Month: October 2024

Via Common Dreams

“We have not observed indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon.” That sentence is the concluding line from an allegedly leaked (or hacked) U.S. intelligence document posted online this week and later reported on by Axios, CNN, and other outlets.

As Axios reported on Saturday, “U.S. officials are extremely concerned about a potentially major security breach after two alleged U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran were published by a Telegram account affiliated with Iran.”

The Associated Press and independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein both cited government sources who said the documents appeared to be authentic. While U.S. officials have yet to comment publicly on the material, reporting confirmed an investigation into their authenticity and how they came to be in the public domain was underway.

Since a barrage of missile strikes aimed at military targets in Israel by Iran on Oct 1, a retaliatory strike in response to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other attacks, the world has been waiting for Israel’s promised military response.

Assuming the documents are authentic, what they show is that U.S. intelligence—as is well known and despite being close allies—keeps a close and clandestine eye on Israeli military operations.

CNN cited an unnamed U.S. official who called the documents being made public “deeply concerning,” though the outlet did not publish the documents in full. The documents, according to CNN,

are marked top secret and have markings indicating they are meant to be seen only by the US and its “Five Eyes” allies — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

They describe preparations Israel appears to be making for a strike against Iran. One of the documents, which says it was compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says the plans involve Israel moving munitions around.

Another document says it is sourced to the National Security Agency and outlines Israeli air force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles, also believed to be in preparation for a strike on Iran. CNN is not quoting directly from or showing the documents.

NEW: A set of classified U.S. intelligence documents purporting to show information about Israel’s plans to strike in Iran have been confirmed as authentic in a report by CNN (https://t.co/8AVOexA1Y8).

Drop Site News has also been reviewing these documents since they were posted… pic.twitter.com/VKOEq9qcbo

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) October 19, 2024

It has long been known that Israel has a nuclear weapons program and maintains a nuclear arsenal, but it remains both Israeli and U.S. government policy never to acknowledge or confirm the existence of either. In one of the documents, the U.S. specifically references Israel’s ability to deploy a nuclear weapon, though it categorizes the threat of doing so in this case as low.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, recently banned from X for posting an internal opposition research dossier that the Trump campaign had compiled on JD Vance, posted images of both documents to his substack page, as he excoriated major outlets for refusing to do.

“As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news,” Klippenstein wrote.

According to Klippenstein’s assessment:

The intelligence report includes a rundown of the various aspects of Israeli military activities that the U.S. is monitoring to inform its judgments and conclusions: weapons handling, air defense, ground forces, Navy, Air, Special Forces, and even Israel’s Nuclear Forces. But even then, only the weapons handling and special forces categories are identified as having a “medium” predictive ability in regards to determining Israel’s action; the rest are designated “low” predictive ability.

The second intelligence report is titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran and Conducts a Second Large-Force Employment Exercise.” The document details Israeli activities during an evident “mission rehearsal” (in U.S. lingo) that could be indicative of how Israel will strike Iran. Citing imagery analysis and other sources, the NGA report notes that the Israeli Air Force is already conducting covert drone operations over Iran (evidently doing its own spying), and how, as part of Israeli Air Force activity, has been handling air-launched ballistic missiles and other weapons.

From the leaked US intel documents: “we did not observe any Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles … we have not observed any indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon”. Notice the NF – no foreigners – marking for that paragraph. https://t.co/Bkfq9KtWew pic.twitter.com/YE9IFKN301

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) October 20, 2024

Defending release of the full documents, he explained that both provide “insight of enormous public interest as we stand at the precipice of a broader conflict” and contained “information that directly bears upon U.S. obligations and actions. It is for that reason that I’ve decided to publish the basic documents.”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Russia GDP is now estimated at +3.8 percent, topping the US, despite sanctions. What’s going on?

Russia’s War Economy

Eurointelligence discusses Russia’s War Economy

It is worth looking at the autumn forecast for Russia by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, one of the best sources of economic information for central and eastern Europe. They upgraded their growth forecast for this year by 0.6pp to 3.8%. Russia is outgrowing all western economies, including the US. Growth is forecast to slow down to 2.5% next year because of the impact of a 19% interest rate. It is clear that Russia’s economic expansion is a classic case of a wartime Keynesian effect.

It is also interesting to contrast Russia’s economic development with that of Ukraine’s main supporters in Europe, which have entered into synchronised austerity, first in Germany, and now in France and the UK.

Russia’s fiscal stability is perhaps the biggest surprise. Defence spending is on trajectory towards 6% of GDP. And yet, the 2024 budget deficit is projected at 1.5%, falling to 1% in 2025.

Vasily Astrov, the Russia expert at WIIW, concludes that Putin will have money for the foreseeable future to continue financing the war against Ukraine. A rise in income and corporate tax has meant that Russia’s state finance will become less dependent on energy.

Financial sanctions are ultimately not as successful as their advocates once believed because money is not a natural global monopoly. International banks are certainly susceptible to US dollar sanctions. But not all banks in the world operate in dollar markets. The use of secondary sanctions has become a first-order instrument in the US’s diplomatic toolkit in this century. But it falls into the category of instruments which lose their value the more you use them. Even amongst US economists, we see a lot of complacency about this. It was friction combined with network effects that favoured the emergency of a single dominating currency – the pound sterling, the dollar later. The danger to the dollar is not the euro, or renminbi. It is that micro-channels are becoming viable as technology reduces the frictions.

Lessons of the Day

• The more you depend on sanctions, the less they work.

• That’s the real risk to the dollar.

Here’s a Repeat Lesson on Why Sanctions Fail

On September 26, I commented To Those Hard of Learning, Here’s a Repeat Lesson on Why Sanctions Fail

In that post I refuted a claim that sanction failures are due to a lack of political will.

Also see my September 19, 2023: Lesson of the Day: Sanctions Don’t Work Because They Create New Markets

A person who touted a buyer’s cartel sanction success, now complains the buyers cartel leaks like a sieve.

Finally, please see How China Gets Around US Sanctions on Semiconductors

US sanctions backfire again. China is stronger as a result.

Russia’s GDP shows just how badly misguided and overused sanctions have worked.

A high-ranking Israeli military officer was killed while fighting in Gaza on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the same day.

Colonel Ehsan Daqsa, 41, was commander of Israel’s 401st Armoured Brigade, and died when his tank was targeted by explosive devices during operations inside Jabalia refugee camp. Reports suggest an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated when a group of officers stood outside of their tanks.

Another Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in the same incident, which involved a second tank being blown up.

It remains somewhat rare that a colonel (and brigade commander) would be involved in leading operations directly in the battle zone in Gaza. Col. Daqsa has been identified as one of the most senior officers to have been killed in over a year of Gaza operations.

