In the shadow of other world events — the war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, natural disasters everywhere — the focus on political hostages has been pushed to the media’s back burner. There has been no news of additional arrests; but neither has there been word of progress toward any releases or exchanges, though negotiations may well be continuing behind closed doors. At least, I would hope so.
“Polar Wolf” – Russia’s IK-3 Penal Colony
There is no excuse or justification for forgetting them, even for the moment. So here they are again: sadly, only a small percentage of the total number being held in Russian, Belarusian and Azerbaijani prisons as political hostages:
Prisoners of War:
The People of Ukraine The Azov 12
Endangered Exiles:
Mikita Losik Yulia Navalnaya Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents
Ales Bialiatski Andrei Chapiuk Uladzimir Labkovich Ihar Losik Marfa Rabkova Valiantsin Stafanovic Yuras Zyankovich
In Russia:
David Barnes Gordon Black Antonina Favorskaya Konstantin Gabov Robert Gilman Stephen James Hubbard Sergey Karelin Vadim Kobzev Darya Kozyreva Artyom Kriger Michael Travis Leake Aleksei Liptser Grigory Melkonyants Nika Novak Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler) Igor Sergunin Dmitry Shatresov Robert Shonov Grigory Skvortsov Eugene Spector Laurent Vinatier Robert Romanov Woodland
. . . and any others I may not be aware of.
“Happy New Year” at Polar Wolf Penal Colony
May you be home soon. And in the meantime, know that you are not forgotten.
I’m not sure who is the bigger idiot: the 22-year-old active-duty American soldier who tried to sell classified information to Russia in exchange — not for money — but for Russian citizenship, or the individual(s) who awarded him the top-secret security clearance that gave him access to the data in the first place.
Specialist Taylor Adam Lee
But that’s what Taylor Adam Lee is charged with having done while stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Lee was arrested on August 6th and charged under the Espionage Act with attempted transmission of national defense information to a foreign adversary, as well as violation of the Arms Export Control Act. Specifically, the Justice Department says that Lee “transmitted export-controlled technical information on the M1A2 Abrams Tank online and offered assistance to the Russian Federation.” [Joe Walsh, CBS News, August 6, 2025.]
He is said to have written online — online!! — earlier this year that “the USA is not happy with me for trying to expose their weaknesses. . . . At this point I’d even volunteer to assist the Russian federation [sic] when I’m there in any way.” [Id.]
Then this genius — with the top-secret security clearance, mind you — had an in-person meeting with someone he “believed to be a representative of the Russian government,” to whom he delivered an SD card with technical data and other information on Abrams tanks. He also allegedly discussed with that individual the possibility of giving Russia a piece of hardware from the tank. [Id.]
On July 31st, he delivered what appeared to be the hardware to a storage unit in El Paso, Texas. He then messaged his “Russian” contact: “Mission accomplished.” [Todd South, Army Times, August 7, 2025.]
Steven J. Jensen, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said in a statement:
“Lee allegedly violated his duty to protect the United States in favor of providing national defense information to the Russian government. The FBI is steadfast in our commitment to protect U.S. national security and bring to justice those who seek to undermine it.“ [Id.]
And Brigadier General Sean F. Stinchon, Commanding General of Army Counterintelligence Command, added:
“This arrest is an alarming reminder of the serious threat facing our U.S. Army. Thanks to the hard work of Army Counterintelligence Command Special Agents and our FBI partners, Soldiers who violate their oath and become insider threats will absolutely be caught and brought to justice, and we will continue to protect Army personnel and safeguard equipment.” [Id.]
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These things happen from time to time, both in the military and the civilian world. Even with the most careful vetting techniques, someone with a questionable history or personality quirk that should set off alarms will occasionally slip through unnoticed. And someone like Lee, who holds his Specialist rank because of his technical expertise and access to classified information, is a tempting target for foreign adversaries.
But I’m having difficulty understanding how a tech-savvy 22-year-old, apparently intelligent enough to hold a Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, could be so stupid as to post his grievances against the Army and his willingness to assist Russia . . . on the freakin’ internet!!!
Someone really should have told this guy that what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas.
Less than three hours ago, I said that there was no way a “swapping of territories” was “to the betterment of” Ukraine, as proposed by Donald Trump upon announcing his scheduled meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15th.
And moments ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine “will not give their land to occupiers.” [Neha Gogol, BBC, August 9, 2025.]
