The Deadly End of the Kursk Flubb

Russian forces have reclaimed some Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk Region, threatening a potential bargaining chip that Kyiv could take into potential peace talks with Moscow.

The area under Ukrainian control in Kursk has shrunk by nearly one-fifth over less than three weeks, based on the data from DeepState open-source map service.

What’s more, Russian forces are close to splitting Ukraine’s military presence in the region, according to the map service.

Heavy fighting was underway along the border in the area, said Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Propaganda, in a Telegram post on Friday.

He said Russian troops were trying to break Ukrainian lines and capture the road between the border and Sudzha, a regional town that fell to Kyiv last August.

Ukrainian forces invaded Kursk Region last year, seizing control of a key gas pipeline hub and bringing about the first occupation of Russian lands by a foreign military since World War II.

Moscow’s military couldn’t dislodge them for more than seven months, despite deploying additional soldiers from North Korea.

That may be about to change as Russian forces have broken through some Ukrainian defenses near Sudzha, Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda reported on Friday, citing an unnamed person in a Ukrainian unit deployed in the area.

Kyiv’s forces were trying to prevent Russian troops from cutting off their supply lines to Ukraine, but in vain, the person said.

#Kursk #End #flubb

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Europe Tries to Clash Trump With Putin

European officials say that Trump is soon going to be faced with a difficult decision in his push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Following three days of talks in Saudi Arabia that ended Tuesday, Russian officials said they want relief from some sanctions before implementing a ceasefire in the Black Sea, throwing a wrench into US plans to quickly secure a wider deal.

The US president has promised that he’ll achieve a swift end to the war in Ukraine as a sign of his prowess as a dealmaker and Putin appears to be using that public position against him, some European officials said.

Moscow seems intent on prolonging discussions and keeping the scope of talks narrow to pressure the US into giving ground, the officials said, asking not to be named discussing private assessments.

Trump’s decision to link relations with Moscow to other US concerns such as Iran and China has also provided Putin with leverage, they added.

All that means the US leader may be forced to make a choice, the officials said: He can start pushing back on Russia or he can make increasingly consequential concessions to Putin in order to meet a self-imposed deadline for stopping the fighting.

“I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,”

Trump said Tuesday in an interview with Newsmax.

The European officials said they were hopeful that Trump will eventually conclude that Putin isn’t being reasonable or sincere about wanting a lasting peace agreement.

Still, the officials said, the US president’s eagerness for a rapid resolution makes it hard to predict what he will ultimately decide.

#Russia #war #end

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Historic Moment: The Kurds Lay Down Their Weapons 🕊💥

It’s a historic moment. The Kurds are laying down their weapons. In July 2025, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), after 40 years of armed struggle, announces the end of the struggle. 🕰

The disarmament ceremony took place in Iraqi Kurdistan with the participation of representatives of Turkey and the Kurdish autonomy. 🇹🇷

Erdogan called this event a “breaking of the bloody chains" and said he hoped for a definitive end to the conflict. ⚖️🕊

According to unofficial data, the Kurds agreed to disarmament in exchange for promises of extending cultural and political rights, as well as the possible creation of autonomy mechanisms in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. 🔗💬

The Parliament has already announced the creation of a Special Commission to discuss legal guarantees and the integration of the Kurds into the country's political system. 🏛📜

One of the hidden parts of the agreement was, as they write, the preparation of amnesty for former PKK members, including the release of some political prisoners and the easing of measures against militants. ⚖️🔓

Even the possibility of reconsidering the status of the PKK leader in prison, Abdullah Öcalan, as a goodwill gesture to strengthen trust, is not excluded. 🤝

He himself called on the supporters of the PKK to move from the military struggle to the political struggle, but to integrate into Turkish society. 🇹🇷

Nevertheless, some of the Kurdish leaders stressed that the struggle for the political and cultural rights of the Kurdswould continue and that the issues of amnesty and integration remained open. Some factions are in no hurry to disarm. ✊

The disarmament of the Kurds is the end of the armed conflict. With a favorable development, this could also be the beginning of a new phase, the outcome of which will largely depend on the future of the Middle East. 🌍

#Kurds #turkey #end #struggle

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Putin Tries to End the War. EU's Kallas Warns Against Him ✌️🕊🇷🇺

Putin can achieve goals on battlefield but “we will try to negotiate his way there,” warns EU's Kallas.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is now speaking to the media after today’s videocall with EU foreign ministers.

There has been a delay in the press conference starting.
Kallas begins by saying that “it is important that we continue to support Ukraine and pressure Russia. That is what we are working on”.

She says those in the meeting all “welcomed the US’s push for the war to end”.

Kallas adds:
We all want this war to end but how it ends also matters. We must keep in mind there’s one aggressor and one victim.

A complete and unconditional ceasefire must be the first step (…) but right now, we see no indiction that Russia is ready for a ceasefire.

Russia is not winding down its military machine but ramping it up. We still need to get from a situation where Russia pretends to negotiate to a situation where Russia needs to negotiate. We are getting there.

