On the heels of what should have been the start of serious peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, but instead devolved into a 90-minute farce, it seems appropriate to pay special homage today to the largest group of people presently being held hostage by Vladimir Putin: the people of Ukraine.
They are not in Russian prisons or penal colonies; they are innocent of any wrongdoing; no formal criminal charges have been levied against them. Instead, they are trapped in shelters and basements, living in daily fear that at any moment their lives might be taken from them by the next bomb, missile or drone launched by Russia’s forces.
They are as much hostage to Putin’s diabolical machinations as the dissidents, journalists and others confined in his prisons. Their lives have been uprooted, destroyed . . . never to be fully healed. They have lost loved ones, friends and colleagues; sustained permanent physical and emotional injuries beyond measure; seen their homes demolished; had their children ripped from their arms and taken away to Russian “re-education camps.”
They struggle to survive from day to day, their only hope for any sort of future lying with the leaders of the Western nations who continue to fight on their behalf . . . but with the realization that, even when this war finally does come to an end, life will never, ever be as it once was.
And so, with a heavy heart, I add The People of Ukraine to my list of Putin’s hostages, with a prayer that Europe’s Coalition of the Willing, together with the United States, will not give up the fight until they have succeeded in overcoming Putin’s outrageous demands and won a just and lasting peace for the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
*. *. *
And, as always, we honor those hostages still in the prisons and penal colonies, also awaiting their day of justice and freedom:
The People of Ukraine The Azov 12 David Barnes Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus) Gordon Black Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus) Antonina Favorskaya Konstantin Gabov Robert Gilman Stephen James Hubbard Sergey Karelin Ihar Karney (in Belarus) on Vadim Kobzev Darya Kozyreva Artyom Kriger Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus) Michael Travis Leake Aleksei Liptser Ihar Losik (in Belarus) Mikita Losik (in Belarus) Daniel Martindale Farid Mehralizada (in Azerbaijan) Nika Novak Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus) Igor Sergunin Dmitry Shatresov Robert Shonov Eugene Spector Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus) Siarhei Tsikhanouski (in Belarus) Laurent Vinatier Robert Romanov Woodland Vladislav Yesypenko (in Crimea) Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)
In case anyone had any doubts as to Vladimir Putin’s intentions with regard to ending his war of attrition against Ukraine, this should help to clarify things for you:
This is the wreckage of the passenger minibus struck by a Russian Lancet drone at 06:17 local time (03:17 GMT) today — the day following the meeting at Istanbul, Turkiye, when an attempt at negotiating a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine . . . or, at the very least, a 30-day ceasefire to allow for serious negotiations . . . failed miserably after just 90 minutes.
But, as is now well known, Vladimir Putin declined to show up for the meetings, sending instead a low-level delegation that obviously had no authority to negotiate anything beyond an exchange of prisoners. And while his dog-and-pony show was taking place in Istanbul, he was in the Kremlin, busily authorizing further attacks . . . this one killing nine and injuring four other civilians on their way to the city of Sumy in a clearly non-military vehicle.
Russian state media reported that their forces had struck a “military staging area” in the Sumy province. [Jaroslav Lukiv, BBC News, May 17, 2025.]
Right.
*. *. *
A day earlier, following a four-day state visit to the Middle East, Donald Trump told reporters that “nothing’s going to happen [regarding Ukraine] until Putin and I get together. He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there and I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together.” [Id.]
Those words — coming on the heels of three days of back-and-forth between Trump and Putin as to whether either or both of them would even bother to show up in Istanbul if the other one wasn’t coming — sound very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And now, Trump has announced that he will speak with Putin by phone on Monday, May 19th, at 10:00 a.m. EST (4:00 p.m. CET), followed by a call with Zelensky and a group call with Zelensky and “various members of NATO.” In a post on his Truth Social network, he said:
“The subjects of the call will be … stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade. Hopefully it will be a productive day, a cease-fire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should never have happened, will end.” [RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, May 17, 2025.]
Well, that would certainly be the best-case scenario. It’s also the one Trump has been promising the world since he began his presidential campaign.
