By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 5/27/25

President Trump on Tuesday said that if it weren’t for him, “really bad things” would have happened to Russia in what appeared to be a veiled threat aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The post came after Trump vented frustration with Russia’s heavy attacks on Ukraine, which Russian officials have said are a response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory. A Russian commander said that Putin’s helicopter got caught in a Ukrainian drone swarm over Russia’s Kursk Oblast last week.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump is considering adding sanctions on Russia and potentially abandoning negotiations for a peace deal in Ukraine if a final push doesn’t work. According to The Kyiv Post, Trump is also “seriously considering” lifting all Biden-era restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to wage war, though it’s unclear what that would mean for the proxy war.

Trump said in a recent post that the conflict in Ukraine was not “Trump’s war,” but he has continued to provide Ukraine with military aid and intelligence support. He briefly paused such support to pressure Ukraine to enter negotiations with Russia, but there’s no indication he’s considering doing so again to force Ukrainian leadership to make concessions to reach a peace deal.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy of the Russian National Security Council, warned Trump on Tuesday that one of the “really bad things” that could happen between the US and Russia is World War III.

“Regarding Trump’s words about Putin ‘playing with fire’ and ‘really bad things’ happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.

***

Trump’s Latest Angry Post About Putin Is His Most Significant One Yet

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 5/26/25

Trump’s latest angry post about Putin revealed a lot about how he perceives the Ukrainian Conflict. According to Trump, “[Putin] has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

What’s really happening is that Russia ramped up its bombing campaign against Ukraine in response to Ukraine ramping up its drone one first, during which time Putin’s helicopter was almost downed after it was caught in a drone swarm while he was visiting Kursk last week. Zelensky earlier demanded that the US condemn Russia for its latest attacks after it was silent all week long, which Trump just complied with despite remaining suspiciously silent after Zelensky implicitly threatened Moscow’s Victory Day parade.

As for Trump’s claim that Putin “wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it”, this is a gross misportrayal of his latest buffer zone plan that was announced in response to Ukraine’s aforementioned ramped-up drone campaign that provoked Russia’s reciprocal bombing one. Right around the start of these tit-for-tat escalations, Trump held his third call with Putin this year, which was analyzed here and included a list of ten background briefings to bring observers up to speed about the conflict’s military-political dynamics.

Although Trump also wrote in his latest angry post about Putin that “President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop”, his ire is clearly directed much more at the Russian leader than the Ukrainian one. Objective observers can therefore conclude that Trump is either being maliciously misinformed about the conflict by his trusted advisors or that he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation.

Regarding the first possibility, although his Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff is a close friend, some in Trump’s circle reportedly don’t like or even trust him and they might have whispered into Trump’s ear. As for the second, Trump’s confirmation that he’s weighing new sanctions against Russia – which came after prior posts about this – could lead to him approving ally Lindsey Graham’s plan to move his proposed legislation through Congress, which would impose 500% tariffs on all Russian energy clients.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also confirmed that more sanctions against Russia and even aid to Ukraine could be in the cards so the US might not walk simply away from the conflict like some expect. Of course, Trump’s latest anger with Putin might just be a ploy to pressure him into compromising on more of his maximum goals than he feels comfortable with or could have been an emotional outburst with no strategic intent in mind, but it still raises questions about how Trump perceives the conflict.

There’s no excuse for Trump blaming the latest tit-for-tat escalations on Putin, let alone claiming that he’s “gone absolutely CRAZY” and might even “want ALL of Ukraine”, which proves that something is seriously wrong. Either Trump is being maliciously misinformed about the conflict by his trusted advisors (not counting Witkoff of course) or he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation. The coming week might therefore reveal more about which of these two explanations is the most likely.

By Ian Proud, Subtack, 4/28/25

Ian Proud was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019. Prior to Moscow, he organized the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, working out of 10 Downing Street. He recently published his memoir, “A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.”

