The has been a torrent of news these past several days bearing on the title given to today’s discussion with Judge Andrew Napolitano.

From the results of the paper voting of EU Member States last Friday in which von der Leyen invoked emergency powers to override any possible vetoes, she succeeded in ending the six-monthly renewals of the freeze on Russian state assets held in Euroclear (Belgium) and making the freeze unlimited in time. For this she surely benefited from the argument that this would provide the EU with leverage against the United States and reserve for them a seat at the peace negotiations table which they otherwise would not enjoy.

Then on Monday, at a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and attended by Trump’s emissaries Witkoff and Kushner, as well as by Volodymyr Zelensky, the decision was taken to approve a peace proposal that incorporated all conditions that the Ukrainians have sought from the beginning of the conflict: a ‘security guaranty’ would be include NATO member states providing ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine, the armed force would be trained by European advisers and would number 800,000, the U.S. would participate in defending Ukrainian sovereignty by clauses similar to Article 5 of the NATO treaties, no territorial concessions to Russia would be made, the Russians would be obliged to pay reparations to Ukraine and the Russian leadership would be brought to justice. 

Incredibly, Trump’s emissaries sat through these discussions and said at the conclusion that peace was now closer than ever before, an idea which Donald Trump himself repeated publicly later in the day.

In a speech to Dutch legislators in The Hague on Tuesday, Zelensky boasted about these terms and said that the Russian aggression would be punished, thereby reinforcing international law.

This utter collapse of the Trump position on the peace which favored realism and acknowledgement of the Russian military victory did not promise anything good for the meetings in Brussels tomorrow and Friday to decide on confiscation of the frozen Russian state assets.

However, this morning’s edition of ‘Le Soir,’ the main French-speaking daily newspaper in Belgium has two full pages devoted to the issue of the disposition of the Russian assets and the domestic politics here relating to the coming Council meeting.  Per Le Soir, De Wever now has the support of ALL political parties in Belgium, north and south, left and right for his veto on von der Leyen’s plans unless she can produce written binding guaranties of all Member States to share the financial risks of the loan operation in case the loan is called by the lending banks.  This could happen under two different scenarios: that the Russians win a law suit against Euroclear for damages over what is effectively the confiscation of their assets OR if the Russians defeat the Ukrainians on the field of battle and force a capitulation, meaning that the peace term do not foresee any Russian reparations to Ukraine.

My present guess is that von der Leyen simply cannot provide such written guaranties to Belgium because there are many naysayers among the Member States to risk sharing, including such heavyweights as France and Italy.

This means that the only fallback position of the Ukraine cheerleaders in the EU will be to raise an EU loan from their own pockets, meaning going to their parliaments to get budgetary approval, and most Member States are loathe to do that. 

Accordingly, if the loan scheme fails this Friday in the European Council, then it is highly likely that Ukraine will be bankrupt in Q1 2026 and the war will end at the negotiating table in capitulation of Kiev.

As we also discuss in this Judging Freedom episode, the shocking flip-flop of Trump on the peace terms that we have seen these past two days is setting off a fierce fight within the highest decision-making levels of the Kremlin.  Putin’s bet on Trump is shown up to have been a strategic mistake. Hardliners including the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ryabkov who said that diplomacy had exhausted its utility several weeks ago are now the winners in the debates around Putin.   The president’s ‘gently, gently’ approach to managing the war is shown to be wrong.   We may therefore expect a big change in Putin’s next moves towards escalation.  It would be best if he followed the advice of many in the elites who want him to blow up Kiev and end the war with a decapitation strike.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

One of the benefits of being in multiple ‘press pools’ is that you get drawn into reporting on breaking news even before major media put out their accounts. Thus, early this morning I received a WhatsApp invitation from RT International to comment briefly on the Statement issued by the participating EU Member States at a meeting in Berlin yesterday hosted by Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_25_3086

Note: the meeting in Berlin set out Europe’s terms for a cease fire and peace to be concluded between Russia and Ukraine. It amounts to a Russian capitulation along the lines that Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded for more than three years now.

 The Americans Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner took part in that meeting. They are shown in photographs released today by The Financial Times standing next to the other participants and appearing to be relaxed and accommodating. We are led to believe that they agreed to the terms of this so-called peace deal, though that strains my credulity.

