The Truths Against the Lies About the Current State of the War In Ukraine

28 October 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

There are fewer than ten reporters available to the public in the English language who have predicted almost 100% accurately about the war in Ukraine — all of the mainstream media throughout The West (the U.S. empire) report with lower than 50% true predictions, they are stenographically repeating the Ukrainian Government’s statements about it and the U.S. Government’s repeating Ukraine’s Government’s statements about it — almost all of which contradict the realities about it; and, so, the Western consensus is this consensus of lies for Ukraine’s Government, which always falsifies — but few commentators except I focus on and constantly attack such fake journalists who are actually propagandists (and all of mainstream Western ‘journalism’).

Perhaps the most-consistently accurate of the English-language reporters on international affairs has been Alexander Mercouris, whom I have sometimes disagreed with because he has, in my opinion, overestimated the competencies of both Putin and Trump, and the decentness-of-intent of Trump; but in Mercouris’s latest analysis, on October 28th, “US diplomacy disaster. Ukraine military disaster”, (also on youtube, with ads), he finally is reporting critically both about Trump and about Putin — acknowldedging Trump’s stupidity, and acknowleging Putin’s over-estimation of the trustworthiness of Trump:

https://theduran.com/us-diplomacy-disaster-ukraine-military-disaster/

(the same but with ads)

“US diplomacy disaster. Ukraine military disaster”

CRITICIZES TRUMP:

13:56

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS: The Russians are winning in

13:59

Donbass. Trump realizes or came to understand

14:07

that Donbass provided him with leverage. He was prepared on, he was prepared to

14:14

give it up in the summer because he realized that the Russians would take it

14:20

anyway and he wanted to clinch the deal. He was persuaded and believed Kellogg,

14:27

Rubio, Waltz and Zelensky that in fact on the contrary the Russians were bogged

14:35

down in Donbass and he’s thrown away his leverage or is about to.

14:42

ALEX CHRISTOFOROU: Do you think that Putin would have really given up uh Zaphorosia and Kherson?

14:47

Would it have been possible? No. for Putin as the president of Russia constitutionally, I mean to to have made

14:54

this deal with with Trump that Witkoff allegedly presented to to Lavrov and

15:00

that they discussed in Alaska. Uh that that’s my first question. My second question is, do you think that

15:08

Rubio and the people that advised Trump to uh to turn down the um the Budapest

15:17

summit and and any type of negotiation with Russia based on their belief that

15:24

they thought Ukraine was actually pushing Russia back from Donets,

15:29

successfully defending the Donbass? Do you think that that these guys that they

15:37

actually believed that, or that they were lying to the president? MERCOURIS: I’m going to answer the second question.

15:43

I think they were lying to the president. I can’t believe that they really believed it. I I I mean their

15:48

their purpose, because we knew what was going on and everyone that that watches this channel knew knew what was going on, I I

15:54

cannot believe that they really believe that the Ukrainians are

15:59

successfully defending in Donbass. They. what they want to prevent at all costs

16:06

is a settlement of this conflict which might lead to Donald Trump doing what

16:12

he’s talked about many many times coming to some kind of long-term deal with Russia. So I think that they all work

16:18

together. Kellogg, Waltz, Rubio, the Europeans,

16:24

Zalensky, they all came together and basically they lied to the president.

16:31

The the president I think is having some

16:36

senses that this is so. You remember we got the information that his meeting with

16:42

Zelensky didn’t go at all well, um when Zelensky met him directly after he spoke

16:49

to to Putin but for the moment at least you’re absolutely right in what you said

16:56

previously, he continues to base his policy on what Kellogg Rubio Waltz

17:02

Zelensky and the Europeans are telling them, it has been a disastrous mistake

17:07

and it is one that I’m afraid there’s probably no easy coming back from. Now

17:15

going back to your previous question — CHRISOFOROU: Before you answer the the Putin question, doesn’t that reflect really

17:20

poorly on Trump as well? It shows that Trump really doesn’t dig deep into into

17:26

the issues, doesn’t it? Because he just believed he, you know, Rubio and these guys. I mean, if we go by what you say,

17:33

it means that Trump basically believed Rubio and Kellogg and what they said and he didn’t really seek a

17:40

second um analysis or anything like that. MERCOURIS: It it reflects terribly on Trump.

