By Ted Snider, The American Conservative, 11/5/26

Following the Maidan coup of 2014, the two regions of Donbas held referenda on some form of autonomy and a civil war ensued. The best available chance for peace was offered by the Minsk agreements, brokered by France and Germany, agreed to by Ukraine and Russia, and accepted by the U.S. and UN in 2014 and 2015. This gave Ukraine the opportunity to keep its territory and Donbas the means to protect its ethnic Russian culture by peacefully remaining part of Ukraine with a new level of autonomy.

But the opportunity was missed. 

According to Putin biographer Philip Short, Ukraine’s then-President Pyotr Poroshenko would later confess that the arrangement envisaged by Minsk was never meant to be implemented. Poroshenko told the Ukrainian media and other news outlets that Kiev’s goal for Minsk was “to delay the war—to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” He says that it worked: “We had achieved everything we wanted.” The “great diplomatic achievement,” Poroshenko told the Financial Times, was that, though Ukraine “didn’t have an armed forces at all… we kept Russia… away from a full-sized war.

Poroshenko’s account has been corroborated by his Minsk partners. Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s then-President François Hollande have both said they saw Minsk as giving Ukraine the time and space to strengthen its military before another conflict with Russia. 

Even after the 2022 invasion, there was still a chance for peace. Within days, before most of the death and destruction had occurred, contact was made and talks were held between the two sides, first in Belarus and then, most promisingly, in Istanbul.

The historical record suggests that, while Ukraine and Russia were considering an agreement, and were potentially close to an agreement, the U.S. and UK pushed Ukraine off the diplomatic path to peace, and another possibility for peace was missed. 

Recent revelations have added evidence to the already overwhelming case. 

The first testimony comes from the Ukrainian former MP Vadym Novinsky. In an interview with Stana, he provides previously unknown details of the earliest negotiations of the war. He says that on February 24, at the end of the first day of the Russian invasion, he advised David Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party who led the Ukrainian negotiating team in Belarus and Istanbul, to immediately contact Moscow to begin negotiations. There hadn’t been many deaths yet, “and it was possible to try to turn the situation around.”

Novinsky says that on February 25, he was contacted by the head of one of Ukraine’s intelligence agencies, who requested that he begin to organize negotiations. The intelligence chief said that the request came from the president of Ukraine. Within minutes, Novinsky was talking to Zelensky. Novinsky says that he succeeded in organizing the first talks in Gomel, a city in Belarus near the Ukrainian border. 

Novinsky says that the agenda included three main points. The most important was Russia’s insistence that the clause on Ukraine’s NATO aspirations be removed from its constitution and be replaced by one asserting “non-aligned status and neutrality.” The second was that Ukraine would recognize Crimea’s “special status” but not “as part of the Russian Federation” for 30 years. The third was that Ukraine would recognize “a special status” for Donbas. There could be negotiations about Donbas remaining in Ukraine. At this point, there was “still the option of keeping Donbas within Ukraine… within a framework of a confederal union.”

Novinsky says that he “coordinated every point with President Zelenskyy. And he agreed to everything then.” The process of developing the agreement lasted the month leading up to the Istanbul talks.

The striking thing about Novinsky’s testimony is that, if true, Russia was prepared in the first month of the war to trade a potentially intact Ukraine for a promise not to join NATO. But perhaps most astonishing it the revelation that it was not Russia that backed away from diplomacy—it was Ukraine. When asked by the interviewer why the Istanbul process failed, Novinsky responded, “I am absolutely certain that it was the fault of our leaders.” He says Boris Johnson, UK prime minister at the time, may have been involved, or it could have been “Zelensky himself”; but, in any case, it was the Kiev leadership that walked away from the diplomatic path to peace.

A similar story is told by a new report of a previously unknown back channel that was opened several months later. According to reporting by the Financial Times, the American lawyer Richard Conn and the American investment banker Bob Foresman managed to open a diplomatic back channel by reaching Russian President Vladimir Putin through a former East German spy named Matthias Warnig and Zelensky through a Ukrainian film maker who had, reportedly, already helped set up the promising peace talks in Istanbul months before. According to Short’s biography of Putin, Warnig arranged for Putin’s wife’s medical exam when she was badly injured in a car accident and was “one of the very few foreigners admitted to Putin’s inner orbit.”

The team conveyed a message to Putin from the senior director for Russia on the U.S. National Security Council, Eric Green, to the effect that Washington was neither pursuing regime change nor trying to destroy Russia—its aim was to broker a piece. The message, Green said, came from directly the White House.

In an interview with The American Conservative, Foresman said that Conn had communicated with Green extensively. There was a dangerously low level of communication between Washington and Moscow. Foresman says that Green made it clear to Conn that the White House “acknowledged and encouraged” the back channel and that they felt it was “constructive.” The team felt there was no question that the U.S. government encouraged the back channel.

