Paal Steigan
steigan.no

”The markets are starving for EU war bonds” (Politico)

The European Union is getting ready to tap markets for up to €150 billion to help finance military spending. If they do, they should have no trouble finding buyers.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday announced plans to raise new funds that countries can use to boost their defenses as the United States withdraws from its longstanding security guarantees.

The plan still needs approval from EU capitals — but if it goes through, the Commission will raise money through bond auctions and pass it on to member states for defense spending. They would then have to pay back to the Commission to cover the funding.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday unveiled a plan to mobilize around €800 billion ($843 billion) for Europe's defense — and help provide “immediate” military support to Ukraine after Washington suspended aid.

💬 "Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime,” the European Commission President said in a letter to EU leaders.

The move came hours after US President Donald Trump announced the aid suspension, intensifying Washington's push for a peace deal with Russia and confirming its pivot away from Kyiv and its European allies.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia would remove what the interim Syrian authorities consider to be a “problem” from their hands, it could more quickly settle its new regions, and their ongoing base talks would no longer be overshadowed by these atrocities.

The latest sectarian violence in Syria killed almost 1,000 members of the Alawite minority at the minimum, with many of them still sheltering in place or hiding somewhere outside of their homes due to their fear of being murdered like their co-religionists just were if they step into the street.

RT published a detailed report about what one of the survivors described as this “safari hunting Alawites”, while the UN confirmed that “entire families, including women and children, were killed” over the past week.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that around 9,000 Syrians – presumably mostly Alawites – sought shelter at her country’s Khmeimim airbase to escape the violence that she very strongly condemned. On that topic, Reuters cited two sources who were briefed on last week’s closed-door UNSC meeting on Syria to exclusively report that Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia “lambasted” what happened by comparing it to the Rwandan Genocide.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

There are five compelling arguments for either scenario.

Ukraine just agreed to a month-long ceasefire after talks with the US in Jeddah, but it’s conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, which remains uncertain. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to pay his second trip to Moscow in just as many months later this week, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz plans to speak to Russian officials soon, while Trump said that he hopes to talk to Putin by Friday. All three will try to convince Putin to silence the guns. Here’s why he might not agree to do that:

1. Russia Wants To Liberate All The Occupied Territories—Putin declared last June that he’d only agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine withdrew from the entirety of the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022 and publicly abandoned its plans to join NATO. That was shortly before Ukraine invaded Russia’s universally recognized Kursk Region. Agreeing to a ceasefire now with no guarantee that it’ll lead to the liberation of those five regions could result in the indefinite occupation of at least some of them if the front lines harden into a Korean-DMZ.

2. The Front Lines Might Soon Collapse To Russia’s Benefit—It’s obvious that one of the primary reasons why Ukraine agreed to a month-long ceasefire conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, apart from resuming the US’ previously cut military and intelligence aid, is to prevent the front lines from soon collapsing to Russia’s benefit. Aware of this, Russia might decide to carry on – perhaps advancing while negotiating additional terms to the proposed ceasefire – in order to take full advantage of this, thus raising the chances of speedily liberating all the occupied territories.

3. Russia Wants To Scare Away Western Peacekeepers—European peacekeepers might enter Ukraine during the month-long ceasefire, or some of their “mercenaries” who are already there might simply switch uniforms to then take on this role instead, which Russia already said would be absolutely unacceptable and make them legitimate targets. Keeping the conflict going might therefore scare them away from this and thus ensure that de facto NATO forces are kept as far away from Russia’s western border as possible.

Terje Hansen
Foreningen Lov og Helse

In January this year, a report was released that evaluated Canada's handling of the so-called Covid-19 (C19) pandemic. The full report is 269 pages long and can be read here.

In Part 1, I showed some of the evaluation reports commissioned by the health authorities in the Province of Alberta in Canada. This report concluded with a rather scathing review of the authorities' C19 policy. Canadian statistician Regina Watteel has discussed the report. She also offers some criticism of the report, focusing on certain shortcomings it has. Dr. Watteel highlights several fairly important elements that I will address below. Among other things, she points out that:

The all-important question regarding the implication of failing to clean up what happened is raised by Dr. Watteel quite precisely:

Terje Hansen
Foreningen Lov og Helse

In January this year, a report was released that evaluated Canada's handling of the so-called Covid-19 (C19) pandemic. The full report is 269 pages long and can be read here.

