What the ‘news’-media hide is what you need to know.

(The Ukraine war as an example)

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

You need to decode — interpret accurately — the actually relevant facts that are behind ‘the news’, in order to know the REAL news.

A good example of this was reported by me on 4 December 2024, under the headline “Reuters reports Trump is set to continue Biden’s policies on Ukraine.” It decoded what Reuters had reported that day; I did this by presenting (not just quoting but also LINKING TO the relevant original sources, so that you can see those for yourself, and not simply TRUST what someone — anyone — is saying) the actual evidence, no mere claims about what is happening.

It concluded:

In other words: Trump’s policy toward Russia will be Biden’s policy toward Russia, and this is a policy that would lead inevitably to WW3, because the U.S. Government is — in its actions and not merely in its words — just as determined to conquer (control) Russia, as Russia is determined NOT to be controlled by ANY foreign power.

This doesn’t mean that WW3 is inevitable, but only that it is inevitable unless Trump (and any future U.S. President) will change his policy — which he hasn’t yet done: he still is (like Biden had been doing) demanding that Russia’s Government relinquish Russia’s most vital national-security necessity (to prevent any nuclear blitz-attack upon The Kremlin) and surrender itself to the U.S. Government.

At 8:46 PM on 25 May 2025, Trump issued at his Truth Social the following announcement:

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114571369956761390

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/KxOPX

Truth Details

1438 replies

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia! Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop. This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not “Trump’s,” I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.

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May 25, 2025, 8:46 PM

Trump — like he always does — ignores the needs of the people he wants to become conquered (subordinated to his will), and he merely ASSUMES motivations on their part that are NOT real NEEDS (but only their DESIRES). Trump acknowledges only his OWN needs — including his insatiable craving (which is never any authentic NEED) to subordinate everyone else to his mere desires.

As I had made clear in that 4 December 2024 news story about the Reuters news report,

Another vaguery in that [Reuters] article is “NATO membership for Ukraine would be put on hold.” The actual statement in the Kellogg plan [which until now was Trump’s plan to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine] is that Trump should “put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal with security guarantees [FOR UKRAINE -- so the U.S. Government would CONTINUE to control Ukraine].” Putin has repeatedly made unambiguously clear that one of his three NON-negotiable requirements in order to end this war is to make Ukrainian membership in Nato IMPOSSIBLE — not merely prohibited in the short term, but impossible ever. The Kellogg plan fails even to address ANY of Russia’s three bare-minimum requirements (those three non-negotiable requirements) in order to end America’s proxy-war against — the U.S. empire’s war against — Russia, that is being waged in the battlefields of Ukraine.

Trump’s Truth Social post is merely ASSUMING that “He is needlessly killing a lot of people. … Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. … He wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, … but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!” NONE of that is true. And another lie by Trump is that “This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not ‘Trump’s.’”

Here was Putin’s actual speech to the nation on the day, 24 February 2022, when Russia finally responded to the war that Obama had started in Ukraine by his bloody coup there in February 2014 that grabbed it and replaced its neutralist democratically elected Government by imposing a rabidly anti-Russian regime that has the nearest border of any nation (a mere 317 away from it) to The Kremlin — a huge national-security threat to all Russians:

——

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/page/159

https://web.archive.org/web/20241203152217/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843

Address by the President of the Russian Federation

24 February 2022 [3700 words]

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, friends,

I consider it necessary today to speak again about the tragic events in Donbass and the key aspects of ensuring the security of Russia.

I will begin with what I said in my address on February 21, 2022. I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.

Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?

The answer is simple. Everything is clear and obvious. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union grew weaker and subsequently broke apart. That experience should serve as a good lesson for us, because it has shown us that the paralysis of power and will is the first step towards complete degradation and oblivion. We lost confidence for only one moment, but it was enough to disrupt the balance of forces in the world.

As a result, the old treaties and agreements are no longer effective. Entreaties and requests do not help. Anything that does not suit the dominant state, the powers that be, is denounced as archaic, obsolete and useless. At the same time, everything it regards as useful is presented as the ultimate truth and forced on others regardless of the cost, abusively and by any means available. Those who refuse to comply are subjected to strong-arm tactics.

What I am saying now does not concern only Russia, and Russia is not the only country that is worried about this. This has to do with the entire system of international relations, and sometimes even US allies. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a redivision of the world, and the norms of international law that developed by that time – and the most important of them, the fundamental norms that were adopted following WWII and largely formalised its outcome – came in the way of those who declared themselves the winners of the Cold War.