Putin sent a message back, saying he had “no choice but to conduct military operations” but that he was “very open to negotiations.” Foresman told TAC that Warnig had a uniquely close relationship to Putin, and that he assured them that Putin was serious about his willingness to negotiate.

He wanted the talks to be elevated to the level of his own aide, Yuri Ushakov, and Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The Wall Street Journal soon reported that Sullivan did hold confidential conversations with Ushakov “in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.”

Russia’s position had hardened by now, but was still far more favorable to Ukraine than any offer that remains on the table today. Russia would pull back to its prewar position. Ukraine would recognize de facto Russian control of Crimea, but, according to Ukrainian opposition MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, who has confirmed the Financial Times story, would not have to de jure “recognize it as Russian.” Russia would return the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine and commit $300 billion in frozen assets to the rebuilding of Ukraine. The ceasefire would be ensured by protection from NATO states while Moscow began discussing a permanent security arrangement with Washington.

Once again, Putin said that Ukraine could not be allowed to join NATO. He had softened his position, though, and would not stand in the way of Ukraine joining the European Union. He was willing to discuss the suggested frozen line as well as a security arrangement based on the one discussed at the Istanbul talks. “If we can agree on the border and on NATO, then we can discuss everything else,” Putin reportedly told Warnig. 

By this account, Zelensky and his people barely looked at the offer and refused to make any concessions on Ukraine’s borders. The U.S. would also pass on the opportunity. According to Warnig, Sullivan had made it clear to Ushakov that the U.S. had not approved the back channel and that they saw no need for it. The rest is history.

The Duran, 11/4/26

In a prolonged war, battlefield losses are only one measure of attrition. The other is a state’s ability to replace the men who leave the front while retaining the confidence of the society from which they are drawn.

Conscription necessarily involves coercion. Yet compulsory service under law and the exercise of military authority without adequate scrutiny are different things. The first may be a wartime obligation; the second, if established, can weaken the political legitimacy that makes sustained mobilization possible.

This is Ukraine’s increasingly difficult calculation. The demand for manpower continues, but the institutions responsible for meeting it face growing resentment, desertion and questions about accountability. A confrontation on Kyiv’s outskirts has made that contradiction unusually visible.

The House and the Competing Accounts

On November 2, a crowd gathered outside an ordinary house in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, west of Kyiv, following allegations that men were being held and mistreated inside. The confrontation escalated into violence against security personnel and vehicles. Kyrylo Budanov, the former military intelligence chief who now heads the presidential office, arrived with senior National Guard officials.

One central fact is no longer disputed. Ukraine’s 1st Azov Corps confirmed that the house was a temporary National Guard facility containing newly mobilized personnel and soldiers returned after unauthorized absence. Four men required hospital examination. Allegations of torture and unlawful confinement remain under investigation; claims of deaths and dozens of civilian hostages have not been substantiated. The State Bureau of Investigation has opened proceedings concerning possible abuse of military authority.

There are also serious questions about the unrest itself. Ukrainian journalists found inconsistencies in the credentials of a woman presenting herself as an ambulance worker who helped publicize the accusations. Authorities suspect a coordinated provocation. That possibility warrants examination, as does the assault on soldiers. But a manipulated protest would not, by itself, establish that the treatment of every man inside was lawful.

The Meaning of Budanov’s Remark

Budanov acknowledged at the scene that many similar buildings exist. This was not an admission that Ukraine operates a network of secret prisons. The National Guard says dispersed temporary accommodation is necessary because conventional bases cannot house all recruits safely or conveniently during wartime. That explanation is plausible, particularly under persistent Russian attack.

It does, however, expose the scale of a system that deserves scrutiny. What authority governs the transfer of mobilized men or returning absentees into such sites? Can they contact relatives, obtain medical care, challenge their treatment or seek legal assistance? Who inspects the facilities, and who is answerable when a complaint arises? These questions are not answered by changing the label from holding site to deployment point.

Azov and the Boundaries of Command

Azov’s involvement makes the episode more consequential. The 1st Azov Corps is an established National Guard formation under Denys Prokopenko; Andriy Biletsky’s 3rd Army Corps operates within the armed forces. Their institutional roles are distinct. Both have been prominent in the fighting in Donetsk, making their place in Ukraine’s internal security and mobilization machinery a legitimate subject of public interest.

The Duran’s battlefield commentary raises the possibility that Azov formations have become less visible around Lyman and Dobropillia. But reduced reporting is not proof of withdrawal, still less evidence that combat units were secretly transferred to Kyiv. Azov continues to describe its 1st Corps as holding the Dobropillia sector. The relevant question is therefore not whether an unverified redeployment proves a political conspiracy. It is whether the increasing reliance on powerful combat formations for sensitive rear-area personnel functions creates a dangerous confusion of responsibilities.