*. *. *
In the meantime, Yuriy Zarko, chief administrator of the town of Bilopillya, Ukraine, where nine people lay dead among the wreckage of a blue minibus, had this to say:
“This day will become Black Saturday in the history of our town.”
And the citizens of Sumy continue to flee in anticipation of further attacks.
*. *. *
Meanwhile, European leaders continue to discuss measures to be taken to force Putin’s hand; they understand all too well that his word has about as much value as a piece of lint.
Hopefully, by Monday morning, Donald Trump will also have caught on to the truth.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
– Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
*. *. *
Lewis Carroll penned those intentionally indecipherable words around 1855 — some say, while in the midst of a hallucinogenic experience, either drug- or migraine-induced — as part of his immortal classic, Alice In Wonderland. The poem’s title, Jabberwocky, has long since found its way into English-language dictionaries as a synonym for double-talk, drivel, gibberish, jabber, nonsense, mumbo-jumbo, and the like.
And I would like to add a definition to the list: “Trump-talk.”
Trump-talk is not just Donald Trump’s inability to string more than three words together to form a coherent sentence; it is also the uncanny ability of his team of Wonderland Washingtonians to twist perfectly good groups of words into combinations that are the total opposite of anything resembling fact.
And coming from the man who claims to be the leader of the free world, it is both alarming and — on the world stage — embarrassing as hell. Such as, when he referred to the African nation of Namibia as “Nambia,” likely confusing it with the nearby nation of Zambia. And I shudder to think of what he’d do with Nigeria and Niger . . . or whether he even knows they’re two separate countries. (Or, for that matter, how Niger is actually pronounced.)
But though we may make fun of the malapropisms and the utter absurdities emanating from the mouth of a man who spent the last four years denigrating his predecessor for every stumble and slip-up, they’re not always amusing. In fact, they can be downright dangerous.
For example, there was the stunning comment he made during his first administration, following his now-infamous Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin in 2018. Despite the dire warnings from U.S. intelligence sources, from Congress, and from his advisers concerning Russian interference in U.S. elections, he said the following:
“My people came to me. Dan Coats [then U.S. Director of National Intelligence] came to me, and some others. They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
I wondered at the time whether he meant to say “why it wouldn’t be,” because — like the rest of the country — I didn’t want to believe he could be that gullible. But whether it was inadvertent or intentional, that one word — “would” instead of “wouldn’t” — started a firestorm of accusations against Trump: accusations of collusion, and even mentions of treason.
And it was the biggest, bestest gift he could have given Putin, all tied up in a big red bow.
*. *. *
What made me think of all this . . . beginning with the Jabberwocky . . . was Trump’s comment to the press on his way back to Washington yesterday aboard Air Force One, when they asked about the failure of the Russia-Ukraine talks at Istanbul that day. On the basis of his earlier statements that nothing was likely to be accomplished until he and Putin sat down together, he said that he might call Putin soon, adding:
“He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not.” [RFE/RL, May 16, 2025.]
“ . . . I think we’ll solve it or maybe not” ??!!!
Now, isn’t that just the kind of decisive, clear-headed thinking we need from our leaders?
*. *. *
Beware the Jabberwock, my friends. Beware the Jabberwock.
The Frumious Bandersnatch, the Jabberwock, and the Jubjub Bird
Oh, well . . . it’s only another three years and eight months. But who’s counting?
There was a glimmer of hope last weekend, when Vladimir Putin suggested a meeting in Istanbul on May 15th. Initially, Volodymyr Zelensky insisted there first be a formal commitment to a 30-day ceasefire; but, at Donald Trump’s insistence, Zelensky agreed to a meeting without a prior ceasefire . . . but on condition that Putin personally come to the table.
And then the days of suspense, while the world hoped that this might be the beginning of the end of the biggest military conflict Europe has seen since World War II. Would Putin show up, or was this just another stall, asserting his control over the negotiations?
Until finally — on the last day before the scheduled meeting, when Zelensky was already en route from Kyiv to Istanbul — the Kremlin made its long-awaited announcement: Moscow would be sending to Turkiye a delegation of eight lower-level “negotiators and experts.” Absent from the list was one name: Vladimir Putin.