17:47

Trump doesn’t do what the president of the United States needs to do in this kind

17:54

of situation, which is go himself and familiarize himself directly with what

18:00

is going on. I mean this is where someone like Kennedy or very different

18:05

man Richard Nixon would have taken the hours to get a real sense of what is

18:13

actually going on on the battle fronts. He should have not just listened to

18:18

what all of these people and probably Ratcliffe from the CIA were telling him. He should have gone out spoken to others

18:27

who had all of these things. He should have read the reports. He should have familiarized himself with the

18:33

information. He should have listened more carefully and more closely to what people like probably Wickoff and Vance

18:39

are trying to say to him. and he should have come to a much more informed decision than he did. The problem with

18:46

Trump and it’s been discussed by many people is that he scarcely ever does

18:52

this. He doesn’t spend his time apparently reading papers. He rarely

18:58

asks questions. He listens to what people say. and he bases his decisions on

19:05

that and then he listens to someone else and he changes his decision based on

19:11

what the other person tells him. Um, if you’re president of the United States,

19:17

there really is no alternative. You have to spend 15 hours a day familiarizing

19:25

yourself with this kind of material if you’re really going to make any difference and to change things. And

19:30

Trump doesn’t do that. He does work very very long hours, but he does that by

19:37

going from one meeting to the next, listening to what people are saying, making decisions on the fly. Um, he’s

19:44

trying to do lots of different things at once. Um whereas what he needs to do is

19:53

focus on fewer things and get to understand them thoroughly. But he

19:59

doesn’t do that. Um that I think is why we are where we are now. I I do want to

20:07

talk about Putin because Putin um is taking

20:12

to say he’s taking risks. I mean, he’s taking enormous risks turning around to the Russian people, to

20:20

the military, and saying, “Look, I’m going to get the Ukrainians to pull out

20:26

of Donbass, and I’m going to agree a ceasefire in Zaphorosia and Hersong region.” That would be to say it would

20:33

be unpopular and controversial in Moscow would be a massive understatement. Now,

20:40

Putin would obviously say this is temporary. We’re going to have negotiations eventually. We expect Zaphorosial and Kherson

20:48

to be returned to us. If we have control of Donbass, that puts us in a dominating

20:54

military position. All of those things. But all sorts of people are going to

21:00

come would come back and say to Putin, you must have taken leave of your senses. We had any number of promises of

21:07

this kind already. We had them with Donbass itself. And yes, Donbass does

21:13

matter. It is the single most important military position. But how dare you

21:18

agree to a cease ceasefire in Zaphorosia and Kherson when we know and you yourself

21:25

have repeatedly said that ceasefires of this kind

21:30

are never honored by the other side? So, it would have been an incredibly hard

21:36

cell and it could only have worked if every other element of um Istanbul-plus

21:45

including the demilitarization of Ukraine had not only been agreed but

21:51

actually honored. And would it have been would it have been agreed? Would it have

21:56

been honored? I hardly think so. Again, it shows the extent to which Putin

22:04

himself still wants to come to terms with the

22:09

United States, still hankers for a relationship with the United States a long-term

22:15

relationship with the United States and with Donald Trump. And you can see, you

22:20

can understand the reasoning for it. But again, it is an extraordinary case of um

22:29

hope over expectation to agree to a proposal of this kind. [That’s saying Putin has to this extent been guilty of wishful thiking.] Now that brings

22:36

me by the way to the next point which is Dimitriev’s visit to Washington because of course Dimitriev undoubtedly is in Washington because an analysis of Putin’s motivations for wanting a deal with Trump

22:43

Washington because some people in Washington are inviting him to come and

22:49

I have no doubt that the initiative for this visit actually came from Washington. Every, by the way, everything

22:55

everything that we have seen up to now the um Donbass

23:02

retreat proposal the Zaphorosia house on ceasefire that was clearly an American

23:09

proposal. The Alaska summit was an American proposal. The Budapest summit

23:14

meeting which has now been called off that too was an American proposal. The

23:19

Americans have been making the proposals. Putin has been reacting to them. He’s not initiated them. about

23:27

that, Now there is no doubt whatsoever and the same is true of Demetrios visit.