The Price of Manpower

The pressure is measurable. Ukrainian prosecutors recorded more than 311,000 proceedings for unauthorized absence and desertion between the start of the full-scale invasion and October 2025. These are case counts, not a count of unique deserters. In January 2026, Ukraine’s defense minister said roughly 200,000 troops were absent without leave. Numbers on this scale help explain the state’s determination to recover personnel, but they cannot settle the question of how that power should be exercised.

At the same time, the intensifying Russian drone and missile campaign places further strain on infrastructure, logistics and civilian endurance. Military attrition and domestic consent are no longer separate problems. The harder the war becomes to sustain, the more tempting administrative shortcuts may appear—and the more costly they become if the public ceases to trust them.

The strongest conclusion from the Kyiv incident is not that every allegation circulating online is true. It is that Ukraine’s system of mobilization has reached a point where an ordinary house can become a national crisis, drawing the presidential chief of staff into the street and forcing multiple official investigations. Western media have already covered the confrontation; what matters is whether scrutiny continues after the immediate spectacle fades. A government can lawfully require sacrifice in wartime. It cannot preserve confidence indefinitely by treating the conditions under which that sacrifice is demanded as a secondary question. In a war of endurance, legitimacy is itself a strategic resource.

By John P Ruehl, Asia Times, 11/3/26

The narrative surrounding the Ukraine war often marks its beginning on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. But the rivalries and political decisions that brought the two countries into conflict stretch back centuries. The start of the Cold War, meanwhile, was the beginning of sustained US efforts to further antagonize Ukraine’s relationship with Moscow.

In his new book, “Boiling Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine”, author Stephen Kinzer presents an account of how successive US administrations sought to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism and challenge Moscow, helping set the stage for conflict.

Instead of viewing the invasion in isolation, Kinzer details Washington’s involvement over decades, from covert CIA operations in Soviet Ukraine during the early Cold War to Ukrainian independence and the post-Cold War tensions with Russia over NATO expansion, which all culminated in the outbreak of war.

Kinzer provides an extensive, detailed account of the history of US foreign policy in the region, without losing sight of the larger geopolitical forces at play. By challenging the conventional narrative of the war’s origins, Kinzer offers a deeply researched perspective largely absent from mainstream discussions.

Understanding the decades of geopolitical competition and political motives that preceded the war is essential to seeing why it began and where it might lead. Any eventual peace settlement will pose difficult questions about territory and security guarantees, as well as Ukraine’s reconstruction and place between Europe and Russia.

The war will likely end without resolving Ukrainian and Russian divisions that, as Kinzer describes in his book, US policy helped deepen, leaving both countries and the wider region to contend with the consequences for years to come.

As a journalist, author and historian, Kinzer has spent decades examining American foreign policy, interventionism and the consequences of US involvement abroad. His work has appeared in The New York Times and other major publications, and he’s written several books exploring America’s role in shaping international affairs.

I spoke with him about the history behind “Boiling Point”, the choices that might have prevented the war, and what he believes lies ahead for Ukraine.

John P. Ruehl: Your new book, “Boiling Point”, examines the history of US policy toward Ukraine and Russia, tracing Washington’s efforts since the end of World War II to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism and challenge Moscow’s influence.

It looks at how those efforts contributed to the tensions that ultimately erupted into the ongoing war in Ukraine. To start, could you tell us a little about the book, its central argument, and the history you believe readers need to understand to make sense of the war today?

Stephen Kinzer: One of the points that I hope people will take away from this book is that much of what we have been told about the Ukraine war is wrong. And, in particular, there’s one word we constantly hear about the Russian invasion, and it was that word, really, that set me off after about the 200th time I heard it, and that word, of course, is unprovoked.

We always read about that not just the February invasion, or the Russian invasion, or the military invasion, but the unprovoked invasion. Now, you can say a lot of things about this invasion, for example, that it was illegal under international law, just like many American operations have been, but it was definitely not unprovoked. How do I justify that statement? That’s my book.

The book traces 75 years of uninterrupted American plans to turn Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia. This began with the dropping of armed commandos into Ukraine back in the late 1940s, and it continued through a whole series of covert actions leading up to Ukrainian independence in 1991; then the project went into overdrive. [The US] spent huge amounts of money promoting anti-government groups in Ukraine and groups that would support the idea of confrontation with Russia.

That finally exploded. You might make an argument that we did the right thing to provoke Russia and to promote all this nationalist feeling in Ukraine. And I’m okay with that. But before you make any judgment on the justice or nature of the Ukraine war, you should know what happened before.

If you look at a snapshot of… February 24, 2022, you will see what happened. Russia invaded a peaceful country, Ukraine. But that picture should really be seen as just one frame in a very long movie that unfolded over 75 years. My book is an attempt to show you the real background of the Ukraine war.

JPR: Do you think Washington still has a bipartisan commitment to supporting Ukraine, or has it largely achieved what it set out to accomplish and now is unsure about how to proceed, amid the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate peace?

SK: I think most people in Washington still think the Ukraine war is a great idea. It comes out of a deep-seated hatred for Russia, a belief that Russian expansion or anything good for Russia is bad for the world.