The Times of Israel reports of the details of his death: “An IDF probe into the death of Daqsa found that he was outside his tank with other officers when they were hit by an explosive device in Jabaliya, as part of an ongoing offensive there against Hamas.”

This strongly suggests that despite the death of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Hamas militants are still fighting fiercely and are not relenting.

Western leaders used the opportunity of Sinwar’s death last week to call for urgent ceasefire and the return of the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza, but at this point it seems a distant prospect.

Fighting could actually intensify in the wake of Sinwar’s death, given he has been held up among Palestinians in Gaza as a martyr and a hero, who went down fighting till the end.

Meanwhile it looks like Hamas and its external backers are already readying to name a successor: 

Hamas is likely to name Qatar-based Khalil al-Hayya as a successor to slain leader Yahya Sinwar, aligning it closer to Iran and giving its main backer more sway in the next stage of the group’s war with Israel.

Al-Hayya is a protégé of Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar’s predecessor who was believed to have been assassinated by Israel in Tehran in July. He has been leading indirect negotiations with Israel over both a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks last year, which triggered the ongoing conflict.

Currently there’s very heavy fighting in and around Jabaliya, which is a few kilometers north of Gaza City.

Jabalia |

Israeli soldiers of the 432 battalion share on their private accounts scenes showing them burning Hamed School, Next to Indonesi Hospital in Jabalia RC.

The smoke rising from the school was filmed by Palestinian journalists near the area. pic.twitter.com/gpsZ7yzjWR

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 20, 2024

Israeli airstrikes have pummeled the area, providing cover for tank and ground forces, but several reports over the past days have pointed to huge civilian casualties, with dozens killed.

Some 400,000 people are reportedly in Jabalia camp, and there are reports that the military siege has cut off most supplies of food, water, and medicine.

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

When Things Kinda Make Sense

I’m a contrarian by nature. I much prefer finding things that markets may be pricing incorrectly, to going along with the consensus. Usually there is no shortage of topics to pick from as a contrarian. Anything from China, to the quality of data, to the economy, to geopolitical risk, to valuations, but right now, I’m struggling to find an issue to get worked up about. Maybe this is the exception that proves the rule?

In any case, let’s run through a variety of issues that, for better or worse, I think kind of make sense from a market pricing standpoint.

Interest Rates

For the first time in recent memory, I think rates are, more or less, priced correctly. As discussed last week in Little New to Say, it was getting more difficult to remain bearish on Treasury yields, though the bull case was even less convincing. The 10-year did eventually rally back to 4% on Wednesday, but then gave up most of those gains, and is stuck right around 4.1% again.

We’ve argued in that report and in War, Inflation, and the Neutral Rate, that we might have seen a temporary bottom for inflation. The disruptions caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton could prove inflationary. The rebuilding efforts, which will begin in earnest as insurance checks hit, will also be inflationary. Again, I’m not alarmed that we will get a surge in inflation, but the easy part of the lower inflation story is almost over (the “simple” model of two distinct “Covid bumps” – one for goods and one for services – has been an effective tool in estimating the direction of inflation). You can find the “Covid bump” chart in Building the Case For Rate Cuts from early July.

The Neutral Rate has become a part of virtually every bit of FedSpeak that we get. Almost all speakers agree that it is higher than they previously thought. So far, they seem to be channeling 3% to 3.5%, but I expect that to solidify to 3.5% to 3.75% sooner than later. We spent over a year over 5% and the economy has barely slowed!

Having said all that, markets have largely moved to be in line with our take. They are still a bit more aggressive on the rate cut front than we are, and we think they are too complacent on the deficit and the longer end of the yield curve, but market rates are in our ballpark now.

On the Fed cut front:

• The market is pricing in 2.5 cuts in the next 3 meetings.

• That isn’t far from our expectations. As discussed on Bloomberg TV last week, we are still pricing in 25 bps in November as a certainty. Bloomberg TV captioned our recent interview as Embarrassing for the Fed Not to Cut in November. The caption is a bit aggressive (it was 5:30 in the morning after all, and we covered a lot more ground), but I do think that for the sake of continuity and to support the decision to go 50 in September, they will cut 25 unless we get some extremely strong data. Then, I would expect a pause in one or both of the next 2 meetings. Our base case is only 2 cuts in the next 3 meetings, which means the market is “only” 0.5 cuts higher than us (the markets were 2 full cuts more than us a couple of weeks ago).

• Our current outlook for next 3 meetings:

  • 50% chance of 25, 0, 25

  • 30% chance of 25, 25, 0

  • 20% chance of 25, 0, 0

• The market doesn’t get below 3.3% on Fed funds until January 2026. That is a far cry from when it was below 3% by the summer of 2025 a few weeks ago. I think that it continue to inch up towards 3.6%, but my timing for that is early 2026. We are basically down to arguing over just about 1 cut, instead of 3, which is where we were. Again, all kinda makes sense.

• That still leaves me slightly bearish 10s, primarily because I think 2s vs 10s should be 25 bps (though they closed at 13, which fits that “kinda right” vibe of today’s report). Also, I just see many more scenarios where we get another “buyer strike” as the realization that no one in D.C. is incentivized to control the growth of the deficit, rather than scenarios that see a surge in demand. For a range on 10s, I think 4% to 4.2%, but with more risk of a breakout to 4.5% than a breakdown to 3.75%. The 30-year is even more susceptible to a major move to higher yields from Friday’s 4.4% close (5% seems unlikely, but is a risk).

Jobs and the Economy

Following my view that seasonal adjustments have been wrong (adding too many jobs in the winter and subtracting too many jobs during the summer), we should be getting “clean” data. In fact, errors and issues surrounding jobs data have retreated from front and center for us, to more of a back burner issue. But, while issues addressed in The Fog of War have not been entirely resolved, they just aren’t our highest priority right now.

While the hurricanes will cause some distortions, I expect the jobs data to be “okay.” Consistent with a bumpy/choppy landing – not signifying growth, but also not hinting that we might already be in a recession.

Consumer data seems “mixed.” There are signs that spending remains robust, like this week’s retail sales data. There are also some signs that consumers, especially lower income ones, are getting stretched. Credit card debt, even adjusted for inflation (and wage growth), is getting to be a potential hurdle to further spending. We are seeing delinquencies (most noticeably in autos) tick higher. Regardless of which data you look at on this front, the trend has not been friendly. On the other hand, some metrics are still below 2018/2019 averages, so it shouldn’t signal panic, just something to watch.

