Zelensky Drags Traveling Circus to Town for One Last Encore

The Trump admin is building a narrative critical mass that a truce and end to the war is getting closer and closer to being reached. Witkoff and Rubio went on a media offensive, for the first time describing various details of the claimed ceasefire agreements.

First, let us mention the most obvious thing, which is that Russia’s primary confirmed victory in the talks—as opposed to the various speculative parameters now floating about—was aligning the US with Putin’s demand of “agreement before ceasefire”, rather than Zelensky and Europe’s rival demand of “ceasefire before agreement”.

This alone was a big shift which Trump and co. immediately hopped-to as part of the ongoing strategy revision.

Now several mainstream outlets are reporting the contours of the deal and Russia’s claimed concessions as follows—from Reuters:

Reuters publishes Putin's proposals on Ukraine, presented to Trump at the summit:

- No ceasefire is planned before signing a full agreement.

- The Armed Forces of Ukraine will withdraw from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

- Russia will freeze the front lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

- Return control of areas in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions to Ukraine.

- Formal recognition of Russia's sovereignty over Crimea.

- Cancellation of at least part of the sanctions against Russia.

- Ukraine will be prohibited from joining NATO.

- Putin seems to have been open to Ukraine receiving certain security guarantees.

- Official status of the Russian language in some parts of Ukraine or throughout Ukraine, as well as the rights of the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely.

The most buzz-generating claim is that Russia is allegedly ready to make concessions on giving up its pursuit of the remainder of uncaptured Zaporozhye and Kherson in exchange for getting all of Donetsk and Lugansk. The Zapo and Kherson frontline would be frozen where it is.

This, if true, would obviously be a huge departure from Russia’s earlier demands. It is difficult to believe, however, because Putin already signed both Zaporozhye and Kherson at their administrative borders into the Russian constitution, and thus there is no real mechanism of abandoning those uncaptured portions.

There are a variety of angles to this. Firstly, recall that media ‘reports’ about claimed Russian concessions have been proven fake every previous time. We went through it repeatedly: a media claim is made that Putin is ready to ‘concede’, and soon after a high ranking Russian official states that all previous ‘Istanbul plus’ demands are still in place.

But this time the claims are not from media and their ambiguous “sources”, but rather straight from Trump’s delegation.

One possibility is that Witkoff and co. are being duplicitous for the sake of maintaining the aura of ‘success’ for Trump’s ongoing efforts. One theory is that Trump and Putin made a secret backdoor deal to pretend Russia is willing to make concessions in order to mutually entrap Zelensky for the sake of making him and Europe appear to be the opposers of peace, so that Trump can then exercise more political leeway in dumping the conflict on them.

Another possibility is that Russia knows these exchanges will be drawn out for such a long time, that Putin can pretend to be partial towards certain “concessions” in the understanding that their reality will never come to pass for various reasons: for one, Zelensky is considered by Russia to be legally illegitimate to even so much as sign anything, which would presume from Russia’s side any finalization of agreements would need to wait for a legally acceptable successor, anyway. And in such a case, Russia is perhaps confident it will have taken most of the disputed regions at the center of ‘concessions’.

With Putin being a highly ‘legalistic’ leader, it’s hard to imagine him abrogating two standing legal realities simultaneously, in the Zelensky legitimacy and the constitutionality of Kherson and Zaporozhye administrative regions. There are simply too many farfetched ‘stretches’ to imagine Russia conceding on them all, which includes things like demilitarization and deNazification which were not mentioned amongst the discussions. Lesser issues like the protection and codification of the Russian language in Ukrainian regions were mentioned by press outlets, which would imply the other issues were not brought up. This clearly seems a bridge too far.

So, if it is a bridge too far, what, precisely, is going on here?

The only logical explanation is the above: that Russia knows no agreement can ever be reached anyway, and is thus playing for time by pretending at concessions to affect the peacemaker and transfer responsibility on Ukraine and Europe. Why can’t it be reached? Zelensky himself again just stated no uncaptured land can be ceded, as it is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution. Previously, he’s stated many times that demilitarization is definitely out, also. Now, European “partners” have again reiterated their intent to immediately station troops on Ukraine’s territory upon the cessation of hostilities.