I’m not psychic. And it’s not rocket science. There was no way Zelensky was going to allow Putin and Trump to sit down without him and carve up his country.
But the two dictators believe they have the right to do exactly that. Because that’s what dictators do.
And lest you still doubt that they’re in sync with regard to Ukraine, Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, has already issued an invitation to Trump to come to Moscow for their next summit.
It seems as though securing the future of Ukraine has taken a back seat to mending relations between Putin and Trump. But is that really surprising?
Yes, you read that correctly. At least, that’s the plan as of this moment. With Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, however, one can never be certain of anything until it actually happens.
The details are being fed to the media in bits and pieces from both sides; but as things now stand, a meeting is set for next Friday, August 15th, somewhere in Alaska, with a final itinerary yet to be ironed out.
My first thought upon reading about this development was of the outstanding ICC criminal warrant against Putin charging him with war crimes; so I did a little fact-checking. I was most surprised to learn that, although the U.S. did sign the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in 2000, we never ratified it, and formally withdrew in 2002 over concerns that it would have left U.S. citizens — and specifically our military deployed overseas — vulnerable to political prosecution by other countries.
So the U.S. is not obligated to act on the ICC warrant, and Putin is free to come to the U.S. without worrying about being arrested.
And what a propaganda coup this is for him — not only being at the big kids’ table again, but on American soil to boot. The only thing better would have been an invitation to a state dinner at the White House . . . but maybe next year.
If it was good enough for Gorbachev …
In the meantime, we have learned that Wednesday’s meeting between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff resulted in “a sweeping proposal [from Russia] for a cease-fire in Ukraine, demanding major territorial concessions by Kyiv and a push for global recognition of its claims in exchange for a halt to the fighting.” [Bojan Pancevski, Alexander Ward and Robbie Gramer, The Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2025.]
Putin is said to have told Witkoff he would agree to a complete ceasefire in return for Ukraine’s withdrawal of its forces from all of its eastern Donetsk region, leaving Russia in control of Donetsk, Luhansk, and the Crimean Peninsula. No decisive information has been provided as to the two other regions partially controlled by Russia — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — which geographically lie, side by side, between Donetsk and Crimea.
Neither was any indication given as to the status of Russia’s other earlier demands, which included Ukraine’s giving up its ambition of joining NATO, agreeing to limit its military capabilities, and calling for new elections.
Nor has there been a statement as to any further concessions, other than the ceasefire, on Russia’s part.
Putin and Witkoff in Moscow – August 6, 2025 (with Yuri Ushakov in the background)
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I’m sure you’re familiar with that creepy feeling you get when you know something is amiss but you can’t quite put your finger on it. For me, it manifests as a tingling sensation that starts somewhere in the pit of my stomach, works its way upward to my chest, and hovers there — unshakable — like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, waiting for the psycho with the knife to pull aside the shower curtain.
And that’s what I’m experiencing now: something doesn’t feel right. What does Vladimir Putin have up his sleeve that he’s been hiding and now decided to spring on us? For that matter, why is Trump suddenly so optimistic? What has he offered or suggested to Putin that we — and, more importantly, Ukraine — aren’t going to like?
Brushing aside the expiration of his Friday deadline, Trump told the media on Friday that “It’s going to be up to him [Putin]. We’re going to see what he has to say.” He added that he, Trump, is close to reaching a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, but that it is “very complicated. . . We’re going to get some back; there will be some switched.” [Sarah Ewall-Wice, The Daily Beast, August 8, 2025.]
And he said further: “I think we’re getting very close. You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for three and a half years. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”[Id.]
“What did he say?”
“Swapping of territories”? “To the betterment of both”? What does that imply? Is Russia going to offer Ukraine some sort of compensation for stealing its rich farmlands, valuable mining regions, and strategic Black Sea territories — say, a few thousand square miles of frozen Siberian tundra? Or will Putin offer to back out of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia . . . for now?
But regardless of what is offered, how can this conflict possibly be resolved to the “betterment” of Ukraine, when so much of it has already been decimated by three and a half years of relentless bombardment, and still more of it may simply be taken away?
What guarantees will Ukraine have against a future invasion? Putin’s word is meaningless.
And what sort of agreement will resurrect the thousands upon thousands of lives lost, or repair those that have been irreparably shattered?
No matter how hard you try, you can’t un-ring a bell.