This report carries weight for several reasons. Firstly, it is an evaluation that the provincial authorities in Alberta commissioned themselves, so you could say that this is partly the public sector butchering itself. The Task Force group consisted of 12 people with broad interdisciplinary backgrounds in statistics, medicine, research, law, and other areas relevant to such an evaluation, and they appear to have done some serious work. In many ways, this group's work and report are the antitheses of the Norwegian Corona Commission, whose sole task was to whitewash the authorities' C19 policy, i.e. a cover-up operation.

Canadian Dr. Regina Watteel, who holds a PhD in statistics and who reviewed the Norwegian vaccine study from the NIPH, has also discussed and summarized the findings in the report from the provincial authorities in Alberta. For those who find it a bit difficult to read a 269-page report, I will extract some of what is stated in the report and also what Dr. Watteel has written about this.

NB I must first emphasize that it is not the actual findings in the report that are sensational. Anyone with at least some independently functioning ability to think critically will have figured out most of this on their own a long time ago.

In this sense, much of the content of the report is old news to many, but the important element here is that these things are confirmed by a government-appointed commission in the West.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russian Spies Warn That The UK Is Trying To Sabotage Trump’s Envisaged “New Détente”. Trump 2.0 must become aware of the threat that the UK poses to its plans, and respond accordingly to defend the US’ interests.

Russia’s Foreign Spy Service (SVR) accused the UK of trying to sabotage the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” for self-interested geopolitical reasons. According to their sources, the success of their talks could break the Brits’ regional containment of Russia, which is why they’re employing a dual-track policy for preventing this. The first part involves information warfare fearmongering about Trump’s ties with Russia while the second seeks to escalate the Ukrainian Conflict through a conventional intervention.

SVR’s report lacks any bombshells since everything that they revealed was already self-evident to astute observers, but it’s still important that they lent credence to what others before them had already picked up on and the timing with which they did so. “France, Germany, & Poland Are Competing For Leadership Of Post-Conflict Europe” while the UK plans to divide-and-rule the continent like usual, to which end it’s expected to rely more on Poland and/or Ukraine with whom it’s been colluding since February 2022.

Few either saw it at the time or still remember, but the UK forged an informal trilateral alliance with Poland and Ukraine exactly one week before the special operation began, which was leveraged shortly after to convince Zelensky to abandon spring 2022’s peace talks with Russia as was explained here. In the three years since, Poland and the US have taken harder stances towards Ukraine, the first initially for domestic political reasons and the second due to Trump’s eagerness to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto.

Tracy Turner
The People's Voice

Nikola Tesla was not just an inventor. Tesla was a visionary whose inventions and ideas transcended the limits of space and time, shaping our modern world in ways that most people might not even be aware of.

Born on July 10, 1856, in the Croatian village of Smiljan, Tesla’s early life was marked by gifted intellectual energy, the type of genius that would define him for the rest of his life. Tesla's fame as an inventor, engineer, and physicist earned him recognition. Still, his accomplishments were set against the r of his resistance with government and corporate interests determined to thwart his vision reality.

Corporate powerhouses and the government were threatened by Tesla’s vision of free energy as open and accessible. Instead of celebrating him, people who could benefit from proprietary rigid frameworks sabotaged him. Full of speculation, myths, and legends, Tesla’s life is a testament to the reality of living in a world where innovation often meets oppression. However, one cannot deny the inspiration that his triumphs bring, showcasing how genius and innovation can surpass the deepest-seated forces of the status quo.

Early Life and Inspiration—Only a few discerned the magnitude of beauty in Tesla’s early life. The modest means of his Serbian Orthodox minister and author father, Georg, and his wife Georgina, an engineer, artist, and his mother, who was later to become so important, formed his mindset. Tesla’s photographic memory allowed him to remember details and information throughout his life, ranging from the subjects of his extensive readings in Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering to the many other details he would learn over the years.

Graham Hryce
Daily Telegraph
(New Zealand)

The much-maligned ideology is not “radical” or “left-wing” – it’s a tool of elitist control

In a recent post, right-wing social commentator and former academic Matt Goodwin announced that he had “just exposed how the British Psychological Society (BPS) had been captured by ‘anti-racist racists’.”

This post is the latest in a series in which Goodwin reveals that various institutions in the UK (including the BBC and the NHS) had been “fully captured by radical if not extreme ideologies.”

One might nitpick over the term “radical” – but if Goodwin is saying that most powerful institutions in Britain are dominated by woke postmodern ideologies, one can readily agree with him.

Goodwin’s latest post – by citing numerous telling passages from BPS publications – shows beyond a doubt that the BPS has adopted wholesale the postmodern ideology known as “critical race theory.”