"Coalition of the Willing" declared readiness to deploy troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire

➖"They (the coalition participants - Ed.) once again emphasized their readiness to deploy security forces after the cessation of hostilities, as well as to help ensure the security of Ukraine's air and sea space and restore the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the statement following the coalition meeting said.

▪️The message also states that the deployment of troops will be part of the security guarantees promoted by the USA.

➖"The leaders also welcomed President Trump's commitment to providing Ukraine with security guarantees, in ensuring which the 'Coalition of the Willing' will play an important role through the Multinational Forces in Ukraine and other measures," the coalition reported.

RVvoenkor

That would mean offensive NATO troops directly on Russia’s border, which flies in the face of one of Russia’s main reasons for even fighting this existential conflict. So, clearly something is afoot here: either these reports and Witkoff’s statements are fabulations, or Russia and the US are playing at some kind of plan.

Note the very odd and unprecedented disparity between the seeming results of the Alaska meeting and the reactions and statements from both sides. On its face, the meeting appeared to be a dismal failure, yet both sides sang its praises as if mountains were moved in the dialogue; there is a strange dissonance there, which almost hints at some secret backdoor handshake between the US and Russia, particularly given how chummy the participants from both sides appeared to be.

Now Zelensky and European leaders are reportedly flying to DC for an emergency meeting. It’s become known that the European coven has expressly forbidden Zelensky from meeting Trump alone because they are terrified that Trump will strongarm and browbeat Zelensky into making concessions and accepting a peace deal that would be unfavorable to the European cabal.

Their job is to force Zelensky to not make a single concession. They believe the war can still be continued because they view the Ukrainian 18-25 potential as yet untapped—there is plenty more meat with which to bleed Russia and stave off the diseased EU’s collapse for a few more years; or so they think.

Zelensky has already begun giving way a bit—he now states that negotiations can start with the current frontline, which implies Russia would be able to keep everything it currently has, but that Ukraine simply won’t give up new territory that Russia has not yet liberated:

Recall my constant drum-beating of the improbability of Ukraine ever giving up both Kherson and Zaporozhye cities. But another aspect few have considered is that even to give up the administrative remainder of Donetsk “oblast” would require Ukraine to completely abandon both Slavyansk and Kramatorsk—nearly as unthinkable a leap.

These cities are symbolic to Ukraine and its nationalists as a bastion against Russia, where the kinetic portion of the conflict was essentially sparked when Strelkov’s men took over the Slavyansk administrative building. To lose these cities would be a major symbolic blow to Ukraine and its nationalists—particularly those who may not forgive Zelensky for the ‘betrayal’ of giving these cities to the enemy.

Ukrainian political expert Vladislav Olenchenko claims that Zelensky will be offered a way off the stage to commence the peace process:

During Zelensky's visit to Washington, he will be offered to sign a peace agreement, announce elections in Ukraine, and leave the political scene.

This is claimed by Ukrainian political scientist Vladislav Olenchenko on the air with journalist Natalia Moseychuk.

"On Monday, Zelensky will be offered to sign a broad, comprehensive peace agreement and announce elections in Ukraine — because of peace.

Here is what they will promise him in return: full guarantees of personal security, security for his family members, preservation of capital, and the opportunity to become a director in Hollywood or a politician. They will try to 'buy' him, convincing him that he has no other way out."

Zelensky also will be discouraged from participating in new elections.

By the way, as further proof of the back and forth fake reports, there was another new report stating that Russia is ready to declare an air ceasefire, which Zelensky’s presidential advisor immediately shot down:

It’s clear the information field has been veritably saturated with noise—perhaps intentionally by certain parties seeking to foment mass ambiguity in order to conceal their failures or inability to make real headway with this whole political charade.

There are contradictions and confusion everywhere, even on the Russian side. For instance, Russia firmly holds the “agreement before ceasefire” line, but at the same time has openly promised to declare a full ceasefire if Ukraine so much as removes its troops from Donbass. This could be because Putin views this kind of temporary ceasefire for the sake of “negotiations” as low risk if hedged with the acquisition of new territory. ISW had the same idea:

That means Russia could bloodlessly win another vast stretch of land only to attempt further negotiations on the other major issues. If those break down, then Russia would be free to resume the conflict but this time with all of Donbass already at its rear—a kind of win-win scenario. The only wrench in the works would be the fact that, as stated earlier, NATO is ready to inject troops into Ukraine the moment hostilities cease—but we really don’t know Russian General Staff’s opinions on this. For all we know, they couldn’t care less and would be ready to resume hostilities even with European troops present because they assess the threat from European countries as being low. But the question is: would Russia even want to end up in such a complication?