At the same time, some portion of that record amount of money in money market funds is held by individuals. Presumably, some of that interest gets spent, helping the economy. I think the surprise in this cycle will be that lower yields stall spending as most debts are locked in at lower yields and the lack of interest income will hurt households more than the cuts help (ok, I managed to squeeze in one “out there” view in today’s report).

The Atlanta GDPNow estimate is at 3.43%! That is up from a recent low of 2.54% on October 1st. This number is a bit volatile, but even 3% would indicate a decent, even good economic backdrop, which I cannot disagree with.

Our “bumpy” scenario is that some sectors will be doing well, while others struggle. Ditto for various regions of the country. Nothing that the economy can’t handle, but also not some overly rosy resurgence story.

Earnings and Market Responses

Taiwan Semiconductor announced earnings that helped that stock jump 10% on Thursday. The chip stocks did well, but not as well as TSM, and the Nasdaq 100 edged only marginally higher. To me, the response seemed kinda right. The epicenter of the move was on the stock that delivered the positive outlook, and the strength rippled out from there, but in what seemed appropriately proportional amounts. It didn’t cause the entire market to go into a furor of buying. Similarly, NFLX did extremely well on Friday (up 11%), but it seemed to be treated, correctly in my opinion, as a validation of their business, rather than some sign that all tech should rally! Yes, markets did rally on Friday, in part because of NFLX, but I think it had more to do with another effort by China to further talk up their markets and their commitment to stimulus. ARKK, which I still use as a barometer for “disruption,” was actually down on Thursday, again signaling “differentiation” rather than excessive speculation in the market.

Breadth seems to be increasing as the Russell 2000 outperformed the other major indices and the equal weighted S&P 500 beat out the regular S&P 500 on the week (barely, but still, a positive sign for breadth).

The fact that major companies, with large market caps, can move 10% on earnings, still seems a bit bizarre to me, but I like how the rest of the market performed around these earnings. It is as though we’ve built up a base and are being thoughtful, rather than just slapping the “BUY” button.

I’m sticking to my assessment that the CCP needs the economy to turn around and will continue to add measures to prop it up (see China Stimulus Simplified). So far, they seem to be following our playbook as though they read the T-Report. One thing I do think the market is getting wrong, is assuming the Chinese stimulus will help the big global companies, when I believe it will be as targeted as possible to support domestic brands, as part of the transition from Made in China to Made by China.

I’m still concerned about valuations in some areas and think there is a big risk if we see any signs that spending on AI is slowing or even being questioned. It is just as easy (or maybe easier) to have 10% down days. In general, I do think the market behaved rationally relative to the news flow recently.

Finally, from a purely “Market Structure” standpoint, we continue to have the risk that a lack of liquidity can cause larger-than-rational moves in either direction, where the chance of very large single day moves to the downside heavily outweigh the odds of a big day to the upside.

Credit Markets

Remember when we asked How Tight Can Credit Spreads Go? Well, the market continues, maybe begrudgingly, to move in our direction. We listed multiple reasons to remain so bullish credit. We have reiterated some in recent reports, but I urge you to go back to this report from July to see the entire list, since the reasons are all still in play.

The Election

If saying credit spreads, already tight, are likely to go tighter, isn’t treading into dangerous waters, then bringing up the election certainly is.

Gridlock. That seems to be the one thing markets and most polls agree on. Most things I see point to a House of Representatives won by the Democrats and a Senate won by the Republicans. So long as that seems to be the base case, then it doesn’t matter as much who wins the presidency, as their ability to create real change will be limited. It also fits with a view (which I hold) that people who vote against someone (rather than voting for someone) are more likely to split their ticket. They want to vote against someone, but don’t want to give, whoever they vote for, too much power.

We are starting to spend time thinking more seriously about potential outcomes and policies and expect to publish early this week on the subject, but for now, we think the markets are moving in regard to election headlines.

Geopolitics

Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group published a SITREP on Israel Kills Sinwar. There are ongoing developments this weekend and we continue to expect Israel to retaliate against Iran directly. While the death of Sinwar may open the door to some truce with Hamas, that is far from certain. In any case, Israel is likely to continue to prosecute their war with Iran’s other proxies and Iran itself.

The markets seem entirely focused on whether or not Israel (or Iran) will do anything to disrupt the flow of oil. So long as that seems to be off the table (which was the indication that we were given this past week), markets will not pay too much attention to the situation. Yes, participants in markets are paying close attention to all of the suffering and death, but that does not translate into markets moving, unless we get significantly more escalation and expansion (even then, the reaction in markets is likely to be muted unless energy supplies are affected). It seems harsh to write this (and it probably is), but there is a significant difference between human tragedies and what can move markets.

Owning energy (rather than Treasuries) is the best way to hedge any escalation. Though at 4.1%, it is less unreasonable to own some Treasuries as a hedge to geopolitical risk (though I don’t think it will be as successful as owning energy).

Bottom Line

Rates, call it slightly bearish, but just barely (low conviction and small sizes).

Credit, still dull and still a great place to be.

Equities, Chinese stocks, value, small caps, and equal weight indices all look attractive. Still too worried to fully commit to the stocks with the highest valuations/multiples/best moments, but I did like how the market behaved (though I’d add to the laggards rather than to the year-to-date winners). Finally, things seem to be falling into place for commercial real estate bets. I would have liked to see a lot more “clearing transactions” where we developed a true clearing price as I’m told there still is a difference between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers think they deserve. But everything from the end of rate hikes to more “Work From Office” headlines, makes me want to add exposure here.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday morning that Boeing is mulling over asset sales to raise cash levels for its struggling business. On Saturday, Boeing and union heads reached a tentative labor contract agreement that could soon end the money-draining months-long labor strike, while early last week, the planemaker filed a $25 billion shelf registration to provide a “variety of capital options as needed to support the company’s balance sheet over a three-year period.”

The new report cites a person familiar with a recent discussion between Boeing’s board and executives at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The meeting centered around potential asset sales, as executives and board members combed through internal reports on the state of each of the planemaker’s units. 

Just weeks ago, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees, “We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face,” adding, “We also need to focus our resources on performing and innovating in the areas that are core to who we are.”

Ortberg replaced Dave Calhoun as the president and CEO of Boeing on August 8. He is expected to comment publicly for the first time as CEO on Wednesday, following the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ vote on the new labor contract. The company estimated the strike to cost $1 billion. It warned of a $6 billion quarterly loss for the period ending September 30. 

On Tuesday, just days after Boeing announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce due to intensifying financial pressure, such as dwindling cash reserves and mounting risk of a credit downgrade, as well as prolonged strike, the beleaguered planemaker filed a $25 billion shelf registration. 