A number of topics remain taboo in discussing the war in Ukraine. Busification, Zelensky’s democratic mandate, Ukraine’s casualty numbers and anything suggesting that Ukraine cannot win are all off limits. Likewise the problem of alleged neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

One of the most embarrassing episodes since the Ukraine war started in 2022, was when Yaroslav Hunka, was given two standing ovations in the Canadian House of Commons public gallery by MPs during the visit of President Zelensky in 2023. Hunka has been accused by Russia of genocide, because of his alleged involvement in the Huta Pieniacka massacre of February 28 1944 in which more than 500 ethnic Poles were murdered in a village, in what is now western Ukraine. Hunka was a member of the SS Galician Division, a mostly Ukrainian unit of the Waffen SS, which Commissions in Germany and Poland later found guilty of war crimes.

This was shocking because it opened the lid on a topic of conversation that has been largely silenced by the western mainstream media since the beginning of the war: Ukraine’s contemporary challenge of far right ultranationalism. But the Hunka case also illustrates how western authorities airbrushed discussion of nazis in Ukraine after World War II too.

On 13 July 1948 the British Commonwealth Relations Office, what is now part of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, sent a telegram to commonwealth governments, proposing an end to Nazi war crimes trials in the British zone of Germany. “Punishment of war crimes is more a matter of discouraging future generations than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual … it is now necessary to dispose of the past as soon as possible.”

After the conclusion of the Nurenburg War Trials in 1946 the western world faced a new enemy in the Soviet Union. Limited security resources in cash strapped Albion and its colonies were re-deployed to uncover suspected Soviet agents and Communists, rather than to identify and track down lower-order Nazi war criminals.

Around this time, many Ukrainians fled the Soviet Union to settle in Canada. In the thirty year period after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Ukrainian population in Canada almost doubled, from 300,000 to almost 600,000 people. While most of them, I am sure, would not have been nazi collaborators, some, undoubtedly, were. They were joined by lesser numbers of Latvians, Hungarians, Slovakians and others.

Within that exodus would have been so-called “lesser” war criminals; persons, who had organised the transportation of Jews, Slavs, gypsies and homosexuals to death camps, acted as informers, committed murders, or become involved in war crimes as other ranks and non-commissioned officers in death squads. They were the lower echelon collaborators, acting as the instruments of the genocide initiated by the Nazis.

Yet, following the British instruction, Canada progressively relaxed its immigration policy between 1950 and 1962, steadily removing restrictions against the entry of German nazis and non-German members of German military units like the SS Galicia Division.

However, in 1984 the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote a letter to the Canadian government claiming to have obtained evidence that the ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele had applied for a landed immigrant visa to Canada in 1962. Though this proved to be incorrect, it caused such outrage among Canada’s Jewish community that a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada was established in 1985.

Known as the Deschênes Commission, it uncovered a list of 774 persons who had allegedly entered Canada and who required further investigation. Of that list, only 28 underwent serious investigation and trial.

Michael Pawlowski was accused of murdering 410 jews and 80 non-Jewish Poles in Belarus in 1942, was acquitted as judges blocked the prosecution from gathering evidence in the Soviet Union.

Stepehen Reistetter of Slovakia was not tried for allegations that he kidnapped 3000 Jews to have them sent to Nazi death camps while serving in the Hlinka party, a far right clerical-fascist movement with Nazi leanings. His case fell apart because a witness died.

Erich Tobias, was accused of involvement in the execution of Latvian Jews but died before his case went to court.

By 1995, with no convictions for war crimes having been secured, the Canadian Justice Department cut the size of its war Crimes Unit from 24 to 11 people. In the absence of criminal prosecutions the Canadian Government tried civil proceedings to revoke citizenship from alleged war criminals.

Wasily Bogutin collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces in the town of Selidovo, in Donetsk, and was personally and directly involved in effecting the roundup of young persons for forced labour in Germany. In February 1998, Judge McKeown, of the Trial Division of the Federal Court, found that Bogutin had concealed his role in war crimes, but he died before he could be extradited.

Joseph Nemsila, who commanded a Slovak Unit that sent civilians to Auschwitz died in 1997 after a decision not to revoke citizenship was overturned, but death prevented exportation.

In only 7 cases was order made for the suspect to be extradited or exported. This included Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, accused of involvement in the confinement of thousands of Hungarian Jews and their subsequent deportation to death camps. In July 1997, just before his trial was to begin, he decided not to oppose the loss of his citizenship and voluntarily left the country.