I actually think that many Americans consider this war a success. The reason is, we’ve killed a lot of Russians. The fact that tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and their country has been devastated doesn’t really register in Washington.

Most of the people in Washington who are most eagerly promoting this war can hardly find Ukraine on a map. They are not interested in Ukraine. All they’re interested in is Russia. … The result is that Ukraine has gotten wrecked, but for Americans, and I think for some Europeans as well, it seems like a win because it has wounded Russia.

JPR: You write about the CIA’s espionage and covert operations in Soviet territory within Ukraine’s modern borders, particularly during the early Cold War, which created massive tensions. The NATO expansion after the Cold War has been another major source of tension with Russia.


Now, NATO appears less central to US policy under Trump. If NATO’s role diminishes, what other institutions or government agencies might take the lead in sustaining pressure on Russia?

SK: The whole NATO argument is really one of the saddest pieces of this whole story. If Joe Biden had simply stood up and said five words: “Ukraine will not join NATO,” the war would have been avoided.

He refused to say that. But the worst part of it is that in private, American leaders all admitted that Ukraine was never gonna join NATO; it’s not nearly ready, and there were all kinds of problems that would take decades [to resolve].

But nobody wanted to say this in public because it would seem like we were responding to Russia, we were intimidated by Russia, and we were doing what Russia wanted. The fear of seeming to grant any credibility to Russia was so great that we refused to do that.

There were many off-ramps for this war, and simply declaring that NATO would not accept Ukraine as a member would have stopped it. What you really need from Ukraine is essentially a peace accord, which was hammered out in Istanbul a month after the war began. Henry Kissinger used to say the same thing—Ukraine needs to be a bridge between East and West. It shouldn’t be a territory that the two sides fight over.

A great model would be Austria. After World War II, to ensure the withdrawal of occupying forces, Austria signed a treaty and inserted, in its constitution, a pledge that it would never join a military alliance and would never have foreign troops on its soil.

That has worked great. That should be a model for Ukraine, but Americans don’t like that because it doesn’t smell like victory.

JPR: You dedicate the book to the Ukrainian people and argue that they didn’t really understand the consequences of the policies pursued by the United States and NATO toward Russia.

How do you respond to those who would argue that opposing the United States and NATO policy toward Ukraine amounts to supporting Russian aggression? Beyond reading your book, what evidence or arguments do you find most persuasive in that view, and what convinces people to reconsider the United States’ and the West’s role in the conflict?

SK: I don’t think Russia is seeking to capture Ukraine, much less further territories, but Russia has a fear that is understandable, and that is, they don’t want a nuclear-armed military alliance that they are not a member of right on their border. I pose this analogy: suppose China decided with Mexico that it would open a military base in Veracruz, or suppose Russia would open an air base in Quebec.

Would the United States say, “Well, every country has a right to choose its own security partners, so I guess there’s nothing we could do about it.” Of course, we wouldn’t do that. We would bomb those bases. We would never tolerate that. So we’re now expecting Russia to accept something we would never accept.

There is room for negotiation, but only if the United States and the Europeans, who are now really taking on the extreme burden of the war, accept that they have to recognize Russia’s security interests. This is a horrific idea in some European capitals.

But in the end, the only way there is ever going to be peace and stability in Europe is if there is a security architecture that takes into account the security interests of all countries, including Russia.

JPR: You discuss Kosovo and the Western effort to separate it from Serbia. Was there ever a realistic possibility of peacefully accommodating separatist sentiment in eastern and southeastern Ukraine after the 2013–2014 Maidan Revolution? Or were Ukrainian nationalist forces, Western interests, and Russian influence too deeply entrenched? And what alternative policies might have prevented the current conflict after the end of the Cold War?

SK: The most important off-ramp we had was at the beginning of the post-Cold War period, so around 1990 and the early 90s. Our president then, George H.W. Bush, fully understood this, and he promised Mikhail Gorbachev that he would not promote any eastward expansion of NATO. Soon, of course, Bush was gone; Clinton came in. There was a completely different approach. But there is a perfectly reasonable argument for a neutral Ukraine.

And I’ll tell you, one of the reasons that I got so passionate about this project, I realized later on, well, part of my experience way back in the 1980s, I was the reporter covering the Contra War in Nicaragua.

And one thing I took away from that experience is that the war had nothing to do with Nicaragua. It was a conflict between two great powers that chose that poor country as the stage on which they fought. And, of course, [most of] the dead people were just the locals.

The same thing is happening in Ukraine. This war is not about Ukraine. It’s Ukraine that is suffering, and the big powers are holding its fate in their hands. Now, you talk about obstacles to peace. You’re absolutely right about the difference between eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine. Really, they are two countries that got stuck inside the same border by accidents of history.

