Nope. "New Russia".
Russia continues to demilitarize the Kiev Regime along the entire contact line.

Kiev has responded with terrorist attacks on civilian sites and infrastructure in Russian Ukraine and Russia itself, as well as is usual atrocities - murdering civilians.

But the war that the US started so many years ago is clearly lost and now the US needs to withdraw — and pretend they had nothing to do with the fiasco. What it wants is Minsk 3.0, which leaves most geographic 'Ukraine" intact — along with the investments of American companies like Blackrock.

It is therefore trying to shift responsibility to Europe, as if this was always Europe's war instead of theirs. If Trump had wanted, he could have kept the peace by supporting Minsk 2.0 back when. Instead he undermined that agreement, piling on sanctions on Russia and facilitating arms transfers that allowed Ukraine to build Europe's strongest, best equipped and trained army to carry out a "final solution", scheduled for 2022.

Let us keep in mind that the peoples of Donbas and Lugansk were resisting the denial of their language and culture by a regime they had seized power illegitimately, and which was trying to enforce its will by shelling civilian centers killing women and children. While the peoples of the DPR and LPR had voted overwhelming for independence, MInsk 2.0 was a compromise — guaranteeing their ethnic rights and local autonomy in a federal system controlled from Kiev.

Kiev was and occupying power - two-thirds of their land — and there wasn't much they could do, until the Russians recognized their independence and came to their aid in 2022 .

Trump didn't care about any of this during his first term.

But now he doesn't have any choice to accept whatever the Russians offer him.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia businesswoman and former senator, to lead the Small Business Administration, returning a stalwart supporter of President Donald Trump to Washington.

At SBA, Loeffler will oversee the entity that describes itself as the only Cabinet-level federal agency "fully dedicated to small business" by providing "counseling, capital, and contracting expertise as the nation's only go-to resource and voice for small businesses." Typically, the agency — which was founded in 1953 — offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by a disaster, loans that can be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other expenses that would have been met if not for the disaster.

The Senate confirmed Loeffler on a 52-46 vote.

Kash Patel has been targeted not due to a lack of qualifications but because he has the qualifications required to challenge the deep state.

Should the Senate confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, it will have clinched the second of perhaps the two most vital nominations President Donald Trump will make, alongside Tulsi Gabbard. These are the two individuals after Trump with the near-singular ability to prevent us from devolving into a total police state of the kind that has already targeted them.

President Trump was elected in no small part as a rebuke to a national security apparatus and intelligence agencies that have been weaponized and politicized against dissenters from ruling-class orthodoxy. From Russiagate and the fostering of the Censorship-Industrial Complex, to the first Trump impeachment and the Jan. 6 inquisition, to the targeting of all from faithful Christians to pro-life activists and parents concerned about their kids being indoctrinated in Marxism in school, increasingly our deep state has operated like our political foes' secret police.

As I recently reported at RealClearInvestigations, the evidence shows that at least at the FBI, whistleblowers exposing this misconduct have had their careers and lives destroyed. Those defending them have faced retaliation too.

The EU's illusions have been shattered as the US moves on

This year's Munich Security Conference attracted as much attention as it did 18 years ago. Back then, it was Vladimir Putin who caused an uproar; this time, it was US Vice President J.D. Vance. Though separated by nearly two decades, these two speeches share a critical theme: both challenged the transatlantic order built on the legacy of the Cold War. And in both instances, the Western establishment failed to offer a substantive response.

In 2007, Putin's warning about NATO expansion and Western overreach was largely dismissed as the grievances of a declining power. A few voices urged caution, but the prevailing sentiment in Washington and Brussels was complacency — Russia, they believed, would ultimately fall in line. The consequences of that miscalculation are now plain for all to see.

Today, the US Vice President has thrown down a different kind of gauntlet. His speech signaled a deep ideological rift within the West itself, one that Western European leaders seem unprepared to confront. In response, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an emergency summit to establish a common position. But is the EU truly grasping the scale of the challenge? The early reactions suggest not. There remains a hope, however misguided, that this storm can simply be waited out.

It is time for Ukraine to choose: stand with its Western sponsors in pursuit of peace or continue to recklessly jeopardize its own lifelines.

The recent Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station is a reckless, irresponsible, and potentially criminal act that threatens ongoing diplomatic efforts between the United States and Russia. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio leads a US delegation to Saudi Arabia for high-stakes negotiations aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict, such aggressive actions jeopardize the fragile path toward peace and reveal Ukraine's disregard for international norms and its own supporters' interests.

The Kropotkinskaya station, operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), is a critical infrastructure component that primarily facilitates the export of Kazakh oil - much of which is produced by American and European companies - through Russia to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. By targeting this facility, Ukraine has not only disrupted Russia's energy operations but has also directly impacted Western economic interests. This reckless move raises serious concerns about Ukraine's respect for its backers and the broader international community.

