Tory leader says the quiet part out loud, admitting that both Israel and Ukraine are fighting for the West

If you have spent the past 20 months wondering why British leaders on both sides of the aisle have barely criticised Israel, even as it slaughtered and starved Gaza’s population of more than two million people, you finally got an answer last week.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the quiet part out loud. She told Sky: “Israel is fighting a proxy war [in Gaza] on behalf of the UK.”

According to Badenoch, the UK – and presumably in her assessment, other western powers – aren’t just supporting Israel against Hamas. They are willing that fight and helping to direct it. They view that fight as centrally important to their national interests.

This certainly accords with what we have witnessed over more than a year and a half. Both the current Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and its Tory predecessor under Rishi Sunak, have been unwavering in their commitment to send British arms to Israel, while also shipping weapons from the United States and Germany to help with the slaughter.

Both governments used the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri in Cyprus to carry out surveillance flights to aid Israel with locating targets to hit in Gaza. Both allowed British citizens to travel to Israel to take part as soldiers in the Gaza genocide.

Neither government joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, which found more than a year ago that Israel’s actions could “plausibly” be considered a genocide.

And neither government proposed or tried to impose alongside other western states, as happened in other recent “wars”, a no-fly zone over Gaza to stop Israel’s murderous assault, or organised with others to break Israel’s blockade and get aid into the enclave.

In other words, both governments steadfastly maintained their material support for Israel, even if Starmer recently toned down rhetorical support after images of emaciated babies and young children in Gaza – reminiscent of images of Jewish children in Nazi death camps like Auschwitz – shocked the world.

Coded language

If Badenoch is right that the UK is waging a proxy war in Gaza, it means that both British governments are directly responsible for the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians – running into many tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands – from Israel’s saturation bombing.

It also makes it indisputable that the UK is complicit in the current mass starvation of more than two million people there, which is indeed what Badenoch went on to imply in the coded language of political debate.

In reference to Starmer’s recent, and very belated, criticism of Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s entire population, she observed: “What I want to see is Keir Starmer making sure that he is on the right side of British national interest.”

According to Badenoch, Starmer’s implied threat – so far entirely unrealised – to limit the UK’s active collusion in the genocidal starvation of the people of Gaza could harm Britain’s national interests. How exactly?

Her comments should have startled, or at least baffled, Sky interviewer Trevor Phillips. But they passed unremarked.

Badenoch’s “proxy war” statement was also largely ignored by the rest of the British establishment media. Rightwing publications did notice it, but it appeared they were only disturbed by her equating the West’s proxy war in Gaza with the West’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Or as the opposition leader put it: “Israel is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the UK just like Ukraine is on behalf of western Europe against Russia.”

A column in the Spectator, the Tory party’s house journal, criticised her use of “proxy war” to describe Ukraine, but appeared to take the Gaza proxy war reference as read. James Heale, the Spectator’s deputy political editor, wrote: “By inadvertently echoing Russia’s position on Ukraine, Badenoch has handed her opponents another stick with which to beat her.”

The Telegraph, another Tory-leaning newspaper, ran a similarly themed article headlined: “Kremlin seizes on Badenoch’s Ukraine ‘proxy war’ comments.”

Related wars

The lack of a response to her Gaza “proxy war” remark suggests that this sentiment actually informs much thinking in western foreign policy circles, even if she broke the taboo on articulating it publicly.

To reach an answer on why Gaza is viewed as a proxy war – one Britain continues to be deeply invested in, even at the cost of a genocide – one must also understand why Ukraine is seen in similar terms. The two “wars” are more related than they might appear.

Despite the consternation of the Spectator and Telegraph, Badenoch is not the first British leader to point out that the West is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine.

Back in February, one of her predecessors, Boris Johnson, observed of western involvement in the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine: “Let’s face it, we’re waging a proxy war. We’re waging a proxy war. But we’re not giving our proxies [Ukraine] the ability to do the job.”

If anyone should know the truth about Ukraine, it is Johnson. After all, he was prime minister when Moscow invaded its neighbour in February 2022.

He was soon dispatched by Washington to Kyiv, where he appears to have strong-armed President Volodymyr Zelensky into abandoning ceasefire talks that were well advanced and could have led to a resolution.

Offensive frontiers

There are good reasons why Johnson and Badenoch each understand Ukraine as a proxy war.

This weekend Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, echoed them. He told Fox News that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not wrong to see Ukraine as a proxy war, and that the West was acting as aggressor by supplying Kyiv with weapons.

For years, the West had expanded Nato’s offensive frontiers towards Russia, despite Moscow’s explicit warnings that this would cross a red line.

With the West threatening to bring Russia’s neighbour Ukraine into Nato’s military fold, there were only ever likely to be one of two Russian responses. Either Putin would blink first and find Russia boxed in militarily, with Nato missiles – potentially nuclear-tipped – on his doorstep, minutes from Moscow. Or he would react pre-emptively to stop Ukraine’s accession to Nato by invading.

The West believed it had nothing to lose either way. If Russia invaded, Nato would then have the pretext to use Ukraine as a theatre of war to bleed Moscow, both economically with sanctions and militarily by flooding the battlefield with western weapons.

As we now know, Moscow chose to react. And while it has indeed been bleeding heavily, Ukrainian forces and European economies have been haemorrhaging even faster and more heavily.

The problem isn’t so much a lack of weapons – the West has supplied lots of them – as the fact that Ukraine has run out of conscripts willing to be sent into the maw of war.