The Russian Delegation
We should have known; and somewhere, deep down inside, we did. He never intended to sit down with Zelensky, in Istanbul or anywhere else in the world. He does not want to end this war on any terms but his own; and as long as he can hold out against the sanctions imposed on his country by the Western nations . . . as long as he has countries like China, and India, and North Korea, and Iran to pick up the slack in trade and military support . . . he doesn’t have to end it.
It took just 90 minutes to hammer out an agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war on each side “in the near future,” and to determine that the two sides are still so far apart on the remaining issues — primarily, a meaningful ceasefire, territorial rights, and the return of Ukraine’s kidnapped children — that there was no possibility of any progress being made. [RFE/RL, May 16, 2025.]
In fact, an unnamed Ukrainian source advised Reuters that the Russian delegation made further demands that were “nonstarters . . . detached from reality and [that] go far beyond anything that was previously discussed.” [Id.]
Another source quoted by AFP said that one such demand was “for Ukraine to withdraw forces from large parts of Ukrainian territory it controls in order for a cease-fire to begin” — an apparent reference to the four regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, partially occupied, and wrongfully claimed, by Russia. [Id.]
The Ukrainian Delegation
Following a summit meeting being held on the same day in Tirana, Albania, that included Ukrainian President Zelensky, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — and included a phone call with Donald Trump — a joint statement was issued by Prime Minister Starmer saying that “The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.” He added that “ . . . we are now closely aligning and coordinating our responses and will continue to do so.” [Id.]
The Western Coalition
After the call with Trump, Zelensky issued the following statement on social media:
“Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance. Our position [is that] if the Russians reject a full and unconditional cease-fire and an end to killings, tough sanctions must follow. Pressure on Russia must be maintained until Russia is ready to end the war.” [Id.]
But, despite all of the foregoing, the best the Russians could come up with was a statement from the leader of their delegation, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, that Moscow was “satisfied with the result [on the whole and] ready to continue contacts.” He said his delegation had “taken note” of Ukraine’s request for direct talks between Zelensky and Putin . . . but did not indicate what the odds were of such talks actually taking place.
Instead, he said they had agreed that “each side will present its vision of a possible future cease-fire and spell it out in detail. After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations.” [Id.]
To which, Zelensky had this to say:
“This week we had a real chance to take important steps toward ending this war. If only Putin had not been afraid to come to Turkey.” [Id.]
*. *. *
On one point, I’m afraid I have to disagree with President Zelensky. Putin was not afraid to show up; he never intended to. It’s all part of his game plan, and he’s more than happy to play the long game in order to achieve his goal of total victory.
The offering of a meeting in Istanbul was a ploy . . . “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” [Shakespeare, Macbeth.]
And I have to wonder: How many times will the West be played for the fool before we finally call Putin’s bluff?
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And they — whoever they are — also say that flattery will get you anywhere. If both of those adages are correct, then Argentina’s President Javier Milei just hit the jackpot.
Argentinian President Javier Milei
Looking like a cross between Johnny Cash and a somewhat faded Elvis Presley, Milei announced at a rally on Wednesday that he has issued a decree curbing immigration to Argentina, a country with a long history of openness to immigrants . . . a move that has drawn widespread criticism and a comparison to America’s very own Donald Trump.
But Milei seems to consider those criticisms in a favorable light, judging from the comment of presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni, who said it is “time to honor our history and make Argentina great again.” [CNN World, May 15, 2025.]
Now, where have we heard that before?
Trump must be feeling really special about now. Not only has he been given the uber-royal treatment in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Dubai . . . he also has a friend in South America who seems to be mimicking his every move: instituting an austerity program resembling DOGE’s slash-and-burn method of cutting government spending; raging against the “woke” left; pulling out of the World Health Organization after the U.S. announced its exit; threatening to quit the Paris climate accord after Trump did; outlawing gender change treatments for minors; and promoting a cryptocurrency token much like the $Trump coin. [CBS News, April 5, 2025.]