However, the importance of the Statement is not in settling with the Americans what terms for peace will now be presented to Moscow. It was a measure to get the EU states aligned for the decisive meeting of the European Council tomorrow and on the 19^th to vote on disposition of the frozen Russian state assets being held in Euroclear (Belgium) as Ursula von der Leyen wants and the Belgian prime minister has so far vetoed.  In this context, it is important that we see Italy’s prime minister Meloni has signed the Statement, considering that among its terms it envisions using the frozen assets to serve as reparations to Ukraine for the damage Russia has caused by its war of aggression. That is precisely what the European heads of government and of state will be voting on in Brussels and on that issue Meloni had joined Belgium, Bulgaria and Malta in a statement last Friday which expressed opposition to the collateralization of the assets for purposes of lending 145 billion euros to Ukraine.

As I have said in the RT interview, which will be posted on the internet and for which I will share the link as soon as I receive it, the greater meaning of the meeting in Berlin yesterday as reflected in the Statement now on the Commission website is that it seeks to perpetuate all of the preconditions that Moscow has called the root causes of the conflict and what prompted them to launch their Special Military Operation. By its terms, NATO-Russian relations will be those of enemies who are armed and ready for the next round of battle at any time. Ukraine will be armed to NATO standards, with NATO military personnel present on the ground as a trip-wire to set off World War III at any time. And the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev will remain in power, with hundreds of billions of euros in Russian ‘reparations’ to sustain the criminal feeding frenzy of its civilian and military leaders.

Chancellor Merz and Ursula von der Leyen have gotten what they wanted from this meeting. They are well on their way to ensuring their continued rule for years to come while turning the EU from the Peace Project which it was in the 20^th century to the War Project that it is today.

Meanwhile, the brutal suppression of civic freedoms in Europe that J.D. Vance denounced at his speech to the Munich Security Conference continues unchecked. Yesterday one reader alerted me to the latest EU sanctions applied to Jacques Baud for allegedly acting as a spokesperson for the Kremlin and spreading disinformation about the Bucha massacre and other issues relating to the ongoing war.

See the Radio Free Europe summary: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-blacklist-russia-sanctions-shadow-fleet/33619173.html

For those who do not know Baud, from among the books he has published about the war, I can recommend his ‘The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat’ (2024).  You will quickly understand that this former colonel and member of the Swiss strategic intelligence service who also advised United Nations peacekeeping operations, is a serious scholar. He has been interviewed by Glenn Diesen on his youtube channel and been a guest on other major Alternative Media programs.

The EU sanctions now potentially mean that Baud will not be allowed to travel to any EU country and any assets he may have in Europe will be confiscated.

I point out that the sanctions imposed on Baud could just as easily be imposed on any of the American and other non-EU passport holders appearing on any of the Alternative Media programs that readers of these pages are likely to consult.

In brief, this development should be brought to the attention of J.D. Vance because it bears directly on his denunciation of the EU Institutions for violating free speech principles. It also provides grist for Elon Musk’s call to disband the EU and restore sovereignty to the Member States.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

I open with a word of gratitude to the NewsX World production team for inviting my commentary on the Russia-Ukraine war and peace efforts day after day given that they know very well how my interpretations of events contradict directly the Western mainstream spin that turns the news bulletins on Euronews, on the BBC and on some other Indian broadcasters into crass pro-Kiev propaganda!

Today’s discussion, beginning at minute 21 focuses on the latest wave of Ukrainian drones sent deep into the territory of the Russian Federation, with 15 targeting Moscow.  As I say here, this wave drone attack as well as the attack with an even greater number of UAVs on the previous day may be seen as a Public Relations effort. Zelensky has placed PR above purely military objectives in order to impress Western backers with Ukraine’s robust fight and wheedle still more financial and hardware support from them. In fact, there seem to have been no Russian infrastructure struck by these drones, only one incidence of reported damage due to falling debris from a drone struck by Russian air defenses.

I also was given an opportunity to decode Zelensky’s stated willingness to make concessions now on NATO membership so long as Ukraine receives strong security commitments from the US and other allies. His intent is clear:  to demand that his Western supporters, especially the USA install themselves in Ukraine for purposes of the country’s security. That, of course, is precisely what the Russians saw as an existential threat to themselves in the run-up to their December 2021 demand that NATO  move back its men and installations to the pre-1996 borders. It was to end the de facto NATO presence in Ukraine that the Russians they launched the SMO in February 2022.  A Russian rejection of peace over the stationing of Coalition of the Willing troops in Ukraine will be trumpeted as demonstration of ‘Putin’s unwillingness to end his war of aggression.