The West is not, of course, going to send its own soldiers. A proxy war means someone else, in this case Ukrainians, does the fighting – and dying – for you.

Three years on, the conditions for a ceasefire have dramatically changed too. Having spilled so much of its own people’s blood, Russia is much less ready to make compromises, not least over the eastern territories it has conquered and annexed.

We have reached this nadir in Ukraine – one so deep that even US President Donald Trump appears ready to bail out – precisely because Nato, via Johnson, pushed Ukraine to keep fighting an unwinnable war.

Full-spectrum dominance

Nonetheless, there was a geopolitical logic, however twisted, to the West’s actions in Ukraine. Bleeding Russia, a military and economic power, accords with the hawkish priorities of the neoconservative cabals that run western capitals nowadays, whichever party is in charge.

The neoconservatives valorise what used to be called the military-industrial complex. They believe that the West has a civilisational superiority to the rest of the world, and must use its superior arsenal to defeat, or at least contain, any state that refuses to submit.

This is a modern reimagining of the “barbarians at the gate”, or as neoconservatives like to frame it, “a clash of civilisations”. The fall of the West would amount, in their view, to a return to the Dark Ages. We are supposedly in a life-or-death struggle.

In the US, the imperial hub of what we call “the West”, this has justified a massive investment in war industries – or what is referred to as “defence”, because it is an easier sell to domestic publics tired of the endless austerity required to maintain military superiority.

Western capitals profess to act as “global police”, while the rest of the world sees the West more in terms of a sociopathic mafia don. However one frames it, the Pentagon is officially pursuing a doctrine known as US “global full-spectrum dominance”. You must submit – that is, let us control the world’s resources – or pay the price.

In practice, a “foreign policy” like this has necessarily divided the world in two: those in the Godfather’s camp, and those outside it.

If Russia could not be contained and defanged by turning Ukraine into a Nato forward base on Moscow’s doorstep, it had to be dragged by the West into a debilitating proxy war that would neutralise Russia’s ability to ally with China against US global hegemony.

Acts of violence

That is what Badenoch and Johnson meant by the proxy war in Ukraine. But how is Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians through saturation bombing and engineered starvation similarly a proxy war – and one apparently benefitting the UK and the West, as Badenoch argues?

Interestingly, Badenoch offered two not entirely compatible reasons for Israel’s “war” on Gaza.

Initially, she told Sky: “Israel is fighting a war where they want to get 58 hostages who have not been returned. That is what all of this is about … What we need to make sure is that we’re on the side that is going to eradicate Hamas.”

But even “eradicating Hamas” is hard to square with British foreign policy objectives. After all, despite the UK’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it has never attacked Britain, has said it has no such intention, and is unlikely to ever be in a position to do so.

Instead, it is far more likely that Israel’s destruction of Gaza, with visible western collusion, will inflame hotheads into random or misguided acts of violence that cannot be prepared for or stopped – acts of terror similar to the US gunman who recently shot dead two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC.

That might be reason enough to conclude that the UK ought to distance itself from Israel’s actions as quickly as possible, rather than standing squarely behind Tel Aviv.

It was only when she was pushed by Phillips to explain her position that Badenoch switched trajectory. Apparently it wasn’t just about the hostages. She added: “Who funds Hamas? Iran, an enemy of this country.”

Cornered by her own logic, she then grasped tightly the West’s neoconservative comfort blanket and spoke of a “proxy war”.

‘Bracing’ truth?

Badenoch’s point was not lost on Stephen Pollard, the former editor of the Jewish Chronicle. In a column, he noted of the Sky interview: “Badenoch has a bracing attitude to the truth – she tells it as it is, even if it doesn’t make her popular.”

The “bracing” truth from Badenoch is that Israel is as central to the projection of western power into the oil-rich Middle East as it was more than a century ago, when Britain conceived of Palestine as a “national home for the Jewish people” in place of the native Palestinian population.

From Britain’s perspective, Israel’s war on Gaza, as Badenoch concedes, is not centrally about “eradicating Hamas” or “getting back the hostages” taken during the group’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Rather, it is about arming Israel to weaken those, like Iran and its regional allies, who refuse to submit to the West’s domination of the Middle East – or in the case of Palestinians, to their own dispossession and erasure.

In that way, arming Israel is seen as no different from arming Ukraine to weaken Russian influence in eastern Europe. It is about containing the West’s geostrategic rivals – or potential partners, were they not viewed exclusively through the prism of western “full-spectrum dominance” – as effectively as Israel has locked Palestinians into prisons and concentration camps in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

This strategy is about averting any danger that one day Russia, China, Iran and others could unite effectively to oust the US and its allies from their heavily fortified hilltop. Alliances like BRICS are seen as a potential vehicle for such an assault on western dominance.

Whatever the rhetoric, western capitals are not chiefly concerned about military or “civilisational” threats. They do not fear being invaded or conquered by their “enemies”. In fact, their reckless behaviours in places like Ukraine make a cataclysmic nuclear confrontation more likely.

What drives western foreign policy is the craving to maintain global economic primacy. And terrorising other states with the West’s superior military might is seen as the only way to ensure such primacy.

There is nothing new about the West’s fears, nor are they partisan. Differences within western establishments are never over whether the West should assert “full-spectrum dominance” around the globe through client states such as Israel and Ukraine. Instead, factional splits emerge over which elements within those client states the West should be allying with the closest.