“This universal shelf registration provides flexibility for the company to seek a variety of capital options as needed to support the company’s balance sheet over a three-year period,” Boeing wrote in the filing. 

Separately, Boeing entered into a $10 billion “supplemental credit agreement” with a consortium of lenders. It noted that the credit facility provides “additional short-term access to liquidity as we navigate through a challenging environment,” adding that it has not drawn down on this facility or its existing credit revolver. 

Boeing has already considered selling its rocket-launching joint venture, United Launch Alliance, with Lockheed Martin to Sierra Space for $2-$3 billion. Also, Boeing’s space division is in crisis following the malfunctioning of the Starliner spacecraft.

Separately, Boeing’s competitor, Airbus, laid off 2,500 jobs in its space division, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX dominates rocket launches and leads the space race in this solar system. 

Boeing’s obsession (Wall Street’s obsession) with DEI, climate, and gender justice ultimately dealt the fatal blow. It’s time to refocus on the fundamentals, like building planes that actually stay in the sky. Is that a hard ask, Boeing?

Authored by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,

It may be premature to start contemplating the implications of a potential Trump victory on November 5. Unfortunately, for certain issues, it may already be too late. This is because time is of the essence when it comes to holding individuals accountable for the numerous frauds and acts of treachery that characterized much of President Trump’s first four years in office. 

More specifically, federal law has a five-year statute of limitations, preventing prosecution for actions committed more than five years ago. However, urgent accountability is needed to ensure that those who defrauded the American public in their pursuit of Trump do not escape punishment.

Democrats and their allies are acutely aware of the five-year time limit. This is evident in their swift action to prosecute Twitter user Douglas Mackey for creating a meme in 2016 that jokingly encouraged Hillary Clinton voters to text in their votes. As the statute of limitations on Mackey’s “crimes” was set to lapse in 2021, Democrats, aided by “Republican” appointee Seth DuCharme, were locked and loaded to file charges as soon as Biden assumed the presidency.

Republicans would do well do follow this example, albeit for actual crimes. Accountability is needed in order to prevent renewed and repeated treachery.

We have examined aspects of three separate scams that may still fall within the five-year statute of limitations period by the time Trump assumes office on January 20, 2025, should he win the election.

Russiagate

The first area we examined is Russiagate, which, given that it is now almost nine years old, presents unique challenges in terms of holding anyone accountable. Russiagate originated as a Clinton campaign operation in early 2016. Of course, a dirty tricks campaign is not a crime in itself. Even lying to the media, as the Clinton campaign did repeatedly in its attempts to smear Trump as a Russian agent, is not a crime.

Instead, our focus is on government actors. The first documented instance of government actors co-opting the Russiagate narrative occurred when the FBI received the fraudulent Steele dossier on July 5, 2016. This was soon followed by various other actions, such as opening the sham Crossfire Hurricane investigation and spying on several members of the Trump campaign team. However, all these actions are now over eight years old and fall outside the statute of limitations. Unfortunately, even the most egregious aspect of the Russiagate hoax—the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment that President Obama used to undermine the incoming Trump administration—also falls outside the statute of limitations. Subsequent actions involving corrupt FBI officials, such as Peter Strzok, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe, likewise fall outside the statute of limitations. In fact, all these individuals were fired more than five years ago.

However, there is one aspect of Russiagate that does not fall outside the five-year period: Igor Danchenko, the alleged primary source of the Steele dossier, who was identified by a group of Twitter users in July 2020. This means that the FBI’s actions concerning Danchenko—such as concealing his existence from congressional and other investigations, as well as hiding the fact that he had disavowed the fraudulent Steele dossier—may still fall within the statute of limitations. 

Now, some may argue that Danchenko has already been prosecuted by Special Counsel John Durham in a case that suffered from numerous defects. While this is true, unlike Durham, we are not focusing on private individuals but rather on those within the government who undermined Trump. Incidentally, this was originally supposed to be Durham’s task, however, he inexplicably abandoned it.

There remains a possibility of pursuing corrupt FBI officials regarding any actions they may have taken with respect to concealing facts in connection with Danchenko. Put another way, Danchenko must be the focal point, as he was still being concealed by the FBI during the first half of 2020, a period for which the five-year statute of limitations has not yet expired.

Holding officials accountable for their actions regarding Danchenko is, of course, small potatoes in the broader context of Russiagate. This failure is largely attributable to Trump’s hopeless first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, as well as the scheming of his second Attorney General, Bill Barr. However, lamenting over past mistakes serves no purpose. If the goal is to salvage as much as possible, and if FBI officials can be held accountable, even at this late stage, it would at least offer a small consolation on which to conclude the entire Russiagate affair. 

If this were to happen, it would need to happen very swiftly. On his first day in office, Trump would need to assign a team to sift through all records related to Danchenko in search of instances in 2020 where officials covered up matters pertaining to Danchenko and his Russiagate confessions.

Ukraine Impeachment Hoax 

It is not coincidental that Trump’s first impeachment, on charges of allegedly failing to send weapons to Ukraine, began one day after Robert Mueller testified before Congress that there was no Russian collusion. One hoax simply replaced another. 

On July 25, 2019, Trump had his infamous conversation with Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky. The overarching premise of the impeachment scheme was to accuse Trump of withholding military aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that he had not done so. This allegation stemmed from a distorted interpretation of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. It was claimed that Trump had offered a quid pro quo, suggesting that Zelensky investigate alleged corruption involving the Biden family in exchange for military assistance. However, when the actual transcript of the phone call was released in September 2019, it became clear that this characterization was false. Nevertheless, by that time, the impeachment narrative against Trump was already in full swing, and neither the Democrats nor the media were deterred by the truth. 

The Ukraine impeachment saga involved numerous individuals who testified before Congress, many of whom misrepresented the truth about Trump and about Biden corruption. At this point, it may be worth noting that lying in an official capacity within the jurisdiction of the government can include telling half-truths or concealing the truth. Some individuals who testified during the 2019 impeachment hearings, including Obama’s energy czar, Amos Hochstein, were well aware of the problem of Biden corruption in Ukraine. Did they report this to the impeachment inquiry? Geoffrey Pyatt, the Ambassador in Kyiv, assisted in drafting talking points to divert attention from Biden’s corruption in Ukraine. Was this information concealed from the inquiry? The chargé d’affaires at the Embassy in Kyiv, George “Bow Tie” Kent, was aware that Hunter Biden’s firm, Burisma, had bribed the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office. Why was this information withheld from the inquiry?

