@Cassiodorus

Russia's Special Military Operation will intensify its activity through the summer. Until Ukraine removes its NAZI troops from the western borderlands, which are populated by ethnic Russian civilians, the Russian army will be aggressively clearing out the remaining pockets of Nazi terrorists, and fortifying the new Russian border with Ukraine. These borderlands are part of the Soviet Union that were carelessly attached to Ukraine eastern border by the Americans, who created a big blob of stolen lands that they called Ukraine, in 1997. The Russian civilians who had settled there long ago have been under attack ever since. By the time Russia stepped in, more than 60,000 of them had been systematically exterminated by Ukraine's Nazi troops, because they were Russian.

What follows is the most recent report from Dmitry Orlov, who has moved to Russia to cover the SMO. His reports have been an insightful source of accurate information.

Update 15.05.25 17:45MSK: :: Russia's head negotiator Medinsky just gave a press conference which can be summarized as follows: İstanbul 2.0 will be a continuation of İstanbul 1.0 (which was so rudely interrupted 3 years ago) with the goals of eliminating the root causes of the conflict and establishing durable peace.

I interrupt regularly scheduled programming to present a bit of perspective on the direct talks between Russia and the badly damaged political remnant of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist republic as organized by the Bolsheviks Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev and inexplicably granted independence by the former Bolshevik Yeltsin (who was drunk at the time).

İstanbul 2.0 is just the second coming of İstanbul 1.0, again starring Putin's aide Medinsky and team. This afternoon they are supposed to start exercising their jowls against those of a cast of extras shipped in from Kiev. Before İstanbul 1.0 there was Minsk 2.0, and before that there was Minsk 1.0, and all of these turned out to be cynical, disingenuous efforts to delay Russian efforts at liberating territories peopled by Russians that somehow (because Yeltsin was drunk at the time?) ended up on the wrong side of an internationally meaningless Soviet-era administrative boundary.

İstanbul 1.0 was a good plan for federalizing, demilitarizing and denazifying former Ukrainian regions, but it was scuttled by the mopheaded dunce Boris Johnson on orders from Washington. He personally went to Kiev and ordered the Kiev regime to fight to the last Ukrainian. And this is exactly what the regime has been doing, with well over a million Ukrainians already dead. This fighting did not go well for the Ukrainian side and as a result of it Russia has added four new regions (Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporózhye and Kherson) — properly, through public referenda and in accordance with international law, regardless what anybody else thinks or says.

Here we come to a problem which İstanbul 2.0 may or may not help to sort out. You see, three of the four Russia's new regions happen to partially occupied by Ukrainian troops. It is incumbent on the Russian side to see to it that this occupation is temporary: securing sovereign Russian territory is a sworn duty and failure to do so is not an option. Thus, Russia can offer the Kiev regime a choice: withdraw from Russian lands voluntarily or just keep the war going and your troops will still exit these regions, but in body bags.

That is just for starters. It is also incumbent on the Russian side to achieve the stated objectives of Russia's Special Military Operation (SMO) in the former Ukraine, which are demilitarization, denazification and neutrality for the entire territory. These requirements were provided for by İstanbul 1.0, but then the Kiev regime received orders from its NATO masters to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian. Which it did. The NATO masters now think that it is time to pause the fighting, to regroup, rearm and retrain, and then to resume the mayhem; hence all the recent Western insistence on a temporary cease fire.

The problem with cease fires is that the Kiev regime doesn't control its Nazi battalions, which keep firing on Russian territory even if ordered to cease firing. The Russians proposed, and maintained, a 3-day cease fire during the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of their World War II victory over Nazi Germany, and the Ukrainian forces violated that cease fire 14.043 times. The Russians have documented these violations and are now in a position to say: "You don't seem to be any good at holding cease fires, so let's not even broach that subject again."

İstanbul 2.0 will be optional for Russia because the Russians can keep on fighting, depleting NATO weapons reserves and gradually freeing lands that were and, essentially, still are Russian in language, culture, religion and ethnic affiliation, until the objectives of the SMO have been achieved. But it doesn't appear likely that the Kiev regime would be capable of enforcing İstanbul 2.0 given that it doesn't control its own Nazi battalions; nor is it able to rein in an entire army of war profiteers that has formed around this conflict on the Ukrainian side. Thus, this conflict can only be ended through military means. If so, what is İstanbul 2.0 possibly good for?

İstanbul 2.0 can only be good for saving face — not for the Kiev regime which has no face worth savings, but for the Americans. As was publicly declared by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war between Russia and the United States. It went badly and now they want it to end but they don't want to own their defeat.

Some of the Europeans (France, Britain, Germany and Poland) still seem interested in keeping the conflict going, but the Trump administration's plan is to call it "Biden's war" and to disown it as quickly as possible. İstanbul 2.0 may give it that excuse. If the Kiev regime signs it but fails to fulfill its terms (thanks to the Nazi battalions it doesn't quite control) then that will give Trump the excuse to write the Ukraine off completely and let Russia continue to clean up the Ukrainian mess while the Europeans continue holding increasingly indecisive and futile conferences on the question.

I am writing this a few hours before the meeting in İstanbul is scheduled to take place. I usually wait until the dust settles before commenting on events. But in this case the dust has already settled: Russia will only agree to measures that address the root causes of the conflict: demilitarization, denazification, neutrality, rights of the Russian population (along with other, less numerous ethnic groups). Everything else is just noise.

That should bring you up to date on Ukraine. (I'm making a note to post these update/summaries more often.)

#3.2.1 --I have to wonder. It doesn't seem likely that they're going to be sitting there doing nothing until the autumn mud season begins in Ukraine. I'm guessing they'll be used.

And Israel? What happens after Netanyahu dies? His impending death, after all, is why the push for war with Iran now.

Things are going to change, quite significantly, and in less than a year. We'll see what it's like then.