‘Rogue’ policy

The question of alliances has been particularly fraught in the case of Israel, where the far-right and religious extremist factions in the government have a near-Messianic view of their place and role in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many of those closest to him have been trying for decades to manoeuvre the US into launching an attack on Iran, not least to remove Israel’s main rival in the Middle East and guarantee its nuclear-armed regional primacy in perpetuity.

So far, Netanyahu has found no takers in the White House. But that hasn’t stopped him trying. He is widely reported to be deep in efforts to push Trump into joining an attack on Iran, in the midst of talks between Washington and Tehran.

Over many years, British hawks look like they have been playing their own role in these manoeuvres. In the recent past, at least two ambitious British government ministers on the right have been caught trying to cosy up to the most belligerent elements in the Israeli security establishment.

In 2017, Priti Patel was forced to resign as international development secretary after she was found to have held 12 secret meetings with senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, while supposedly on a family holiday. She had other off-the-books meetingswith Israeli officials in New York and London.

Six years earlier, then-Defence Secretary Liam Fox also had to step down after a series of shadowy meetings with Israeli officials. Fox’s ministry was also known to have drawn updetailed plans for British assistance in the event of a US military strike on Iran, including allowing the Americans to use Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian ocean.

Unnamed government officials told the Guardian at the time that Fox had been pursuing an “alternative” government policy. Former British diplomat Craig Murray was more direct: his sources within government suggested Fox had been conspiring with Israel in a “rogue” foreign policy towards Iran, against Britain’s stated aims.

Crime scene

The West’s behaviours are ideologically driven, not rational or moral. The compulsive, self-sabotaging nature of western support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza is no different – though far grosser – than the self-sabotaging nature of its actions in Ukraine.

The West has lost the battle against Russia, but refuses to learn or adapt. And it has spent whatever moral legitimacy it still had left in propping up an Israeli military occupier bent on starving millions of people to death, if they cannot be ethnically cleansed into Egypt first.

Netanyahu has not been the easy-to-sell, cuddly military mascot that Zelensky proved to be in Ukraine.

Support for Kyiv could at least be presented as taking the right side in a clash of civilisations with a barbarous Russia. Support for Israel simply exposes the West’s hypocrisy, its worship of power for its own sake, and its psychopathic instincts.

Support for Israel’s genocide has hollowed out the West’s claim to moral superiority for all but its most deluded devotees. Sadly, those still include most of the western political and media establishments, whose only rationale is to evangelise for the belief system over which they preside, claiming it to be the worthiest in history.

Some, like Starmer, are trying to moderate their rhetoric in a desperate attempt to protect the morally bankrupt system that has invested them with power.

Others, like Badenoch, are still so enthralled by the cult of a superior West that they are blind to how preposterous their rantings sound to anyone no longer rapt in devotion. Rather than distance herself from Israel’s atrocities, she is happy to place herself – and the UK – at the crime scene.

The scales have fallen from western publics’ eyes. Now is the time to hold our leaders fully to account.

• First published at Middle East Eye.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was then 12:55 in Washington. Click to read.

Trump and his staff read the transcript and then composed Trump’s statement in a tweet posted at 13:33 Washington time, 20:33 Moscow time. Click to read.

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg, the president’s negotiator with the Ukraine and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland), were consulted during Trump’s prepping, sat in on the call with the President,  or were informed immediately after the call, they have remained silent.

The day before, May 18, Rubio announced that the Istanbul-II meeting had produced agreement “to exchange paper on ideas to get to a ceasefire. If those papers have ideas on them that are realistic and rational, then I think we know we’ve made progress. If those papers, on the other hand, have requirements in them that we know are unrealistic, then we’ll have a different assessment.” Rubio was hinting that the Russian formula in Istanbul, negotiations-then-ceasefire, has been accepted by the US. What the US would do after its “assessment”, Rubio didn’t say – neither walk-away nor threat of new sanctions.

Vice President JD Vance wasn’t present at the call because he was flying home from Rome where he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass. “We’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters in his aeroplane. “The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.” Vance prompted Trump to mention the Pope as a mediator for a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, first to Putin and then in public.

Kellogg is refusing to go along. He tweeted on Sunday: “In Istanbul @SecRubio  made it clear that we have presented ‘a strong peace plan’. Coming out of the London meetings we (US) came up with a comprehensive 22 point plan that is a framework for peace. The first point is a comprehensive cease fire that stops the killing now.”

FUGUP issued their own statement after Trump’s call. “The US President and the European partners have agreed on the next steps. They agreed to closely coordinate the negotiation process and to seek another technical meeting. All sides reaffirmed their willingness to closely accompany Ukraine on the path to a ceasefire. The European participants announced that they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions.”

This signalled acceptance with Trump of the Russian formula, negotiations-then-ceasefire, and time to continue negotiating at the “technical” level. The sanction threat was added. But this statement was no longer FUGUP. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was omitted; so too Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Italian, the Finn and the European Commission President were substituted. They make FUGIFEC.

Late in the Paris evening of Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to keep Starmer in Trump’s good books and preserve the ceasefire-first formula. “I spoke tonight,” Macron tweeted, “with @POTUS @Keir_Starmer @Bundeskanzler  and @GiorgiaMeloni  after our talks in Kyiv and Tirana. Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.” By the time on Monday that Macron realized he had been trumped, the Elysée had nothing to say.

