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a place in the history books......

It is already certain that the high-level Russian-American meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh will have a place in the history books.

Together with a recent telephone conversation between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and statements made in Germany by US vice president JD Vance and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, the Riyadh talks show that something very dangerous has ended: namely the bizarre period of non-communication between the world’s two largest nuclear powers that had been imposed by US obstructionism.

 

Shutting the EU and Ukraine out of the talks is the only way to peace
With Russia and the US finally sitting down for negotiations, we now live in a slightly more normal world

 

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

 

We are now in a – slightly – more normal world again, where Washington has returned to the minimum requirement of diplomacy: maintaining dialogue, as Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has highlighted in his briefing after the meeting. Moreover, US representatives have explicitly acknowledged that such talks should reflect the national interest of the participating states. That is another important and potentially very promising return, namely to both capital-R Realism – as a way of thinking about international relations – and realism as such, as the healthy habit of not fantasizing. Lavrov noted that aspect as well.

The question that is harder to answer is what precisely has just begun in Riyadh (and, clearly, nothing has been finished yet). Because there can be no doubt that something has started: According to Lavrov, the talks were “very useful,” characterized by not merely “hearing” but actually “listening to” each other. That is not formal phraseology. Clearly, Moscow feels that this has, at the very least, not been a dead end. And we are not hearing anything to the contrary from the American side. So far, so good.

We all know what could be starting: obviously, the end of the Ukraine War. Beyond that, both Russia and the new US leadership have declared an interest in a broader normalization of their relationship, call it détente 2.0, if you wish. This, in turn, could affect international politics more generally. And finally, there is an economic aspect that both sides clearly treat as no less important than politics alone.

In terms of geopolitics, there is one thing Washington should not expect: any attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and its current allies and partners will fail. Moscow has already made it clear that, for instance, its relationship with Iran is not up for grabs.

Regarding the economics, it is striking that at the same moment when Moscow’s sending of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) head Kirill Dmitriev to Riyadh shows that the US and Russia may well leave the idiocy of Western economic warfare behind, EU commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has signaled that his politically powerless and economically anemic bloc will stick to vastly self-harming sanctions. Well, good luck with that. And also, it won’t last.

Russia’s signaling that it can accept Ukraine’s full EU membership is evidence that Moscow fears nothing from that direction. Indeed, burdening the EU with what will be left of Ukraine may even appear advantageous to Moscow.

Current, desperate EU attempts to be even more bellicist than the US and cobble together a coalition of the obstinate to keep the Ukraine War going even without US support are unimpressive. It’s simple: Even with American commitment, the West and Ukraine’s Zelensky regime have been defeated by Russia. Without it, the defeat would only get more catastrophic. And then, Lavrov has also been clear that Russia will not agree to any backhanded introduction of NATO troops as “peacekeepers.”

And here is the final take-away point from Riyadh: Locking out the NATO-EU European “elites” and the Zelensky regime works and promotes results, cooperation, and peace. Perhaps, the populations of both EU-Europe and Ukraine should start excluding their “elites” as well. 

https://www.rt.com/news/612964-russia-us-talks-peace/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

opinion of a zero...

Volodymyr Zelensky insists he won’t accept a US-Russia deal on Ukraine without Kiev’s input.

But does his opinion matter?

Ukraine today is a devastated country, deserted by much of its people and critically dependent on foreign aid.

Over 6.1 million Ukrainian refugees had been registered in Europe by mid-2024, according to UN estimates. One can only guess how many Ukrainians opted not to register their refugee status out of fear of being deported and press-ganged into armed service.

With the Ukrainian economy on its last legs, Kiev has received over $30 billion in US budget aid from just to pay salaries to state employees.

Foreign companies like Vanguard and BlackRock swept in to profit from this crisis, buying assets in Ukraine at bedrock prices. Much of Ukraine’s agricultural land is now Ukrainian in name only.

Large proportions of Ukraine’s most valuable assets, such as natural resource deposits and industrial facilities, were located in the territories that chose to join Russia rather than submit to the rule of neo-Nazis in Kiev.

Ukraine has been saddled with an enormous external debt due to all the credit it has been receiving from abroad. Now, Kiev faces the prospect of losing half of its natural resources to the US as repayment for the financing that turned out to be a loan.

Foreign black market transplantologists have been operating in Ukraine for months now, harvesting organs from injured Ukrainian soldiers.

US biowarfare experts treat Ukraine as their own playground where they can conduct dangerous research without the risk of a containment breach endangering American lives.

US and British intelligence agencies took charge of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) since 2014, making it subservient to the West.

And although no one has said anything about deciding Ukraine's fate without Kiev's input, the question remains: how much does Zelensky's opinion matter in this context?

https://sputnikglobe.com/20250217/why-ukraine-has-no-bargaining-power-in-us-russia-peace-talks-1121576608.html

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

clean up....

Moscow and Washington need to “clean up the legacy” left by the former US President Joe Biden’s administration that ruined the ties between the two states, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at the Russian State Duma on Wednesday, having returned from talks with US diplomats in the Saudi capital on Tuesday, Lavrov described the meeting in Riyadh as a first step toward rebuilding relations between the countries. The bilateral negotiations were led by Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and aimed to lay the groundwork for ending the Ukraine conflict and normalizing ties between Russia and the US.

“We have started to move away from the brink of the abyss to which the Biden administration had led us, but these are only the first steps,” Lavrov told lawmakers, commenting on the talks.

“For now, we need to ‘clean up’ the legacy of the Biden administration, which did everything to destroy… the foundation of a long-term partnership between our countries,” he added. According to the diplomat, “the movement towards normalizing relations in all areas is beginning.”

There is, at least, a declared readiness to start on this course. And to resolve not only the Ukraine crisis, but to create conditions for the restoration and expansion of partnership in trade, economic and geopolitical spheres,”Lavrov stated. He noted that Washington’s representatives expressed marked interest in removing “artificially created”obstacles to potential joint initiatives with Russia in many areas, including economic and foreign policy.

Among other things, the sides agreed to restore embassy staffing and form high-level teams to begin work on the potential Ukraine peace settlement.

“We welcome this,” Lavrov said, noting that the countries could eventually return to the state of cooperation they had prior to the Ukraine conflict and the West’s sanctions war on Russia.

“There will always be problems, but the main thing is to meet, listen and hear one another, make decisions that will be realistic with regard to the partners they concern,” he stated.

READ MORE: Putin and Trump could meet this month – Peskov 

Tuesday’s negotiations have been described as “truly monumental” in Washington.

Following the talks, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also acknowledged that the West would need to address the sanctions imposed on Russia in order to reach a lasting solution to the conflict and to restore relations. Later on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump told journalists he felt “much more confident”about the prospects of a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine amid the budding rapprochement with Moscow.

https://www.rt.com/news/613009-russia-us-biden-clean-up/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

GUSNOTE: SOME PEOPLE ASK WHY WAS UKRAINE NOT INVITED TO THE TALKS? SIMPLE: THIS CONFLICT WAS AN AMERICAN EMPIRE UNDECLARED WAR ON RUSSIA. UKRAINE WAS ONLY A PLAYING FIELD...