Goodwin appears shocked by his discovery – but it should not surprise anyone interested in the development of the ideology of critical race theory over the past five decades to find that a professional institution like the BPS has been infected by it.

The march of various postmodern ideologies through universities and other institutions in the West commenced in the late 1960s in the United States, and has intensified exponentially since then – and the literature analyzing this phenomenon (both academic and popular) is vast.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

Image: © Bob Moran / Bob Moran Art

"The white man, him speak with forked tongue." – Anon.

March 1, 2025: As [Minister of Foreign Affairs] Espen Barth Eide said on nrk.no: "The West is criticized for having double standards in the war in Ukraine and the Middle East. We must take active steps to avoid this perception." But there are two standards out there—one for Russia and one for the US.

A murder and an attempted murder

Sergei Skripal—In March 2018, an attempt was made on Sergei Skripal's life in England. The Russians were suspected but did not admit to the crime. The condemnation from the West was harsh and massive, the language was coarse, and as many as 153 Russian diplomats were sent home, one of them from Norway. In addition, various sanctions were introduced.

Jamal Khashoggi—In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly brutally executed and dismembered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. The murder was carried out by a commando group of five men from Saudi Arabia, probably ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. There was no reaction from Western countries, no diplomats were expelled, no sanctions were imposed and arms exports from the USA continued as usual. The language used here was mild or completely absent.

Conclusion: An anti-Russia campaign—There is little doubt that the Skripal incident served to discredit Russia to such an extent that there is reason to believe it was designed and carried out by MI6 and the CIA for this purpose. Below we will take a closer look at the background to the war in Ukraine, and show that there is "a rule for them" and "a rule for us". The duality is not due to incompetent politicians. It is because an "Anti-Russia campaign" is still going on, many years after the end of the Cold War. The US and the UK are leading the campaign, and Norwegian politicians are participating uncritically.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

The Russian Government has completely rejected proposals for a one-month halt in fighting in Ukraine. This rejection also includes a proposed pause in aerial and naval attacks. The fighting will continue.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made it clear: Russia won’t accept a “respite” without firm agreements on a final settlement.

Turkey ready to deploy troops to ukraine if needed

The government of Turkey, NATO’s second-largest military power, has indicated it is willing to join a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine to ensure regional stability.

The move, still conceptual, would follow a ceasefire and involve non-combat units to monitor peace. The proposal was made despite Moscow’s full rejection of NATO forces entering Ukraine for __any__ military purpose, though U.S. President Donald Trump believes Russia might agree.

Turkey, balancing ties with both Kyiv and Moscow, has mediated past deals like the Black Sea grain export agreement.

For Russia, none of these proposals make sense for multiple reasons. First, Russia is winning. If they agree to a "halt" or a "pause" or even the entry of "peacekeepers" both Ukraine and teh collective West, operating as NATO, have proven they simply cannot be trusted. The Russians believe any halt to the combat would be immediately used to re-supply, re-arm present Ukrainian troops, and add more troops, for a continued fight, later.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

L-R: Donald Tusk (Poland) and Emmanuel Macron
(France). Friedrich Merz is expected to assume office
as Chancellor of Germany by April 20, 2025.

The interplay between them, Russia, and the US will determine the continent’s future security architecture.

French President Macron’s declaration on Wednesday that he’s flirting with extending his country’s nuclear umbrella over other continental allies shows that he’s throwing down the gauntlet to Germany and Poland for leadership of post-conflict Europe. Outgoing German Chancellor Scholz published an hegemonic manifesto in December 2022 that later took the form of what can be described as “Fortress Europe”, which refers to the German-led attempt to lead Europe’s containment of Russia.

This concept requires Poland subordinating itself to Germany, which unfolded over the first half of last year but then slowed as the ruling liberal-globalist coalition started taking a more populist-nationalist approach towards Ukraine ahead of May’s presidential election. Even if this started off insincerely, it’s since assumed a life of its own and created a new dynamic in the latest circumstances brought about by Trump’s return whereby “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe”.

Poland’s economy is the largest of the EU’s eastern members, it now boasts NATO’s third-largest army, and it’s consistently sought to be the US’ most reliable ally, the last point of which works most in its favor amidst the transatlantic rift. If these trends remain on track, Poland could prevent France or Germany from leading post-conflict Europe by carving out a US-backed sphere of influence in Central Europe, but it would have a shot at leadership in its own right if conservatives or populists come to power.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

The "10/7" incident was carefully planned

In retrospect, it seems clear that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency knew about Hamas' plans for October 7, 2023, but failed to act on the orders. Netanyahu wanted as many Israelis as possible to die that night so that the rage would be maximized and his plans could be given "legitimacy" to be implemented. The Israeli army probably accounted for half of the Israelis killed that night. Lies were also spread about rapes and child murders that were later disproved.

Netanyahu was given carte blanche to start the extermination. Getting back those who were kidnapped was probably less important. Three of them were shot by Israeli soldiers as they escaped from the Palestinians, even though they had removed their upper bodies and were shouting in Israeli. And the Palestinian negotiators were executed by Israel on two occasions, something you wouldn't expect from people who want the kidnapped back home. It wasn't until Gaza was bombed to rubble that the exchange got serious. We have thus had to deal with a carefully planned and executed mass murder, war crimes, and genocide by Israel, Israel got its "9/11" on "10/7".

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.

An unnamed senior Defense Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:

1. Trump Is Serious About Brokering Peace

Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead-set on fighting till the last Ukrainian unless his country either gets NATO membership or Western troops. Neither of those demands is acceptable to Trump since they’d risk World War III, but so too could that risk continue rising if the conflict doesn’t soon end. Trump therefore realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his extreme stance.

Days of Palestine (Editorial)
Days of Palestine

A severe polar low has plunged the Palestinian territories into freezing temperatures and relentless rain, exacerbating the already dire conditions faced by thousands of displaced families in Gaza.

With many homes destroyed during last year’s devastating conflict, residents are left exposed to the elements, struggling to survive in makeshift shelters.

In the Sabra neighborhood east of Gaza City, Jihan Awad, a 37-year-old mother of five, huddles with her children in what remains of their home—a room reduced to crumbling columns and a fractured ceiling.

As gusts of wind sweep through the ruins, carrying raindrops and sand inside, Awad attempts to shield her family from the biting cold using tattered tarps, curtains, and sheets. Her seven-month-old daughter battles a respiratory infection worsened by the dusty environment and lack of proper medical care.

💬 “I tried everything I could to protect my children,” Awad told Palestine newspaper. “But without heating or sufficient blankets, there’s little we can do against this harsh weather. My greatest fear is that stronger winds will bring down more stones from the weakened roof, endangering my children’s lives.”

Living Amid Ruins—For others like Muhammad Ajur, life since the war has become an unrelenting struggle for survival. His home in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood was obliterated during Israel’s October 2023 offensive, leaving him and his children homeless.

Ian Proud
Strategic Culture Foundation

If foreign policy is human, then the war in Ukraine killed the prodigal child of Biden and many European leaders.

If foreign policy is human, then the war in Ukraine killed the prodigal child of Biden and many European leaders, leaving them bereaved. Proof of death occurred when the 2023 Ukrainian summer counter-offensive failed. Eighteen months on, Zelensky and European leaders remain unable to break out of the cycle of grief. Trump has unwittingly become their therapist.

Loss is devastating. I lost my mum to cancer in 2008, and it was the worst day of my life. Hundreds of thousands of people in Russia and Ukraine have had to confront a premature reckoning with grief of much younger relatives, and in many unforgivable cases, children, in the teeth of this pointless war.

Little thought seems given to them when the polished limos glide up to the red carpets in Brussels and elsewhere, and our besuited leaders shake coiffured heads at how awful it all is.

Yet von der Leyen, Scholz, Macron, and the countless British Prime Ministers since war broke out, have experienced their particular form of grief, caused by the Biden-inspired misadventure in Ukraine. This helps to explain their inability to let go of a lifeless foreign policy. Their dead brainchild was a belief that a smaller, economically fragile, conventionally armed Ukraine could defeat a much larger, economically robust, and nuclear-armed Russia.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.

I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published my first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analyzing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:

■ Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History

Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

Eleven years ago today, the CIA and, likely MI6, lead a Coup d'état in Ukraine. They dubbed it the "Maidan" revolution. They've been at war ever since.

It was 11 years ago today that all the REAL trouble in Ukraine began. The US financed protests in Ukraine with almost one million dollars a day, in cash, coming out of the US Embassy in Kiev.

In the next weeks, the protests would become so violent, the CIA-backed protesters burned Ukrainian government people alive in cities like Odessa and Mariupol. Within months, the democratically-elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown and a puppet government was installed by the US and the EU, in Kiev.

This caused the people of Crimea to vote in a public referendum, to secede, and return home to Russia. Crimea had only been part of Ukraine for about 55 years, after Nikita Khrushchev (a Ukrainian) General Secretary of the Soviet Union, GAVE Crimea to Ukraine. Crimea voted overwhelmingly to return home to Russia.

