UK, European Leaders Scramble for Relevance Ahead of Trump–Putin Alaska Summit
White House seeks to calm fears, framing the talks as merely a “fact-finding” mission.
European leaders appeared cautiously optimistic after holding a virtual meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday, two days before he meets his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, BBC reported. Trump reportedly told the Europeans that his goal for the summit was to obtain a ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv. He also agreed that any territorial issues had to be decided with Volodymyr Zelensky's involvement, and that security guarantees had to be part of the deal, according to France's Emmanuel Macron. Speaking to Trump had allowed him to "clarify his intentions" and gave the Europeans a chance to "express our expectations," Macron said.
Watch my hot-take commentary below on today’s trans-Atlantic, diplomat ballet ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska….
Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called the NATO’s chief’s conditions “sickening.” Here are his remarks from a Twitter post from earlier today: “If Ukraine has no choice but to accept “de facto” occupation — that’s because WE failed. Not because Ukrainians failed, not because some mysterious “shit happened”, but because for years we ignored all the warnings, repeated all the mistakes of history, kicked the can down the road and refused to do what it takes to defend the rules and principles that enable sustainable peace and prosperity. This is on us. We are the architects of this de facto defeat, so now we are trying to pretend it came out of nowhere and we did the best we could to stop it. In a spectacular display of unbombed westsplaining, Mark Rutte is suggesting that everything will be OK in the long run, like it was OK in the Baltic States after decades of de facto occupation by jolly old Uncle Joe Stalin. Well, I have shrugged off a lot of dumb hot takes about my country over the last few years, but this one is literally sickening. Rutte is revealing that the latest genius 5D chess move to save Ukraine is to casually throw millions of people into a black hole of oppression, torture, rape, kidnapping, murder and destruction of national identity — “de facto, but not de jure”. And the proponents of this plan will keep a straight face while they cite the misery of the occupation of the Baltic States as a shining example that Ukraine should happily walk into.”\
“If Ukraine has no choice but to accept “de facto” occupation — that’s because WE failed. Not because Ukrainians failed, not because some mysterious “shit happened”, but because for years we ignored all the warnings, repeated all the mistakes of history, kicked the can down the road and refused to do what it takes to defend the rules and principles that enable sustainable peace and prosperity. This is on us.’ - former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis
National Guard troops began to deploy in Washington on Tuesday evening as President Trump’s plan to use the federal government to crack down on crime in the city started taking shape. About a dozen members of the National Guard appeared in five military vehicles near the Washington Monument as the sun set, a stark juxtaposition to a peaceful evening scene of people jogging by with headphones and walking their dogs. An Army official said troops were continuing to gather at the D.C. Armory and were expected to deploy around national monuments, and near a U.S. Park Police facility in the Anacostia neighborhood of southeast Washington. Mr. Trump on Monday described the nation’s capital in apocalyptic terms as a crime-infested wasteland — a description that ignores the extent to which crime has been falling in the city over the last two years. But it remains unclear whether the eventual show of force will match the president’s rhetoric. The initial deployment near the Washington Monument, at least, often resembled something less fearsome, with troops snapping photos of themselves with visitors. They left roughly two hours after they arrived. “We just did a presence patrol to be amongst the people, to be seen,” Master Sgt. Cory Boroff said as he stood near a Humvee. “Of the people, for the people in D.C.,” he added. He said he did not know where they would be headed next. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that the administration’s campaign was just beginning. “Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the District who breaks the law, undermines public safety and endangers law-abiding Americans,” she said - NYT
The musical artist Madonna has called on Pope Leo to travel to Gaza amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis, asking him to "bring your light to the children before it's too late." "As a mother, I cannot bear to watch their suffering. The children of the world belong to everyone. You are the only one of us who cannot be denied entry," Madonna wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. "Politics Cannot affect Change. Only consciousness Can. Therefore I am Reaching out to a Man of God," Madonna wrote in the caption of her post. For months, humanitarian aid organizations and international bodies have warned that Gaza's population is facing "critical" levels of hunger. A report in late July from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global initiative monitoring hunger, said that "the worst-case scenario of famine is playing out in the Gaza Strip," and that "access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels." The Vatican has yet to comment on Madonna's post. Pope Leo XIV, who began his papacy in May, is the first American-born pope and the 267th pope of the Catholic Church - ABC News
Israel is pressuring Gaza ceasefire talks by forcing residents to “leave” and floating the idea of relocating them to African countries such as South Sudan, Palestinian political sources have said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated that his army would “allow” Palestinians to leave Gaza. At the same time, AP reported that Israel is in talks with South Sudan to host Gazans - a claim the African nation denied. The reports came days after Israel announced plans to reoccupy Gaza, amid renewed efforts to secure a ceasefire in the devastated territory, where Israeli forces have killed more than 61,700 Palestinians since October 2023. “There are desperate attempts to improve Israel’s negotiating terms,” one of the Palestinian political sources told The National on Wednesday.
