Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“European leaders and Ukraine’s allies issued a carefully worded warning to U.S. President Donald Trump early Tuesday over his lukewarm support for Kyiv, backing his call to halt fighting but rejecting any suggestion of territorial concessions to Moscow.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-allies-us-trump-yes-freezing-line-no-changing-borders-putin-russia/
“Ukraine shouldn’t have to give up territory as part of a peace deal with Russia, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump pushed Kyiv to give up land to end the war.
“If we just give away the territories, then this gives a message to everybody that you can just use force against your neighbors and get what you want,” Kallas told journalists in Luxembourg after a meeting of foreign ministers. “I think this is very dangerous. That’s why we have the international law in place, [so] that nobody does that.”
…
“What you can conquer back is one question, but the other question is also what do you recognize as the territory of another country?” said Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia. “I come from a country that was occupied for 50 years, but [a] majority of the countries in the world didn’t recognize them to be Russian territories. And that also meant a lot.””
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-kaja-kallas-pushes-back-on-donald-trump-demand-ukraine-cede-territory-to-russia-vladimir-putin/
Trump Caves on Ukraine Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBrvoW2aI1g
“When Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in January 2025, on the last day of the Biden administration, President Joe Biden demanded credit. “This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May. Exact,” he said. Of course, that raises the question—if the deal was on the table earlier, why didn’t Biden secure it then?
That ceasefire fell apart after only two months. Seven bloody months later, the Trump administration has finally brokered a new one. President Donald Trump, like Biden before him, wants the credit. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” he declared in his announcement of the ceasefire, waxing biblical. (Trump also, bizarrely, tried to credit his tariff policy for the truce.) But like Biden before him, Trump deserves scrutiny for the violence that dragged on when a deal was already on the table.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/09/what-changed-over-the-past-seven-months-of-war-in-the-middle-east/?nab=1
“the return of the 20 remaining living hostages who had been taken by Hamas. The terrorist group is still looking for the remains of the 28 hostages they killed, to hopefully return the bodies to the families of those still grieving their loss. Meanwhile, 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were released back to the West Bank and to Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, to fulfill the terms of the deal.
…
“The main issue still hasn’t been solved: Hamas’s weapons,” Akram Atallah, a London-based Palestinian journalist, told The New York Times. “The Israelis are demanding Hamas disarm, which is not a simple administrative measure. Hamas was founded on the basis of bearing arms.” The most likely possible outcome looks like Hamas refusing disarmament, the Israeli military responding with some amount of continued surveillance and physical presence in the Strip, and some amount of conflict bubbling up sporadically.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/14/war-is-over/?nab=1
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Monday for the Israeli strikes on Doha that killed a Qatari service member and violated Qatari sovereignty.
In a call organized by President Trump, Netanyahu also said such a strike would not happen again.”
Israel was trying to hit Hamas targets in Qatar.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5527325-netanyahu-apologizes-qatar-strike/
READ: Trump’s 20-point proposal for peace in Gaza Strip, ending Israel-Hamas war
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5527504-read-gaza-strip-ceasefire-trump-israel/
This “peace deal” is a demand for Hamas’s surrender. Hamas surrendering may bring peace, but I generally wouldn’t call a demand for surrender a ‘peace deal’.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/29/trump-touts-peace-plan-for-israel-hamas-has-not-agreed-00584857?cid=Connatix&nid=00000150-1596-d4ac-a1d4-179e288b0000&nname=illinois-playbook&nrid=00000164-8481-d4a7-a5fc-9ecfc4730000
““Deals with the Trump administration simply do not create the kind of lasting certainty everyone is desperate for, because certainty, predictability and strict fidelity to treaties are not White House objectives,” said Dmitry Grozoubinski, a former trade diplomat and author of the book “Why Politicians Lie About Trade.””
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-faces-first-reality-check-fragile-trade-truce-donald-trump/
“Putin doesn’t want a deal — Putin doesn’t want a deal that Ukraine can accept. Putin wants a deal where Ukraine would essentially, now or in the future, cease to be an independent, sovereign country with ties to the West. So, I am skeptical in the extreme that a lasting peace could be negotiated.
Also, Putin’s made it clear that, at a minimum, he wants all sorts of territorial transfers. Well, it’s one thing for Zelenskyy to recognize that Russia occupies Crimea and much of the Donbas. It’s something very different for Zelenskyy to sign away Ukraine’s title and rights to these areas.
The biggest difference then, between a ceasefire and a peace is that in a ceasefire you don’t sign away your rights to anything. You simply agree to stop the war. In a permanent peace, you’ve got to sign away rights, potentially to territory, to populations, you name it.
…
If you go back to the summer of 2021 and Putin’s so-called essay or op-ed, he obviously sees Ukraine as central to Russia’s future. It’s part of the Russian Empire identity and central to his own legacy, which makes it extraordinarily difficult for him to agree, in a permanent way, that Ukraine will be separate and different from Russia. So yes, it makes it very hard for Putin to agree to a final status or a permanent agreement that doesn’t give him a great deal. It ought not to rule out a ceasefire, because then he could say, this is simply a tactical pause.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/08/21/trump-ukraine-russia-negotiations-interview-00517411