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Meloni signalled she was happy to line up with Trump and accept Putin’s negotiations-then-ceasefire. “Efforts are being made,” Meloni’s office announced, “for an immediate start to negotiations between the parties that can lead as soon as possible to a ceasefire and create the conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”  Meloni claimed she would assure that Pope Leo XIV would fall into line. “In this regard, the willingness of the Holy Father to host the talks in the Vatican was welcomed. Italy is ready to do its part to facilitate contacts and work for peace.”

For the time being, Putin’s and Trump’s statements have put Rubio, Kellogg and the Europeans offside. Decoding the two president’s statements shows how and why.

President Putin’s Statement

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76953 

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening.

Our colleagues asked me to briefly comment on the outcome of my telephone conversation with the President of the United States.This conversation has effectively taken place and lasted more than two hours. I would like to emphasise that it was both substantive and quite candid. Overall, [1] I believe it was a very productive exchange.

First and foremost [2], I expressed my gratitude to the President of the United States for the support provided by the United States in facilitating the resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine aimed at potentially reaching a peace agreement and resuming the talks which, as we know, were thwarted by the Ukrainian side in 2022 [3].

The President of the United States shared his position [4] on the cessation of hostilities and the prospects for a ceasefire. For my part, I noted that Russia also supports a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis as well. What we need now is to identify the most effective [5] ways towards achieving peace.

We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia would propose and is ready to engage with the Ukrainian side on drafting a memorandum [6] regarding a potential future peace agreement. This would include outlining a range of provisions, such as the principles for settlement, the timeframe for a possible peace deal, and other matters, including a potential temporary ceasefire, should the necessary agreements [7] be reached.

Contacts among participants of the Istanbul meeting and talks have resumed, which gives reason to believe that we are on the right track overall [8].

I would like to reiterate that the conversation was highly constructive, and I assess it positively. The key issue, of course, is now for the Russian side and the Ukrainian side to show their firm commitment to peace and to forge a compromise that would be acceptable to all parties.

Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes [9] of this crisis is what matters most to us.

Should any clarifications be necessary, Press Secretary [Dmitry] Peskov and my aide, Mr Ushakov [10], will provide further details on today’s telephone talks with President Trump.

Keys to Decode

1. This is a qualifier, meaning there are serious differences on the details — Putin asked Trump to pause, halt or cease all arms deliveries to the Ukraine, including US arms shipped through Israel, Germany, and Poland. This is a bullet Trump hasn’t bitten, yet.

2. Putin has made a firm decision to give Trump the “peace deal” he has asked for and wishes to announce at a summit meeting. In their call Putin was mollifying Trump’s disappointment at the failure of their plan to meet when Trump was in the Middle East. A Russian source comments: “Whatever concessions have to be made will be made only by Putin and only to Trump. The Europeans are trying to hog the headlines and turn their defeat into some sort of victory – Trump won’t let them have it and Putin won’t either.”

3. Putin does not publicly admit the mistakes he made with Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Medinsky in March 2022 at Istanbul-I. They have now been corrected at the  consensus decision-making session with the military and intelligence chiefs (May 14 Kremlin session) and then on May 16 in Istanbul with Admiral Igor Kostyukov of the GRU seated on Medinsky’s right with General Alexander Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defence. For more details, click to listen.

Source: https://ria.ru/20250516/peregovory-2017151081.html
At top left, 2nd from left, Fomin, then Kostyukov (obscured) and then Medinsky.

4. Soft qualifier. This means Putin did not agree with several of Trump’s points relating to intelligence sharing, arms deliveries, Ukrainian elections.

5. Future tense. Putin suggested to  Trump that he stop Kellogg and FUGUP encouraging Zelensky. Putin made an especially negative remark about the role played by Prime Minister Starmer.

6. This is a Russian lesson in escalation control. By putting the memorandum of understanding in Russian hands to initiate, Putin returns to the key parts of the December 17, 2021, draft treaty which President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken summarily dismissed. Placing agreement on these terms first, before a temporary ceasefire, and making that ceasefire conditional on ceaseforce (halt to battlefield intelligence sharing and arms re-supply), Putin has invited Trump to choose between the US and FUGUP; between Zelensky and an elected successor;  and between his personal negotiator advisors, Steven Witkoff and General Kellogg.

7. Reiteration of the formula, negotiations first, then ceasefire.

8. Qualifier repeated – see Key 1.

9. This phrase refers to the European security architecture and mutual security pact of December 2021, as well as to the two declared objectives of the Special Military Operation — demilitarization and denazification.

10. Following Putin’s statement, Ushakov added: “other details of the telephone conversation. Among other things, Putin and Trump touched upon the exchange of prisoners of citizens of the two countries: the format of ‘nine nine’ is being worked out. The leaders also discussed their possible meeting and agreed that it should be productive, so the teams of the presidents will work out the content of the summit between Russia and the United States.”

President Trump’s Statement

Tweet source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114535693441367601

Trump followed in a stumbling speech in the Rose Garden in which, referring to the morning telephone call, he said “they [Putin] like Melania better.”

Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire [1] and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. [2] The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later. Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree [3]. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED. Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me,[4]  immediately after the call with President Putin. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope [5] has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin! [6]

Keys to Decode

1. Trump accepts that negotiations should come before ceasefire.

2. This amounts to rejection of Kellogg’s 22-point term paper first decided with Zelensky and FUGUP in London on April 23 and repeated by Macron the night before Trump’s telephone call; as well as rejection of Witkoff’s term paper discussed at the Kremlin on April 25.

