By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Tomorrow, Monday June 2, the second round of “direct” negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will open with the exchange of term sheets, the Russian memorandum and what retired US Army General Keith Kellogg calls the twenty-two points which have been drafted by the US and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine and Poland).

Speaking for President Donald Trump and the Europeans, Kellogg has announced  that he has read both term sheets, and that when the talks open in Istanbul,  the Ukrainian delegation will have behind them the national security advisors of the US, France, UK, and Germany. Kellogg believes both sides in the talks, the US-backed Ukrainians and the Russians, have fresh escalation capacities still to be used against each other. According to Kellogg, Trump is aiming to prevent President Vladimir Putin countering each one of the Ukrainian allies now arming their escalation, including – he added – Finland.

 “The reason I believe the US has to stay involved”, Kellogg said, “is because of escalation…You have an escalation ladder. You better know when to get off it. If you don’t get off, you’ve got a big problem.”

In this discussion of India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan last month,  and Russia’s three-year Special Military Operation,  senior Indian military officers (retired), Lieutenant General Ravi Shankar and Brigadier Arun Saghal demonstrate how effective the Indian forces were in destroying Pakistan’s capability for escalation, and compelling the ceasefire Pakistan applied for.

Together, we discuss the Indian lessons and apply them to the next stage of Russia’s negotiations with all its adversaries on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Click for Sunday’s hour-long podcast.   

From Moscow a well-informed expert on Russian policy-making comments on the course of the negotiations to date between President Putin and President Trump. “We understand that Trump wanted a cheap and quick grandstanding victory as a gift from the Russians. So he played all his cards – placating Putin, complimenting him, threatening him, abusing him. Now all those cards have been used. The Russians stuck to its line, “Let’s have technical and detailed talks.” The Russians also adjusted their position to indicate they were willing to go for a ceasefire before a comprehensive end-of-war agreement, and even before the talks proceeded. But they did not move from their fundamental positions and in the meantime they have hit Ukrainians and kept on hitting harder than ever before. So Trump also got the messages from his generals, his intel, and the Europeans of the imminent Russian victories.”

“This was the build-up. Then let us add that the US aided and abetted the [May 20] attack on Putin. Either Trump was not briefed before or he was briefed in small print he couldn’t read. But now it’s crunch time. The Ukrainians are waiting for instructions from Washington. If there are no clear instructions from Trump, the Europeans will take charge and scuttle the talks, blaming Putin again. Let us see what Trump does next. It’s a matter of a few days now and Russians have played their hand well. If Trump claims to be walking away, this means he intends the Europeans to take charge of escalating the fight – and he will keep arming that.”

For the accompanying analysis by Lieutenant General Harimohan Iyer of the “new mode of warfare” used by the Indian military to stop Pakistan’s escalation options, click to view here.   These are Iyer’s illustrations of the escalation ladder.

Click on source to view enlarged slides -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncybpdCVOEk

Lieutenant General Shankar retired from the Indian Army as Director General of Artillery in October 2016.

Brigadier (retired) Saghal is one of the leading intelligence analysts in India. With a PhD from Allahabad University, he was the founding Director of the Office of Net Assessment, a unit of the Indian Integrated Defence Staff for preparing long-term strategic analyses and forecasts. He has also served as a consultant to the National Security Council, the principal advisor to the Prime Ministry on military and security policy.  Dr Saghal has also played leading roles in the Indian Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation (Cs3) and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

When he retired in 2024, Lieutenant General Harimohan Iyer was Commandant of the School of Artillery.

by Editor - Sunday, June 1st, 2025