American Committee for US-Russia Accord

At Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt had no doubts about the role their great powers would play in pacifying and stabilizing the postwar international order: the victorious allies that had won the war would collaborate to preserve peace, if necessary, by the combined deployment of their enormous military power.

As negotiations accelerate toward a compromise settlement to end the Ukraine war, the voices of the Ukrainians living through the daily horrors have in many ways been suppressed by unending maximalist rhetoric from those far from the frontlines.

Nicolai N. Petro is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, and formerly the US State Department’s special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union. Prof. Petro discusses the pending end of the Ukraine War and why Europe will likely fragment as a consequence of its proxy war against Russia.

In 2014 and 2022, the EU initiated sanctions regimes against Russia. The lists of entities and individuals were originally supposed to target Russia’s econmic and political elites only. But since 2024, the list has been expanded to include “disinformation” and is being used to target journalists and academics even in EU and Schengen-state areas, like the German nationals Alina Lipp and Hüseyin Dogru, , Jacques Baud, and Nathalie Yamb. To discuss the historical precedents is Professor David Gibbs, a professor of history at the University of Arizona.

Known as the “Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum,” this group, founded in Poland in 2022, calls for nothing less than the complete dissolution of the Russian Federation and its replacement with dozens of smaller ethnostates. According to the group’s defenders, such a breakup would better represent the interests of Russia’s many regions and minority populations. After all, the logic goes, Russia is fundamentally an imperialist state.

A drone attack carried out against one of Putin’s residences was also an attack against a Russian nuclear command and control center located at the residence, according to the ex-adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine, Alexey Arestovich, and a military expert interviewed by Sputnik news and Tass.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope we are coming closer to an agreement about settling the conflict in Ukraine. I hope we can grit our teeth and accept the transactional and sometimes mercurial way the Trump Administration has gone about knocking heads together in pursuit of the end of the war. [Read more…] about ACURA Exclusive: The East Ukraine Gambit by Benjamin S. Dunham

Karaganov told Glenn Diesen in a much noted interview  that Russia is moving towards crossing the nuclear threshold against Europe . He says that any nation that does so will open up Pandora’s box, but also says it is “a myth” that once nuclear weapons are used it will almost automatically escalate to a global war. But he hopes that European “leaders” will be sobered up, because it is a moral/mortal sin to use nuclear weapons, which will result in the deaths of many innocents. [Read more…] about Sergey Karaganov Interview Summary by Steven Starr

Earlier this month, on December 17, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi paid a working visit to Moscow where he held a high-level meeting and press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Although the visit went almost entirely unnoticed by many observers of international affairs, it marked yet another significant milestone in Russo-Iranian relations, signaling a further deepening in ties between Moscow and Tehran amid the rise of a new multipolar world order.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with state-run media that Europe has been the main obstacle for peace amid its war in Ukraine since President Trump returned to office earlier this year.

Thanks to our donors, subscribers, readers and guest contributors. Best wishes for a happy holiday season. We will resume our regular postings December 29th. May peace prevail in 2026.

 

 

The release of the Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) coincides with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to India, offering a perspective on the Ukraine-Russia conflict often missing in Western media: a Russia whose influence is not waning, coupled with an America that is pivoting away from Europe.

To be sure, even limited military conquest by Russia and China along their borders should be deplored. The fact remains that the United States and its NATO allies did not intervene when Moscow crushed uprisings in its Warsaw Pact sphere of influence during the Cold War. Throughout the course of the conflict in Ukraine, a major proxy war, the United States and its NATO allies have refrained from sending troops and limited their military and economic aid to Ukraine. The mission of deterring Russia and China from limited local revanchism cannot justify the development, much less the use, of the American nuclear arsenal, or massive U.S. naval and air forces, for that matter.

The war has taken a decisive and irreversible turn.

A former senior Biden administration official admitted during a recent interview with who she thought were aides to Ukraine’s president that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have been averted if Kyiv had agreed to stop seeking NATO membership.

Ukraine would join the European Union as early as January 2027 under the latest US plan to end the war with Russia, a senior source told Agence France-Presse on Friday. “It’s stated there but it’s a matter for negotiation, and the Americans support it,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. The complicated EU accession process usually takes years and requires a unanimous vote from all 27 members of the bloc. Some countries, most notably Hungary, have consistently voiced opposition to Ukraine joining.

The dangerous disconnect between Trump’s delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategy document. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting U.S. foreign policy in the hands of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose neocon worldview and behind-the-scenes maneuvering has consistently undercut Trump’s professed goals of diplomacy, negotiated settlements and “America First” priorities.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the president to “give notice of the denunciation of the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” The bill would also prohibit the federal government from contributing funds to NATO budgets.

​It is all very well to offer this perspective like Joubert does, but anybody who would like to see peace in Ukraine should at least also take the Russian perspective on the conflict into account – as well as those of authoritative Western critics of the mainstream liberal European perspective.