Some $4.7 trillion in federal payments remained untraceable, as the Treasury did not enforce a tracking code.

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims has uncovered a massive gap of nearly $5 trillion in US federal spending that it cannot account for. DOGE has claimed that Treasury records made some payments untraceable.

Since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on January 20, DOGE has been pressing ahead with budget and spending audits along with job cuts across federal agencies in an effort to reduce government spending by $2 trillion by 2026.

The department, headed by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, explained that the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS), used to describe the account the money is linked to, was missing on a number of payments the department had been making.

DOGE said on Tuesday in a post on X (formerly Twitter):

"In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going."

The agency thanked the US Treasury for their work in identifying the optional field.

Ukraine carried out a large-scale drone strike against the partially US-owned Caspian Pipeline Consortium's (CPC) pumping station in Russia's Krasnodar Region early Monday morning. Few were hitherto aware of this project, let alone that it continued operating without any problems amidst the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine and the West's anti-Russian sanctions, but it's one of America's most significant regional investments. This audacious attack therefore risks provoking Trump's wrath.

Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev published a lengthy Telegram post on Tuesday where he argued that Zelensky knew about the US' connection to the CPC but still went through with this large-scale drone strike regardless. According to him, it was meant to be "a triple blow to American companies, the oil market and Trump personally", which was done in response to fears that the US leader will force Ukraine into making peace with Russia.

The US has spent over $300 billion on aid to Kiev, according to President Donald Trump.

The American people do not want to see their taxpayer dollars endlessly being spent on the Ukraine conflict, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said.

To date, the US Congress has approved nearly $183 billion in aid for Kiev since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. US President Donald Trump has put the total at more than $300 billion.

Kennedy, who was confirmed as the new US health secretary last week, said it was time to cut the flow of funding, in a statement on X on Sunday:

"The American people will not accept hard-earned tax dollars fueling endless conflicts. We demand an end to these forever wars. It's time for peace! The perpetual funding is over!"

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Monday that some $4.7 trillion in payments from the Treasury Department were missing a critical tracking code, which made tracing the transactions "almost impossible."

The transactions were reportedly missing the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS), an identification code which links a Treasury payment to a budget line item, according to DOGE, which described the use of such code as a "standard financial process."

"In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible," read an X post from DOGE.

This was never meant to be Yalta. Although Yalta 2.0 may eventually happen. On the Victory Day parade in Moscow next May 9, celebrating 80 years of the end of the Great Patriotic War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Putin as the host and Xi Jinping as a top guest will be in town. So might be Donald Trump. Why not have them all board a flight to Crimea and stage a Yalta 2.0 in - where else - Yalta?

"Sweet dreams are made of this", to quote pop metaphysicians Eurythmics. Meanwhile, we didn't have Yalta, not even Reykjavik; we had a long 4.5 hours in the royal palace of Ed-Diriyah in the Wadi Hanifa valley. Russia and the U.S. finally sat down to discuss as adults - for the first time in three years.

A delightful measure of excitement was duly provided - all related to the parties being involved in "work on normalizing diplomatic relations". Until three months ago - under the Cadaver In The White House administration and his Secretary of Genocide - that possibility was as remote as a meteorite crashing on Earth (that will happen, but in a distant future).

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio performed the super-human feat of at least not crashing in front of the Mighty Lavrov - the top diplomat on the planet. Lavrov and Rubio agreed to create a consultation mechanism to eliminate "irritants" (American terminology) in U.S.-Russia relations, and to cooperate on "issues of common geopolitical interest", as per the State Department. BRICS might not be one of them.

Eliminating "irritants" can be easily interpreted as code for Trump 2.0 trying to find ways out of the previous tsunami of sanctions and economic warfare that only produced spectacular blowback.

The Americans predictably emphasized that "one meeting is not enough to resolve the Ukrainian conflict." Of course not. Presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov noted that Putin himself will decide when "contacts with the U.S. on Ukraine" will begin, and who will be the Russian negotiators.

Lavrov fully debunked the existence of a three-stage plan on Ukraine, including a ceasefire; elections; and the signing of a final agreement. Carefully examining the record so far, Lavrov has always maintained that the U.S. is "non-agreement capable".

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was positively beaming:

"We couldn't have imagined a better result after this session." Well, Witkoff certainly followed the money - Trump's supreme priority - when he and the American delegation were completely "surprised" to learn that "U.S. companies lost $300 billion from leaving Russia", as revealed by the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev.

As with the BRICS fiasco, looks like Team Trump also has not been doing their homework on the business front.