White House "privately" asks Ukraine to be open to peace negotiations with Russia: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was dispatched to Kyiv this week to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky. The stated purpose of the meeting was to inform the Ukrainian president that yet another round of fiscal and military aid was on the way, courtesy of the United States taxpayers. The latest package weighed in at $400 million and includes refurbished T-72 tanks, unmanned drones, and the initial steps to refurbish 250 HAWK surface-to-air missiles that will be delivered later. Zelensky is always happy to pose for some photos and accept more foreign aid, so this was a pretty easy lift for Sullivan. But under the covers, there was more going on than that. The Washington Post later reported that one of their sources learned that Sullivan had been instructed to quietly pull Zelensky aside and tell him that he needed to change his public stance on the question of peace talks with Moscow. For many months, Zelensky has been saying that peace talks couldn’t happen until the Russian army pulled back fully to the pre-invasion lines, but he may have to change his tune in the near future. It’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to suspect that the upcoming midterm elections in the United States are a significant factor in this apparent policy shift. (The Hill) . . . the White House probably realizes that they don’t have much of a choice in the matter. Barring some sort of unprecedented failure in polling, the Democrats are poised to lose control of the House on Tuesday and very possibly the Senate as well. Joe Biden can’t just keep writing checks for Zelensky without congressional approval, and both Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy have recently suggested that the days of limitless “blank checks” for Ukraine were coming to an end. From Amir Tsarfati: The Ukrainians are storming the Kakhovka dam right now in a blitz, attempting to take it from the Russians who were trying to blow it up. Absolute chaos in Russian channels right now. Zelensky: If Russia blows up the Kakhovka dam, it will be a war declaration to the whole world. https://t.me/s/beholdisraelchannel Missiles cross into NATO member Poland, where two people were killed: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/zelenskyy-battle-kherson-day-watershed-93318926 Missile Hits Polish Territory Near Ukrainian Border: Polish government calls emergency security meeting after explosion in village 3 miles from border with Ukraine. PRZEWODÓW, Poland—A missile struck this Polish village near the country’s border with Ukraine on Tuesday and Warsaw said it was considering whether to summon other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for an emergency summit as Russia’s fight with Kyiv threatened to spill over. The missile, which Poland’s government said was manufactured in Russia, slammed into a granary 3 miles from the frontier and killed two farmworkers, Polish officials said. In response, Poland summoned the Russian ambassador and put military units for air defense on high alert. President Biden said preliminary information about the missile strike indicates that it was unlikely to have been fired from Russia and he pledged to investigate the incident. “I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate,” he said. “But it’s unlikely [based on the trajectory] that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see.” Mr. Biden spoke following an emergency meeting of G-7 and North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders along the sidelines of the Group of 20 major economies summit in Bali, Indonesia. He said the countries agreed to investigate the incident and then determine next steps. “I’m going to make sure we figure out exactly what happened,” he said, adding there was total unanimity among the leaders at the emergency meeting about the steps they would take in response. The meeting included leaders from France, Canada, Italy, Japan, the U.K., the European Commission and the European Council, the White House said. European officials broadly held off from saying whose rocket had caused the damage. President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, directly placed the fault on Russia. https://www.wsj.com/articles/poland-russian-missile-strike-11668540716 Would it be too farfetched to wonder if someone else who wanted WWIII dropped those bombs and not Russia? Does that make me a conspiracy theorist to think that way? :whistle:
