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Category: War

Ukraine: Trump’s national security team is ‘working cohesively towards a shared goal.’ Or, creating chaos

Ukraine: Trump’s national security team is ‘working cohesively towards a shared goal.’ Or, creating chaos

Politico reports: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, an unusual choice to play diplomat, spent two days last week delivering a tough message to Ukraine and its European allies: Accept the offered 28-point peace proposal by Thanksgiving, or else. Then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio showed up. Rubio’s arrival in Geneva on Sunday, to join Driscoll and resume discussions with senior Ukrainian officials, changed the tenor of the conversations. The Trump administration team backed away from a firm Thursday deadline and, in…

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Rubio insists U.S. ‘authored’ the Ukraine peace plan, despite contradictory reporting

Rubio insists U.S. ‘authored’ the Ukraine peace plan, despite contradictory reporting

The New York Times reports: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that the United States “authored” a 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, after a Republican senator asserted that Mr. Rubio had distanced himself from the proposal and called it a Russian initiative. Mr. Rubio made the assertion on social media after Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said Mr. Rubio had earlier on Saturday held a call with a bipartisan group of U.S….

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Trump officials’ meeting with sanctioned Russian in Miami spurs questions about Ukraine proposal

Trump officials’ meeting with sanctioned Russian in Miami spurs questions about Ukraine proposal

Reuters reports: U.S. officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned about a meeting last month in which representatives of the Trump administration met with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions, to draft a plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The meeting took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who leads the Russian…

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The murky plan that ensures a future war in Ukraine

The murky plan that ensures a future war in Ukraine

Anne Applebaum writes: The 28-point peace plan that the United States and Russia want to impose on Ukraine and Europe is misnamed. It is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else. The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical,…

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Zelensky says Trump plan forces Ukraine to choose between ‘dignity’ and a key partner

Zelensky says Trump plan forces Ukraine to choose between ‘dignity’ and a key partner

Axios reports: President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Ukrainian people on Friday and said President Trump’s 28-point peace plan will force Ukraine to choose between “losing our dignity” or risking the loss of U.S. support. Why it matters: The plan would force Ukraine to accept harsh concessions, including the loss of even more territory than Russia currently controls. Zelensky has told the Trump administration he’s prepared to negotiate, but the White House is pushing him to sign within one week. What he’s saying: “This is one of the most…

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Illegal orders: Trump and Johnson doth protest too much

Illegal orders: Trump and Johnson doth protest too much

Greg Sargent writes: House Speaker Mike Johnson is outraged—absolutely outraged—that Democrats dared to suggest in that viral video this week that military and intelligence professionals should be wary of following illegal orders. “That was a wildly inappropriate thing for so-called leaders in Congress to do,” Johnson told reporters. Shockingly, Johnson didn’t think it “inappropriate” for Trump to accuse those Democrats of sedition that’s “punishable by death.” What’s been oddly absent from much of the coverage is any consideration of this…

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Four out of five U.S. troops surveyed understand the duty to disobey illegal orders

Four out of five U.S. troops surveyed understand the duty to disobey illegal orders

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Thursday called for six Democratic lawmakers to face arrest and trial after they made a video encouraging U.S. service members and members of the intelligence community to refrain from following orders if they broke the law. “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” Trump charged in a post on Truth Social. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand…

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Trump capitulation plan would gift Russia parts of Ukraine that it doesn’t already control

Trump capitulation plan would gift Russia parts of Ukraine that it doesn’t already control

The Guardian reports: US and Russian officials have quietly drafted a new plan to end the war in Ukraine that would require Kyiv to surrender territory and severely limit the size of its military, it was reported on Wednesday as Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least 25 people in the city of Ternopil. The draft plan, which was reportedly developed by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine…

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Trump likely to face long military commitment and chaos if he ousts Maduro in Venezuela

Trump likely to face long military commitment and chaos if he ousts Maduro in Venezuela

CNN reports: President Donald Trump has said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered, and that land strikes inside Venezuela are possible. Experts say that the US doesn’t currently have the military assets in place to launch a largescale operation to remove Maduro from power, though Trump has approved covert action within Venezuela, CNN has reported. But if Trump did order strikes inside Venezuela aimed at ousting Maduro, he could face serious challenges with fractured opposition elements and…

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Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Politico reports: Some Trump administration officials are deeply concerned that the Gaza peace deal between Israel and Hamas could break down because of the difficulty implementing many of its core provisions, as private documents obtained by POLITICO and circulating among U.S. officials underscore the lack of a clear path forward. The compendium of documents was presented last month during a two-day symposium of a few hundred people for U.S. Central Command and members of the newly created Civil-Military Coordination Center,…

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Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

The Guardian reports: Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary. “If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening. Some of the IDF soldiers who…

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Israeli military lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes, former U.S. officials say

Israeli military lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes, former U.S. officials say

Reuters reports: The U.S. gathered intelligence last year that Israel’s military lawyers warned there was evidence that could support war crimes charges against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza – operations reliant on American-supplied weapons, five former U.S. officials said. The previously unreported intelligence, described by the former officials as among the most startling shared with top U.S. policymakers during the war, pointed to doubts within the Israeli military about the legality of its tactics that contrasted sharply with…

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Dick Cheney’s war on terror paved the way for the rise of Trump and the destruction of democracy

Dick Cheney’s war on terror paved the way for the rise of Trump and the destruction of democracy

Spencer Ackerman writes: The week before Dick Cheney died, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, one of the bureaucratic venues through which the most powerful vice president in U.S. history disfigured the country, informed Congress that it would have no say over Donald Trump’s rapidly coalescing military aggression against an oil-rich country. While self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted over social media about treating the Caribbean fishermen that he insists without evidence are drug smugglers “exactly like al-Qaeda,” Office…

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What’s behind Israel’s new plan to divide Gaza in two

What’s behind Israel’s new plan to divide Gaza in two

Muhammad Shehada writes: Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, the Trump administration has been hailing the beginning of a new chapter in Gaza. “After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still, and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace,” the president declared during his speech at the Knesset earlier this month. But facts on the ground…

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U.S. pressure on Venezuela won’t bring about rapid collapse of Maduro – in fact, it might boomerang on Washington

U.S. pressure on Venezuela won’t bring about rapid collapse of Maduro – in fact, it might boomerang on Washington

A man rides past a poster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and an anti-tank barricade in Caracas on Oct. 28, 2025. Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images By Robert Muggah, Instituto Igarapé; Princeton University The U.S. military buildup along South America’s northern rim is, Washington insists, aimed at “narco-terrorists.” A growing chorus of analysts aren’t convinced; they suspect what the Trump administration is really after is regime change in Venezuela. Nicolás Maduro, the country’s leader since 2013, is taking no chances….

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Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas during U.S.-Venezuela tensions

Defense News reports: A Russian transport aircraft of a type linked to the country’s military and former Wagner mercenary group has landed in the Venezuelan capital over the weekend, signaling heightened Russian interest in the Latin American country. The Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft with the registration RA-78765 arrived in Caracas on Sunday after a two-day journey that took it from Russia via Armenia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania to Latin America, flight records show. It appears the aircraft embarked on…

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