The collective West recoiled in horror, and refused to recognize the vote, even though it was closely monitored by United Nations election observers. To this very day, the collective West denies reality, and refers to Crimea as "occupied."

After Crimea departed Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk wanted to leave. Ukraine, at the urging of the EU and the US, massed troops on the borders of those two Oblasts (states) and began firing artillery and mortars into the civilian populations. They wanted to ethnically-cleanse the Russian-speaking population! The state militia of both Luhansk and Donetsk fought Ukraine to a standstill, but at a terrible price: 13,000 civilians were killed by the Ukraine shelling and mortar fire.

tsargrad.tv
Pravda EN / ПЕРВЫЙ РУССКИЙ

Given how many mercenaries and military personnel from NATO countries die before reaching the front line, especially in "the most air defense-protected city in Ukraine," the capital has turned into a real cemetery for them.

Our mandrels and missiles attacked the enemy's rear again last night. The enemy reports almost 200 UAVs for the second day in a row. Kyiv is being leveled to the ground for the eighth day – judging by the incoming data, without energy, the goals are purely military. According to the underground, it flew hard at the training ground again, according to unconfirmed reports – right during the construction. The capital has turned into a cemetery for the NATO Armed Forces.

According to the information of the monitoring channel "Chronicles of Geraniums", on the night of February 22, explosions from arrivals sounded throughout Ukraine. A particularly "stormy" night was in Kyiv again. Locals publish creepy footage of giant pillars of fire and secondary detonation under the howl of a siren.

One of the harshest blows was the arrivals, which caused a severe fire in the warehouses in the Belotserkovsky district. "Geraniums" were beaten for about two hours almost without a break. One of the drones destroyed the railway tracks, however, it is noted that most likely he was aiming at the hangars.

According to Ukrainian reports, the Russian Armed Forces launched 162 drones throughout Ukraine (161 UAVs on the night of February 21). However, there is evidence that up to 200 were launched. At the same time, the enemy claims to have shot down 82 UAVs, and another 75 allegedly failed to reach the target and disappeared from the locators.

Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
VernonColeman.com

There’s all sorts of rubbish about me on the internet these days, some of it egregiously out of context, some of it just lies and most of it emanating from Wikipedia, Google and the other garbage distributors controlled by the conspirators. Even tradesmen look at Google and Wikipedia, recognise my name and sneer contemptuously when they see me. Bizarrely, some refuse to do essential repair work for anyone labelled `discredited’. If governments want to remove misinformation and disinformation from the internet they should start by closing down Wikipedia.

Someone in Bangkok went through over 5,000 articles I’d written for the national press (around 10 million words altogether) to find something with which Wikipedia could berate me. All they could come up with was an article about AIDS which I wrote when I was The Sun doctor in the 1980s. Unfortunately for them, every word I wrote was absolutely accurate and based on medical journal papers. Everything the medical establishment said is provably wrong.

The big question is why would anyone in Bangkok bother to spend all that time reading through so many of my old newspaper cuttings?

The Wikipedia editors, some of whom are possibly linked to the CIA according to one of the site’s founders, were so miffed that they couldn’t find any errors that they decided to abandon facts and truth and just called me discredited and a conspiracy theorist. They added in the AIDS stuff because they wrongly thought it was a stick with which they could beat me. The really odd thing is that in the 80s I was considered an expert on AIDS. I was invited to make a keynote speech at a major conference on AIDS. And I regularly broadcast about AIDS. But Wikipedia and Google aren’t much interested in inconvenient truths.

The Wikipedia page in my name was altered after I described the coronavirus scare as a hoax in February and March 2020 and warned that compulsory vaccination would be introduced.

Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio are holding a meeting today in Saudi Arabia. It is the first meeting between the two nations in years, since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Images of Rubio, flanked by America’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, sitting opposite Lavrov and President Putin’s advisor Yuri Ushakov have been published as talks began.

The Russians have made known they are going into this meeting with a hard bargaining approach. Russia is extremely wary of the US and the collective West in general, after being intentionally deceived in 2014 by Then Ukraine President Poroshenko, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and then-French President Francois Hollande, at the Minsk Conference in Belarus back in the year 2014.

At that conference, Ukraine and the Ukrainian states of Luhansk and Donetsk, bargained to broker a peace deal in the presence of Germany, France, and Russia. The sides bargained for nineteen hours straight and came away with the "Minsk Agreement" to settle the then-ongoing conflict between Ukraine's national government in Kiev, and the two states of Luhansk and Donetsk.