The war in the Ukraine is a sideshow for President Donald Trump because he is escalating his preparations for war against Russia on other fronts and concentrating his main forces against China on the ground, Russia in space. This is Trump’s MEGA – Make the Empire Great Again.
This is also the reason he is signalling his readiness to make battlefield concessions to President Vladimir Putin which the European leaders are reluctant to accept. Their reason for that is the enormous new cost in US arms which Trump is demanding they start to pay.
“It’s a pretty evil world out there,” Trump announced on May 20. He was referring to Russian and Chinese nuclear missile capabilities to strike the US. Reviving President Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” threat from Moscow, and his “Star Wars” space shield, Trump said he is going one better.
“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland. The success rate is very close to 100 percent, which is incredible when you think of it, you’re shooting bullets out of the air…Now we’re number one in space by a lot. It’s not even close…I think you can rest assured there’ll be nothing like this. Nobody else is capable of building it either.”
Trump is repudiating Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine of strategic deterrence in practical effect between Washington and Moscow for more sixty years. Trump’s new idea is not MAD; it’s LUNACY – Launch Under Nuclear Ascendance Confidence Yessiree.
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.
In Soviet days Russians were famous for not smiling, at least not in public. In private, smiling was strictly between consenting adults.
Now it is a marketing ploy of Sberbank — the state savings bank run by Yeltsin-era leftover, German Gref – to invite its customers to smile whenever they make payments. This combines several bank profit-making lures in two formulas — spending is more to smile about than saving; borrowing money you don’t have to spend is even more to smile about.
The bank is also selling facial recognition technology to reduce its cost of securing computer and smartphone transactions and cutting the compensation it must pay out for fraud. About that, Gref’s advertisement for the smile-as-you-pay scheme shows a popular television actor who plays a fraudster who is smiling because he has reformed himself and is spending money he hasn’t stolen.
So, are Russians happy because they are convinced their money is secure? Or are they smiling to con the bank that the money they are spending will not be paid back?
According to President Vladimir Putin a few days ago, telling Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina to smile at a business conference: “Elvira Sakhipzadova, I’ll give you my word now. You see, smiles too, mean everything is all right. Everyone is smiling, everyone is in a good mood.”
Asking Russians if they feel happier these days, when the country is at war, is not as straightforward as several of the NATO warfighting countries may believe. This is because Russians have long been far more anxious about the threat of war than the populations of those countries fighting Russia. Russians know their history better and remember the past more accurately than the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
According to the independent national pollster Levada Centre of Moscow, “since 1989, the main fears of Russians remain the diseases of loved ones (51% in April 2025), war (48%), and loss of employment due to illness or accident (38%). Also, one in four are afraid of old age and helplessness (27%), natural disasters (26%), and poverty (24%)…In recent years, respondents have become less afraid of illness among loved ones (decrease by 7 percentage points since July 2019); poverty (decrease by 15 percentage points since February 2021); the arbitrariness of the authorities (decrease by 11 percentage points since July 2019), and revival of mass repression (decrease by 6 percentage points since February 2021).”
Fear of war is on the rise in Europe, but this apprehension is still less than half the Russian level. Americans, by contrast, are much more anxious about domestic violence at home than war abroad.
Russians are measurably happier than Americans with the direction they think the country is taking. According to Levada’s last poll, “in February 2025, the mood of Russians improved slightly compared to the end of last year and the beginning of this year: the majority of respondents (68%) have been in a normal, calm state in recent days. Since the last measurement in January, the proportion of those who experienced tension, irritation, and fear or melancholy has slightly decreased (to 16%), and the proportion of those who were in a good mood has slightly increased (to 15%).”
“As the experience of recent years shows”, VTsIOM — the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion – reports “the level of happiness demonstrates amazing resilience to external shocks. Let’s recall the pandemic. Contrary to the pessimistic forecasts, it did not discourage Russians: in April 2020, shortly after the introduction of the first coronavirus restrictions, the level of happiness was close to today. Moreover, until the end of 2020, the indicator didn’t fall below 80%; this partly indicates the psychological strength of our fellow citizens.” VTsIOM is state owned and contracted.
What Russians tell pollsters by telephone or face to face isn’t quite, much less all, they are feeling.