The Tsar Bell – Moscow Kremlin
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And one other niggling little thought won’t go away, though it’s admittedly an odd one: Why suddenly choose to meet in Alaska, instead of Turkey or the Middle East? The Kremlin said the location is “quite logical” in view of Alaska’s relative proximity to Russia. Well, yes . . . if you live in Chukotka. But from Moscow, in western Russia, to the far east coast is a time difference of 11 hours.
So again, why Alaska? Is Putin planning to lay claim to our 49th state as well, reminding Trump that Alaskan territory — like Ukraine — was once part of the Russian Empire?
Remember what Putin recently said: “Wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours.”
We might want to make sure that no one in his entourage holds a military rank.
It’s evening in Moscow, mid-afternoon in Washington. And still there is no final word from the White House of concrete action on Donald Trump’s threatened secondary sanctions against Russia in the absence of any indication from Vladimir Putin of a desire to end to the war in Ukraine.
Following Wednesday’s meeting in Moscow between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump spoke of the likelihood of a meeting between himself and Putin, possibly within the next week, to be followed by a three-way meeting to include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But hours later, when asked whether Putin would have to agree to meet with Zelensky as a pre-condition to an initial meeting with Trump, Trump replied:
“No, he doesn’t. They would like to meet with me, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing.” [Shannon K. Kingston, Chris Boccia and Emily Chang, ABC News, August 8, 2025.]
According to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, if Trump and Putin meet with no concessions on Putin’s part, and without any real progress toward a resolution of the conflict, “It’s only an achievement for Putin. I don’t think it’s an achievement for the West, for the United States, for President Trump. Putin wants to be back as a player. He wants to . . . get out of this isolation. He wants to get out of being the pariah.” [Id.]
And Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that a meeting with Trump would mark “the end of diplomatic isolation for Putin. He’s meeting potentially the most powerful presence in the world without necessarily giving any serious concessions or anything at all to the White House.” [Id.]
So it’s beginning to look as though Putin has done it again: bought further time for himself by offering to meet one-on-one with Trump — a tactic that would only benefit Putin by returning him to the world stage as an equal, rather than a political outcast . . . and at the same time offer him the forum he desires to reiterate his outrageous conditions for a peaceful settlement.
It was a sad day, but it was the best solution to an agonizing, two-year-long struggle to find the truth and bring an end to what had become known simply as “Watergate.”
President Richard M. Nixon Resigns – August 8, 1974
Trying to follow the Byzantine developments in a criminal conspiracy that began in June of 1972 with a break-in at Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex quickly became a daily pastime for the vast majority of adults around the world.
It was the worst scandal the U.S. government had ever seen, and it brought down the White House. Richard Nixon was impeached by Congress, and resigned shortly thereafter.
Speaking at the White House on August 8th, he addressed the American public:
“By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.” [“This Day In History,” History.com, August 8, 2025.]
For two years, Nixon had lied, tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to bully members of his administration into becoming part of the cover-up, and fought to maintain his credibility with the American people. But he failed, because the members of Congress and of the Justice Department did their jobs, and refused to be coerced.
Leaving Washington for the Last Time
In that respect, August 8, 1974, was a very good day for America . . . and for democracy.
Three meetings between delegations from Moscow and Washington between February and June resulted in prisoner exchanges, but failed to bring a ceasefire in Ukraine any closer. Now, Donald Trump hopes that a face-to-face meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin will turn the tide.
But will it?
In June, at the meeting in Istanbul, the Kremlin presented its memorandum of demands for a “final settlement,” which were unchanged from previous statements: Ukraine’s ceding to Russia the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia; agreeing to accept a position of neutrality; giving up its long-stated goal of membership in NATO; rejecting foreign military involvement; and calling for new elections. In other words, Ukraine would become a shrunken, toothless nonentity, defenseless and completely vulnerable to Russia’s future goal of reabsorbing the former Soviet republic into Putin’s new Russian Empire.
And those demands have remained unchanged, as reiterated numerous times by Putin himself (as recently as last week) and confirmed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the Russian Security Council’s notoriously hot-headed Dmitry Medvedev.
According to Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya:
“The Russian side can frame this in a dozen different ways, creating the impression that Moscow is open to concessions and serious negotiation. But the core position remains unchanged: Russia wants Kyiv to surrender.” [Laura Gozzi and Vitaliy Shevchenko, BBC, August 7, 2025.]
So why should we expect a different result this time? Does Trump know something — perhaps gleaned from one of his phone calls with Putin — that he hasn’t revealed? Is Putin at last willing to offer a compromise on one or more of his demands? Or is he simply buying time, as he has done so often in the past, in order to continue his brutal attacks on Ukraine until total surrender becomes their only option?