Vladimir Katriuk was accused of having taken part in the Khatyn Massacre in Poland and Wasyl Odnynsky, a guard at SS labour camps at Trawniki and Poniaka. Moves were made to revoke their citizenship, but they were allowed to remain in Canada until all court proceedings were lifted in 2007.

Progress in prosecuting alleged war criminals in Canada was always slow, often held up by foot-dragging by often reluctant judges, and a refusal to allow for the gathering of evidence in the Soviet Union.

Today, the media and Jewish groups still pressure the Canadian government to reveal the names of all of the 774 persons considered by the 1985 Deschênes Commission with so far little success.

An American academic recently discovered what is believed to be a similar list of 700 suspects which included Volodymyr Kubiovych, a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator who helped organize the SS Galicia division and who was editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine compiled at the University of Alberta. A photograph of a parade in Lviv, Ukraine, in July, 1943, shows Mr. Kubiovych making a Nazi salute alongside Otto Wächter, a senior member of the SS who also served as governor of Galicia and Krakow.

Yaroslav Hunka was not on that list, raising questions about how many nazi collaborators in Canada were never discovered.

I don’t think that Ukraine today is a nazi society and, even at its high watermark, the Svoboda party only garnered 10% of the national vote. But ultranationalism is a major problem, particularly in the west of Ukraine, in that area known as Galicia during World War II. And the refusal of western governments to acknowledge the issue of ultranationalism in Ukraine or speak out means that we are turning a blind eye to activity that we would never tolerate in our own countries.

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 4/26/25

My first Travel Notes for this trip to Russia which began yesterday should interest not only those in the Community, particularly those living in Europe, who want some tips on how to make the trip to Russia without breaking the budget by flying via Istanbul or Dubai. The route I describe below is, for those based in Europe, two to three times cheaper.

However, what I have to say here is also essential reading for the Community at large. I set out Russia’s weak sides at the level of bureaucracy that they will not hear about either from the Russia-lovers in the alternative media or the Russia-haters in mainstream. As usual, real life is in the gray zone rather than pure white or pure black.

Ever since the Finns closed their border crossings to Russia more than 18 months ago, I have been making my periodic visits to Petersburg via Estonia. The main crossing there is in the north of the country at the Narva river estuary where the Estonian city of Narva on one side faces the Russian Ivangorod on the other bank. The bus carrying travelers from the Estonian capital Tallinn to this border crossing takes about two and a half hours. Until the Estonians and Russians decided to ‘renovate’ the bridge about a year ago and close it to vehicular traffic indefinitely, that bus would drop off its passengers to be processed on the Estonian side, cross over to the Russian side and wait for them outside the Russian border control post to continue on the way to Petersburg for another two and a half hours. If we include the time lost at the border to the double processing, the entire travel time en route was about 7 hours.

When the buses no longer were allowed to cross the bridge, passengers were obliged to drag their suitcases the 500 meters along an open walkway on the bridge. But that was the least of their problems. On their own, the Estonian authorities decided to make life as miserable as possible for anyone of their citizens having relations or other reasons to visit Russia, and foreigners were also exposed to this gratuitous nastiness. The passport control questioning of those headed east and the very exaggerated customs inspections put in place now drew out the process, resulting in the formation of long lines outside the Estonian border control buildings. A week ago, in the run-up to Easter when families are especially keen to see relatives on the other side, those lines meant waits in the street, whatever the weather, of 5 hours or more. To better understand me, I note that even in yesterday’s late spring, there were heavy snowstorms here in northwest Russia.

Yesterday morning, I heard from bus drivers in Tallinn that things had calmed down at the Narva crossing and there was ‘only’ a two to three hour wait to be admitted for passport and customs processing by the Estonians. Knowing this, I opted instead for the ‘southern’ bus route that takes you through the Estonian university town of Tartu to a border crossing into Russia that is 50 km west of the Russian city of Pskov, which is itself 290 km south of Petersburg. From Pskov you have a three and a half hour trip by car or train to reach Petersburg. But this route sees you cross the border in the bus and, being relatively little used, has no waiting time to be processed either by the Estonian or the Russian border officials.

I say at once that both Russian and Estonian officials were nonetheless excessive in their inspections. Perhaps the Russians were even worse in their checking every passenger however decrepit or pregnant with hand-held metal detectors even after we walked through the airport style detector frames. And looking inside wallets and purses to check on the amount of currency being carried across, etc. Thus, a good two hours were wasted on this exercise while our bus also underwent an extensive inspection for hidden narcotics, hidden stowaways and Lord knows what else.