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76797
From left to right: Witkoff’s interpreter, Witkoff, Putin, Ushakov, Russian interpreter, Kirill Dmitriev. For analysis of the term sheets, read this.

3. Agreement with the business deal-making which Witkoff has been discussing with Kirill Dmitriev. For the deal beneficiaries on both sides, read this.

4. This list includes two Germans, both Russia haters — Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen, former German defense minister and supporter of the German rearmament plan to continue the war with Russia into the future. The British Prime Minister has been dropped by Trump, and also Polish Prime Minister Tusk. Included for the first time in this context are the Italian and Finnish representatives with whom Trump has demonstrated personal rapport. Research by Manos Tzafalias indicates that there is a substantial money interest in Finland for Trump’s associate, Elon Musk.

5. Prompt from the Catholic convert, Vice President Vance.

Vance and Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV on May 18. They invited the Pope to make an official visit to Washington. The last papal visit to the White House was in September 2015 on the invitation of President Obama and Vice President Biden.

6. Trump has covered his disappointment at failing to hold a summit meeting with Putin in Istanbul on the afternoon of May 16 by dismissing the negotiations which occurred without him. For details of Trump’s abortive summit plan, read this.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

When President Trump ran for office in 2024 he promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine within 100 days of taking office.  The unofficial centerpiece of his plan was the proposals raised publicly by US General Kellogg earlier in 2024. While Trump in 2024 did not officially adopt the Kellogg proposals as his plan to end the war, it is clear in retrospect he unofficially embraced the Kellogg plan. One of his first unofficially appointments before even taking office in January was to task Kellogg to explore responses to his—Kellogg’s— proposals among the interested parties.

It is important to note that the Trump plan to negotiate an end to the war during his first 100 days in office has been the Kellogg Plan, revised somewhat to represent a US political compromise within the Trump administration between the Trump neocons—Rubio, Walz, etc.—and those in the administration who advocate a faster US extrication from the costly and unwinnable war—i.e. Vance, Witkoff, et. al. Thus a ‘Kellogg Plus’ US plan.

At this past week’s EU/UK meeting in London, however, ‘Kellogg Plus’ died and was buried. Put on the table for discussion by the USA as a possible unified west/NATO solution to end the Ukraine war by a  compromise with Russian positions, the Kellogg plan was never even discussed by the Europeans or the Ukrainian delegation sent to London. It was rejected and ‘killed off’ by a unified Europe & Ukraine opposition.

As others have reported, the Europeans and Ukraine had developed their own set of proposals over the past few weeks in the flurry of their meetings in Europe, the most recent occurring in Paris. London was the meeting in which the Europeans expected the US delegation to discuss the Euro-Ukraine plan which differed substantially from the US ‘Kellogg Plus’ proposals. The US reportedly caught the Europeans by surprise, presented their plan for discussion in lieu of the Europeans’.  The latter then refused to discuss the Kellogg plan and, in return, the US delegation left the meeting..

Having had a copy of the US plan just before the London meeting, Zelensky publicly, and in somewhat insulting language, rejected the US plan outright. He followed up after the meeting with another public statement to the media declaring “There is nothing to talk about”.  His European supporters, notably Macron of France and Starmer of UK, quickly joined him and publicly declared the same. It is now clear the US proposals are rejected in their entirety, both by Ukraine and the Europeans

The US had announced its plan was its ‘best and final offer’ to all the parties as the basis for starting negotiations, including Russia, and threatened to exit the negotiations process altogether if not accepted by all.  Whether it does has yet to be determined.

Today, April 25, 2025, Trump special envoy meets with Putin in Moscow to discuss the same Kellogg proposals. It is highly likely Putin will not accept the offer in its entirety either, but may accept some elements and declare it a basis to continue discussions—unlike Zelensky or the Europeans who have rejected it outright and completely.

Given that total rejection—and regardless of the outcome of the Witkoff-Putin meeting in Moscow, it is clear the first phase of the Trump administration’s attempt to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict has come to an abrupt end.

So what was the Kellogg Plan proposed by the USA that was so abruptly shot down by Zelensky and the Europeans? And what was their alternative proposal that they thought the US would accept as the starting point of negotiations with the Russians—a move by the Europeans to put them back in the negotiations game alongside the Americans as equals, a role so far denied them to their great consternation?

Here are the main elements of the Kellogg Plus American plan:

+ No NATO membership offered to Ukraine nor Ukraine to seek membership, although Ukraine could join the European Union

+ Recognition de jure of Crimea as part of Russia and Lughansk province now fully occupied by Russia

+ Ceasefire implementation details to be worked out by Russia & Ukraine, without Europe or US participation

+ Recognition de facto the other three east Ukraine regions (Donetsk, Zaporozhie, Kherson) now occupied by Russian forces along the current combat line

+ Lifting of US sanctions since 2014 on Russia, leaving Europe sanctions to Europe to decide

+ Europe could offer Ukraine security guarantees if it wanted but the USA would not

+ US and Russia would continue to explore joint deals on energy and industry

+ The US would operate the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant and distribute its resources to both Ukraine and Russia

+ Russia also gives up its control of the dam on the Dnipr, its territory in Kherson where the nuclear power plant is located, its occupation of far western ‘spit’ of Kherson on the river, and the area in the Kharkov province Russia also now occupies

