Twenty percent of Ukraine is already being subjected to a form of brutal national identity erasure that may qualify as genocide.'
“ The Atlantic Council is a classic Washington foreign-policy establishment (the “Blob”) institution. Founded in 1961 to promote Atlanticism—strong U.S.-Europe ties, NATO primacy, and active American global leadership—it brands itself nonpartisan. In practice it is a well-funded network of former officials, generals, corporate executives, and donors that reliably advances interventionist, alliance-centric, and often military-heavy policy.
“ It is the permanent foreign-policy class that moves between government, think tanks, consulting, and corporate boards. Honorary directors include the usual bipartisan elders (Baker, Gates, Mattis, Panetta, Perry, Rice). The political alignment is pro-NATO, skeptical of restraint or “America First” isolationism, hawkish toward Russia and (to varying degrees) China and Iran, and comfortable with the military-industrial and energy status quo.
“ FUNDING:
U.S. government: Department of Defense and Department of State appear as $1M+ contributors in multiple years.
• Foreign governments: UAE (Embassy and related entities repeatedly in the top tier), United Kingdom, Norway, and others. Trackers of think-tank funding have ranked the Atlantic Council among the largest recipients of foreign-government money in recent multi-year periods (tens of millions cumulatively). They state they do not take Russian or Chinese government funds.
• Defense and aerospace contractors / related: Airbus, Saab, and others; the Council ranks high among recipients of Pentagon-contractor funding.
• Energy and corporate: Chevron, ExxonMobil, Aramco Americas, Amazon Web Services, Bank of America, etc.
• Foundations and individuals: Rockefeller Foundation (large sums, often tied to climate/resilience work via the Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Center), Adrienne Arsht herself, Bahaa Hariri, Goldman Sachs-linked giving, Smith Richardson Foundation, Open Society-linked entities, Craig Newmark, and others. Past Koch Institute money has also appeared.
Deep state apparatus article
Putin is now admitting the real reason for invasion.
Oct 22 Putin: "The lands lost by Ukraine are not their territory, they are Russia’s historical lands."
https://x.com/clashreport/status/2113341794725597217/video/1
Zeke needs to go.
If they were “fighting for national survival” they’d get to the negotiating table before they reach the demographic abyss from which there will be no recovery. If they haven’t reached it already.
Zelensky will listen to his EU masters.
Ukrainian sovereignty is a currently just a facade. It’s elected pro-Russian government was abrogated by a coup organized by the Democrats, who then proceeded to use the new regime to launder money. The plan is to absorb the country into a one-world system like the EU, where free speech, private property, and normal family life are always under attack.
You can add Big Pharma to your list. Atlantic Council pumped the vax.
If Z is gone tomorrow, the war continues.
If Putin is gone tomorrow, the war ends.
That's how you know who is the real 'impediment' to a resolution to the war.
A look back courtesy of the Atlantic Council itself:
Loved BJ Clinton and cheered ( as above ) when President Trump was replaced by the Idiot Joe Biden."...there have never been a head and heart so perfectly matched as the pair within William Jefferson Clinton. It's an impossible equilibrium: wonky intellectual meets “Oh, hell” card player, oxygen and hydrogen. He defies the laws of physics as his daily exercise, but without him the universe just wouldn't be as friendly to humans. Especially those who have it the toughest. And there was no tougher place to be on Jan. 12, 2010, than Haiti.."
Source: Bill Clinton: Rock Star Bono / New Atlanticist via Atlantic Council, 30 April 2010.
"The band is back together. ....The summit communiqué is seventy-nine paragraphs long, he notes, 'a far cry from the nine-paragraph declaration' at the 2019 summit, when 'leaders walked on eggshells trying to avoid—and avoid provoking—[then-US President Donald] Trump.' The communiqué length alone, Chris adds, 'may be the truest signal that NATO is back to old ways of doing business.'."
Source: FAST THINKING: A new era for NATO Atlantic Council, 15 June 2021
Zelensky is the problem. He refuses to hold elections and refuses to negotiate peace.
As a pro Russian, You are an anti American
As a pro Russian you are an anti American
Ukraine has always been willing to negotiate but the problem is Putin demands are maximalist, and if Ukraine agreed to this 'deal'(surrender) it would end up disarmed and without allies, completely defenseless to Putin's next invasion.
Putin Demands:
Russia has demanded no NATO for Ukraine and no other alliances.
Russia demands Ukraine cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia, including areas still held by Ukraine.
Russia demands Ukraine demilitarize: limit army to 600,000(1/2 current army) limits on number of tanks, artillery, planes and no missiles.
Russia demands Ukraine establish the Russian language as a co-official language.
Russia demands Ukraine to denazify, basically stop being Ukrainian.
Russia demands Ukraine reestablish the Moscow led Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The same one that declared a Holy War against Ukraine.
Russia demands a change in the leadership of Ukraine. I guess demanding a puppet government to be installed.
Russia demands amnesty for any war crimes
Russia demands changes to Ukrainian's constitution.
Russia demands Western peacekeeping troops are never allowed into Ukraine.
And Russia keeps adding to this list saying the "root causes" of this conflict have to be addressed
Zelensky has said multiple times he would meet Putin anywhere neutral, Putin's response, meet me in Moscow or nowhere. Ridiculous
Z agreed to hold elections if Putin agrees to a 60 day ceasefire, Putin said no.
And Climate change.
"Climate change is a threat that requires looking beyond partisanship. By exploring the economic, geopolitical, and systemic opportunities and challenges resulting from the effects of anthropogenic climate change, and identifying the partnerships and strategies which are making a difference, the conversation on this threat can become more constructive and productive."
Source: Climate Change and Climate Action 2026 Atlantic Council
It’s not up to Zelensky.
Article title: Wartime Elections in Ukraine Are Impossible
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/11/ukraine-democracy-wartime-elections-russia-zelensky/
It turns out that Trump is responsible for prolonging the war. Putin sees hope from the support Trump has shown him in the last 2 years. And Trump is following the Putin line of arguments against Zelensky.
Trump is never going to admit that Zelensky/Ukraine now have a lot of cards to play. But, Trump knows Zelensky has them now and will never admit that Ukraine is not going to surrender to Putin’s and Trump’s terms for ending the war.
Trump’s negotiations tactics mount to: Damn it, Zelensky, get the ‘f’ out and surrender already!!!
Trump has a dog in the fight, and he’s bound and determined to have that dog end on top.
Horseshitte.
Donbas voted to leave and Ukraine agreed. Then, zylynskyy started the war at the urging of the EU and BeijingBiden. Why? So that globalist elites could continue to personally benefit from Uk’s two main industries: money laundering and sex trafficking.
Ukraine is a failed, terrorist state. Ukraine blew up the gas pipeline into the EU — so said Sweden when they condemned Ukraine for that terrorist act. Millions of Ukraine citizens have left Ukraine — like those citizens who fled Venezuela when it went communist.
I hate when liberals contort the English language; abortion=choice
Only one country 'started' this war, Russia who invaded a sovereign country, crossed an internationally recognized border and launched a war to dismantle its neighbor.
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