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WSJ now proposes there are two remaining scenarios for the end of the conflict, down from the five or more which these outlets so assuredly paraded about a few weeks back:

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-will-the-war-in-ukraine-end-two-scenarios-2bcc0d99

Ukraine could lose land but survive as a secure and sovereign, if shrunken, nation state.

Alternatively, it could lose both land and sovereignty, falling back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

The first they dub “Partition With Protection”:

This would allow Russia to enjoy a ‘de facto’ control over already-won territories while Ukraine would get security guarantees.

The other they dub “Partition With Subordination”:

Here Ukraine still gets partitioned but even the remaining ‘rump state’ becomes a Russian ‘protectorate’. They’re intentionally scarce on details, but it’s assumed they mean Ukraine gets demilitarized and ruled by a Russian-installed puppet, allowing Ukraine to fall fully into Russia’s fold.

It’s interesting that the situation’s urgency has forced the realization upon these outlets that only such a dire binary of outcomes remains.

Either way, Zelensky still stands firm that a ceasefire must come first before anything else and has now announced his intentions to convince Trump of this during their meeting on Monday. That means, whatever happens, we’re sure to see some fireworks over this coming week between ringmaster, clown, and the desperate European hyenas of this bemusing traveling circus.

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Now to some frontline updates.

Zelensky has ordered virtually every remaining element of his most elite ‘brigades’ to stabilize the north-Pokrovsk “breakthrough” zone. They have succeeded in recapturing roughly one third of the “bunny ears”, but it took immense resources to do this.

The lonely Russian 132nd brigade of the breakthrough salient versus all of this:

You’ll note the most elite brigades of the 82nd and 79th air assault, 92nd and 93rd, etc.—many of these were amongst the “foreign trained” units of the Zaporozhye counteroffensive of 2023, armed with all the top NATO tanks and gadgets. Such is the urgency that even the Kord special “police” unit was sent, essentially an elite Ukrainian SWAT team.

Another variant:

From Ukraine’s Deep State mapping:

As stated, they managed to cut the top of the bunny ears off as seen below, retaking Zolotyi Kolodyaz, Vesele, and Hruzke, and some of Nove Shakhove:

The reason, as given, was that Russia was not yet able to bring up enough fire support resources from the rear, particularly top drone units. And so the very tip of the breakthrough was a bit marooned without much support, and was forced to pull back amidst heavy counterattacks from these elite Ukrainian elements.

In short: they were overextended, which is a natural consequence of such rapid advancement.

The more unfortunate loss was Ukraine’s recapture of the area outlined below near Rodinske, which had cut the sector’s MSR:

However, some of the claimed recaptures may be fake. For instance, Russian analysts noted one of the Ukrainian ‘geolocation’ videos for a different retaken area shows a green field, while that field was subsequently burned out from fighting—the above image is the field now, while the below is from the Ukrainian video:

❗️Some dramas with who controls Iskra on the South Donetsk Front.

It was announced as captured by the RFAF the other day whilst the Hohols have published a video with them posing with flags in the South and Eastern side of the village.

"Armed Gunsmith"…is suspicious of their video as it shows them posing near a grass field with green grass whilst in the Russian video the same area is burnt as a consequence of the fighting....which suggests the Ukrainian video was filmed before hand when it was under AFU control (the grass couldn't have grown back that quickly)

As with everything, Ukraine’s “fresh” reinforcements were brought in at the cost of being pulled from elsewhere, resulting in territorial losses on other important fronts.

In the Konstantinovka direction, some sources have Russian troops already bridging the gap from the newly-captured Predtechyne into the first outer quadrant of Konstantinovka city itself:

It’s too early to say how definitive this is, so we’ll have to watch.

The largest movement came in the Seversk and Serebriansky forest directions. Russian troops were said to have captured the settlement Serebryanka entirely, slowly building a cauldron around Seversk:

And above it, the area circled in red shows where Ukrainian troops are reportedly beginning to retreat en masse. If that happens, virtually the entire forest will be captured and Seversk will have major pressure from the north.