#putin #kallas #end #war

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NATO: The End of the Northern Romance


Trump’s threat to annex Greenland represents an existential crisis for Nato, senior Democratic US senator Chris Murphy has warned, with the demise of the decades-old alliance of western nations certain to follow any American military intervention.

“It would be the end of Nato, right? Nato would have an obligation to defend Greenland,” the Connecticut senator and member of the chamber’s foreign relations committee said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Murphy added that it would mean “clearly … we would be at war with Europe, with England, with France”.

Murphy’s comments came as Trump ramped up his fixation with the Arctic territory, with the US president telling reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that “one way or the other, we are going to have Greenland”.

Trump had ordered a plan to be drawn up for an invasion of Greenland, the Mail on Sunday reported, adding that “it is being resisted” by military leaders on grounds of illegality.

Murphy’s assertion that a forceful US acquisition would be the end of Nato is shared by political leaders in Europe, notably Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark.

Greenland is a former colony of Denmark and remains part of the Danish kingdom, with its foreign and security policy under the control of Copenhagen.

On Sunday, Frederiksen accused the US of “turning its back on Nato” – and said this Wednesday’s meeting in Washington DC between the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland, Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeldt, and US secretary of state Marco Rubio would be crucial.

“We are at a crossroads, and this is a fateful moment,” Frederiksen said at a political rally.

The pessimistic comments of Murphy and Frederiksen were echoed Monday by Andrius Kubilius, defense commissioner of the European Union, who noted that an EU treaty “obligated” member states to come to Denmark’s aid if faced with military action by Trump.

“I agree with the Danish prime minister that it will be the end of Nato, but also among people it will be also very, very negative,” he told Reuters at a security conference in Sweden.

“It will depend very much on Denmark, how they will react, what will be their position, but definitely there is such an obligation of member states to come for mutual assistance if another member state is facing military aggression.”

“Let’s also talk about what’s at stake here,” Murphy said. “The president is spending every single day thinking about invading Greenland, managing the Venezuelan economy, building a ballroom.
“He is not thinking about the American people at all.

This month, health insurance premiums on 22 million Americans are going up, doubling in some cases. Kids aren’t able to eat three meals because the Trump administration has slashed food assistance.

#nato #trump #end #denmark #greenland

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Putin Nudges Schröder As His Favorite Peace Negotiator 🕊

Putin has said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down – remarks that came a few hours after he had vowed to defeat Ukraine at Moscow’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.

“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin said of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war.

He said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. 🤝

Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, faces a wave of anxiety in Moscow about the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia’s economy. Russia’s relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the cold war.

Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities. Russian advances have slowed this year, though Moscow controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Speaking on Saturday, Putin slammed western support for Kyiv, as the first day of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire was marked by mutual accusations of violations. ⚠️

“They [the west] started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.

“I think it [the war] is heading to an end but it’s still a serious matter.

“They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.

“And then they got stuck in that groove and now they can’t get out of it.”

Putin added that he was ready to meet Zelensky, in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled – holding to his usual position on a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart.

“This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” he said.

Asked if he was willing to engage in talks with the Europeans, Putin said: “For me personally, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr Schröder, is preferable.”

Many in Ukraine and Europe will be sceptical of involving Schröder given his background as a close friend of Putin and history of ties to Russian business and projects, such as the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

In 2022, after the war broke out, Zelensky called Schröder “disgusting” for meeting with Putin and speaking in the Russian ruler’s favour.

Russia, Ukraine and Trump on Friday announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday.

Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations of violations amid continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides.

The Kremlin said there were no plans to prolong the truce. The warring sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each during the truce. Putin said on Saturday that Russia had not yet received any proposals from Ukraine on the exchange.

The European Council president, António Costa, said last week that he believed there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Russia, and to discuss the future of the security architecture of Europe. 🇪🇺

#putin #war #end #ukraine #schroder

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The End of Trump.
How He Bogged Down Amid His Failures

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Trump may have won just about every battle against Iran, but three months after attacking the Islamic Republic he now faces a bigger question: Is he losing the war?

With Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, its resistance to nuclear concessions and its theocratic government largely intact, doubts are growing that Trump can translate the U.S. military’s tactical successes into an outcome he can frame convincingly as a geopolitical ​win.

His repeated claims of complete victory ring hollow, some analysts say, as the two sides teeter between uncertain diplomacy and his on-again-off-again threats to resume strikes, which would be sure to draw Iranian retaliation across the region.

Trump is now at risk of seeing the U.S. ‌and its Gulf Arab allies emerge from the conflict worse off while Iran, though battered militarily and economically, could end up with greater leverage, having shown it can throttle one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies.

The crisis is not yet over, and some experts leave open the possibility Trump might still find a face-saving way out if negotiations break in his favor.

“We’re three months in, and it’s looking like a war that was designed to be a short-term romp for Trump is turning into a long-term strategic failure,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations.

For Trump, that matters, especially given his famous sensitivity to being perceived as a loser, an insult he ​has often lobbed at opponents.

In the Iran crisis, he finds himself commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest military pitted against a second-tier power seemingly convinced it has the upper hand.