+ US & Ukraine conclude a minerals deal, with participation by Europe as well

+ The Plan said nothing about the size of Ukraine’s army after the war’s end

In negotiations of agreements, sometimes what’s left out intentionally is as important as what’s included. Here’s some key omissions in the US plan:

+ No reference to the size of the Ukrainian military as part of a peace deal, or whether Ukraine could build up its forces while ceasefire and negotiations continued

+ No reference to whether NATO troops were to participate in any peacekeeping operations in Ukraine after the war

+ No mention of whether or how Ukraine might be compensated and rebuilt, by whom, or whether Russia’s $260 billion assets in European banks would be used

The Europeans were shocked, reportedly, by the provisions of the Kellogg Plus plan. They had expected the US to attend London to discuss the plan they had alternatively hammered out in the preceding weeks with the assumed approval of Ukraine.  That alternative plan was fundamentally different from the USA’s. In fact, it is better described not as a plan to reach some kind of a compromise settlement to the conflict, but a plan that amounted to a capitulation of Russia in the conflict.

The Europeans proposed something historically similar to the France-Britain 1918 armistice agreement on Germany that ended world war I.  That armistice was a ceasefire after which the victors—France and Britain—imposed impossible terms on Germany, which were eventually forced on Germany and which, in the end historically, led to the continuation of the world war in 1939. The 1918 negotiations was an agreement forced by victors on the defeated. The problem in Ukraine today, is that the Russians are clearing winning militarily and it is the Ukrainians and Europeans who are likely the defeated before this year’s end on the battlefield.

Here’s the elements of the Europeans-Ukraine 2025 ‘Armistice Plan’, which they had hoped, were the USA to accept as basis for negotiations, would put them—the Europeans—back on an equal footing in negotiations with the USA that the latter has thus far denied them since discussions between the US and Russia were opened in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in March.

The Main Elements of the European Armistice Plan:

+ Russia & Ukraine accept an unconditional ceasefire. Details of the implementation of the ceasefire subsequently negotiate by all four parties together: Russia, Ukraine, Europe and USA

+ Russia required to return all prisoners, troops and children allegedly kidnapped but no mention of Ukraine similar release of prisoners, etc.

+ Security Guarantees to Ukraine provided by US and Europe, along lines of NATO article 5 language; Ukraine may join NATO at a later date

+ No limits or restrictions on Ukraine’s size of military. Ukraine allowed to rebuild army and weapons during ceasefire negotiations

+ Europe and other States may send troops to Ukraine as part of peacekeeping force

+ No reference made to Russia right to Crimea or other occupied territories

+ Ukraine to control the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant, with US only assisting. Also Ukraine control Dnipr river and Kharkov dam

+ Russian assets in European banks remain frozen until Ukraine compensation for damages is determined by negotiations

+ Sanctions on Russia remain in place. Any relief of sanctions reinstated if Russia breaches agreement in any way

It should be noted this European proposal is not the plan Ukraine has been proposing the last two and a half years. Ukraine/Zelensky’s position to end the war hasn’t changed since late 2022.

Ukraine’s Terms for Ending the War:

Almost three years to the day this April, following Russia’s initial invasion in February 2022 and territorial gains across Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine representatives met in Istanbul, Turkey and worked out details of terms tentatively to end the conflict. The terms of Istanbul I, as it is called, included Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO, Crimea remaining in Russia but the other four provinces of east Ukraine remaining in Ukraine providing assurances were given its almost total Russian population be allowed to practice its Russian Orthodox religion, speak Russian, and continue other cultural practices—all of which were being denied by the Kiev regime at the time in the hands of ultra-nationalist, proto fascist forces intent on denying the same to its eastern Russian population. The shelling of cities in the east by Ukraine forces also had to stop.

Ukraine tentatively agreed to Istanbul I, took the terms back to Zelensky in Kiev, who reportedly was considering signing them—until then UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, flew into Kiev and convinced Zelensky that unlimited NATO funds and weaponry would be forthcoming, that Russia would collapse politically and economically if Ukraine resisted militarily and the war with Russia should therefore continue.  Zelensky ultimately agreed. Istanbul was abandoned and, after the initial Ukrainian tactical victories in the summer of 2022, Zelensky and Ukraine adopted the following hard line positions for negotiations that Ukraine formally retains to this day:

+ Russia should immediately exit all Ukraine territories, including Crimea

+ After exit, Ukraine will commence negotiations with Russia

+ Negotiation topics to focus on reparations paid to Ukraine by Russia

+ War crime tribunals of Russia leaders in Europe to follow

+ Ukraine never to cede control of the Zaporozhie nuclear plant to anyone

+ It will never agree to any limits or reductions of its military forces

+ Europe must agree to let Ukraine into NATO or else provide it Article 5 NATO equivalent security guarantees

Russia’s Terms for Ending the War

As Ukraine’s position evolved in the course of the first year of the war, so too did Russia’s.  After its initial offer in Istanbul in April 2022, and its retreat from areas around Kiev and in the south in Kherson Russian demands stiffened as well. That fall 2022, as Ukraine demands total capitulation by Russian forces, Putin established a new Russian position:

At the center of that was that now after referenda were conducted in the four regions of East Ukraine showing over-whelming voting to join Russia, the four provinces were now legally part of Russia and were non-negotiable.

Other Russian demands were Ukraine must not join NATO, must become neutral between Europe and Russia, and its government must be purged of fascist elements to ensure the same.

