Free Republic

OK. I have been doing my best to read the Trump tea leaves, figure out the Art of the Deal, and parse all the information out there so that I can figure out Donald Trump's strategy in the Iran War. I thought I had a good handle on it, and until the past few days, Trump's behavior accorded pretty well with my overall theory. Trump's strategy appeared to have been to pressure Iran into full and complete capitulation on the issues of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles (which exist to make attacking Iran nearly impossible), and to get the Strait of...

Sergei Lavrov has been sidelined by Vladimir Putin after his failure to organise a summit with Donald Trump in Budapest, according to reports. The Russian daily Kommersant, a privately owned pro-Kremlin outlet, said that Russia’s long-time foreign minister was “deliberately absent” from a key security council meeting earlier this week. The 76-year-old will also no longer represent Moscow at the upcoming G20 summit, which is scheduled for November 22 and 23 in Johannesburg. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, did not give any explanation for Mr Lavrov’s absence from the key summit, which will be attended instead by Maxim Oreshkin, Putin’s deputy...

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would...

[H/T Little Jeremiah]October 8, 2025

Several hundred people gathered for a pro-Ukraine rally in Anchorage, Alaska, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to meet Friday. The high-stakes summit — the first in-person meeting between an American president and Putin since the latter launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is meant to lay the ground for a ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not invited to the summit, scheduled to kick off around 11 a.m. local time at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Protesters started to gather early on Friday morning ahead of Putin's arrival in Anchorage, chanting...