Top Ukrainian analyst Myroshnykov writes:

In the Siversky and adjacent Lyman directions, the situation continues to deteriorate.

The enemy has still pressed Grigorivka, and is now attacking towards the village of Serebrianka. (ed: here he appears to be behind events.)

In the eponymous forestry on the northern bank of the Siverskyi Donets, the situation is almost critical.

The enemy has captured almost half of the forest and is moving towards the area opposite the village of Dronivka, where they will obviously try to cross the river.

These actions combined will give them a semi-encirclement of Siversk and the opportunity to start fighting for the city.

That section needs to be reinforced because Siversk is one of the most important defense nodes of the entire Donetsk region.

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A few last items:

Rumors persist that Ukraine has amassed another ‘phantom force’ of some kind on Russia’s border, to ensue another attempt to capture Russian territory, this time potentially in Bryansk:

Various channels report that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have amassed a group of 20,000 to 25,000 troops on our border. The direction of the attack is unknown, or it has not been announced by our side. Tensions have been observed on the Bryansk region border in the past week.

If true, the motivation would be obvious: to give Zelensky another last perceived deck of ‘cards’ in the ongoing negotiations. It would allow him to wriggle his way out of giving up territory—in his mind at least—by offering to trade Russia its own territory back for whatever Russia demands from Ukraine. Recall that Syrsky himself recently promised to launch more ‘offensives’ against Russia because, as he explained, a war can’t be won on defense alone.

A more detailed report from the Russian side:

Military correspondent Alexander Yaremchuk writes:

Extremely interesting information is coming in that the enemy is preparing to make another attempt to advance deeper into Russian territory in the near future.

Firstly, as last time, the CIPSO has become active, which through various channels reports about a planned breakthrough either in Belgorod, or Bryansk, or again in Kursk, trying to disperse the attention of our forces from the main direction of the strike.

Secondly, the enemy is striking cellular towers and transformers in border areas, which may also indicate a forthcoming offensive.

Thirdly, several infantry groups recently tried to probe the defense in the border area, which can be regarded as reconnaissance by combat.

Our forces are observing all this, analyzing, and preparing for any possible scenario.

If you’re quick to dismiss the potential for such a gambit, here Apti Alaudinov himself confirms the possibility:

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Recall in one of the recent reports I mentioned how Russia carries out systematic strikes against Ukrainian potential that usually goes unseen, in particular against major arms projects like missiles that Ukraine has worked on for a long time. There’s a reason why Ukraine resorts to striking Russia with cheap cobbled together drones because Russia has systematically been degrading the more serious weapons projects since the beginning.

Now we finally have a first look under the surface at one such campaign where a series of Russian ballistic strikes took out a Ukrainian production complex in the process of manufacturing a potential long range missile system:

‼️🇷🇺💥Loud victory: The FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense destroyed Ukraine's long-range missile production, thwarting Western plans

▪️Data obtained by the FSB allowed the Russian Armed Forces to destroy Ukraine's long-range missile production, which was being developed with the help of one of the Western European countries.

▪️As a result of a joint operation by the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense in Ukraine, four enterprises producing "Sapsan" missiles were struck — two in the Dnipropetrovsk region and two in the Sumy region. A backup site of the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant in the Zhytomyr region was also hit.

▪️The destruction of Kyiv's long-range missile production prevented the threat of strikes deep into Russia. The Ukrainian authorities planned these attacks with NATO's permission.

▪️The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that during July, massive and group strikes with precision weapons were carried out against design bureaus, missile fuel production plants, and missile weapon assembly facilities of Ukraine's military-industrial complex. Simultaneously, Western-made air defense systems deployed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend these facilities were destroyed. In the Dnipropetrovsk region alone, four launchers of the Patriot SAM system and a multifunctional AN/MPQ-65 radar system produced in the USA were destroyed.

RVvoenkor

This wasn’t a mere one off, but a series of strikes which took out an extensive network of complexes involved in this project.

A SouthFront video explains:

This video has the intercepted audio of Ukrainian officers discussing the destruction of their factory at the beginning (sadly the AI translation here is relatively poor). At the 1:50 mark you can hear a Russian special services official describing the operation, and at 3:18 the actual satellite footage of the before and after:

Just the satellite BDAs:

This one in particular was frightening—what do you think was stored there?

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