Three measurements of how they act are more revealing: that’s how much alcohol Russians drink; what painkiller tablets they swallow; and what the pharmaceutical companies report to be the volume of their sales of anti-depressant drugs. Since the Covid pandemic began in 2020 and ended in 2021, and then the Special Military Operation commenced in February 2022, the figures show that vodka consumption is almost unchanged but whisky, brandy (cognac) and cocktail mixes are on the rise. Painkillers and analgesics are falling in volume of off-the-shelf sales. But by contrast, doctors’ prescription sales of anti-depressants have hit an all-time record high in 2024; the consumption through February of this year has been growing at a rate of between 15% and 17%.
This is either a dramatic change in the Russian mind; or it’s a revolution in the Russian treatment of pain; or it’s the result of more money, more doctors — more smiles at the bank, as Putin recommended.
On Monday, May 12, the United States pushed the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the aircraft safety watchdog, to vote behind closed doors to adopt a secret resolution convicting Russia of shooting-down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014.
Unlike the Dutch show trial which in November 2022 convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of the same crime, the ICAO reached its verdict without the appearance of an open proceeding or of openly tested evidence. It’s a put-up job.
William Raillant-Clark, the ICAO communications chief at the Montreal headquarters, was asked to provide a text of the resolution and identification of the countries voting for, against, abstaining, and absent. Raillant-Clark replied: “In accordance with the Council’s Rules of Procedure, the vote was taken by secret ballot.” He refused to disclose the resolution itself; the numbers of votes without the names of the countries; or the reason for keeping everything but the conviction of Russia secret. He answered: “The Council’s considerations based on reason of law and fact, will be issued in the coming weeks.”
The spokesman was then asked for a copy of ICAO’s Rules of Procedure. He refuses to answer.
The decision of ICAO to go to war with Russia, using its aviation safety mandate to cover up the evidence of what really happened to MH17, destroys the organization for the future. It follows the destruction of the global organization for the safety of nuclear power generation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW); the International Committee of the Red Cross; and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.
In his 48-minute speech in Riyadh, President Donald Trump was applauded many times for rewriting the past of US wars in the Middle East, and also the future of US wars in the region, and elsewhere. From the Arab point of view, the outcome of these wars has been the destruction of Arab national ideology by Jewish national ideology, and independently, the success of Arab oil money.
All that remains of the former is the Yemen resistance of Ansar Allah and the Houthis. “We had 52 days of thunder and lightning like they’ve never seen before,” Trump claimed. “This was a swift, ferocious, decisive and extremely successful use of military force…” And Iran: “The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran, which has caused unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and beyond. There could be no sharper contrast with the path you have pursued on the Arabian Peninsula, than the disaster unfolding right across in the Gulf of Iran.” “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors,” Trump proposed “o inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before.”
For the past of the war against Russia, Trump repeated the falsehood that “[US withdrawal from Kabul, August 30, 2021] is probably why Putin decided to go into Ukraine, something he never would have done if I were president.”
For the future, Trump said he was sending his men to Istanbul – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Keith Kellogg, Steven Witkoff. “Talks are being held in Turkey later this week, probably on Thursday and they could produce some pretty good results. Our people are going to be going there, Marco’s going to be going there. Others are going to be going, and we’ll see if we can get it done.” Trump’s earlier hint that he might go himself has been removed.
Enroute to Qatar, about noon on Wednesday, Moscow time, Trump was asked if he would meet President Vladimir Putin in Turkey; he replied that he might and that he might not. “[Putin] would like me to be there and that’s a possibility if we could end the war I’d be thinking about it. So we have a very full situation now, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it to save a lot of lives and come back. But, uh, yeah, I think they’re thinking about something. I don’t know that he would be there if I’m not there.”
Trump has arranged for Zelensky to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and wait in Ankara for Trump to appear. Zelensky has already said he has agreed with Erdogan, Trump and the European allies on the formula – “full and unconditional ceasefire” first, negotiations to follow. Zelensky’s ultimatum is that he will go to Istanbul with Trump if Putin comes — “Putin is the one who determines everything in Russia, so he is the one who has to resolve the war. This is his war. Therefore, the negotiations should be with him.”
Responding to Zelensky’s challenge, Peskov said: ““We respond only to Putin’s statements.” Russian officials do not refer to Zelensky by a title because his current rule by martial law is not recognized, and because new elections to replace him are a Russian condition for denazification of the Ukraine. New elections are also on the Russian term sheet sent to Trump for tabling in Istanbul.