I can hear Trump now, humming softly to himself the old nursery rhyme: “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, but what can be the use of him is more than I can see.”
Clearly, Milei is seeking assistance from the U.S.; what Trump might gain from the relationship is less obvious. But I’m sure he has something in mind.
Perhaps he’s searching for a 52nd state . . . a very large one.
In any event, he might do well to remember another old saying — one of my grandmother’s favorites: You are judged by the company you keep.
… on May 15, 1988, Soviet troops began their withdrawal from Afghanistan following a more than eight-year occupation.
The Soviet Withdrawal
The human and economic cost to the Soviet Union had proven unsustainable, in no small part due to the intervention of America’s CIA, who helped to support the Afghan Mujahideen faction, with financing authorized by the U.S. Congress. ** Finally, Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev made the decision to end the war that Westerners were referring to as “Russia’s Vietnam.”
** For the gripping story of the involvement of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA operative Gust Avrakotos in engineering America’s continued support for Afghanistan, I recommend George Crile’s book, “Charlie Wilson’s War.” (The Tom Hanks film is also well worth watching — but then, I think anything Tom Hanks does is superb. Just sayin’...)
*. *. *
Some two years later, that defeat was still an extremely sore subject for the Soviet government . . . and I unexpectedly found myself in the happy circumstance of being able to rub it in a little.
It was April of 1990, and I was in London with a team from our Washington law firm, co-sponsoring a conference on doing business in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Included among the honored speakers was one Dmitry (last name irrelevant), who was a highly-placed official with the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Let me give you a brief description of Dmitry. He was well into his 60s, white-haired, with a circumference around the waist that nearly equaled his height, and very full of himself. When he was introduced to me as the member of our team who spoke Russian, he was sure he had found his companion for the week. I guess he also liked redheads.
Fat chance, Dmitry! I spent the next four days trying to avoid him, with a fair amount of success, until the end-of-conference cocktail party at the hotel where the conference had been held and where we had all been housed.
Dmitry had been hitting the sauce pretty hard, and was trying to talk me into accompanying him to a reception being given by the Soviet Ambassador at their London embassy, to which I had not been invited. I knew that would have been a major breach of protocol, and kept changing the subject. At one point, Dmitry said something snide about the U.S. debacle in Vietnam, which I found offensive coming from him. So I decided I’d had enough of being diplomatic, and said:
“I know that Vietnam was not our finest hour — sort of like Afghanistan for you.”
At which point, time seemed to stop. Dmitry didn’t move; he didn’t blink, he didn’t swallow, he didn’t draw a breath . . . he simply turned an alarming shade of red from the neck up. And when he finally gathered his wits about him, he straightened up, inhaled deeply, and bellowed:
“That is a strictly internal matter!”
Being a person of considerable authority back in Moscow, he most likely expected me to recoil in fear. But Dmitry knew nothing about American women in general, or me in particular. Instead of backing off, I took a couple of steps toward him, pulled myself up to my full five feet, two and a half inches in height, looked him square in the eyes, and said,
“Oh, really? Well, tell that to the Afghanis!”
Do you know those times when you can’t think of the perfect comeback until it’s too late, and you find yourself thinking “I should have said”? Well, this wasn’t one of those times; it was, instead, that rare instance of saying just the right thing, and being able to turn on my heel and walk away. And I cannot describe to you how good that felt.
*. *. *
Mercifully, I never saw Dmitry again. But I heard, from a colleague who had attended the Soviet Ambassador’s reception, that he had continued drinking into the evening, and completely disgraced himself. I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to see it.
I don’t know what happened to Dmitry after that trip to London, or if he’s even still alive . . . though I sometimes wonder if he remembered that evening as clearly as I still do. Considering the condition he was in, I somehow doubt it.
It didn’t take a modern-day Nostradamus to call this one. Vladimir Putin never intended to show up in Istanbul to talk to Volodymyr Zelensky, or anyone else.
Donald Trump made a half-hearted attempt to lure him to a meeting by (sort of) indicating that he “could” also be there. But when Putin announced the names of his second-string team members, Trump immediately backed out as well . . . so quickly, in fact, that one might have thought that was the plan all along.