23:33

But the right the strong thing to have done from Putin’s point of view is to say well what is the point of having

23:40

this visit at this time? But what he has done, what Putin has done is he’s authorized Dimitriev to go. And yes,

23:48

Dimitriev has made no public statements that retreat from the underlying

23:54

positions taken which are Istanbul-plus except obviously

24:00

from this sapperia and her something. But he’s trying to persuade the Americans, look, you’re not you’re not

24:05

being told the truth by the Ukrainians. You’re not being told the truth by the Europeans. We can still find a way. We

24:11

can still get this thing together. And there are there is a clear negative

24:18

reaction building up against this. Peskov, who was Putin’s spokesman, had

24:24

to have a very difficult interview with the Russian journalist Pavl Zarubin, who

24:31

is very, very close to the Kremlin. And Zarubin was again asking very, very hard

24:37

questions. why are we going through all of this? And um Pescov uh was saying,

24:43

well, you know, we still want good relations with the United States. We must focus on our long-term interests.

24:50

Our long-term interests are to have good relations with the United States as with

24:55

all other countries. But you can see that Zarabin was frankly

25:03

unconvinced and many many people in Moscow are going to be unconvinced too.

25:10

CHRISTOFOROU: Yeah, a lot of people are are trying to figure out what is Dimitriev doing uh in

25:15

in DC. I mean from the one from the one side of things you you understand that

25:22

it’s okay it’s important to to engage in dialogue. It’s it’s important to to

25:27

leave the the door open to to diplomacy. If not now, then then in the future.

25:34

That that’s understood. But but the part to that that a lot of people are questioning is why why does the mitv

25:42

believe that he’s going to to all of a sudden convince the Trump administration

25:47

that they’re losing in Ukraine when over the past 8 nnine months they they firmly

25:53

believe they’re they’re winning in Ukraine and and Trump himself the president of the United States has no clue what’s happening in Ukraine. I I

26:00

mean the one thing that has really come out of this entire uh affair is that Trump

26:06

is clueless when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, he’s also clueless when it comes to the situation of the uh

26:12

of the economy in Russia. He’s clueless. He’s making decisions blind. Yeah.

26:17

He He’s getting advice from from people who who are either just as clueless as he is or deliberately lying to him

26:24

and he’s basing those decisions on on on this advice that he’s getting. Um, why

26:30

would Russia, why would Putin believe that after all of this that that has

26:35

happened, they can send someone to Washington and all of a sudden he’s going to convince Trump of the exact

26:41

opposite of what he has been doing over the past nine months? It’s not going to happen. I mean,

…

CRITICIZES PUTIN:

9:56: Witkoff

9:57

came to Moscow back in I think it was either the end of July or in early

Historical context of diplomatic efforts between Trump and Putin

10:04

August we remember the visit and he met with Putin and he came came with a

10:11

proposal from Trump and it’s not difficult to work out what that proposal

10:17

was. The proposal was that the Russians ceasefire in Zaphorosia and Kherson region

10:25

and in return the Ukrainians pull out of Dondas. Now, at that point, by the way,

10:32

and I’m going to say it straight away, I think Putin made a serious mistake because he said to um we go, “Look, this

10:39

is interesting. We’re prepared to give this thought. We’re prepared to agree to a summit meeting to discuss this further

10:46

with Trump because this is what Trump had been pushing for. He wanted a summit meeting with Putin at that time. What

10:54

Putin ought to have done is he should have said to Wickoff and he should have

11:00

said to Trump ultimately because Witkoff was acting as Trump’s representative.

11:06

Look, is this an idea or is this a definite offer? If it is an offer, I

11:15

will treat it as an offer and I might decide to accept it. in which case you

11:22

are bound by it. If it is an idea, then it requires an awful lot of further work

11:30

because I can tell you as night follows day that Zaphorosia is going to reject it.

11:37

Putin didn’t do that. That was a serious mistake. He agreed to meet Trump in

11:42

Alaska. He met Trump in Alaska. According to uh Lavrov, he went step by

11:51

step through what he assumed was Trump’s

11:56

offer. He said to Trump conceptually, “We’re prepared to work with this. This

12:01

is something interesting. It makes sense.” Trump then said to um Zelensky

12:08

to to Putin, uh, okay, I’ll go off. I’ll see whether we can make this work. Trump

12:14

went off, met Zalinski, met the Europeans. The Europeans, Zelensky said,

12:20

absolutely not. And you don’t have to give back Donbass anyway because we are

12:27

successfully defending Donbass. And that was where everything went disastrously

12:34

wrong because Trump was then persuaded and Bloomberg [News] tells us that Rubio now

12:42

played a key role in all of this. Trump was successfully persuaded that in fact

12:48

the Ukrainians are successfully defending themselves in Dombass,

12:55

which was completely not true. Now that, that by the way also explains some other

discussion on the potential ceasefire proposal and its implications

13:03

things why Putin went through so much trouble when he spoke to Trump um well

13:10

it’s almost two weeks ago 10 days ago to try to get him to understand that in fact what he was being told about the