“We remember the 2019 summit in Paris,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has posted, referring to the last and only meeting Putin has had with Zelensky, “for Vladimir Zelensky’s provocative negotiating tactic when he suddenly refused to approve the outcome document despite the fact that it was already drafted and coordinated by the parties involved, including Kiev. He asked to remove the provision on the separation of forces along the entire line of contact and insisted on replacing it with a provision which provided for the separation of forces in three sections only. However, he failed to deliver even on these commitments which he had articulated himself… Today, these same countries are pushing [Zelensky] for a 30-day truce to give Kiev a respite and enable it to restore its military capabilities to be able to continue confronting Russia.”
Until hours ago, the Russian lineup in Istanbul appeared to be the same as with Rubio, Witkoff, and the now sacked Michael Waltz in Riyadh in February – Sergei Lavrov, Yury Ushakov, Kirill Dmitriev. Lavrov may have conveyed this in a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday night. On Wednesday afternoon, however, Lavrov was reported by Kommersant as not participating in Istanbul.
Since then Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cautioned: “The Americans are well aware of our position. We remain in contact. However, this is not the word [coordination] to use in this particular case,” After meeting with the Turkish ambassador in Moscow on Monday, Ryabkov told Tass: “The topics are the same that we have talked about repeatedly, which has been on the agenda lately.: how can we ensure a reliable, sustainable settlement of the situation, first of all addressing the primary sources of this conflict, resolving issues related to the denazification of the Kiev regime, ensuring recognition of the realities that have recently developed on earth, including the entry of new territories into the Russian Federation.”
When politicians fight wars to truce or ceasefire, there’s a mistake they often make. That is to give up escalation dominance, escalation control, to the adversary so that he gains confidence that when he is ready, he will resume fighting in a much stronger position than he was at the truce. In short, ceasefire doesn’t deter the resumption of fighting; it doesn’t make for ceaseforce.
As President Vladimir Putin prepares for Istanbul-II — the resumption of negotiations with the Ukraine proposed for May 15 — he has announced that he understands the difference better now than he did at Istanbul-I in March 2022. The Russian General Staff and the intelligence services believe so.
The aim of “serious negotiations”, Putin read from a statement, “is to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and to achieve a long-term last peace…in the course of these negotiations it will become possible to agree on some kind of new truce and a new ceasefire. And a real ceasefire that…would be the first step, I repeat, towards a long-term, sustainable peace, rather than a prelude to continuing armed conflict after the Ukrainian armed forces have been rearmed, re-equipped…Who needs such peace?”
The President took no questions from the press assembled to listen to him at 2 am on Sunday morning.
While Putin was addressing the departing heads of government and of state who had joined in the Moscow celebration of Victory Day, the strategic Russian ally who was absent, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sent Putin a message of his own after his brief war with Pakistan.
Through his air force chief, Air Marshal A.K. Bhakti, briefing the press later on the same day, May 11, the message was: “[It is] time to convey a message to our adversaries…We have the capability to target every system at these bases, and more. However, it was only a measured response to install good wisdom to our adversary to deter further escalation.”
In this podcast, Nima Alkhorshid, Ray McGovern and I discuss the tipping of the strategic balance which Russia is aiming to achieve against the Zelensky regime in Kiev and those who finance, arm and instruct it – Donald Trump, Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer. In parallel, Modi believes he has achieved this strategic tipping in the dismantling of Pakistan as a platform for China to threaten war against India in the future; we discuss whether the Indians are right to claim a strategic victory against China, too.
These are big questions for discussion. The answers are surprising, and although they are recognized in Moscow, they are not yet for public discussion. Click to watch.
As if it wasn’t already clear, the mainstream media led by Reuters, a Russia warfighting propaganda platform based in New York, have just announced that when President Donald Trump says he is for peace with Russia, he is either winking at his Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth or blinking at President Vladimir Putin.
Or else the coordination between the President’s mouth and his eyes fails from time to time and he cannot control his officials, staff, and advisors because they can’t follow when he contradicts himself.
Reporting on a Trump and Pentagon order for the US to halt arms deliveries to Ukraine, through the Polish hub at Rzeszow, and then retraction of the order and resumption of the delivery flights, Reuters says infighting is rife within the White House and the Pentagon, and that either Trump is unaware or he is unable to control it.