And one of the real sticking points, one of the real difficulties in reaching some kind of a national accord, is that for non-Russian-speaking Ukrainians, those in the western part of Ukraine, being anti-Russian, hating Russia, is a fundamental part of the national patriotic Ukrainian identity. And as long as there are millions of Russians in the country, these other Ukrainians feel they are a fifth column; they’re always going to be promoting enemy interests.

So, any Ukrainian leader who signs a peace treaty runs an immense danger, not only from history, but also from far-right militias that are going to attack them. The cleavage between the two parts of the country is so deep that it’s hard to imagine how they would ever come together, at least without some kind of federalized structure, if not by moving those eastern provinces directly under Russian control.

JPR: Could Ukraine’s postwar frontline resemble the situation between Russia and Georgia after their 2008 war, with an unstable standoff and Russia gradually altering the boundaries? Or do you expect a different outcome in Ukraine?

SK: I think the Russians won’t stop until they’ve consolidated their power over [the] four eastern provinces that they claim. After that, I do think there is a possibility that it could settle into a kind of frozen conflict.

That would avoid forcing some Ukrainians to sign an agreement under which part of their territory is surrendered, but it could also end combat. It’s not an ideal solution. I would compare it to what’s happening in Korea. But at least that might be one way to end the conflict without putting people on either side in an untenable position.

JPR: What do you see as Volodymyr Zelensky’s political future after the war? Wartime leaders can struggle to retain public support in peacetime. Or do you think he will remain a central figure in Ukrainian politics?

SK: Zelensky is really an odd figure who emerged; I have a whole section in my book about how he did this. He was a TV personality. He was a fictional character who led a political party that was against corruption. And then this oligarch who owned the TV station said to him, “You know, we’re going to make that fake party. We’re gonna make it into a real party, and I’m gonna make you run for president.” So, he was about the most unlikely character you could imagine for that job.

And I don’t think he’s gonna wind up being a major figure in the future of Ukraine. Poor Zelensky, I think, is in a really difficult position now. Here’s what I think is going through his mind: “So the Americans are yelling at me because I didn’t make a deal. I didn’t accept a compromise with Russia.

But when I tried to make a compromise with Russia, just a month after the war started, they stopped me! They told me not to do it. So now I’m being punished for doing what you told me to do.” And I can understand and sympathize with Zelensky’s frustration.

JPR: There have been reports of Ukrainian involvement in training militants in Mali against Russian interests, while Ukraine has also continued striking Russian oil infrastructure, despite pressure from Washington to stop. And Ukraine now has a large battle-tested military, even if the country itself is severely weakened. What consequences could this have for Europe and the United States, particularly if the Ukrainians come to feel that the West and the United States have betrayed them?

SK: The situation you’re describing is somewhat analogous to what’s happening in the Middle East; a war that was supposed to be localized has metastasized and is turning up in different incarnations in different places, even far from the nations that were supposed to be the target.

So, I do think we’re gonna wind up with a highly militarized Ukraine. The worst part is that many of the strongest military units are not the actual regular army, but are far-right militias, which proudly use Nazi insignia and proclaim their loyalty to Ukrainians who fought alongside the Nazis and helped participate in the Holocaust. That is going to be a project that Europe’s going to have to deal with.

But I don’t even think Europe is thinking about a postwar yet. I feel like Europe is in a complete delusion. They have the idea that if we just keep pouring weapons into Ukraine and pouring money into Ukraine, somehow the tide will turn.

Meanwhile, inside those European countries, there’s tremendous political turmoil. Much of it is based on frustration that the government isn’t using its money to provide schools and other services people want. One reason is that so much money is going to Ukraine.

So, I think you might see resentment [toward] Ukraine growing, and depending on the way the war finally ends or freezes, people will become generally sympathetic to Ukraine, or very hostile to Ukraine.

It’s another example of how wars like this set in motion processes that can’t be stopped and can affect international relations for decades to come. It’s really an object lesson in how you should stop and think about long-term consequences before launching foreign interventions.

JPR: What will or what can the EU do if Washington pulls away from Ukraine?

SK: The EU then has two choices. One is to continue its policy, which is ever more war, ever more arms for Ukraine, ever more money, or Ukraine could go back to the agreement that was tentatively reached a month after the war began and accept Ukrainian neutrality. This would be very wise for Europe.

It’s foolish for the United States to be promoting war in Ukraine; it’s even more foolish for the Europeans. They are going to face real crossroads, and I fear the rise of radical political parties in Europe will create an even more difficult situation.

So that’s another reason I dedicated Boiling Point to the people of Ukraine; it’s my sympathy for them as victims of a great-power rivalry they don’t want anything to do with.

JPR: What was one of the biggest revelations you had while writing and researching for the book?

SK: The biggest revelation, by far, was my realization of how completely American foreign policy toward Russia and Eastern Europe has been shaped by officials with family backgrounds in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

We had [former] Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. We had [former] National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. We had a [former] ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland. There’s a whole list of these [names] in my book.