In early 2024 Putin gave an interview with US journalist, Tucker Carlson. In it he made an interesting remark which has largely been ignored by western media and which may yet be raised as part of any ultimate negotiations.  In it he described the far west Ukraine as not really part of the Slavic homeland of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.  He noted that territory was formerly Poland and Romania and was given by Stalin to Ukraine at the end of World War II. It was an historic hotbed of fascism and the region had strongly supported the Nazis in the world war, often doing their dirty work on the local resistance and the jews.  Putin then suggested if the west wanted this region, he didn’t have any great opposition to it, if they were that foolish to accept its inherent pro fascist elements.

Later in June 2024 Putin established Russia’s most recent position for a negotiated end of the conflict which has remained to this day. These terms include:

+ No NATO membership for Ukraine

+ Political neutrality by Ukraine

+ Ukraine government remove neo-nazi politicians from its government

+ Recognize that Crimea and the four provinces are now legally part of Russia

+ To ensure Ukraine is no threat to Russia, it must reduce its military force to around 80,000

Why European Obstinacy Toward Continuing the War?

Many observers in America and elsewhere in the world have been perplexed about why the European leadership—especially those of the larger countries Britain, France and now Germany—have been so consistently in favor of continuing the war?  They ask questions like: don’t they (European leaders) see that the war cannot be won? That Ukraine is losing? That it may mean an irrevocable split between the USA and Europe and break up of NATO itself? Can Europe actually go it alone, providing the massive funding to Ukraine and weapons it clearly does not have the economic base to produce by itself?

Here’s some possible explanations for the European obstinate support for Zelensky, Ukraine and for continuing the war:

1) European leaders are politically committed in terms of their personal careers to the war, both at national and Euro-wide institutional (EU Commission, EU Council, etc.) levels. Should the war end on Russian terms, it will be perceived as a personal defeat for them with repercussions for their personal careers

2) War is often a convenient diversion by politicians from problems at home in their own constituencies. It’s not the first time in history politicians start and continue wars to stay in office

3) Some European/NATO have a visceral bias against and hate for anything Russian. This is especially true of the Baltics states’ leaders and also to some extent for Poland, Finland, and even for Britain

4) The War continuance serves to keep NATO from falling apart (while it also has the opposite effect). So long as the war continues, perhaps US and Trump can not leave NATO so quickly or completely

5) The War is clearly pushing Europe toward building its own defense industry and independent military force. For decades it’s been overly dependent on the US for weapons provision and massive funding of NATO operations in Europe which has meant significant US dollars inflow to Europe. Europe leaders now talk of spending trillions of Euros on defense, important for boosting an otherwise slowing stagnating real economy for almost two decades now. Without the war—and media manufactured threat of an eventual Russia invasion of Europe should it win in Ukraine—it is impossible for Europe to spend trillions Euros planned for a new defense industry.

6) One must assume some European leaders—especially those less competent in the umbrella EU Commission, EU Council, etc—actually believe Russia will invade Europe after Ukraine with a Russian army barely a million when it took 15 million Russians to take east Europe and Germany during world war II at the cost of 20 million killed.

7) Some European generals and no doubt politicians have stated and believe that Russia will lose the war if NATO just stays committed and fights for another year. This is the original argument that dominated NATO thinking back in 2022: that Russia’s economy can sustain a war for long and opposition to Putin will quickly result in his overthrow. How that view succeeds today after three years of evidence to the contrary is difficult to understand.

Ukraine’s and Zelensky’s obstinacy and existential commitment to continue the war is more understandable and rational, notwithstanding its inevitable failure.

Zelensky must continue to war in order to continue martial law and, in turn, remain in office given that his authority as president expired in May 2024 and he’s no longer actually the president.  Should the war end elections in Ukraine will be held and he will almost certainly be forced out of his current role.

Without the protection of his office he then becomes personally vulnerable from several directions. He’ll be blamed by the radical nationalists for losing Ukraine territory and the death of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians will have been in vain. They’ll come after him. The Russian secret services may do the same indirectly. Or perhaps some everyday Russian, or Ukrainian, citizen who’ll blame him for their family losses. He won’t have the level of personal protection he enjoyed from the Americans, and now the British, while in office.

The War keeps the radical nationalists on his side so long as the fighting continues and he remains obstinate about any negotiations with the prospect of even the slightest compromise.

There’s also the question of wide spectrum of Ukraine society and political-social forces that have grown dependent on the flow of money from the west. Many politicians and political interests have been sharing in that western funds injection. Per Zelensky himself, Ukraine must spend $8 billion a month just as government workers wages and pensions. Ukraine’s broken economy cannot generate that. Then there are the hordes of shadowy arms traders making money off the flow of funds and weapons. And Ukraine companies and their western investors as well.

Trump’s Next Moves?

There’s been much conjecture in the US media, and talk by Trump administration team assigned to the war, that should the parties not accept the Trump Kellogg Plus plan then the US will simply walk away from the negotiations.  That’s not likely. There’s many ways to continue negotiations. In the case of Russia and US that’s simple as part of the future meetings planned to discuss restoring diplomatic relations and defining economic deals and cooperation.

Some clarity where Trump’s going next may emerge from the WItkoff-Putin meeting now underway.  Trump needs Putin to agree to something to keep the ball rolling and keep at bay US critics who’ll say it’s futile to negotiate with Putin and Russia. On the other hand, Putin cannot embrace too much a plan that clearly is designed to get Russia to de facto freeze the war in place or even slow Russian offensives.