“What Netanyahu is doing is an attempt to show he is taking action amid his internal crisis: what to do with the Gaza war,” said the official, a former minister. Calls to forcibly resettle Palestinians from Gaza have previously drawn widespread condemnation, especially from Arab countries, who reject the idea of "emptying" Gaza, as previously suggested by US President Donald Trump.
Mr Netanyahu told a televised interview that “Israel will give them the opportunity to leave," adding that he felt he was on a “historic and spiritual mission,” and was “very” attached to the vision of a Greater Israel, which includes parts of Jordan and Egypt - The National
Russia’s second-largest lender VTB is grappling with deepening financial strain amid a surge in loan defaults, including on credits issued to finance military production, Bloomberg reported, citing individuals familiar with the situation. The state-owned lender’s net interest income — the difference between earnings on loans and interest paid on deposits — plunged 49% in the first half of the year to 146.8 billion rubles ($1.9 billion), an unusually steep drop for a bank of its size. According to Bloomberg’s sources, senior managers are signaling privately that the official figures understate the severity of the problem, pointing to a loan portfolio in far worse condition than the public accounts suggest. The true scale, they said, is obscured by debt restructurings and opaque, war-related lending. A VTB spokesperson dismissed the report that senior managers were privately signaling that official data did not show the extent of the problem as “fantasy, plain and simple.” Bloomberg reported in June that executives at major lenders saw a risk for a full-scale banking crisis within 12 months, with potential losses running into the trillions of rubles. Defaults are rising not only among households and corporations, but also in sectors once considered secure, including construction, manufacturing and even Russia’s military-industrial complex - Moscow Times
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the most popular party in the country, according to a striking new poll published Tuesday. If a national election were now held, 26 percent of Germans would vote for the AfD, according to a poll carried out by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis. That result puts the far-right party ahead of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s mainstream conservative bloc, which slid to second with 24 percent support in the poll. With the far-right National Rally already leading clearly in France, the bombshell German survey is likely to fuel unease among mainstream leaders across Europe. Right-wing populist parties have performed strongly in elections in recent years from Poland to Romania, and Portugal to the Netherlands. While POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows that Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats maintain a slight lead over the AfD in an aggregation of voter surveys, the far-right party has climbed since snagging almost 21 percent of the vote in February’s federal election, its best-ever result. The AfD is now the largest opposition party in Germany’s Bundestag. The AfD was initially founded as a single-issue party more than a decade ago by a group of economics professors who, in the midst of Europe’s debt crisis, opposed the euro and financial help for debt-ridden countries. It regularly scored single-digit results in federal and state elections in its early years. Now led by the openly radical Alice Weidel, a former economist, the AfD currently pushes a hard-line anti-migrant and right-wing populist positions. Some mainstream politicians argue the party is so extreme that it ought to be banned under provisions of the German constitution designed to prevent a repeat of the country’s Nazi past. Forsa’s poll also indicated that, as Merz focuses on foreign policy issues like the war in Ukraine and Europe’s relationship with the U.S. under President Donald Trump, he’s in growing political trouble at home. A majority of Germans are dissatisfied with Merz’s chancellorship, with 67 percent saying they are “not happy” with his performance after 100 days in office, according to the survey.
The journals….