So, what you had was a group of children and grandchildren of emigres from Eastern Europe and what became the Soviet Union. These people grew up with bitter, anti-Russian hatred, and that’s quite understandable, frankly, when you look at the history of what Russia has done to those countries.

But when those grandchildren and children of emigres decided they wanted to affect American politics and foreign policy, they found themselves unwelcome in the Republican Party, which was then not interested in ideological crusades. So, they became Democrats. And all these people filled the Biden administration, the Obama administration, and the Clinton administration.

It’s the only example in the entire history of American foreign policy where all major policies toward one part of the world were shaped by people with family background in that region. They turned the United States into the instrument of their vengeance against Russia, and thereby greatly distorted American foreign policy.

Those diplomats were quite capable. They should have been made ambassador to Brazil, or assistant secretary of state for Asia or something like that. But to place them in these positions where they were able to wreak havoc against Russia in accordance with the long instincts that had been bred into them from childhood is unique, and it greatly distorted American foreign policy.

That was really the greatest single revelation I had.

JPR: And that’s a dynamic we really don’t see regarding China and Taiwan.

SK: Absolutely. You don’t see Chinese, let’s say, the children of Chinese immigrants, or the grandchildren, trying to get into the State Department so they can shape the US policy toward China.

That would be the equivalent, but that has never happened in US policy toward any other part of the world, and it’s the piece of the story that I don’t think has been told, and I hope it’s one of the pieces of “Boiling Point” that turns out to be a major revelation and point of discussion.

JPR: With much of Ukraine’s industrial base, energy infrastructure, and population severely diminished by the war and emigration, what realistic prospects does the country have for rebuilding?

SK: Rebuilding prospects are very difficult to imagine. First of all, you have to have an end to active fighting. Now, in the Russian-speaking regions, there’s been a tremendous amount of destruction. But if you look at what Russia did in Chechnya, where the capital city essentially was completely destroyed, you get the idea that they do know how to rebuild things, because Grozny is now a thriving city.

What about the rest of Ukraine, the western part? I think Ukrainians would be very justified in turning to the Europeans and saying, “You’re the ones who pushed us into this war; how about helping us resolve some of the damage?”

JPR: Finally, is this the end of NATO expansion, or is there room in the Balkans for more?

SK: I don’t believe there’s gonna be any expansion of NATO anytime soon. But what I would really like is that since everybody in Washington realizes this, they would say it. Instead, they try to keep it vague to pressure Russia.

Announcing that would be a way to lower global tensions, but in some circles that is seen as a concession to Russia, and maintaining tensions is actually thought to be in our interest. I don’t believe that’s true, and until that mindset fades, it’s difficult to see a prosperous future for Ukraine.

Reuters, 11/11/26

MOSCOW, Nov 11 (Reuters) – A senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that Moscow could conclude non-aggression pacts with NATO member states as part ​of a new security architecture for Europe being discussed ‌as part of the Ukraine peace process.

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator at those Ukraine peace talks – which resumed this week for the first time ​since February – said on Wednesday that the idea of a ​new security framework for Europe had been the central theme ⁠of two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, but did ​not provide details of what had been discussed.

Alexey Drobinin, a senior ​diplomat at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday outlined a series of detailed proposals on the idea to a security conference in Moscow.

The first option he ​set out was that of a collective defensive alliance or ​of bilateral mutual assistance agreements like those Russia has with Belarus and North ‌Korea.

The ⁠second possibility he cited included political agreements not to help each other’s adversaries in the event of aggression, like the pact Moscow has with Iran.

And the third option he presented were bilateral ​mutual non-aggression pacts.

“For ​example, agreements ⁠of this kind could be reached, among other things, with individual NATO member states, which would ​then receive, for instance, additional individual security guarantees from ​the ⁠Russian Federation,” Drobinin told the conference, according to video of his speech posted online.

Some European politicians oppose any discussion of Europe’s overall ⁠security architecture, ​saying progress on Ukraine – including a ​ceasefire – must be agreed first, although US officials have made clear they are open ​to such discussion.

***

Russia and Ukraine say some progress made at talks, US cites a lack of trust

By Roula Rouhana, Reuters, 11/11/26

Summary

-Second day of talks ends in Abu Dhabi

-Kyiv and Moscow agree on prisoner-of-war exchange

-US envoys set to hold talks in Moscow on Thursday

-US mediators see a lack of trust between the sides

-Differences remain on issues including territory

ABU DHABI, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reported some progress in two days of peace talks in Abu Dhabi that ​ended on Wednesday, but US mediators said there was a lack of trust between the warring sides and differences remained on issues including territory.

In their first peace talks ‌for nine months, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a major release of prisoners of war, but there was little else in the way of concrete announcements after the US-brokered meetings.

US envoy Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said mediators were appealing to each side’s interests to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two and that he was convinced they could find a pathway to peace.

