19 Comments
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Patrick Lancaster's avatar

Do you think Moscow is playing this right?

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Sarah Mumford's avatar

Lavrov is a canny guy with much experience in his job and obviously respected for fact he the Foreign minister all these years. He has personal intellect as well as being in Govt. As long as he at the talks I have confidence there will be some degree of integrity maintained on issue.

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Soulminkey's avatar

Yes absolutely. When I first heard that Zelensky and Trump hammered out a deal on the rare earth minerals, I thought it to be really bad news: it would give the US economic incentive to fight for certain territory in Ukraine. But when Russia now indicates itself to be open to Western investors in mining in (former) Ukraine territories, well it undermines Zelensky's trump card that he hoped to play to get America by his side again. Because I don't think at this point the US cares much whether they do deals with Russians or Ukrainians.

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Daniel Chee's avatar

Looks like Donald Trump has agreed that he is willing to make a deal with Putin regarding US investment in Russia.

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Matthew Ngatai's avatar

Once upon a time under the emperors Catherine the great of the house of romanov" Ukraine was all Russia 🇷🇺

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Daniel Chee's avatar

But these so called experts

in the west and Ukraine are trying to rewrite their history.

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Denis's avatar

Patrick writes with a clear and concise flair straight to the point and easy to understand. Well done. Based on his summary it appears Russia is playing its cards right but I'm reserving my opinion until the actual peace terms are settled.

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Dmitriy Milkin's avatar

Patrick, it is SO REFRESHING to hear all of the facts correctly stated and explained. It has been, to date, only what the western media and politicians have said. They themselves have never correctly understood the situation and have simply repeated whatever the Ukrainian government says.

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Andrew's avatar

Lavrov knows very well this is a US vs Russia war using Ukraine as a proxy. The US does not intend to stop this war in any way, they fully intend to achieve regime change in Russia and destroy both Russia and Ukraine and then continue to destroy China.

It does not matter that the Trump administration is talking about peace negotiations, in the meantime they continue to send weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. Anybody who believes the US rethoric is hopelessly naïve.

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marty hahn's avatar

Thanks, Pat. Your insight is invaluable to our understanding of the situation.

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FlyingAxblade's avatar

My curious lays in what company will get the rebuild contracts as part of the undisclosed facets of these deals.

My dread is that infrastructure will go to Black Rock & with Western Technology.

Cherish is the new love, be well.

May God nod toward thee & thine!

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Frances Leader's avatar

Trump seems most interested in recouping all the billions that US taxpayers have ploughed into Ukraine. He wants a slice of the mineral wealth as compensation for providing all that ordnance to bomb the place to smithereens. Should aggressors reap rewards? I can't see Putin and Lavrov bowing to those demands! When the billions frozen in European banks are returned to Russia they might be happier but it would be very foolish to let Trump get any sort of corporate foothold on Ukraine's resources.

I keep expecting to hear that Zelensky is offsky.... disappearing in a puff of coke to one of his various estates purchased with Ukraine's money.....

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Frances Leader's avatar

This post and some of the comments might be interesting to you Patrick!

https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/hopium-copium-trumpium

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Šarpla's avatar

After the years of disaster with sleepy Joe, it looks like a lot of people got some faith and hope that zion Don is going MAGA for them. Even Europeans seem to think the big howler monkey is going to change things for the better. But they probably have forgotten about his first term! When he already proved that his mouth is bigger than his deeds!

I bet they don't remember that he pulled out of the INF treaty

Well, I'll eat my shoe if Putin and Lavrov are among those with the short-term memory !

Keep up the good work Patrick!

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kolotoc's avatar

biggest minora in world on whouse lawn. ukraine ;; war for ;;new izrael jew land;

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Berta Nelson's avatar

President Putin said all this months ago in answer to ideas floated out by Trump before his inauguration. As to access to minerals anywhere in the lands of the Russian Federation, it will be capital intensive, as Putin has said. Setting up mining operations involves enormous investment. Then there's the actual extraction, separation of the ore, refining, factories to turn the ore into products & then pricing such products. China is already doing this elsewhere improving mining practices, creating state-of-the-art refining & manufacturing that produces high-quality products at amazingly low prices.

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A Skeptic's avatar

Thanks for your great work Patrick!

We've shared the link on our daily report.

A Skeptic War Reports

https://askeptic.substack.com/

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Salt Lick's avatar

Enjoyed your summary. Moscow has it right and has always been very consistent. America not so much. Right now, America wants to partition Ukraine with this minerals deal. Pretty soon other Eastern European countries will take a piece. There may be nothing left when it’s over.

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John's avatar

Ура

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