We could delve deeper into this, but all of this transpired in 2019, and by the time we reach January 2025, the lies told—and truths concealed—during the impeachment investigation will fall outside the statute of limitations. Therefore, there is only a very narrow window that remains open, specifically regarding Trump’s Senate trial which took place from January 16 to February 5, 2020. (As a side note, it is more than ironic that while all this was occurring, another faction of the anti-Trump coalition, specifically bureaucrats led by Anthony Fauci, were concealing the fact that a deadly virus had been released from a laboratory.)

Thus, if there were to be any accountability for the Ukraine impeachment, it would likely need to focus on the events surrounding the impeachment trial. However, there are two major problems. First, the timeline is very tight. The first part of the Senate trial would already fall outside the five-year limitation period by the time Trump potentially assumes office. Second, and more importantly, the Senate ultimately decided not to call any witnesses. Lindsey Graham, apparently unironically, insisted that calling witnesses, such as Hunter Biden, would interfere with the 2020 election. Had witnesses been called, we would have gotten to the truth much sooner, and there would also now be a much greater opportunity to hold individuals accountable.

This leaves us with only a slim opportunity to pursue individuals for any actions they took after the impeachment trial. We would no longer be examining the lies themselves, but rather the efforts to conceal those lies afterward. In other words, actions taken to cover up the truth, even after Trump’s Senate trial concluded, would reset the statute of limitations, allowing for the prosecution of those involved. For instance, did anyone within the government work to conceal the truth about what Pyatt and Kent knew regarding Burisma? Were Freedom of Information (FOIA) efforts obstructed? We do not know the answers, but this is where our focus would be directed.

In sum, among all the hoaxes perpetrated against Trump, given the numerous limitations and obstacles, this is likely the one with the least prospect of holding anyone accountable at this stage.

Covid Origin Cover Up

Third, there is the Covid cover-up. No one has been held accountable for the Covid response, or for concealing the origin of the virus, despite 20 million deaths and at least $30 trillion in damages. In fact, there hasn’t even been any investigation or commission examining what went wrong, which seems very surprising given the immense human and financial toll incurred. A commission of inquiry can, of course, be established at any time. For all we know, this could occur 100 years from now. However, regarding actual legal liability, the five-year rule applies. Given that most of the events unfolded in 2020, there is only a very small window of opportunity to hold individuals accountable. However, unlike in the other two hoaxes, there is still time.

What would accountability look like? Who would be held accountable, and for what? It could be argued that decisions made by the government—such as unlawful mandates, lockdowns, and people being fired for refusing the “vaccine”—should not be subject to criminal penalties, given the novelty of the virus and the likely justification that officials were doing their best under the circumstances. While we do not agree with such excuses, they are likely to carry some weight in any legal proceeding and the prospect of holding officials accountable for the Covid response is extremely slim. 

Another factor contributing to this conclusion is that politicians and public health officials were significantly misled by a small group of corrupt individuals led by Anthony Fauci. While this does not excuse violations of civil liberties, those who implemented mitigation measures—such as isolation, social distancing, contact tracing, shutting of businesses, and similar strategies—might argue that these approaches had been effective against previous viruses. This is the crux of the matter. Although mitigation measures may have arguably had some effect in the past, they were never going to be effective against Covid, a virus that had been engineered in a laboratory to infect human cells and facilitate human-to-human transmission. This fundamentally altered the entire landscape of the response. While the original SARS virus was poorly adapted for human transmission—resulting in only 774 deaths worldwide, with no fatalities in the United States—Covid was doing the exact opposite. (The majority of deaths during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic were caused by secondary bacterial infections, for which there was no effective treatment at the time, rather than directly from the influenza virus.)

Thus, Covid mitigation measures were entirely ineffective from the outset, a fact of which Fauci was well aware. The damage and human suffering caused by these ineffective countermeasures are incalculable, and it all transpired because Fauci and a small group of U.S. government officials concealed the true nature of Covid. Had this not occurred, the country could have been spared lockdowns and numerous other injustices. At worst, the Swedish model would have been adopted, allowing schools and businesses to remain open. Furthermore, Trump could not have been blamed for a poor response to the virus if the public had understood that it was destined to spread through the population. He would most likely have been easily re-elected. 

Fauci’s lies altered the course of history. Therefore, we argue that the most appropriate and effective means of ensuring accountability for Covid is to pursue Fauci and his group of collaborators. To clarify, we are not addressing Fauci’s involvement in the creation of the virus at the Wuhan lab; that is a separate and legally distinct matter. Currently, our focus is solely on Fauci’s efforts to conceal the origin of the virus, actions that have caused immense harm. 

Specifically, Fauci ought to be held accountable for concealing the truth from President Trump and from the Coronavirus Taskforce, to which he was appointed on January 29, 2020. 

Two days earlier, on January 27, Fauci’s office received an email from Peter Daszak, the man through whom Fauci was funding the Wuhan lab. The email’s subject line was “Wuhan novel coronavirus – NIAIDs role in bat-origin CoVs.”

The body of Daszak’s email provided Fauci with talking points to deflect attention from Fauci’s collaboration with the Wuhan lab. At the time of Daszak’s warning, there had not been any public reporting of the link between Fauci and the Wuhan lab.

On January 31, Fauci was informed by a group of virologists that the Covid virus looked like it had been engineered in a lab. However, instead of reporting this information to President Trump and the Covid Task Force, Fauci initiated a cover-up. One of his actions to maintain this cover-up involved persuading the scientists who had discovered evidence of engineering—and who relied on funding from Fauci’s NIAID—to write a paper dismissing any theories regarding a laboratory origin. They complied, with Fauci overseeing the process.

Fauci had a responsibility to inform the Task Force of his knowledge regarding the virus. Instead, he misled the Task Force and concealed critical information, fostering a deceptive narrative about the virus’s natural origin and falsely assuring President Trump that the virus posed no threat to the United States. 

On February 3, when Kelvin Droegemeier, the White House Director of Science and Technology Policy, requested information regarding the origins of the pandemic, Fauci and his hand-picked team of scientists responded by pushing the fraudulent natural origin narrative. This, too, constitutes concealment of material facts. 

On April 17, while standing at the White House podium alongside Trump, Fauci presented the fraudulent paper which he had commissioned as irrefutable evidence that the virus originated in nature. Fauci did not disclose his involvement in the creation of the paper. Astonishingly, he even asserted that he was unaware of the authors, despite the fact that he both knew and funded them.

Fauci’s statements on April 17 provide clear evidence of guilt and of a cover-up. Furthermore, since his actions will not lapse until April 16, 2025, there is time to hold him and his collaborators accountable for them.

Unlike the Russiagate scam and the Ukraine impeachment hoax, the cover-up surrounding the origins of Covid presents the most viable avenue for holding government officials accountable for their treachery, and for ruining Trump’s first term. However, the window of opportunity for accountability is quite narrow and will necessitate prompt action if and when Trump assumes office.

Having presented his so-called “victory plan” to his European and US allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues his Dickensian demands for “moar” (but this time with a threat of nukes).

Data from the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows that while the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany are certainly pulling their weight in their support of the Ukrainian war effort, France and Italy have fallen somewhat behind as Ukraine’s tenth and 14th biggest donors (including pledges) as of August 31.

The countries have so far committed less than 0.2 percent of their 2021 GDPs each to Ukraine wartime aid, compared to around 0.4 percent in the case of the Germany and the United States and even 0.47 percent in the case of the United Kingdom.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Smaller countries have been offering more support for Ukraine in relative and absolute terms, for example Denmark and the Netherlands, which are Ukraine’s seventh and eighth-largest donors when counting EU institutions in rank 2. This is despite the fact that their economies are much smaller than those of France and Italy, which are Europe’s third and fourth largest, respectively.

Ukraine currently receives the most aid from the U.S. and EU institutions (Commission and Council). The amounts shown include financial support (loans, grants, etc.), humanitarian aid (food, medicine, etc.) and the value of weapons and equipment supplied, including donations in kind for the Ukrainian army and financial aid linked to military purposes.

Ukraine receives the greatest support for weapons and equipment also from the United States. In the period from January 24, 2022 to August 31, 2024, weapons and funds for military purposes amounting to around $62 billion flowed from the country.

Authored by Bradley Peak via CoinTelegraph.com,

What is NexFundAI, the FBI’s crypto trap?

NexFundAI, introduced by the US FBI in May 2024, is an Ethereum-based crypto token created as part of a covert sting operation, Operation Token Mirrors. 

The NexFundAI token was designed to act as bait, targeting individuals and organizations engaged in fraudulent cryptocurrency activities, particularly pump-and-dump schemes. In these scams, manipulators artificially inflate a token’s value, attracting unsuspecting investors, only to dump their holdings once the price peaks, leaving investors with losses.

NexFundAI mimicked the look and behavior of a legitimate cryptocurrency, allowing the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation to attract market manipulators. Fraudsters were lured into engaging with the token, performing illegal actions like wash trading, where multiple trades are conducted by the same party to create a false impression of trading volume. This tactic inflates the token’s value and deceives investors into thinking there’s a growing demand.

In the end, NexFundAI helped the FBI collect hard evidence against 18 individuals and implicated companies like Gotbit and ZM Quant, who were involved in orchestrating sham trades across more than 60 crypto tokens. By July 2024, the FBI had built a case strong enough to file charges, leading to the arrests of key figures in these schemes.

Did you know? Over $25 million in assets were seized as a result of the NexFundAI sting, and the investigation helped reveal new methods scammers were using to manipulate crypto markets.

The evolution of crypto sting operations

Crypto sting operations evolved from traditional physical setups to sophisticated digital stings, with the FBI leveraging blockchain monitoring and targeting scams like Silk Road, Ponzi schemes and initial coin offering (ICO) fraud since the rise of Bitcoin in the early 2010s.

In the early days of financial crime enforcement, agents would pose as buyers, investors or intermediaries to catch criminals in the act, often involving wire transfers or cash. As technology advanced, cybercrime emerged, shifting the focus of sting operations from physical cash to digital assets.

This shift began in earnest with the rise of Bitcoin in the early 2010s, which introduced a new form of untraceable, decentralized digital currency. Criminals quickly adopted crypto for money laundering, scams and hacks.

The FBI responded with its first major crypto sting operations targeting online black markets like Silk Road in 2013, which relied on Bitcoin BTC$68,139 for illegal transactions. These early efforts revealed the potential for digital stings, where law enforcement could monitor blockchain transactions in real-time.

As crypto crime grew, so did the scope of sting operations. One of the notable examples was Operation Phish Phry in the late 2000s, targeting online hackers.

But it wasn’t until the 2010s that law enforcement focused more heavily on crypto scams, such as Ponzi schemes and hacking rings. Operation Cryptosweep in 2018 marked a major effort, targeting over 200 ICO scams that defrauded investors worldwide. Law enforcement agencies in the US and Canada coordinated to crack down on fraudulent ICOs, recovering millions of dollars in stolen funds.

Similarly, the FBI’s involvement in catching Ponzi schemes like the Bitconnect fraud in 2018 showcased how digital stings could expose major crypto crimes.

Did you know? In the cryptocurrency world, one of the largest digital stings was Operation Silk Road, which targeted the illegal online marketplace Silk Road in 2013. The operation resulted in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the site’s founder, and the seizure of millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

How the FBI used NexFundAI to expose crypto fraud

Appearing legitimate, complete with a website, branding and tokenomics, the NexFundAI token attracted market manipulators, including firms specializing in wash trading and pump-and-dump schemes.

NexFundAI was set up as a typical Ethereum-based token, complete with a website, branding and tokenomics that looked no different from any legitimate crypto project. The FBI made sure that NexFundAI had all the elements necessary to attract the attention of manipulators — an active online presence, attractive prospects and, most importantly, a sense of legitimacy. By creating a facade of authenticity, the FBI was able to trick market makers into thinking this token had the potential for huge profits.

To further strengthen the bait, the FBI engaged with market-making firms that specialized in manipulating prices. These firms often perform wash trading and pump-and-dump schemes to inflate token prices artificially. NexFundAI provided an ideal playground for these manipulators to demonstrate their fraudulent tactics, all under the close watch of law enforcement. 

By mimicking how real crypto projects operate, the FBI effectively created a “honey pot,” luring these firms into fraudulent activities without realizing they were being watched.

Once the market manipulators started interacting with NexFundAI, the FBI was able to gather evidence in real-time. As noted, companies like Gotbit and ZM Quant, who had a history of inflating trading volumes through sham trades, were caught in the act, much like flies in a honeypot.

Also, onchain data reveals that a wallet, which once manipulated SAITAMA to rake in over $11 million, funded the NexFundAI deployer with just 0.01 Ether ETH$2,642.12. The wallet spent $7,300 to buy 875.8 trillion SAITAMA, sold 687.66 trillion for $8.85 million, and deposited 737 trillion ($2.75 million) into OKX and Gate.io. And after buying back with $253,000, this single wallet profited over $11 million from SAITAMA.

Wash trading, which involves making trades between accounts controlled by the same party to create the illusion of liquidity, was one of the key fraudulent activities observed. These trades mislead investors into thinking the token is in high demand, driving up its price before the manipulators dump their holdings for profit.