And, true to his word, Zelensky told Putin to stuff it.
Some sort of meeting is apparently taking place today between Putin’s window-dressing mannequins and an equivalent delegation from Ukraine. But without Putin, Zelensky rightly refused to participate, instead meeting only with Turkish President Erdogan.
And Trump? Well, he summed it up perfectly — in his usual eloquent manner — when he told reporters aboard Air Force One (the American one, not the gifted one from Qatar):
“Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together, okay? And obviously he wasn’t going to go. He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there. And I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together, but we’re going to have to get it solved, because too many people are dying.” [David Brennan, GMA, May 15, 2025.]
And there you have it: the fate of the sovereign nation of Ukraine will be determined, not by its own people or its government, but by two autocrats who — while allegedly holding polar-opposite political views — are in fact orchestrating a scenario that will ultimately benefit them both.
And as Ukraine continues to crumble, the world waits to find out who’s next.
Three days ago, on May 12th, I looked at the date on my calendar and wondered why it seemed so familiar. It was not the birthday or anniversary of any of my friends or relatives; there was no reminder of an appointment coming up; yet a little bell kept ringing somewhere in the recesses of my mind.
And then — as so often happens — I dreamed last night about someone I hadn’t seen or thought about in years, and it all came rushing back. So I thought I’d share it with you: the story behind May 12th, as it relates to my misbegotten past.
*. *. *
“Life’s a pitch, then you spy.” – John Alejandro King
On April 16, 1985, an American man walked into the Soviet Embassy on 16th Street in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and asked the guard at the glass-protected desk if he might speak with an Embassy diplomat, Sergei Chuvakhin. When the guard called Chuvakhin to the front entry, the American man handed him an envelope addressed to Stanislav Androsov, then the KGB rezident (chief of station) at the Embassy. Unknown to Chuvakhin, the envelope contained a few documents and an offer to procure and provide more of the same in exchange for the sum of $50,000. The American then left the Embassy and returned to his office in suburban Langley, Virginia.
Former Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C.
Upon receiving and opening the envelope and reviewing its contents, Androsov summoned his deputy, Viktor Cherkashin, then the head of counterintelligence at the Embassy, to discuss the significance of the unexpected and unconventional communique.
The American waited nervously until a month later, when he finally received a call inviting him to meet again with Sergei Chuvakhin at the Embassy on May 17th. On the American’s arrival, Mr. Chuvakhin greeted him, showed him into a small fourth-floor meeting room, and withdrew as he had been instructed. In a few moments, a different gentleman entered the room and introduced himself as Viktor Cherkashin. Their meeting was brief but productive, culminating in an agreement by the KGB to the payment of $50,000 in exchange for additional documents from the American.
Cherkashin and the American next met on June 13, 1985, at Chadwick’s Restaurant, a popular watering hole in the historic Georgetown neighborhood of Washington. The American brought with him a larger package of classified CIA files, which he exchanged with Cherkashin for the agreed amount of $50,000.
Thus began the career of Aldrich Ames as a mole for the Soviet KGB inside the CIA — a career that lasted for nine years, until his eventual arrest on February 21, 1994. Nine years, during which a troubling number of U.S. human assets in Russia were lost, engendering the beginning of a years-long mole hunt within the CIA’s ranks.
Nine years, during which Ames evaded detection despite internal CIA investigations, lie detector tests, routine vetting, and his own reckless extravagance and general carelessness.
Nine years, until — with Ames already at or near the top of the CIA’s short list of suspects — a recently-arrived former KGB officer talked to the FBI and revealed, either knowingly or inadvertently, a key bit of information that allowed the FBI to make its airtight case of espionage against Aldrich Ames.
Without the CIA task force’s relentless, top-secret internal search for a mole, Ames might never have become a suspect. But the CIA has no law enforcement authority in the United States, and so they finally had no choice but to enlist the help of the FBI. It was the joint effort of the two agencies — a rather exceptional collaboration at the time — that brought down the man who still, more than thirty years later, is described by many as perhaps the most destructive U.S. traitor of the 20th Century.