Despite public optimism from Trump, there has been no sign of major compromises on the main ​issues after more than 4-1/2 years of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

With talks deadlocked on land – Ukraine has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands to surrender the whole of ​the eastern region of Donbas in return for peace – US mediators have tried to steer talks toward post-war security guarantees and reconstruction.

“The reality is there is ⁠no trust right now between the sides and that is to be expected after a conflict like this,” Kushner said, adding that the talks in the capital of the United Arab Emirates had touched on ​territorial issues and that these would be the hardest to resolve.

“Some areas we see places where we can find compromises, other we need to have more discussions, but I think this was a very good ​step,” he said.

Kushner said he and fellow US envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Moscow on Thursday for talks with Putin at which they would raise the question of broadening the talks to include European partners, who he said must be at the table.

He said security architecture in Europe could form the basis for an agreement, without providing details.

As the Trump administration has scaled back its direct support to Ukraine, Europe has become its leading provider of finance and military ​support.

After Thursday’s meetings in Moscow, Kushner and Witkoff will fly for talks with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a visit to Ireland.

ATTACKS CONTINUE

Each side said the other had launched attacks overnight, despite the peace talks ​being under way.

Russia struck six large electricity substations in central Ukraine, officials said, and an attack on a busy market in the Odesa region killed three people, the regional governor said. One person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack ‌in Russia’s Belgorod ⁠region, local authorities said.

Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said the talks had been tough, with Russia’s delegation arriving with “strict directives”, but they provided “good momentum” towards reaching a solution before the end of the year. He gave no details.

Arakhamia said that future talks should be multilateral, not trilateral, and should include European officials. Although European officials and NATO representatives met US and Ukrainian envoys in Abu Dhabi, Russia’s delegation declined to meet them.

Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said understanding had been reached on some issues, but was cool on the prospects of European countries joining talks.

He told a press conference it was unclear what Moscow could discuss with ​the European Union because it had made no new ​proposals. Even so, Russian state news agency ⁠TASS cited the Kremlin as saying Putin was open to contacts with the EU.

There has been no sign publicly that Putin is willing to drop a demand that Ukraine surrender all the land in the Donbas region that it still holds before a peace deal can be struck.

FRONT LINE STATIC

Russian forces control about ​a fifth of Ukraine, much of it captured before the 2022 invasion, and their progress on the battlefield has slowed this year.

With the front line largely ​static, Moscow has been pounding ⁠Ukrainian cities and energy sites, while Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure.

Russian officials are increasingly calling for a broad agreement on European security architecture to be reached before tackling the specifics of the war.

Before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia demanded the withdrawal of NATO forces from countries that joined the alliance after 1997, which the alliance rejected.

Trump said last week the war was close to being ⁠settled in a “big ​beautiful agreement” that could include security guarantees for Europe. He has frequently predicted breakthroughs that have not materialised.

Trump has intensified ​pressure on Kyiv to reach a deal to end the war, or face “a very bad thing”.

The new American peace drive has galvanized European officials into pushing for a place at the talks.

European officials say wider security talks should only come after a ceasefire, ​and Russia should not be allowed to influence Europe’s security arrangements or [be] rewarded for starting the war.

By Alastair Crooke, The American Conservative, 11/1/26

The Atlantic on October 23 published a profile of CIA chief John Ratcliffe. Its subheadline contains the most significant “tell” from the piece—“CIA Director John Ratcliffe leads an agency that’s at war with Russia, even as Trump makes nice with Putin.”

The Atlantic article makes no bones about its ulterior purpose. It is to present Ratcliffe as an even-handed professional who has mastered the intricacies of the Ukraine War and tells it “like it is” to the president, leaving the latter to decide his options.

This panegyric to Ratcliffe, however, hides substantive issues about the probity of CIA intelligence analyses, their impact on policy, and the extent to which the pure excitement of militarized covert action inevitably hobbles intelligence agencies and analytic reporting.

Intelligence is never wholly objective. And its professionalism largely hangs on service culture, which can—and does—change.

As one example, a former head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence research and analysis division, General Itai Brun, warned that Israel’s inability to recognize what Hamas was planning for October 7 resulted, not from a lack of information, but from a failure of culture and approach. Per the Times of Israel’s report of his comments:  

Even after the massacre, intelligence didn’t internalize that Hamas believed it could succeed…. The whole military intelligence network “was not listening, because it was convinced it knew…. It could not accept the possibility that it was wrong.

So, when it comes to “culture,” in this sense, two points in the Atlantic piece stand out: First, the article hints that Ratcliffe is seen by his staff to be “clear-eyed about the threat Russia poses not just to Ukraine—but to the United States and its allies.” This suggests that Radcliffe sees Russia as an eternal enemy of the West, or at least a current enemy with nefarious intentions. Secondly, the article emphasises that the CIA is in “the lead” on Ukraine and that its paramilitary wing—Covert Action—is thrilled at being so busy. As Larry Johnson, a former CIA official, outlines:

The CIA helps Ukraine knock out Russian refining capacity. Diesel prices soar. Then… in the middle of peace talks in Miami… President [Trump] announces a deal for Russia to sell its diesel on the world market…. So the United States is simultaneously paying to destroy Russian diesel production and begging Russia to sell it more diesel. You could not design a more incoherent policy if you tried.