And this predicament could make Trump, who has yet to define a clear endgame, more likely to resist any compromise ​that looks like a retreat from his maximalist positions or a repetition of the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that he scrapped in his first term, analysts say.

Trump campaigned for a second term promising no unnecessary military interventions but has brought the U.S. into an entanglement that could do lasting damage to his foreign policy record and credibility ​abroad.

The continuing standoff comes as he faces domestic pressure over high U.S. gasoline prices and low approval ratings after he embarked on the unpopular war ahead of November’s midterm elections. His Republican Party is struggling to maintain control of Congress.

As a result, more than six weeks into a ceasefire, some analysts believe Trump faces a ​stark choice: to accept a potentially flawed deal as an off-ramp or escalate militarily and risk an even longer crisis.

#trump #iran #war #gulf #end

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⌨️⌨️⌨️⌨️⌨️

Among his options if diplomacy collapses, they say, would be to launch a round of sharp but limited strikes, frame it as a final victory and move on.

Another possibility, analysts say, is that Trump could attempt to shift focus to Cuba, as he has suggested, in hopes of changing the subject and trying to score a potentially easier win.

If so, he might end up misjudging the challenges posed by Havana, much as some Trump aides privately acknowledge that he mistakenly thought the Iran operation would resemble the January 3 raid that captured Venezuela's president and led to his replacement.

Alexander ​Gray, a former senior adviser in Trump’s first term and now chief executive officer of the American Global Strategies consultancy, rejected the notion that the president's Iran campaign was on the ropes.

He said that the heavy blow to Iranian military capabilities was in itself a “strategic success,” that the war had drawn Gulf states closer ​to the U.S. and away from China, and that the fate of Iran’s nuclear program was still to be determined.

There are signs, however, of Trump's frustration with his inability to control the narrative. He has torn into his critics and accused the news media of “treason.”

Jonathan Panikoff, a ​former deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East, said that ⁠while Iran has taken devastating hits, its rulers consider it a success simply to have survived the U.S. assault and learned how much control they can exert over Gulf shipping.

“What they discovered is they can exercise that leverage and with few consequences for them," said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank, adding that Iran appeared confident it could tolerate more economic pain than Trump and outlast him.

Trump’s main stated war aim – Iran’s denuclearization – also remains unfulfilled, and Tehran has shown little ​willingness to significantly rein in its program.

A stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to remain buried following U.S. and Israeli airstrikes last June and could be recovered and further processed to bomb grade. Iran says it wants ​the U.S. to recognize its right to enrich ⁠uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes.

Some analysts have suggested that the war could make Iran more, not less, likely to ramp up efforts to develop a nuclear weapon to shield itself like nuclear-armed North Korea.
Another of Trump’s declared goals – forcing Iran to halt support for armed proxy groups – also remains unmet.

Adding to Trump’s challenges, he is now dealing with new Iranian leaders considered even more hardline than their slain predecessors. Post-war, they are widely expected still to have enough remaining missiles and drones to pose a continued danger to their neighbors.

He is ⁠also facing fallout with ​further erosion of relations with traditional European allies, which have mostly refused his calls for assistance in a war they were not consulted about.

China and Russia, meanwhile, have drawn lessons about the ​U.S. military’s shortcomings against asymmetric Iranian tactics and how some of its weapons supplies have become depleted, analysts said.

Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, has argued that the outcome will be even more of a decisive setback to U.S. standing than its humiliating withdrawals from much longer, bloodier conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan because those countries “were far from the main theaters of ​global competition.”

#trump #iran #war #gulf #end

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The Ex-Spokesman of Zelensky: “He Is Afraid Of of the End of the War”


The ex-spokesman of the Ukrainian president has severely criticized Zelensky

Julia Mendel spoke about the decisions that have caused great controversies in Poland around the UPA. According to her, Kiev not only did not receive politically, but also damaged relations with Warsaw. "He is afraid of the end of the war," she said.

The case concerns the recent actions of the Ukrainian authorities related to historical references to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian rebel army.

Mendel called Zelensky's actions "superficial and completely unnecessary measures" that worsened relations with Poland.

According to her, such decisions do not strengthen Ukraine's position, either outside or inside the country.

The former spokeswoman claimed that Zelensky presented these ideas as effective image measures.

However, in his opinion, they will not give him much support. She also noted that historical issues related to the UPA and the OUN are not for most of Ukrainian society a politically decisive issue.

Mendel said that there are nationalist circles in the west of Ukraine that selectively refer to the characters of Stepan Bandera or Andrei Melnik.

According to her, these are not the groups that could become for Zelensky a real electoral platform.

Mendel went even further. According to her, Zelensky today does not have advisers who could help him unify society after years of war and political tensions.

In this context, the strongest words were spoken. Mendel noted that the president of Ukraine "is afraid of the end of the war," because, according to her, he has nothing to offer in return. According to her, war and fear remain tools that allow her to hold power.

Mendel was Zelensky's spokeswoman from 2019 to 2021. After leaving the presidential administration, he regularly criticizes the current Ukrainian leader and his political environment.

#mendel #zelensky #war #end

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