All of this reminded me of the worst days of border crossings from East Germany into West Berlin.

Tit for tat, you may reason in looking for an explanation for the official Russian border procedures. But, beg my pardon, I see it as runaway bureaucracy, bureaucracy that is doing nothing of value but has to prove its worth by endlessly thinking up new procedures to implement for greater state security. This came up again today when I underwent the mandatory registration as a foreign visitor at the Pushkin city multi-service administrative center.

Ninety-eight percent of you who travel to Russia will not know what I am talking about when I raise the question of registration. Registration is done for you by your hotel at check-in and you are unaware of it. But it is essential that you hear me out if you want to understand how and why Russia is moving backwards in some ways even as it rises in general prosperity and industrialization from import substitution. Its bureaucracy appears to be out of control. All of which is why I say that the country desperately needs its own slash and burn Elon Musk.

*****

Registration of the residential address of foreigners has been a Europe-wide phenomenon since the days of Napoleon. It exists on the law books today most everywhere in the EU, but there, too, the average traveler is unaware of it for the same reason as in Russia – registration with the police is done by their hotel. If a traveler stays privately, he or she generally ignores the mandatory requirement to register with the authorities but the European authorities are not interested in chasing down the violator if you happen to be white and look solvent. Though sometimes they do, as I learned when I introduced my naturalization request in Belgium a dozen years ago and was asked to explain why I never registered my arrivals and departures when I came to Belgium from time to time and stayed in the house I owned in Brussels and paid taxes on as a secondary residence. It took some intercession by high-level friends to sort that out in my favor.

But back to Russia. Anyone staying privately more than 8 days in Russia is obliged to be registered with the municipal or other local authorities by their host. The registration forms are 4 pages long, and it takes a well trained official, probably with a college degree, preferably with an engineer’s degree, 30 to 45 minutes to process each application, because every entry on the form has to be checked against your passport, your visa, the immigration card you received at the border passport control, the phone numbers you and your host entered and much more irrelevant trivia like your profession, if any.

The administrator who reviews your application scans all the papers and sends them to some central processing center, probably in Moscow. I have wondered whether anyone there has the common sense to shred this incoming trash upon receipt or whether, as is more likely, it is archived somewhere for eternity. I also wonder what the administrators who take and process my application say to their husbands, kids, mothers about how they have spent their day. I wonder how Russia, with its present serious labor shortage can afford to have these skilled and well educated and well motivated employees do nothing all day but cause headaches for foreign visitors who should be welcomed with open arms and instead waste the greater part of a day on the registration process.

But there is more to it. Those 4 pages of the application are changed every year and the officials cannot accept any application prepared by the visiting foreigner on his or her computer using last year’s edition. Verboten. And what has changed in the 1 January 2025 edition versus 2024? Now they added three lines for the applicant to provide the Latin spelling of his or her name in addition to the Cyrillic spelling. It seems that having a photocopy of the applicant’s passport and visa pages which also must be provided with the application was not enough to satisfy the ever more demanding bureaucrats in Moscow.

Allow me to assure you that this kind of make-work exists wherever you want to take a close look. It exists despite the evidence of heavy investment in new technical equipment for staff and for the ‘clientele.’ Our Pushkin center has newly purchased scanners-copiers, electronic appointment scheduling, QR-code driven devices for the clients. But it is largely directed at performing obligations that should not exist at all in a modern society and do nothing whatsoever to improve Russian state security.

Intellinews, 5/22/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a buffer zone to be set up along the border with Ukraine on May 22.

Following his visit to the Kursk region, which has been partially controlled by Ukrainian troops for months , Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a “buffer zone” that will run “along the border.” Putin said the decision had been made at a government meeting via video link.

He initially declined to say exactly where the zone would extend, how long it would be, or how deep into Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine it would extend. “Our armed forces are in the process of solving this task; enemy firing points are being actively suppressed; work is underway,” he said.

The Russian press framed the plan as a rehabilitation zone for Russian regions that had been damaged by escalating cross-border drone attacks. Putin ordered the rapid development of a comprehensive restoration programme for border regions affected by Ukrainian strikes, instructing officials to ensure sufficient financial and logistical support for reconstruction efforts.

