Yeah that part is clear, Ukraine and Russia are basically trying to win Trump over with PR battles, Lol. Shit has been happening for months now, I can't blame Ukraine for trying, I do blame Europe though for dragging their feet, Trump will never go hard on Putin, he is a fucking coward, it doesn't mean Europe needs to keep entertaining the delay tactics though.

It has been made clear Putin doesn't want peace but Putin somehow makes the whole thing grey again and Europe throws their hands up and says okay, no response, they should be SCREAMING that Putin just rejected a ceasefire proposal on the 13th but instead accepting him delaying things further. What happens when these peace talks fail? Lol. Europe running into an own goal and setting things up for Trump to blame Ukraine again and Zelenskyy is trying to avoid that but has no choice but to entertain America's bullshit when Europe won't step up.

Basically after the 12th there should have been an immediate sanction package already negotiated on beforehand, plus individual sanctions from the specific countries, plus huge military aid announcements but there's been absolutely nothing except Europe agreeing to delay things further and showing their threat was nothing.

Should also be a prompt for Taurus being sent but I will admit I can't really criticise Germany on that because Germany has (which I actually agree with) decided to keep their military deliveries secret now, so we will never actually know when they send Taurus until it's flying in the skies, Lol. But still not even a single vague "$bn aid package announced for Ukraine" Sigh.

I expected nothing from America...Don't even need to talk about that pathetically spineless country, Lol.

If Zelenskyy is going, from the sounds of it, Witkoff and Kellog will be there to represent America and Lavrov and Ushakov will be there to represent Russia. Feel sorry for Zelenskyy because it's going to end up being 3 vs 1 if that twat Witkoff is there who has already openly surrendered fully to Russia, Kellog is a bit more sensible but he'll ultimately follow his Emperor Trump.

So it's going to be Witkoff, Lavrov and Ushakov vs Zelenskyy with Kellog twiddling his thumbs.

Going to have to hope that the dickhead Erdogan is the one to back Zelenskyy up.

Thing is, they actually can't.

Conscripts are by law only allowed to fight on Russian terrain, and it's a law that Putin can't remove without removing himself from power as Russians are very proud of it, up to a potential civil war. Meaning for an invasion Russia needs volunteers.

And those volunteers they bought with extensive and ever-growing signup bonuses. The federal minimum is 400k rubles, roughly $4500, and that's just what they get either way for signing up, in most regions those numbers are way higher, up to 5M rubles ($60000, enough to buy yourself (or your family) a fancy house in Russia's countryside) in some more extreme cases. In fact, Putin spends over 20 million dollar per day just on recruiting fresh meat.

And yet, despite these giant bonuses, the engagement rates are dropping, less and less want to sign up for service. Many prefer now to work in the military industry producing weapons, because here the salaries have skyrocketed to levels that are actually comparable to average salaries in western Europe and both the employment and life are safe. Due to having full employment in Russia, it's also a tricky situation for Putin: He can't strengthen recruitment without weakening production or vice-versa. Probably why North Koreans are now fighting in Ukraine, they, along African hires, fill the growing gaps in Russia's recruitment.

In short, the russian military efforts are falling apart.  

Putin is between a rock and a hard place: he can't stop the war without tanking the economy, but he also can't go on for much longer without tanking the economy. As a result, he's stalling and waiting opportunities, as it's by far his best option right now.

The hitch with that is Russia says the occupied territories are now part of Russia, so it has a loophole.

Yes, but he can't send them further than that, so even if they were pushing forward again, which they would need to to win the war, Russia couldn't send them into battle.