“The cancelations,” according to Reuters, “came after Trump wrapped up a January 30 Oval Office meeting about Ukraine that included Hegseth and other top national security officials, according to three sources familiar with the situation. During the meeting, the idea of stopping Ukraine aid came up, said two people with knowledge of the meeting, but the president issued no instruction to stop aid to Ukraine. The president was unaware of Hegseth’s order, as were other top national security officials in the meeting, according to two sources briefed on the private White House discussions and another with direct knowledge of the matter. Asked to comment on this report, the White House told Reuters that Hegseth had followed a directive from Trump to pause aid to Ukraine, which it said was the administration’s position at the time. It did not explain why, according to those who spoke to Reuters, top national security officials in the normal decision making process didn’t know about the order or why it was so swiftly reversed.”
The January 30 Oval Office meeting was secret. The official White House schedule for that day reveals only that Trump held a press briefing in the morning on the fatal helicopter and airliner crash over Washington the night before; lunched with Vice President JD Vance; and then signed executive orders for the rest of the afternoon.
What Vance decided that day with Trump isn’t revealed by Reuters’s sources, some of whom have been fired from their Pentagon and National Security Council posts.
According to the news agency, “three sources familiar with the situation said Hegseth misinterpreted discussions with the president about Ukraine policy and aid shipments without elaborating further. Four other people briefed on the situation said a small cadre of staffers inside the Pentagon, many of whom have never held a government job and who have for years spoken out against U.S. aid to Ukraine, advised Hegseth to consider pausing aid to the country. Two people familiar with the matter denied there was a true cutoff in aid. One of them described it as a logistical pause…It’s unclear if Trump subsequently questioned or reprimanded Hegseth. One source with direct knowledge of the matter said National Security Adviser [Michael] Waltz ultimately intervened to reverse the cancelations. Waltz was forced out on Thursday and is expected to be nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations…At least one of the staffers who had previously pushed for the administration to pull back its support for Kyiv, Dan Caldwell, was escorted out of the Pentagon for a leak he claims never happened. Caldwell, a veteran, served as one of Hegseth’s chief advisers, including on Ukraine.”
For more on Trump’s peace-is-war inside his own administration, the Caldwell sacking, and the Ozymandias strategy for outcome, read this.
The Reuters story has been amplified by the Russia warfighters in Washington, London, and Kiev to persuade Trump to escalate against Russia, not withdraw. “Despite the brief pause in February and the longer one that began in early March,” Reuters reports, “the Trump administration has resumed sending the last of the aid approved under U.S. President Joe Biden. No new policy has been announced.”
“This expose[s] a chaotic decision-making process and an unclear chain of command within former US President Donald Trump’s administration,” concludes Euromaidan Press, a Kiev propaganda outlet.
In this podcast with Nima Alkhorshid and Graham Fuller, we discuss how this is now playing out on all fronts – Russia and Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, and even Canada.
With the last of these, Trump has forced newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney to make a public capitulation. Twitching with nerves in the Oval Office on Tuesday (May 6), Carney did not challenge Trump as he repeated his threat to annex Canada, insult Carney’s predecessor prime minister, Justin Trudeau; claim personal credit for the outcome of the Canadian election; and falsify the resource and goods trade between the US and Canada. Trump also arranged a diplomatic snub for Carney when his aircraft landed.
By Lieutenant General P.R. Shankar & Brigadier Arun Sahgal, introduced by John Helmer @bears_with
On April 22, an Islamic terrorist group, backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), attacked Indian civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir, killing 26 and wounding 20.
“Although the civilian government in Islamabad has denied involvement,” reports Chatham House, the semi-official British think tank, “there is precedent for attacks on India taking place during periods when the Pakistani military feels it is being marginalized. In 1999, an attempt at rapprochement between the civilian governments in Islamabad and New Delhi – referred to the Lahore bus diplomacy – was derailed after Pakistani military-backed militants launched attacks in the Kargil area of Kashmir, leading both countries to war for the fourth time.”
“The attack comes at a time when the Pakistani military is on the back foot following a string of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and eroding public support for the army following the arrest and imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan and the persecution of his supporters. Pakistani army chief Asim Munir has sought to reaffirm the importance of the military to the preservation of the Pakistani state.”
The semi-official New York think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, noted “this terrorist attack is the worst in the state since the car bombing in 2019 in which a bus of Indian paramilitary soldiers was targeted in Pulwama, killing forty people. Furthermore, this attack was one of the worst targeting of civilians—ordinary tourists—in more than two decades.”
