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The two big stories in the news today are the Trump administration saying Ukraine is going to have to give up territory and NATO ambitions in order to secure a peace deal, while Israel appears to retreat from its ceasefire standoff with Hamas.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the US “does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome for a negotiated settlement,” and that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.” This comes as Trump announces that he is in talks with Vladimir Putin to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
Both NATO membership and recapturing all territory lost to Russia have been the goal of Ukraine’s President Zelensky and the NATO enthusiasts throughout the western world who adore him. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp explains:
Restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders has been a war goal of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, although there have been signs in recent months that he’s accepted that’s unrealistic. But he is still calling for strong security guarantees from the US that involve the deployment of troops, which Hegseth also dismissed.
“Any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5,” he said.
“There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” Hegseth added.
“Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive had Biden been willing to say this three years ago,” Aaron Maté wrote on Twitter regarding Hegseth’s comments. “Instead, Biden refused, fueled a proxy war, presided over Ukraine’s decimation, and then turned around and said that Ukraine isn’t ready to join NATO anyway. It was all a bait and switch with one goal only: use Ukraine to bleed Russia. Whoever went along with this epic disaster — and that sadly includes progressive lawmakers and media — should ask themselves if it was worth it.”
And now the US treasury secretary is meeting with Zelensky to negotiate a deal granting the US access to Ukraine’s considerable rare earth mineral wealth — not to continue the war, but to pay for a post-war “security shield” that the US would be supplying under President Trump’s plan. Ukraine has been scorched, shredded and spat on by its buddies in Washington, and now it’s being strip-mined.
Everyone who knew anything about anything said from the very beginning of the war that this would happen. Professor John Mearsheimer warned back in 2015 that the west was leading Ukraine down the primrose path and that the result would be Ukraine getting wrecked. Many other experts and analysts warned that NATO provocations would lead to disaster for Ukraine, long before the war began.
So much easily avoidable death. This war was provoked, and was provoked deliberately, solely to move a few pieces around on the grand chessboard to help the US secure planetary domination. The US and its allies refused off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp to this nightmare, both before Russia invaded and in the weeks immediately afterward.
Imagine being a Ukrainian fighting on the front lines right now as the US secretary of defense says you’re going to lose your territory and you’ll never join NATO while Kyiv signs over your nation’s rare earth mineral wealth to Washington. I would desert so hard.
Other US-aligned proxies take note: this is what happens when you put your country on the line for the advancement of US strategic agendas. I hope Taiwan is watching these events closely.
The other major story today is that Israel appears to be backing down on its ceasefire brinkmanship in Gaza. Barak Ravid reports for Axios that according to an unnamed Israeli official, Israel has told mediators that it will abide by the ceasefire terms as long as Hamas releases three hostages on Saturday as originally planned.
This would be a significant walk-back from the Netanyahu regime, who shortly beforehand had been insisting that Hamas must release “all” hostages on Saturday, which went against the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Additionally, the aid requirements Hamas had been demanding now appear to be flooding in from Israel. Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed reports from the Gaza Strip:
Thousands of tents and caravans have entered Gaza. The situation is becoming more stable, and aid has been flowing in consistently over the past hours.
The same is true in terms of medical aid as local reports indicate that at least five medical aid trucks have gotten into Gaza during the last 24 hours.
The ceasefire will likely hold as Hamas gears up to release the three Israeli prisoners on Saturday in exchange for dozens of Palestinian hostages.
Israel is beginning to allow a surge of aid instead of a trickle.
It’s hard to see this as anything other than a win for Hamas. The ceasefire became jeopardized when Hamas announced it would be delaying the scheduled release of Israeli hostages until Israel began abiding by the ceasefire, and Israeli officials have been admitting to the press that Israel was violating the ceasefire while Hamas was not. Hamas demanded Israel hold up its end of the bargain and Israel made some threats, but apparently eventually backed down. Perhaps Tel Aviv was just practicing the Israeli tradition of “shitat hamatzliah” — just trying to do whatever you want to do and seeing if you get away with it.
So all is not lost. Amidst all the madness of this world, peace may yet get a word in edgewise.
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"Other US-aligned proxies take note: this is what happens when you put your country on the line for the advancement of US strategic agendas. I hope Taiwan is watching these events closely."
I can think of a few countries that should be paying attention to this.
Good news about Israel.
Remember The Great North Korean Cofeve? Lurching from threats of war to embraces (while neocons got a temporary case of the vapors), to unreasonable and unrealistic demands. In the end, nothing much changed. So let's wait before taking a victory lap, what say?t