The FBI closely tracked the token’s trading activity and recorded the fraudulent trades, ensuring they had solid evidence of manipulation. This wasn’t just limited to market activity; the FBI also gathered digital communications, contracts and payment records from the firms involved. 

The operation revealed just how coordinated these frauds were. In addition to wash trading, the FBI identified price manipulation techniques, including deliberately timing large purchases and sales to influence market sentiment. Through NexFundAI, the FBI not only observed fraud but also directly participated in the market-making process, recording every move the fraudsters made.

Did you know? One of the largest wash trading indecents in history involved BitForex, which in 2019 was found to have 95% of its trading volume attributed to wash trading, as reported by blockchain transparency projects. This type of artificial volume manipulation affected billions of dollars in trading, misleading investors about the actual market demand.

NexFundAI: Fighting fire with fire

NexFundAI has proven itself in the fight against crypto fraud as a successful tactic in exposing bad actors. 

By creating its own token, the FBI was able to gain a unique insider’s perspective by observing fraudulent activities from within the very system criminals sought to exploit. Instead of merely tracking transactions from the outside, as in previous operations, the FBI became a player in the crypto world.

The success of Operation Token Mirrors could have long-lasting implications for how law enforcement operates in the crypto space. The operation demonstrated that creating undercover tokens and projects could become a powerful tool to unmask crypto criminals. As fraudsters grow increasingly sophisticated, operations like these offer a way to infiltrate their schemes directly, rather than just monitoring them from the sidelines.

This strategy could make scammers and market manipulators more cautious in the future, as they will no longer know if the token they’re manipulating is part of an FBI sting. It adds a new layer of unpredictability to the already volatile crypto market. Fraudsters may hesitate to engage in blatant market manipulation, knowing that law enforcement could be watching — and even participating — in their activities.

Additionally, this operation sets a precedent for future digital stings. Law enforcement agencies worldwide could adopt similar strategies, creating their own tokens to track criminal behavior. This kind of proactive approach signals a new era in crypto enforcement, where fraud detection becomes more about participation and less about passive observation.

How to spot a trap token

If anything seems off — whether it’s unrealistic promises, hidden team members or unexplained market activity — it’s worth reconsidering your involvement. NexFundAI proves that even the most legitimate-looking tokens can be traps designed to exploit unsuspecting investors.

Being able to spot trap tokens is crucial because they’re often designed to attract investments through pump-and-dump schemes. These tokens might look like they represent legitimate projects, sometimes backed by large investments or sudden price jumps, making you want to invest quickly. 

Of course, law enforcement uses trap tokens like NexFundAI to catch bad actors, not genuine investors. But whether it’s a trap token created by law enforcement or a scam set up by bad actors, falling for these schemes can lead to huge losses. You risk losing your entire investment if you don’t spot the warning signs in time.

Here are some general red flags for you to be aware of:

• Sudden price spikes without clear fundamentals: One of the clearest signs of a potential scam or trap token is rapid price increases without any real-world news or project development to support the rise. Pump-and-dump schemes often follow this pattern, where manipulators drive up the price to lure investors before selling off their holdings and crashing the market. If a token’s value skyrockets overnight with no clear reason, it’s a red flag.

• Low liquidity paired with high volumes: Another telltale sign is when a token shows unusually high trading volumes, but the liquidity — the ease with which assets can be bought or sold — remains low. This can indicate wash trading, where the same entity is buying and selling the token repeatedly to create the illusion of activity. If the token seems difficult to trade or withdraw, that’s another warning sign.

• Presence of wash trading: Look out for patterns that suggest wash trading, like a high number of trades happening in quick succession or very small price movements between trades. Wash trades artificially boost the appearance of demand, misleading investors into thinking there’s more interest in the token than there really is. Tools like blockchain explorers or specialized sites that track suspicious trading activity can help you spot these patterns.

• Lack of transparency: Be wary of projects that aren’t upfront about their team, technology or development goals. Fraudulent tokens often hide behind anonymity or vague promises. Legitimate projects typically have clear, transparent roadmaps, active developer communities and accessible teams.

Lastly, before investing in any token, check for regulatory warnings and verify the legitimacy of the project. Entities like the US Securities and Exchange Commission or equivalent bodies in other countries often issue warnings about known scams and fraudulent projects. These advisories are designed to protect investors from getting involved in shady operations. You can also use public tools and databases, such as the SEC’s EDGAR database, to verify whether the token has been flagged as fraudulent or involved in a legal dispute.

Every year feminist activists attempt to stir up a new controversy in order to fabricate public outrage and keep their agenda visible on social media.  In 2024 one such controversy was the supposed pay disparity (which they call the “gender pay gap”) between women’s professional basketball and men’s professional basketball. 

The notion of the gender pay gap has been thoroughly debunked in the western world.  The original theory was rooted solely on the average pay accrued by all men vs all women and was a statistical misrepresentation of reality.  When those numbers are broken down, the fact is that men work longer hours, they work more difficult jobs, more skilled jobs, they take less vacation time and they don’t have babies so they don’t need paternity leave.  All of these factors and more add up to a higher average salary for men vs women. 

It has everything to do with women’s choices and nothing to do with some nefarious patriarchal conspiracy to hold them back from success.

Because the overall gender pay gap argument has been destroyed and is no longer taken seriously, feminists then tried to search for specific examples of pay disparity in gender segregated professions.  Professional sports is one of the few venues in which feminists could present a male vs female one-to-one comparison and say there is a distinct lack of fairness.  Except, that argument assumes that male athletes and female athletes perform at the same level.  The fact is, they do not.

Women’s game performance and abilities are far behind those of their professional male counterparts.  They are two separate universes in terms of entertainment.  This is an issue which no one in the mainstream wants to address – The women’s games are mostly terrible to watch.

Claims that the WNBA is “skyrocketing” in popularity are greatly exaggerated and the fact of the matter is the league has never been profitable.  Recent reports indicate that the WNBA lost over $40 million this season and now investors are growing impatient. 

“The WNBA owes the NBA so much we won’t see any windfall for years,” an NBA team executive told The New York Post. 

The reality that undermines the pay gap theory for women’s basketball is simple:  The ladies don’t sell enough tickets. Nor do they sell any merchandise, video games, jerseys, banners or much else for that matter.  Their huge loss this year is concrete proof of that.  The WNBA only exists because it is subsidized by the NBA and some private (and mostly male) investors; they take money from the male league in order to fund their games, and they have been losing that money consistently for over 25 years.