Following Wednesday’s meeting in Moscow between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington now has a “better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would be prepared to end the war.” [Id.]
> Laundry > Break down boxes for recycling > Clean inside of microwave > Organize photos into folders on iPhone > Post an article on my blog
The things I actually got done on Wednesday:
> Posted an article on my blog
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Blame it on my dreams. They’re always weird, but Tuesday night’s were so peculiar, and so detailed in their clarity, that I spent the better part of yesterday trying to analyze them.
Or blame it on the fact that the daily news was, as usual, so depressing and so repetitive that I just didn’t feel like facing it.
So I’m going to turn in early (it’s slightly after midnight Thursday, which is early for me), see what my dream world has in store for me tonight, and hope for a happy headline or two when I wake up.
But before I do, just a quick update on my favorite subject: the U.S.-Russia-Ukraine situation.
Following yesterday’s meeting between White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, issued a statement today saying that the Russians “expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy.” [RFE/RL, August 6, 2025.]
Trump’s plan is to meet with Putin as early as next week at an as-yet-unspecified location, and to schedule a three-way meeting — for himself, Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky — thereafter.
Yeah . . . good luck with that one. Putin has thus far refused to meet with Zelensky, because doing so would be tantamount to acknowledging Zelensky’s legitimacy as president.
And John Hardie, Deputy Director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, issued this caution:
“We’ve kind of seen this movie before where Trump will threaten economic punishment if a deal isn’t made by a certain deadline, and then the Russians kind of offer some empty promise or meaningless talks, and the can gets kicked down the road. I would hope that is not going to be the case here.” [Id.]
Well, if it does turn out to be the case — again — then I know whose can I’d like to see kicked down the road. (Don’t ask.)
But we’ll see what happens in the next few days. In the meantime, good night (or good morning), and pleasant dreams.
Trump said he could end Putin’s war against Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office in January. The world laughed at the absurdity of his claim.
The world was right.
Six months — and thousands of casualties — later, Russia’s onslaught continues to escalate.
21st Century Brinkmanship
Trump threatened; Putin shrugged. The U.S. and its NATO allies issued crippling sanctions against Russia; Russia adapted. China and India helped picked up the economic slack in Russia; Trump responded with more sanctions.
Sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. What else could we do?
Talks were held, three times, on neutral territory in Istanbul; Trump’s envoy made two trips to Moscow; Putin still refused to compromise on his demands, which would in effect leave Ukraine weak, vulnerable, and an easy target for future invasion. Trump gave him more time. The attacks increased.
Then Dmitry Medvedev inserted himself into the picture, tossing out the “N” word — the nuclear option. And everyone inhaled, held their collective breath.
Now what?
Trump responded angrily, and rightly so. This time Putin listened, advised caution; Medvedev became silent; Trump issued sanctions against India, threatened the same against China.
But Russia announced that it no longer considers itself bound by its self-imposed moratorium on deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate range missiles, citing U.S. and allied efforts to develop similar weapons for deployment in Europe and elsewhere.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that such efforts by the U.S. and others create a “direct threat to the security of our country [and carry] significant harmful consequences for regional and global stability, including a dangerous escalation of tensions between nuclear powers.” [Associated Press, August 5, 2025.]
And Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked where and when Russia might deploy its intermediate-range weapons, replied that it’s not something to be announced in advance, saying:
“Russia no longer has any limitations, Russia no longer considers itself to be constrained by anything. Therefore Russia believes it has the right to take respective steps if necessary.” [Id.]
Welcome back to 1962.
Kennedy and Khrushchev – The Cuban Missile Crisis
Yesterday, envoy Witkoff headed for Moscow for the third time and met with Putin for about three hours. Trump said the meeting was “highly productive” and represented “great progress” toward a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
“Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” Trump wrote on social media. But he added that there would not be a ceasefire by his deadline of Friday, August 8th. No explanation was given. [Matthew Luxmoore, Alexander Ward and Alex Leary, The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2025.]
Later today, a senior U.S. administration official said that Trump intends to meet soon with Putin, based on an offer allegedly made by Russia during Witkoff’s visit. Again, no details were available. [Id.]
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To those of us who lived through it, the memories of those days of nuclear brinkmanship are all too fresh. And a repeat performance is the last thing the world needs. In the ‘60s, cooler heads prevailed, and the world was saved from annihilation.
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 