Putin directed the Ministry of Economic Development, in coordination with the Presidential Administration, to lead the initiative targeting the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions, all of which have faced repeated shelling and drone attacks since the escalation of cross-border hostilities.

“I task the Russian Ministry of Economic Development in cooperation with colleagues from the Presidential Administration to prepare at the earliest possible time the programme for comprehensive restoration of affected districts of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions,” the president said, according to TASS.

Putin emphasised the importance of ensuring the programme is fully resourced. “The programme must be provided with required financial and material resources,” he noted, adding that additional machinery and personnel, including experts from other regions, would be mobilised to assist.

The three regions, which share borders with Ukraine, have reported increasing attacks in recent months, including strikes on civilian infrastructure. Local authorities have declared states of emergency in several districts and implemented evacuations in response to the growing threat.

While Moscow has accused Kyiv of targeting border areas to destabilise Russian territory, Ukrainian officials have largely refrained from confirming cross-border operations, maintaining a policy of strategic ambiguity regarding long-range strikes.

The Kremlin’s move to launch a formal reconstruction initiative underscores the political and logistical challenges posed by the conflict’s spillover into Russian territory. It also reflects a broader attempt to reassure local populations and bolster administrative control in regions facing direct impacts from the war.

No timeline has been announced for the completion of the restoration programme.

***

Will Russia’s Latest Buffer Zone Plan Be More Successful Than The Last?

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 5/23/25

Putin warned in March 2024 that Russia might set up a “security zone” inside Ukraine in response to cross-border strikes and raids, which it then began to do two months later that May after Russian troops made a fresh push into Kharkov Region at the time. Regrettably, the incursion didn’t penetrate too deeply, and later that summer Ukraine launched a sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region. It was only earlier this year that Russia finally expelled all Ukrainian troops from there with North Korean assistance.

Nevertheless, Putin just announced late last week that “a decision has been made to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border” with Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk Regions, thus meaning inside the corresponding Ukrainian regions of Kharkov (once again), Sumy, and Chernigov. Unlike last year’s attempt, this latest one might be more successful due to the very different context within which it’s being pursued, particularly as regards the conflict’s new diplomatic and military dynamics.

Regarding the first, “The Devil’s In The Details As Trump Announced ‘Immediate’ Russian-Ukrainian Ceasefire Talks” right after his latest call with Putin, the details of which readers can learn more about from the preceding hyperlinked analysis. Its relevance to Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan is that his declaration might initially be intended as a form of pressure upon Zelensky to coerce him into having Ukraine finally comply with Russia’s demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict.

As for the second, it was assessed in mid-March that “Russia Might Expand Its Ground Campaign Into Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, And/Or Kharkov Regions”, with Dniepropetrovsk being mentioned instead of Chernigov since Russian forces are approaching its border from Donbass after going around Pokrovsk. Crossing that administrative frontier into a region that Russia doesn’t (yet?) claim as its own could circumvent Ukraine’s formidable defenses in central Zaporozhye and lead to that region’s swift capture.

In connection with these dynamics, RT chief Margarita Simonyan clarified that the Russian delegation in Istanbul didn’t threaten that their country would claim an additional Ukrainian region if Ukraine doesn’t withdraw from the four disputed ones, but four more for a total of eight regions (not counting Crimea). These could conceivably be all or part of Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, and Dniepropetrovsk Regions given Russia’s latest buffer zone plan unless Ukraine agrees to its demanded concessions before then.

With that plan in mind and seeing as how those four regions, Kiev, Cherkassy, and Poltava are either entirely or partially east of the Dnieper, Russia might add to its list of demands by calling for the creation of a totally demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers. This could either complement its original demand for demilitarizing the entirety of Ukraine or be presented as a compromise in exchange for letting Ukraine do whatever it wants on the other side of the river.

Regardless of whether that proposal is put forth, Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan shows that Russia is expanding its goals, which makes sense considering that it’s winning and that Ukraine still refuses to comply with its demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict. The longer that Ukraine refuses to agree to peace on Russia’s terms, the more land that it stands to lose, which might ultimately be much more than anyone expects if the US soon abandons Ukraine in order to cut its losses.

YouTube link here.