“India-Pakistan relations have been relatively restrained for the last few years, and the border has been stable. This attack could change that situation,” the Council warned. “India holds Pakistan squarely responsible for the continued ability of LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba] to carry out attacks. The civilian government in Pakistan, however, has denied responsibility. But despite the government’s denial, there has been a pattern of terrorist attacks occurring on Indian soil when the Pakistan military feels excluded from the geopolitical conversations. Current events could have given such an impetus: U.S. President Donald Trump has been in office for less than a hundred days, and in that short period, not only has Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington, but U.S. Vice President JD Vance was in New Delhi at the time of the attack.”
“President Trump made a strong statement of ‘full support’ for India on the social media platform Truth Social, stating the United States ‘stands strong with India against terrorism.’ But when it comes to Kashmir, India prefers to assert its sovereignty unilaterally…the Indian government is under pressure from the Indian public and media to have a robust response, which could also include military action. Modi has portrayed himself and his government as tough on security, and his government has been showcasing Kashmir as a stable region, safe for its residents and tourists. Exacerbating the tensions, the Pakistani government has declared that if India does block the [Indus] river waters, it would consider it an ‘act of war.’”
An Australian think tank, tilting against India, has reported the “strategic objectives” for Pakistan in the Pahalgam operation. “Modi knows that not responding to the attack will embolden a newly-resurgent parliamentary opposition, which has already sought to portray the development as a failure of his Kashmir policy. But more importantly, he knows – especially given the pan-India casualties of the attack – that anything short of a visibly strong reaction will fail to assuage the Indian public. At the same time, if Delhi does opt for a muscular response, it risks inadvertently raising the international profile of the Kashmir dispute, something the Modi government has desperately sought to avoid over the past decade.”
The Australian government is an active participant in the Quad, an anti-China alliance with the Japanese, US and Indian governments. Japan’s Foreign Ministry took India’s side during the 2019 Kashmir incident. It has changed its tune this time.
China has responded in three steps. At first, on April 23 the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing said: “We strongly condemn the attack. China firmly opposes all forms of terrorism.” On April 27, after Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by telephone with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Wang announced: “As an ironclad friend and an all-weather strategic cooperative partner, China fully understands Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns and supports Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and security interests.” He went on to say: “China advocates for a swift and fair investigation and believes that conflict does not serve the fundamental interests of either India or Pakistan, nor does it benefit regional peace and stability. China hopes both sides will remain restrained, move toward each other, and work together to de-escalate the situation.”
On May 1, China’s Ambassador to Islamabad Jiang Zaidong went to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to emphasize the priority of an investigation of the attack over military retaliation and escalation. “China understands Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns,” Jiang said, “and expressed China’s support for a prompt and impartial investigation into the incident and called on both India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, meet each other halfway, properly manage differences, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
The Russian Government response to the Indo-Pakistan conflict has been muted; also slow to become public. There were meetings on April 28 at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow at the level of the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors. The communiqués were slightly different. In the note on his meeting with Indian Ambassador Vinay Kumar, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said he had held a discussion, gave no advice, but hinted that Russia is on India’s side – “following the terrorist attack near Pahalgam in Kashmir Russia’s readiness to counter the global terrorist threat together with India was reaffirmed.”
Following Rudenko’s meeting with Pakistan’s Ambassador, Muhammad Khalid Jamali, “the Russian side called on both parties to exercise restraint and engage in constructive dialogue aimed at peacefully resolving their discrepancies.” Jamali later told Tass, the state news agency, that Pakistan is asking for Russian mediation in the conflict.
After several days of discussion behind the scenes, on May 3 Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone with his Indian counterpart, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. “The foreign ministers discussed topical issues of Russian-Indian interaction as well as the exasperation of Indian-Pakistani relations following the terrorist act in Pahalgam. Sergey Lavrov called to settle the differences between New Delhi and Islamabad by political and diplomatic means on a bilateral basis in conformity with the 1972 Simla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration. The ministers also discussed the timetable of the upcoming contacts at the top and high levels.”
The last sentence is a reference to the plan for President Vladimir Putin to visit India this month; the timing has yet to be confirmed. Prime Minister Modi had been invited to attend the Victory Day celebration this week in Moscow, but he had declined, nominating in his place Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. Singh has now been substituted by a deputy, Sanjay Seth, the minister of state for defense.