The war cannot be concluded by negotiations designed to end the fighting; it can only be concluded on the battlefield that leads to negotiations that then conclude the conflict.

The most likely outcome of the war is a military one.  Russia will have to take more territory in order to convince Ukraine and Europe allies that if it doesn’t agree to Russia’s fundamental demands Ukraine may lose even more territory. Russia will need to succeed in major new offensives in the north and south to create that realization and scenario.

The question is whether Russia’s Special Military Operation, SMO, is sufficiently large enough to do so. 800,000 men and voluntary recruits may not prove sufficient. It should not be forgotten that Ukraine was ‘conquered’ in 1944-45 by a force of more than three million in arms. Modern technology perhaps does not require that many but nonetheless requires more than 800,000 given the scope of the front lines and the fact Russia, while it has an advantage of 2 to 1 in combat manpower, that ratio is probably not enough for a complete military victory.

However, one more proviso is relevant. It’s not impossible that Ukraine’s army collapses later this summer, especially if the USA and Trump pull out of weapons deliveries and discontinue surveillance and targeting support for Ukraine forces. But that depends on Trump’s next after next move.

Returning with a token concession from the Witkoff-Putin meeting is not sufficient. To end the war, as Trump says he wants to do, will require a hard break of US involvement militarily, logistically and financially—and soon.  He will have to ‘bite the bullet’ no later than June and cut Ukraine loose. And perhaps ‘stick a stake’ in the political heart of those Europeans who have been playing the USA to provide them their military toys and games for almost eighty years now.

The post Why Trump’s Ukraine War ‘Kellogg Plan’ Collapsed appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jack Rasmus.

Poland is particularly striking in this regard, having always positioned itself as a defender against the continent’s enemies, perceived or otherwise. This messianic purpose was well on show with the exploits of King John III Sobieski in his triumphant defence of Vienna against the Ottoman Empire in 1683. The seemingly endless wars against Russia, including the massacres and repressions, have also left their wounding marks on a fragile national psyche.

These marks continue to script the approach of Warsaw’s anxiety to its traditional enemy, one that has become fixated with a nuclear option, in addition to a massive buildup of its armed forces and a defence budget that has reached 4.7% of its national income. While there is some disagreement among government officials on whether Poland should pursue its own arsenal, a general mood towards stationing the nuclear weapons of allies has taken hold. (As a matter of interest, a February 21 poll for Onet found that 52.9 percent of Poles favoured having nuclear weapons, with 27.9 percent opposed.)

This would mirror, albeit from the opposite side, the Cold War history of Poland, when its army was equipped with Soviet nuclear-capable 8K11 and 3R10 missiles. With sweet irony, those weapons were intended to be used against NATO member states.

The flirtatious offer of French President Emmanual Macron to potentially extend his country’s nuclear arsenal as an umbrella of reassurance to other European states did make an impression on Poland’s leadership. Prudence might have dictated a more reticent approach, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk would have none of that before the Polish parliament. In his words, “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” According to the PM, “this is a race for security, not for war.”

The Polish President, Andrzej Duda, is also warm to the US option (he has been, over his time in office, profoundly pro-American), despite Tusk’s concerns about a “profound change in American geopolitics”. He was already ruminating over the idea in 2022 when he made the proposal to the Biden administration to host US nuclear weapons, one that was also repeated in June 2023 by then-Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. To have such weapons in Poland was a necessary “defensive tactic […] to Russia’s behaviour, relocating nuclear weapons to the NATO area,” he explained to the BBC. “Poland is ready to host this nuclear weapon.”

Duda then goes on to restate a familiar theme. Were US nuclear weapons stored on Polish soil, Washington would have little choice but to defend such territory against any threat. “Every kind of strategic infrastructure, American and NATO infrastructure, which we have on our soil is strengthening the inclination of the US and the North Atlantic Alliance to defend this territory.” To the Financial Times, Duda further reasoned that, as NATO’s borders had moved east in 1999, “so twenty-six years later there should also be a shift of the NATO infrastructure east.”

Much of this seems like theatrical, puffy nonsense, given Poland’s membership of the NATO alliance, which has, as its central point, Article 5. Whether it involves its protection by a fellow NATO ally using conventional or nuclear weapons, hosting such nuclear weapons is negated as a value. Poland would receive collective military aid in any case should it be attacked. But, as Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists reasons, an innate concern of being abandoned in the face of aggression continues to cause jitters. Tusk’s remarks were possibly “a signal of concern – maybe to motivate the United States, but clearly designed to play on the French and perhaps the British.”

The crippling paranoia of the current government in the face of any perceived Russian threat becomes even less justifiable given the presence of US troops on its soil. According to the government’s own information, a total of 10,000 troops are present on a rotational basis, with US Land Forces V Corps Forward Command based in Poznań. In February, Duda confirmed to reporters after meeting the US envoy to Ukraine Gen. Keith Kellogg that there were “no concerns that the US would reduce the level of its presence in our country, that the US would in any way withdraw from its responsibility or co-responsibility for the security of this part of Europe.”

Duda goes further, offering a sycophantic flourish. “I will say in my personal opinion, America has entered the game very strongly when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine. I know President Donald Trump, I know that he is an extremely decisive man and when he acts, he acts in a very determined and usually effective way.” With those remarks, we can only assume that the desire to have massively lethal weapons on one’s own soil that would risk obliterating life, limb and everything else is but a sporting parlour game of misplaced assumptions.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

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The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – November 27, 2024 President-elect Trump names decorated general Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.