Of course, practice, international relations and the rules regulating them had to take into account the changes that took place in the world and in the balance of forces. However, this should have been done professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states and one’s own responsibility. Instead, we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism, coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves. The situation took a different turn.

There are many examples of this. First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law, instead emphasising the circumstances which they interpret as they think necessary.

Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.

A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.

But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq. It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.

Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism. I have only mentioned the most glaring but far from only examples of disregard for international law.

This array includes promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics. Where is justice and truth here? Just lies and hypocrisy all around.

Incidentally, US politicians, political scientists and journalists write and say that a veritable “empire of lies” has been created inside the United States in recent years. It is hard to disagree with this – it is really so. But one should not be modest about it: the United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same “empire of lies.”

As for our country, after the disintegration of the USSR, given the entire unprecedented openness of the new, modern Russia, its readiness to work honestly with the United States and other Western partners, and its practically unilateral disarmament, they immediately tried to put the final squeeze on us, finish us off, and utterly destroy us. This is how it was in the 1990s and the early 2000s, when the so-called collective West was actively supporting separatism and gangs of mercenaries in southern Russia. What victims, what losses we had to sustain and what trials we had to go through at that time before we broke the back of international terrorism in the Caucasus! We remember this and will never forget.

Properly speaking, the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until quite recently: they sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature. This is not going to happen. No one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now.

Despite all that, in December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion. Our efforts were in vain. The United States has not changed its position. It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us. The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests.

Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.

As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so.

Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way. It is true that they have considerable financial, scientific, technological, and military capabilities. We are aware of this and have an objective view of the economic threats we have been hearing, just as our ability to counter this brash and never-ending blackmail. Let me reiterate that we have no illusions in this regard and are extremely realistic in our assessments.

As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states. Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.

At the same time, technology, including in the defence sector, is changing rapidly. One day there is one leader, and tomorrow another, but a military presence in territories bordering on Russia, if we permit it to go ahead, will stay for decades to come or maybe forever, creating an ever mounting and totally unacceptable threat for Russia.

Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year. Moreover, these past days NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.

Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.

For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.

This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.

As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics.

I would like to additionally emphasise the following. Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia.

They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass, to kill innocent people just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War. They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions.

If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment. Moreover, they went as far as aspire to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not let this happen.

I have already said that Russia accepted the new geopolitical reality after the dissolution of the USSR. We have been treating all new post-Soviet states with respect and will continue to act this way. We respect and will respect their sovereignty, as proven by the assistance we provided to Kazakhstan when it faced tragic events and a challenge in terms of its statehood and integrity. However, Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine.

Let me remind you that in 2000–2005 we used our military to push back against terrorists in the Caucasus and stood up for the integrity of our state. We preserved Russia. In 2014, we supported the people of Crimea and Sevastopol. In 2015, we used our Armed Forces to create a reliable shield that prevented terrorists from Syria from penetrating Russia. This was a matter of defending ourselves. We had no other choice.

The same is happening today. They did not leave us any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbass have asked Russia for help.

In this context, in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.

The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.

It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we have been hearing an increasing number of statements coming from the West that there is no need any more to abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of World War II, as signed by the totalitarian Soviet regime. How can we respond to that?

The outcomes of World War II and the sacrifices our people had to make to defeat Nazism are sacred. This does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms in the reality that emerged over the post-war decades. This does not mean that nations cannot enjoy the right to self-determination, which is enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.

Let me remind you that the people living in territories which are part of today’s Ukraine were not asked how they want to build their lives when the USSR was created or after World War II. Freedom guides our policy, the freedom to choose independently our future and the future of our children. We believe that all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine, anyone who want to do this, must be able to enjoy this right to make a free choice.

In this context I would like to address the citizens of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia was obliged to protect the people of Crimea and Sevastopol from those who you yourself call “nats.” The people of Crimea and Sevastopol made their choice in favour of being with their historical homeland, Russia, and we supported their choice. As I said, we could not act otherwise.

The current events have nothing to do with a desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are connected with the defending Russia from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and our people.

