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Strategies & Market Trends : World Outlook -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (45088)	2/24/2025 6:53:11 PM
From: Qone0	Respond to of 49056

The first AI decisions on who works and who dies is underway, by the ELMO. nbcnews.com

To: Les H who wrote (45088)	2/24/2025 6:54:58 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49056

The ever-changing Trump: latest new position on Ukraine security guarantees can only lead to failure of his peace initiative The ever-changing Trump: latest new position on Ukraine security guarantees can only lead to failure of his peace initiative There is no resting point in the policy-making of Donald Trump. The only constant is disruption and groping for that unexpected something that will change the prospect for breakthroughs in his deal-making. In my last essay I tried to unravel the logic of his insistence on the U.S. taking control of Ukrainian rare earth minerals and other natural resources to guarantee repayment of the 350 billion dollars he claims have been spent so far on Ukraine’s defense. It could be construed in a positive light as the U.S. exit ramp from the Ukraine fiasco with apparently trimmed losses. I also have remarked that Russian elites appearing on the leading state television talk shows have in recent days applauded Trump’s rejection of designation of their country as the aggressor in what the U.S. now chooses to call a ‘conflict’ rather than an invasion or a war. They were delighted to hear Trump characterize Zelensky as a dictator with only a 4% approval rating. And yet, we heard the admonition from the doyen of Russian newscasters Vladimir Solovyov, that it is too early to be euphoric, because there is a long road ahead to making peace and many possible reverses. Indeed, and judging from what I heard in the televised press conference of Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump in Washington earlier today, the road to peace just got that much longer and more problematic due to Trump’s seeming acceptance of the latest French suggestions about a European peace-keeping force to be deployed in Ukraine with unspecified back-up from the Americans. The underlying assumptions stated clearly by Macron are unworkable because they cannot and will not be accepted by the Russian side. It is precisely the Minsk 3.0 formula that Moscow has denounced. Macron openly states that Russia is and will be a violator of agreements, an aggressor that can be stopped only by his seeing European troops on the ground as deterrent. This overlooks entirely the reality of what happened between the conclusion of the Minsk 2 accords in 2014-15 and the Russian decision to embark on its Special Military Operation three years ago today. The solution proposed by Macron and, judging by today’s press conference, now accepted by Trump, ignores the firing of artillery shells and missiles by the Ukrainians over the heads of the OSCE monitors in place at the frontier to destroy residences and kill civilians in the Donbas oblasts that resisted rule from Kiev. It ignores the blatant refusal of Kiev to implement the provisions of Minsk-2 for granting substantial autonomy to its Russian-speaking eastern provinces. In that 8-year period 14,000 or more Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas were killed by the Kiev regime. Moreover, the Macron proposal overlooks Russia’s principled opposition to any foreign military personnel and infrastructures being present in post-war Ukraine. Ukraine is expected to become a neutral state. Full stop. So far there has been no Russian reaction to what was said by Trump and Macron today at their press conference. A 20-minute interview with Putin conducted by journalist Pavel Zarubin published by the Kremlin on youtube an hour ago deals only with the questions of Trump’s insistence on concluding the mineral rights deal and with the American pressure on Zelensky to leave office and open the way for elections. Meanwhile, programming on Russian state television tonight shows a documentary on Ukraine prepared to mark today’s anniversary of the Special Military Operation, not the usual political talk shows. Surely tomorrow we will see the Kremlin reaction to this latest nonsense agreed by Trump and Macron that undermines the entire concept of a durable and mutually respectful peace. ©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025 Gilbert Doctorow