Ukraine Peace Does Not Depend on Putin, But Zelenskyy's Exit

Dec. 7--With Special Envoy Steve Witkoff leading the way, the rounds of negotiations to broker a peace deal to end NATO’s bloody and losing war against Russia in Ukraine continue, with talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Miami taking place, following a meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin with Witkoff and Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

President Donald Trump, briefed fully on the meetings, has said that he believes that a deal might be “close,” but acknowledges there still remains separation between Ukraine, and its backers in Europe and NATO, and the Russians on proposals that would end the fighting, but would also secure what Trump has termed “security and prosperity” for Ukraine and Europe, including Russia, after the fighting stops.

Zelenskyy’s Position and Battlefield Collapse

NATO’s Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy has praised the progress being made under Trump’s direction but continues to stress that peace will depend on concessions that the Russians must make. But sources say that the consummation of the deal does not depend on Putin and the Russians, who have since the August summit and before been clear on what their terms are for ending a war that they are winning and in which they will soon achieve all their aims on the battlefield, as Ukraine’s forces are now considered by reliable military experts at a point of total collapse.

 As sources close to the White House say, President Trump has come to realize there is little or no incentive for Russia to concede any of its demands on both Ukraine and the foolish European leadership, which, with the backing of the White House of the demented Sleepy Joe Biden, had forced the war on Russia in the first place, in some insane scheme to “defeat” Russia and bring down Putin.

Sanctions and False Intelligence

“Zelenskyy and NATO demanded Trump impose stiff sanctions on Russia, to bring them to heel,” said a source. “Trump never thought that sanctions would work. But when NATO and Zelenskyy provided him with faked intelligence about the alleged stalemate on the battlefield, the rising Russian casualties, and the near collapse of the Russian economy, and this was supported by certain people in [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio’s State Department and was seemingly confirmed by [Trump Special Envoy to Ukraine Gen. (ret.)] Kellogg, he went with sanctions targeting Russian energy companies whose profits and sales fund the war, walking away from the framework for peace he had worked out with Putin in Alaska. The sanctions have had zero effect on the battlefield, and new American intelligence confirms that the Ukrainians and NATO had lied about the state of a war that was hopelessly lost.”

This and other sources say that Trump was fed up with the lies and pivoted back to the Alaska framework, which had Ukraine conceding both land that it occupies in Donbas and the gains the Russians have already made in exchange for an end to the fighting; Russia would pull its forces from other areas of Ukraine. The other key concessions Ukraine must make are an end to its ambitions to join NATO, accepting a lower limit for the size of its military, and agreeing that there would be no NATO or any other troops stationed on its soil to protect the peace. Finally, Russia would agree to a non-aggression pact with Ukraine and Europe, and the entire peace process would be guaranteed by the United States and perhaps China. The reconstruction of Ukraine would proceed without any reparations or war crimes tribunals and would be supervised by the United States and not the Europeans.

Zelenskyy’s Resistance and European Weakness

As of now Zelenskyy has not yet signed on to the land concessions, nor to the NATO prohibition, nor even to the idea that there will be no peacekeepers from NATO nations, such as the formerly Great Britain. Yet he says that it is Putin who does not want peace.

These sources report that if the Trump Peace Plan is to succeed the deck on the NATO-Ukraine side has to be scrambled. Trump knows that the key backers of Zelenskyy—Sir Keith Starmer in Britain, Emmanuel Macron in France (who lectured Chinese President Xi Jinping this week on how he must rein in Putin and the Russians, leaving the Chinese stunned with the state of his lunacy), and Friedrich Merz in Germany—have precarious holds on power in their own countries; but yet, he cannot, by his own actions, remove them. But he can show the exit to the most corrupt government in all of Europe, that of the pack of thieves that preside over the corrupt empire of Ukraine.

Corruption Scandals

The Europeans, sources report, did their best to shut down a growing, and already massive corruption scandal involving security contracts in Ukraine’s energy sector, but they failed, the sources say, because the anti-corruption fighters have the support of the Americans. And then the scandal moved into the President’s Office, claiming Zelenskyy’s chief thug and NATO asset, Andriy Yermak, who had headed the Ukrainian negotiators and famously claimed that as long as he was around, Ukraine would not give up one inch of territory to the invaders. So, now he is not around.

Meanwhile, it would appear that a whole section of the establishment has reached the same conclusion as Trump—that Zelenskyy must be shown the door and the war ended as quickly as possible-- but for different reasons. In Trump’s case, he and some of his top people are pivoting away from Europe and its alleged threat from NATO to a still jumbled other strategic outlook, that seeks to both compete with and contain China. And, the White House sources say, he will do whatever it takes to prevent “a fall of Saigon” moment in Kyiv, as Sleepy Joe suffered in Kabul.

As for the other parts of the establishment, they want to walk away from a failed neo-con adventure that has left their world more unstable, and strengthened their Russian adversary.

The Times Investigation

So, the New York Times chose right now to publish what has been a weeks' long investigation of Ukrainian corruption, which, they claim Zelenskyy knowingly did not stop and even protected. They write:

"When Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Kyiv’s Western allies faced a dilemma: how to spend billions supporting a government fighting Russia without watching the money vanish into the pockets of corrupt managers and government officials.

"The stakes were high because Ukraine’s vital wartime industries — power distribution, weapons purchases and nuclear energy — were controlled by state-owned companies that have long served as piggy banks for the country’s elite.

"To protect their money, the United States and European nations insisted on oversight. They required Ukraine to allow groups of outside experts, known as supervisory boards, to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption.

"Over the past four years, a New York Times investigation found, the Ukrainian government systematically sabotaged that oversight, allowing graft to flourish.

"President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kyiv even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around.

"Supervisory boards serve an essential oversight function, allowing independent experts, typically from other countries, to scrutinize major decisions inside Ukrainian state-owned companies.

"They are also central to the corruption scandal swirling around Mr. Zelensky’s government. Anti-corruption authorities have accused members of his inner circle of siphoning off and laundering $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom. Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board, The Times found."

Aftermath and Zelenskyy’s Future

Sources report that Trump’s people welcomed the article’s publication but realize that it fails to go with information that could immediately blow up all support for the war and NATO’s Ukrainian dictator. They know that Yermak actually supervised the world’s largest black-market arms bazaar, where billions in American and NATO weapons and munitions were sold to drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and anyone who had the cash. All of this took place with Zelenskyy’s knowledge, and many people say to his benefit. Trump, these sources say, is prepared let this leak out. 

"The Ukrainian is not going to be allowed to block a peace deal, said a source. "He will be allowed to leave. He knows his way to exit. And what comes after, will accept the deal that will benefit Ukraine, the United States, Russia if not the Euro-fools. This can all happen quickly. The handwriting as they say, is on the wall for Zelenskyy."