I reiterate: we are acting to defend ourselves from the threats created for us and from a worse peril than what is happening now. I am asking you, however hard this may be, to understand this and to work together with us so as to turn this tragic page as soon as possible and to move forward together, without allowing anyone to interfere in our affairs and our relations but developing them independently, so as to create favourable conditions for overcoming all these problems and to strengthen us from within as a single whole, despite the existence of state borders. I believe in this, in our common future. …

——

Everything that he said there is true, and his entire personal history makes clear that he will never back away from it.

Trump’s Truth Social post is ASSUMING that “He is needlessly killing a lot of people. … Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. … He wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, … but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!” NONE of that is true.

By contrast, here is, for example, the way that CBS ‘News’ is reporting this story:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-war-trump-putin-crazy-kyiv-missile-drone-attack/

“Trump blasts Putin as ‘absolutely crazy’ as Russia targets Ukraine with massive wave of drones and missiles”

Trump blasts Putin as "absolutely crazy" as Russia targets Ukraine with massive wave of drones and missiles

Updated on: May 26, 2025 / 9:46 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia launched its biggest drone attack on Ukraine overnight since the more than three-year war began, a Ukrainian official said Monday. President Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin had gone "absolutely crazy" in stepping up his country's bombing of Ukraine just as the U.S. tries to broker a peace agreement.

Russia's Sunday night attack included the launch of 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force's communications department, told The Associated Press. The previous night, Russia fired 298 drones and 69 missiles of various types in what Ukrainian authorities said was the largest combined aerial assault during the conflict. Overall, from Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said.

The escalation appeared to thwart hopes that Mr. Trump's peace efforts might lead to a breakthrough in the near term, as Putin looks determined to capture more Ukrainian territory and inflict more damage.

Rescuers help local residents retrieve personal belongings from destroyed apartments, May 25, 2025, in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, after a Russian attack using exploding drones.

SERHII OVCHARYSHYN/NIKVESTI.COM/GLOBAL IMAGES UKRAINE/GETTY

Russia has this month broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times. The expansion of its air campaign came after Kyiv in March accepted an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by the U.S., but Moscow effectively rejected it. Russia is also still pushing along the roughly 620-mile front line, where it has made slow and costly progress, and is assembling its forces for a summer offensive, Ukraine and military analysts say.

Mr. Trump made it clear he is losing patience with Putin.

"I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!" the U.S. president wrote Sunday night in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Putin is "needlessly killing a lot of people," Mr. Trump said, pointing out that "missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever."

He warned that if Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine, it will "lead to the downfall of Russia!"

President Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid Russia's ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine.

But Mr. Trump again expressed frustration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too, saying that he's, "doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does."

Zelenskyy reacted to the overnight Russian strikes in his own social media post on Monday, saying: "Only a sense of complete impunity can allow Russia to carry out such attacks and continually escalate their scale... There is no significant military logic to this, but there is considerable political meaning."

He repeated his call for tighter international economic sanctions on Russia as a way of ending the war, because Russia's "desire to fight must be deprived of resources.” …

Trump’s plan is to keep Ukraine — NOT to yield to Russia’s national-security necessity that the nearest-of-all foreign borders to The Kremlin — Ukraine’s — will NEVER be controlled by an inveterate enemy-power that is determined to turn Russia into yet another U.S. colony or ‘ally’. And his allegation that “This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not ‘Trump’s,’” is likewise a lie, because Trump never did ANYTHING to stop what was ACTUALLY OBAMA’S WAR AGAINST RUSSIA IN THE BATTLEFIELDS OF UKRAINE. He and Biden merely CONTINUED it — entirely on the basis of lies, which are still being spread throughout the ‘news’-media throughout the U.S. empire.

Putin did not expect that the United States would force Russia to take all of Ukraine; he told the Russian people when he announced the invasion on 24 February 2022, “It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” He was saying then that ONLY the parts of Ukraine that had voted for the neutralist Presidential candidate in Ukraine’s last democratic election, 2010, Yanukovych (“Janukovich”), would become parts of Russia if a majority of the people there vote to become a part of Russia; the parts — especially in the Lviv area (in Ukraine’s far west), which had supported Hitler against Stalin during WW2 — that hated Russians, would not be ruled by Russia. However, the U.S. regime and its colonies are now making absolutely clear that they STILL demand ALL of Ukraine; so, Russia, very reluctantly, is going to be saddled with that burden.

But, to come back to the question of whether WW3 is inevitable: It is inevitable only IF the U.S. regime will NOT peacefully END the war to take over the world that Truman started on 25 July 1945.

—————

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.