13:16

military situation in Donbass is wrong that it is indeed the Russians who are

13:22

winning there and by the way it also explains the purpose of the visit to Kirill

13:28

Dimitriev to uh Washington because Dimitriev has clearly been instructed by

13:34

the Russians again to try to get the Americans to understand that the

13:39

Ukrainians are indeed losing in Donbass. Um Dimitriev’s trip to Washington which we

13:46

are going to discuss later is very controversial in Russia indeed. But you

13:53

are absolutely right, that is what happened. The Russians are winning in

13:59

Donbass. Trump realizes or came to understand

14:07

that Donbass provided him with leverage. He was prepared on he was prepared to

14:14

give it up in the summer because he realized that the Russians would take it

14:20

anyway and he wanted to clinch the deal. He was persuaded and believed Kellogg,

14:27

Rubio, Waltz and Zalinski that in fact on the contrary the Russians were bogged

14:35

down in Dongbass and he’s thrown away his leverage or is about to.

14:42

I take issue wth Mercoursis’s saying that the only problem with Trump is that he is stupid — Trump clearly IS a neocon; he clearly IS aiming to expand the U.S. empire to include Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and many other coountries; he clearly IS the international aggressor in his INTENT, and not ONLY stupid. Trump’s gullibility with regard to the neocon advisors whom he has hired, is not merely his “blindness” as Mercouris alleges, but also his evilness — his aggressive INTENT. And this fact (Mercouris’s misunderstanding of intent) reflects a failure in Mercouris’s analyses, because it is false — INTENT MATTERS. It’s not something to be ignored; it is something to be established, and Trump’s evil intent has been established throughout his career.

Back on 4 December 2024, when Mercouris was still optimistic that Trump would end the neoconservative policies of the Biden and first Trump and of the Obama Administrations, all of which are based upon the false assumption that Russia not America had started the war in Ukraine and that therefore the U.S. must continue insisting that under no conditions should the U.S. accept a Russian win of the war in Ukraine, I contradicted that favorablle view of Trump by headlining “Trump is set to continue Biden’s policies on Ukraine.” I said this because Trump on that day had appointed the die-hard neocon Keith Kellogg to be his chief advisor on Ukraine. Even earlier, I had headlined on 13 November 2024 “Why Trump Must Fire His National Security Advisor Mike Waltz” and explained that Waltz’s key view was that Biden was wrong to hesitate about sending to Ukraine long-distance U.S. missiles to fire at and even deep into Russia — Waltz believed that Putin’s warnings against doing that were a mere bluff by Putin. And this position, the Kellogg and even more explicitly the Waltz position, that Trump should simply ignore Putin’s warning and allow Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to invade anywhere it wants to into Russia, is now the official Trump position though he keeps contradicting himself about that and hasn’t really decided — at least not PUBLICLY. So, Mercouris’s now clear contempt for Trump is correct but is around ten months late on this matter — Trump almost immediately after having won his November 2024 Presidential contest, was selecting stupid arrogant U.S.-global-supremacist war-mongering neocons as his top advisors on the Ukraine matter. Despite Mercouris’s encyclopedic knowledge, he has been slow to recognize Trump’s stupidity and sheer evilness that could end up causing a nuclear war between Russia and America (and Europe — the EU and NATO). But at least Mercouris knows and honestly reports that the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) are wrong and that Russia is right in international matters. This fact alone places Mercouris easily into the top 1% of the virtually innumerable commentators in the Engllish language regarding international relations, and no one has a deeper knowledge of the diplomatic issues than he does, no one at all. Perfection doesn’t exist — not even in the very best, which he is.

Regarding Putin, I have criticized him on several occasions as being likewise far too generous in his estimation of the possible goodness-of-intentions of Trump, as well as of Biden before him, and Obama before that. Perhaps one of the reasons why Mercouris has been overestimating Putin is that Putin is similar to Mercouris in overestimating the decency of Russia’s enemies.

Mercouris’s analysis in this video is especially outstanding because it recognizes and acknowledges significant flaws in both Trump and Putin. However, I believe that Trump’s biggest flaw is that he (like all of his predecessors as U.S. President in this Century) is evil. With the exception of JFK, all of America’s Presidents after FDR were evil, but in this Century especially so.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.