Funny … He doesn’t look like a spy.
Much has since been revealed about the extent of the damage done by Aldrich Ames and the lives lost as a result of his betrayal. But still, more than thirty years later — as he continues to live out his life sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana — Ames claims to have additional information yet to be shared with U.S. intelligence authorities.
And still — three decades after the fact — the identity of the Russian defector who provided that last vital piece of the puzzle also continues to be protected, presumably for his own safety. A few names have been posited by various sources and, not surprisingly, vehemently denied or simply not commented upon.
One was an acquaintance of mine.
*. *. *
Now, About May 12th
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
On April 25, 1993, two former Soviet KGB officers — we’ll call them Comrade X and Comrade Z — arrived at JFK International Airport in New York and spent the night at the Connecticut home of their new literary agent. The following day, they met with book publishers in New York City, one of whom agreed to purchase and publish an as-yet-unfinished book being written by Comrade Z based on his years in Washington as a spy for the KGB. The two men then traveled to the Washington, D.C., area, where they remained until their return to Moscow at the expiration of their visas on May 5th. During that period, they met and spoke with agents of the FBI.
One week later — on May 12, 1993 — the FBI opened its formal investigation of Aldrich Ames, an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency suspected of being a long-time Soviet mole inside the CIA.
I am the person who brought Comrades X and Z to the United States in the spring of 1993 for the purpose of selling that book, thus making it possible for the FBI to interview them at length, and later to pave the way for their defection to the United States.
What followed were two years of madness . . . and two of the more, let’s just say, interesting years of my life. Questions were raised, by journalists and others, as to the identity of the person who provided that final piece of the Ames puzzle needed to form an air-tight case against him. Some suggested it was Comrade X — “my” Comrade X — but that has not, to my knowledge, ever been revealed. It certainly has not been confirmed (or denied) to me.
But perhaps now you can understand why May 12th is a date — along with a few others — that would bring to my mind some very distinct and detailed memories.
*. *. *
Over the years, friends have asked why I haven’t tried writing a book about my experiences of those times, and my answer has always been two-fold: First, that I’ve not been sure whether the subject matter, from the U.S. government’s standpoint, might still be sensitive; and second, because it all happened so long ago, it may have ceased to be of much interest during the years of detente between the U.S. and Russia.
But now, after so many years, and with the return of Russia under Putin to the “bad old days” of totalitarian rule . . . not to mention the near-extinction of relations between Russia and the Western allies since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine . . . it seems somehow appropriate to remind people of how long, and how consistently, the spy wars have been going on while we were looking the other way.
“The whole question is: who controls whom.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
It’s hardly a surprise to anyone that Vladimir Putin, at the 11th hour, has finally announced that he will not be attending the meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Istanbul tomorrow . . . a meeting that Putin himself suggested just a few days ago. He recommended the time and the place, and Zelensky immediately agreed . . . on the condition that Putin himself would be present, and not just an underling.
But no response was heard from Moscow on the last point until today — when Zelensky had already left Ukraine for Istanbul — as Putin signed an order designating a team of “negotiators and experts” to travel to Turkiye for tomorrow’s meetings. And that team did not even include his top-level people, such as Prime Minister Sergei Lavrov, or Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. Instead, he assigned Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin; an aide who once served as Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky; and — most interestingly — Igor Kostyukov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia’s Foreign Military Intelligence Agency, the GRU. [RFE/RL, May 14, 2025.]
Igor Kostyukov
Zelensky had also spoken to Donald Trump, who is presently traveling in the Middle East, about the possibility of his attending the meetings, to which Trump — indicating that he didn’t know whether Putin would attend if he did not — responded:
“I know he [Putin] would like me to be there, and that’s a possibility. If we could end the war, I’d be thinking about that.” [Id.]
Later in the day, a U.S. official said that Trump would not attend.
So it all boils down — not to Putin’s accession to direct talks with Zelensky after all — but to a possible opportunity to meet on neutral territory with Trump under the guise of negotiations toward ending the war in Ukraine. And Zelensky was the reason they both needed for such a meeting.