The next day, May 4, Lavrov announced he had received a telephone call from Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Dar, also Foreign Minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar. The Russian communiqué says they discussed the Kashmir conflict, but added a telltale disclaimer in the last line. “The Russian side stressed its readiness to contribute to a political settlement of the situation triggered by the April 22 terrorist attack in the Pahalgam area, should both Islamabad and New Delhi be interested.”
This is the Russian hint that India has not requested Russian mediation, and that for this reason, as Lavrov told Jaishankar the day before, it will not get between the two sides who should the “settle the differences between New Delhi and Islamabad…on a bilateral basis.”
This leaves Modi in escalation control; that’s to say, escalation dominance.
After the Victory Day celebration later this week, President Vladimir Putin has agreed to hold a summit meeting with President Donald Trump. “The Americans have repeatedly asked for a summit and the Kremlin has finally decided,” according to a reliable Moscow source, “that there is no need to spurn the extended hand.”
The source believes Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is the likely location. Preparatory discussions were held last week in Moscow when Putin telephoned the UAE President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Kremlin communiqué claimed “the current state of Russia-UAE relations…constitute a strategic partnership and…enables ongoing dialogue even on the most sensitive international issues.” That was on May 1. The next day Putin met with Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the President’s sons and his personal security chief, titled deputy prime minister.
The Moscow source says “the messages have been sent that it will not be a conclusive deal, only a meeting. This is a climb-down from the previous, public Russian position that a lot of work needs to be done first, before a presidential summit, by specialists. The Russians have understood there are no specialists on the US side yet, and the opportunity is right to shake hands first, then work out the details later.”
The White House press spokesman has announced Trump “will travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates [in this order] from May 13th, until May 16th.”
“It’s a display of the Russian hand of friendship and mutual security,” the Moscow source adds. “The Americans are offering nothing concrete but we believe Trump is disposed to giving Russia the security steps it needs.”
The source says the Kremlin is “neither surprised nor disappointed” at Trump’s May 1 tweet declaring that “many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II.” “It shows you how foolish the Kremlin faction was which has advocated inviting Trump to Red Square for May 9. Putin will give Trump his PR opportunity – but in the sand, not in Red Square.”
The shift in the Moscow consensus – from resistance on the part of the General Staff, the intelligence agencies, and the Foreign Ministry – has followed remarks by Vice President JD Vance. “It’s going to be up to them [Russia and Ukraine] to come to agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” he said on Friday (May 2). “It’s not going anywhere right [now]. It’s not going to end any time soon…Look, I am optimistic, but it’s hard to say…confident because the Russians and the Ukrainians – they’re the ones who have to take the final step. We got ‘em talkin’. We got ‘em offering peace proposals. We got the minerals deal done. I think we’re in a place where they’ve got to say we’re done with the fighting…but only Russia and Ukraine can make that decision. That’s not something even President Trump can do for ‘em.”
In Moscow this is interpreted as acceptance by Washington that the war will continue on Russia’s terms – slow advance westward, no massed offensive – and that it’s now up to “direct” negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to reach an agreement. “This is a double signal prompting Putin”, another Moscow source says, “to agree to a summit meeting with Trump now without preconditions and without pressure to agree on the Kellogg or Witkoff term sheets. In all likelihood, this will be a feel-good summit. No negotiations at all.”
The source adds a caution. “The planned meeting may be derailed at the last minute if the Ukrainians violate the Victory Day ceasefire [between May 8 and 11], and if Trump is either shown to be incapable of controlling the Kiev regime, or duplicitous in aiding the violations. If the Ukrainians do not observe it, the Russians will hit back hard, very hard, and then ask Trump if he still wants to meet. It might go to the wire.”
“When war and revolution come, remember the long years in which the storm was rising, and don’t blame the thunderbolt”.
That warning appeared in the Chicago Tribune in November 24, 1895. It was written by Clarence Darrow, then a young city lawyer working for railroads and also for unions in the years which followed the bitter, violent battles for limited work hours and higher wages. The Chicago union struggle initiated the May Day strike for protest and celebration between 1881 and 1886.
Today the US is one of the few countries in the world not to recognize the holiday, moving “Labour Day” from the spring to the fall to erase the history. Darrow (1857-1938) was to become the greatest courtroom lawyer in American history; today he is almost forgotten.
