By Aaron Mate, Substack, 8/5/26
…The predicate for this unprecedented [FBI] probe of a sitting president as the agent of a foreign power has been kept from the public ever since. When I obtained the first public release of its opening document in late 2024, just weeks before Trump’s second term, the FBI redacted the entire “articulable factual basis.” After more than nine years of secrecy, a new declassification by the Trump White House confirms that the investigation, codenamed “Oxferd Comma” [sic] and launched on May 16, 2017, was not driven by any secret information tying Trump to Russia. It was instead based on the FBI leadership’s maximalist, neoconservative-influenced reactions to innocuous and falsely reported public events.
One of the FBI’s triggers was a controversy that erupted in July 2016 at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. At the time, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin claimed that the Trump campaign had removed an amendment from the party’s platform that called for arming Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas region. In reality, the RNC platform committee had merely rejected a proposal to endorse providing “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. The Republicans’ final platform text instead called for “increasing sanctions” on Russia and “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine,” which could easily have included weapons. The RNC platform was also far more hawkish than the Democrats’ platform that same summer, in line with the policies of President Obama, who had refused to send the same weaponry to Ukraine…
…The document only underscores that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation was influenced by Cold War views and the conspiracy theories of an illicit Trump-Russia connection promoted by the Hillary Clinton campaign and its media allies…
This article is behind a paywall here.
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When Winning is Not Victory
By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 8/19/26
Massive Russian Attack Anticipated
On the Military Summary Channel and extrapolating from information of recent Russian reconnaissance over Ukraine and equally recent activity at Russia’s Olenya and Ukrainka air bases, as well as in Bryansk, Kursk, Rostov and Liski, Dima is predicting another massive attack by Russia on Ukraine, not only on the customary targets in Kiev, Odessa, Zapporizhzhi and so on, but also concentrating more than before on Central and Western Ukraine. There has been a Russian strike with Banderol missiles already, targeting Zhytomar in the Zhytomary oblast which lies 130-150 kilometers west of Kiev. Dima expects to see strikes on targets along Ukraine’s borders with Romania and Moldova (nothing is said about Poland).
In the Air, on the Land
Other recent Russian attacks have destroyed warehouses in the area of Brovary – a suburb of Kiev, a ship in Odessa, a bridge and a warehouse in Zapporizhzhia. On the ground, Russian forces are moving further in on Orikhiv in Zapporizhzhia. They have taken the suburbs to the south of Novodanylivkia to the southwest and Mala Tokmacha to the southeast, taking control of the MO8 and TO-8-15 highways into the settlement. The Ukrainian garrison in Orikhiv will very possibly soon be surrounded by Russian forces and therefore unavailable to buttress any Ukrainian defense line between Orikhiv and Zapporizhzhia.
In the Polohy Raion district of Zapporizhzhia, as Russia creeps westward, Russia has already taken Verkhnya Ters and Kaponi, russian troops are moving southwestwards froim Liubytske, Novosoloshyne and Lisne towards Chervonyi Yar.
In Donetsk, Russian forces move slowly to tighten a noose around the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzkivka conurbation in preparation for multiple ground attacks from the north, east, south and southwest. The conurbation is being evacuated, and Ukrainian troops are pouring in to build anti-tank defenses. To the east, Bilytske and Novomykalaivka have fallen, and Russian forces have just captured Andriivka, improving their positions in the direction of Zoloty Kolodiaz to eventually form a line from Stepy, through Zoloty Kolodiaz, Vesele, Hryzke to Novomykalaivka. Vodyanske and Krasnopodillia, east of Lyman, have also fallen, and fighting is going on northwest of Andriivka for the village of Staroandreyevka.
Domestic Crises
The Russian escalation coincides with the call by recently dismissed Ukrainian Minister of Defense Sergei Fedorov to be reinstated and for there to be new presidential and parliamentary elections. There have already been modestly populated protests outside the Verkhovna Rada in support of Fedorov, but Zelenskiy has publicly rejected Fedorov’s demands, while the Rada has appointed Zelenskiy’s choice of interim as permanent Minister of Defense namely Yevhen Khmara.
Fedorov is said by the Substack site Events in Ukraine to represent the Soros-supported liberal opposition to Zelenskiy. But then what does Zelenskiy represent?
Zelenskiy, Fedorov and George Soros
One perspective suggests that politically Zelenskiy is best seen as representing the centralized wartime executive power of the Ukrainian state, balancing traditional political and military command structures rather than serving as the antithesis to a specific reformist faction.