The Atlantic piece lends credence to what has long been supposed—that Trump’s attempts to secure a “deal” with Russia (most recently by importing Russian diesel into America to bring the price down for the midterm elections) is a deceit intended to coax Moscow towards making a deal (unfavorable, in the Kremlin optic) with Trump.  

It would be a deceit because the CIA pursues its own (militarised) covert action war on Russia. The Atlantic, citing a CIA officer, reports: 

Armed with information that the U.S. provides, Ukraine’s military has launched strikes deep inside Russia. And U.S. spy satellites provide early warning about incoming missiles and drones. Among U.S. personnel on the ground, “the CIA is in the lead,” a retired senior officer who travels frequently to Ukraine told me.

The recent Starlink fracas—was its military communications network deactivated, was it go-slowed, did it glitch?—only highlights ever more clearly the dysfunction inherent to the U.S. institutional contradiction underlined by the Atlantic’s subheadline.

Plainly—for whatever the behind-the-scenes reason—Trump does not choose (or cannot choose) to exert control over the CIA. (Although, he could cancel all previous “Presidential Findings” that legally frame what the CIA can and cannot do and could substitute them with his own Finding).  

Evidently, all that Trump was able to do in this instance to advance his putative “peace deal” was to withhold Starlink communications and intelligence sharing, ad interim, until Zelensky agreed to stop hitting Russian fuel refineries. The storm was over in days; Starlink was reactivated.

How should we read these events? Plainly, the deep state isn’t on board with Trump’s “making nice” with Russia, and Trump isn’t bringing them along.

Does the Russian leadership understand what is afoot with Trump’s apparent soft deceit that is intended to appease the MAGA constituency at home, whilst the CIA, as the Atlantic piece says, continues to “have gotten too good at hurting Russia, for Trump’s taste”? 

President Vladimir Putin, of course, understands completely. That is why Russian policy has pivoted to an operational-level strategy to destroy the militarily useful infrastructure of Ukraine, thus banishing the specter of a potential attack from the “space” to the west of Russia for at least a generation, maybe more. As Dmitri Trenin outlines:

The Russian army has launched its own [campaign]… dropp[ing] some of its self-imposed restraint… hitting the targets that heretofore it had avoided… [as] a way “to escalate to de-escalate”—six to nine months of intense air war in combination with advances on the ground that could bring the conflict to an end.

Russia’s tested resilience in this war is superior to Ukraine’s in material terms and to Europe’s in nonmaterial ones, which will likely determine what happens in the future.

The question, then, is does the CIA “get it”? Or is it, on the pattern outlined by Brun, the aforementioned Israeli general, that the CIA “knows” that Russia—in fact—is failing? In which case, the CIA was, in Brun’s words, “was not listening, because it was convinced it knew.” The Atlantic, again: “No one knows the state of the war, and the stakes involved, better than the CIA officers who are working in Ukraine and monitoring the fight from headquarters.”  

And are the Europeans listening? Not at the moment. The denial amongst some of the political class may be cracking, but it remains nonetheless largely intact—mainly because no European leader has any feasible plan to end the Ukraine entanglement in any cogent way. And, at the same time, no European leader knows how the EU can fund Ukraine and its war without crashing the very financial architecture that underpins “liberal” Europe.

Yet they soon will come to understand, because Europe is politically broken and financially broke—Eurozone government debt has increased to nearly 89 percent of GDP in the past six months. France’s debt has ballooned to 119 percent of GDP, while Italy’s is approaching 140 percent. Economic growth is slowing, unemployment has edged higher, consumer confidence is falling, and the ECB has already started raising interest rates again.

Europe surely can’t cough up the further €155 billion that Zelensky is insisting Europe should provide to Ukraine—particularly as the EU is already currently paying installments of the €90 billion loan for Ukraine that was meant “to help cover funding to the end of 2027.”

Russia is very aware of Europe’s fracturing. As Timofey Bordachev of the Valdai Club lays bare, “Western Europe is falling apart.” Bordachev writes,

The unrest sweeping several European countries… marks a new phase in the continent’s systemic crisis… [reflecting] the convergence of two long-term problems that much of Europe’s political establishment has proved incapable of resolving. The first is the exhaustion of the socioeconomic model that sustained Western European prosperity… The second is Western Europe’s long-standing absence of genuine sovereignty…. The [American-led NATO] alliance’s practical [function] has been to preserve the existing political order…. Transform[ing] that order would require a reassessment of relations with Washington and such independence is something these European governments have long been unwilling, or unable, to contemplate.

One wonders whether the CIA, which supposedly knows so much, knows about any of this either.