Comedian Bill Burr explains the insanity of the WNBA and feminism best:

The low sales argument once again debunked feminist claims of unfair salary practices.  The WNBA makes no money; they lose money.  So, the players should be happy they have jobs and get paid at all.  But feminists weren’t done yet – They then argued that the WNBA sells less tickets and and less merchandise, not because the women’s game is mediocre, but because the WNBA “doesn’t get the same level of promotion as the men.” 

They claim that if the WNBA was advertised at the same level, they would bring in the same kind of revenues as the NBA.  Corporate partners with the WNBA then began pushing the league in a number of ads.  Google took the lead in this endeavor in an effort to hype up women’s basketball.

Obviously the campaign didn’t work and marketing makes little difference.  The only real drive of new interest in the WNBA has been Caitlin Clark, a draft pick that actually knows how to play and just happens to be white.  This has led to drama, with other non-white players attacking Clark on and off the court out of jealousy.  As Bill Burr notes, women prefer to tear each other down instead of building each other up, and that’s one of the reasons why they fail in organized group endeavors.

The latest profit reports should lay to rest any future arguments from the woke crowd over pay for female athletes.  They have no more excuses left.  It’s not the patriarchy, it’s not lack of marketing, it’s not lack of investment – It’s lack of public interest in the WNBA on every level. 

Authored by Conrad Black via The Epoch Times,

Since the battle lines are barely moving, and with neither side appearing to be able to finish the war in Ukraine despite triumphalist noises, there is a natural tendency to ask why the war is continuing. The apparent reason is that the Ukrainians still expect to expel the Russians from Ukraine, including the Crimea, and Russia still purports to aspire to the complete absorption of Ukraine back into Russia, where it was for 300 years.

The history of Ukraine and Russia easily generates grievances on both sides.

The Russian version, somewhat incoherently offered on television by Russian President Vladimir Putin the night before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, is that Ukraine was never a country. It was a contested area where Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, and so-called Tatars or Tartars from the Steppes of Asia contested with each other and where the Russian capital was established at Kiev before Russia had any relationship with Western Europe. Ukraine was never a jurisdiction of any kind until Lenin declared it to be a Soviet Socialist Republic in 1919, and, next to Russia itself, the most populous component of the USSR.

Ukraine was subjected to even more barbarities than most states and regions of the USSR by Stalin when, in his zeal to collectivize agriculture, he starved or otherwise massacred millions of independent Ukrainian farmers. Because of Stalin’s brutalities and communist atheism, a large number of Ukrainians welcomed the German invasion of 1941 and a substantial number of them fought in the German army against the Soviet Union. Predictably, Stalin’s vengeance was not gentle.

When the Soviet Union finally imploded in 1991, Ukraine joined all of the other Soviet socialist republics in seceding from the USSR and declaring independence. But given that Russia had exercised sovereignty over all of the European Republics since Peter the Great’s time and the Asian republics for 250 years, Russia considered these wayward entities to be the “near abroad,” by which was meant that their sovereignty was not conceded. Approximately 17 percent of Ukrainians are primarily Russian-speaking, which is an additional reason why Russia claims a status there.

Stalin’s successor as Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was part Ukrainian, and as a kind gesture awarded Crimea to Ukraine, although it had been Russian since it was taken from the Turks by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. In 2010, a pro-Russian government led by Viktor Yanukovych was elected in Ukraine, and after a pause of several years, reversed Ukraine’s rapprochement with the European Union and reoriented the country to more intimate relations with Russia. This caused the Ukrainian Parliament—following mass protests sponsored to some extent by the West—to remove the president, whereupon Russia annexed Ukrainian Crimea and began skirmishing on the eastern border to seize the Russian-speaking, steel-making provinces adjacent to the Don River.

Following the shambles of the American and allied efforts in Afghanistan, and the general air of enfeeblement of the United States, President Putin executed his grand step to take his historic place with Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Stalin as statesmen who expanded the Russian state and the influence of Russia in Europe.

The Western alliance won the greatest and most bloodless strategic victory in the history of the nation-state when the USSR simply fell like a soufflé without a shot being fired. It is understandably Putin’s dream to reverse the demise of his former country; Russia has only approximately one half of the population of the former Soviet Union. It cannot be said that Russia has no colour of right to seek changes to the complete secession of Ukraine. But Putin, in addition to grossly underestimating the military capacity of Ukraine and the determination of the Western Alliance to assist Ukrainians, apparently expected a much more positive welcome for the Russian army from the Ukrainian public than the almost universal resistance, heavily subsidized by the West, that he has received.

He took no notice of the fact that between the seizure of Crimea and his wholesale invasion of Ukraine eight years later, a number of NATO countries including Canada had steadily trained up a total of 500,000 Ukrainians to be able to defend their country, in a way that they had no capacity to do when Russia seized Crimea. Former President Donald Trump had already taken the initiative of supplying the Ukrainians with Javelin antitank missiles, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel had refused to do for the fatuous reason that it would “just increase the bloodshed.” At the outset of the Russian invasion in 2022, President Biden offered the Ukrainian president and his family refuge from the war, and the official American expectation, as expressed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, was that Russia would seize Kiev within a few days and occupy the entire country within a month.

It almost immediately became clear that no such outcome was about to occur and there was a spontaneous upsurge of long-departed determination among the principal European NATO allies, quickly joined by the United States and Canada, that Ukraine deserved comprehensive military support, short of the actual commitment of NATO forces. Effectively, NATO has paid practically all the bills for mounting this formidable defence of Ukraine, but the Ukrainians have taken all of the casualties. The likely terms to end the war have been evident for many months: a ceasefire in place, the expansion of Russia to include what it has occupied and been able to retain in Ukraine, and the unqualified recognition of Ukraine in its revised borders as a sovereign state which, when it meets the appropriate criteria, will be eligible for membership in the European Union and in NATO. (NATO and no one else will decide who joins NATO.)

Ironclad guarantees of Ukraine’s revised borders would represent three quarters of a loaf for that country and one quarter of a loaf for Russia, for whom the war is a terrible strain—Russia has taken over 600,000 casualties, and Ukraine approximately 250,000, about a quarter dead in each case, and Russia’s GDP is smaller than Canada’s.

The reason we have not got to this conclusion yet is that the United States hasn’t been pushing for it. The Ukrainian government is prepared to go on with the casualties, so America will fight on with it to the last Ukrainian.

Former President Trump has recognized that in addition to preserving Ukraine and its independence, the goal is to create conditions where a post-war Russia can be gradually enticed out of the arms of China. A durable intimate alliance of those two countries could be strategically dangerous, as well as the practical end of Russia’s independence. For a year after the peace, Ukrainians could move to Russia or the revised borders of Ukraine, and a non-aggression agreement could be made between Russia and NATO.

The end of this war awaits the U.S. election, which will effectively determine the terms.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.