The premise that Mykhailo Fedorov acts as a designated “Soros-supported liberal opposition” is an oversimplification. Fedorov is a tech-savvy innovator and former defense minister who rose within Zelenskiy’s own administration before a political and structural falling-out over military bureaucracy and leadership turned him into a rival.
Zelenskiy serves as the supreme commander and political face of Ukraine’s national defense and international coalition-building against the Russian invasion. He manages the vertical power of the government. Thius includes balancing legacy military brass, defense contractors, and political factions. He represents institutional continuity under martial law, arguing that ordinary democratic elections must wait until security allows.
Fedorov did not start out as an external opposition figure. He served as a core member of Zelenskiy’s team (notably driving digital transformation and drone procurement), taking pride in what the West (briefly?) saw as the magnificent success of Ukraine’s spring and summer drone offensive. His removal from the defense ministry stemmed from clashes with traditional military command and bureaucratic resistance to procurement transparency and may also reveal the regime’s growing skepticism of the value of drone offensives that do nothing to stem the loss of valuable, industry-and-agriculture rich territory to Russia.
From the margins to which he has essentially exiled himself, Fedorov has transitioned into an independent political voice, publicly criticizing opacity and calling for mechanisms to restore democratic processes. This transition, therefore, places him alongside movements that, with support from Europe and the US, oppose corruption in Ukraine and favor an early return to democratic process.
Economic and other Pressures
The appointment of Fedorov’s replacement and Zelenskiy’s certain refusal to consider elections that would, with equal certainty, remove Zelenskiy from power (such is the much-vaunted “democratic” status of Ukraine) will likely heighten tensions and incite protests across many cities of Ukraine. This comes as an embattled Zelenskiy pleads fruitlessly with the US and with Europe for more Pac-3 missiles for Ukraine’s remaining Patriot missiles, and confronts a major, growing agricultural crisis. This arises from Russian bombardment of Odessa ports that has effectively cut off a considerable chunk of Ukraine’s routes for agricultural export. Further, farmers, deprived of their expected revenues for the 2026 harvest will have fewer resources or even economic capability of preparing for 2027.
This is also contributing to a global food crisis. Ukrainian attacks on Russian grain cargo ships in the Sea of Azov and on the eastern Black Sea coastline have reduced Russian grain and fertilizer exports as well. Sister crises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea have also cut global supply chains of fertilizer.
Attacks by Ukraine on Western-affiliated assets – including, yesterday a Greek tanker headed for the Russian port of Novorossiysk and a recent attack on the Caspian-Black Sea oil company which is an important conduit for the delivery of Kazhak oil to Turkey and other clients – may also be moderating the enthusiasm of Ukraine’s Western sponsors. Ukraine’s Fire Point, which some commentators see as linked to Zelenskiy, made the Flamingo missiles that attacked the Progress factory engaged in the manufacture of Rassvet satellites in Samara, but pictures of holes in the roofs of two of the buildings of this vast entity suggest that the strikes did not cause explosions and did relatively little damage.
Mounting Russian attacks on Kiev, on top of the previous months’ of Russian bombardments of Ukrainian energy, electricity, gasoline, transport and commercial warehouse assets will conceivably make life intolerable for citizens of Kiev, leading to an exodus of its population headed, with or without resistance from police and military for European destinations.
A Russian Pyrric Victory?
Ukraine’s difficulties and, in particular, the degradation of its air defenses and the weakening of effective Western sponsorship, would certainly seem to offer the promise of a more determined Russian effort to finish the war and to reduce Ukraine to a rump State. There is evidence of a recent upsurge of Russian activity across the fronts, even extending to NATO assets in Ukraine. Leaks from Britain detailing British supply of drones that are launched deep into Russia have provoked comments from Russian foreign minister Lavrov that in effect indicate Russian preparedness not only to attack assets in NATO countries, but, following the logic of NATO’s Article 5, to regard the aggression of any one NATO country as greenlighting Russian attacks on any member of NATO.
Commenting on this development, Gilbert Doctorow, lately in the vanguard of commentators who have grown increasingly skeptical of the military logic of the SMO in favor of much sharper and conclusive action, says that unless this British provocation does actually evince a meaningful Russian response against Britain, Putin will have caved to NATO, undermining his own legitimacy. He further points out that the absence of a meaningful response will be interpreted by other European powers including, most notably, Germany, as an invitation for them to escalate their own support for Ukraine and their direct engagement in the war.
For Doctorow, “winning” for Russia is not victory unless it achieves Putin’s objectives. The first and most important of these was that Ukraine should not fall within the umbrella of NATO but would remain neutral, and that goal, along with others including the de-nazification of the Kiev regime, and a cap on Ukrainian troop numbers, are far from being fulfilled.