But somewhere along the line, that didn’t work out . . . and Ukraine, once again, is the loser.
As Russian independent political scientist Natalia Shavshukova told Current Time:
“Putin’s only interest is a direct meeting with Trump . . . and Ukraine has become an excuse for the two leaders to meet.” [Id.]
*. *. *
Why Putin and Trump didn’t, or couldn’t, get their act together is an open question; perhaps each was waiting for the other to make the first commitment. But whatever the reason, one thing is clear:
Russia’s deadly attacks against Ukraine have not let up for a single moment. Nor will they, until Vladimir Putin gets exactly what he wants. And Donald Trump is the only person who can make that happen.
Most of us have a favorite cause . . . or, at the very least, there’s an issue that evokes a strong emotional reaction. It might be anything from animal rights, to genocide, to the building of a new highway through our neighborhood, to a sleazy fashion trend, to learning that Starbucks has discontinued our favorite latte. Whatever the issue, we find ourselves raving and ranting about it endlessly, working ourselves into a lather of righteous indignation and frustration at being powerless to fix it.
I have a few such causes. But for the past several years, I’ve been focused primarily on Russia’s regression to a Soviet-style, authoritarian form of government under the thumb of Vladimir Putin.
And my fond memories of time spent living and working in Moscow in the early 1990s — when the country had overthrown its communist rule and was inching its way toward a democratic form of government and a capitalist economy — have made the realization of Russia’s U-turn toward dictatorship that much more painful.
So I have railed against it in the only way available to me: by writing about it . . . about the new, onerous laws; about the silencing of independent journalists and other critics of the regime; about the imprisonment of foreigners on bogus charges, to be held as hostages for trade like so many head of cattle; about the rewriting of history and the reinstatement of nationalist propaganda in the schools; about the corruption in the oligarchy behind the throne; and most of all, about the war of attrition against Ukraine.
And it has all taken an emotional toll over the past couple of years. Lately, I find it more and more difficult to read the multiple news reports each day, and to find words strong enough — without becoming obscene — to express my anger and despair. I’ve attributed it to burnout, and tried taking an occasional break — a sort of mental health day — to reboot. But that hasn’t really helped . . . and last night, as I lay in bed staring at the rotating ceiling fan and wondering whether it might suddenly fly apart and decapitate me in my sleep, I had an epiphany. I know why I’m losing my edge in writing about Russia.
Sadly, tragically, it is because — as an American living through the nightmare of Donald Trump’s second presidency — I am not in a position to criticize an outsider without also looking inward. I should be writing less about Vladimir Putin and his rubber-stamp government, and more about my own.
Because, as I read these days about the atrocities being committed by the Russian government — not just against Ukraine, but against its own citizens — I find myself wondering which government I am actually reading about.
As has been well documented, Trump and Putin are cut from the same bolt of cloth. And as long as Donald Trump and his band of conscienceless sycophants continue their rampage against all that is good and decent and inspirational about this country, I can no longer limit my attention to Vladimir Putin.
When I began writing this blog some two and a half years ago, I made a conscious decision to avoid any discussion of American politics, with the exception of international relations. That was because I had seen the way in which people react — with unsuppressed anger, hostility, and even hatred — to differing opinions on the subject. And I do not ever want to be the spark that ignites that kind of a conflagration, even if it is only verbal and online.
But I have recently broken that promise to myself, because I love my country — the real America — and my conscience will no longer let me ignore the very real dangers presented by the current administration, or remain silent about them. And while I have no intention of backing off on my criticisms of Putin and his gang of thieves and murderers, I find myself looking at him from a different perspective, giving more weight to what’s happening on this side of the Atlantic, and analyzing the possible connections.
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So stay tuned, good readers. I’m not sure what’s coming next . . . in fact, I’m never sure until my fingers touch the keyboard . . . but I have a feeling it’s going to involve a good bit more of the three Rs — reading, research and realization — and a little less sleep as well.
And hopefully a smattering of humor now and then, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.
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