➡ The article discusses the current political and military situations in Israel and Ukraine. It highlights the challenges faced by Israel, including domestic protests, legal issues faced by Benjamin Netanyahu, and international responses to its actions in Gaza. The article also discusses the complex situation in Ukraine, with Trump’s inconsistent stance and the question of Zelensky’s legitimacy as president. The author suggests that these situations reflect the difficult geopolitical positions of both Israel and Ukraine.

➡ Russia is expected to win the conflict with Ukraine, as Ukraine’s military and economy are weakening. Ukraine’s refusal to accept the Minsk accords has led to significant losses. The conflict is seen as Ukraine being used by the West against Russia. Scott Ritter, who shared these views, can be followed on his sub-stack and YouTube.

Hello, my name is Edmund DeMarche with the Trend Journal. I’m here today with Scott Ritter. He’s the head author behind ScottRitter.com, and you can also follow his work on YouTube. Just search Scott Ritter. He’s a former UN weapons inspector and a political analyst and geopolitical analyst. Scott, thank you for joining the Trend Journal today. Thanks for having me. It’s a sad day from my perspective across the world because it looks like very little, at least immediately, was accomplished with the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin. And then you also had Israel carry out a major attack over yesterday or this morning on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza, in Kanyunas.

Do you see any progress in any of these conflicts, Scott, at the time? Or are we still in this place that there’s really no gains anywhere and we’re just in status quo ante? Well, I mean, first of all, we’re seeing the tragic consequences of conflict, which is some people say, why do you do what you do? It’s in hopes of preventing war. It’s a really hard job to prevent war. Going to war is the easiest thing in the world to do. It just requires you to tell people to kill people. Preventing the war means you have to solve problems, and nobody wants to do that.

And once you go to war, then you’re trapped. You’re stuck in this cycle of violence. Whatever you thought, I mean, just take a look at the situation in Ukraine. Had Ukraine accepted Russia, the Minsk accords, which they refused to accept, that’d be the best deal possible. Why? They’d have, you know, Zaporizia, they’d have Karasone, they’d have Donets, they’d have Lugansk, they’d have 1.7 million guys alive, trillions of dollars in infrastructure intact. You know, gee, that’s sort of what they’re sort of wishing for today, but it’s too late because they went to war.

Now it’s, you’re not going to ever get that back. And it’s very difficult to stop this war. In Gaza, you know, this, what we see right now is the fact that Israel is at war with truth, because journalists are about, you know, telling the truth, capturing fact-based, good journalists, are about capturing fact-based reality and, you know, putting it in a proper context and packaging up and disseminating it. And the people who do this in Gaza are telling the truth that is uniformly hostile to the Israeli point of view. And so Israel’s solution is to kill them.

And right now we have a situation both in Ukraine, in Gaza, we see a deteriorating situation between Israel and Iran. You know, and I guess you would, there’s a tendency to be very negative about this, but what we’re also looking at is, you know, the processes of conflict. All conflicts end. All conflicts come to an end, one way or another. And we’re seeing the processes of conflict as these conflicts reach their end state. Yes, Israel is in an orgy of death and destruction, but now that Israel is so flagrantly targeting journalists, it means that the truth hurts.

And we see around the world, the world rallying to the cause of the Palestinian state, the Palestinian people. I think Israel’s days are numbered, especially Israel governed by Benjamin Netanyahu. I don’t see his regime lasting much longer. He’s under the horrific slaughter and the ongoing genocide. I find some solace in recognizing that we’re seeing Israel in its final spasms of their genocidal policies, but it’s over for Israel. They’ve lost. They’re not going to win. They’re not going to recover. They’re not going to be sustainable. On the Ukraine conflict, yes, there’s the ongoing death.

We see President Trump basically flip-flopping all over the place, apparently. But when you dig deeper into what he’s saying, the fact of the matter is Alaska was a real event. And President Trump, I believe, is committed to seeing it to its fruition. It was never going to be an easy thing to bring Europe and Ukraine along for the ride. The more difficult thing was to get the United States to recognize Russian reality. And it appears that Trump has, in fact, recognized Russian reality. He can’t acknowledge this recognition because of political consequences.

But deep inside, he knows that Russia is right, that Ukraine is wrong, and that Europe is on the wrong side of history. He has to play some political games, some maneuvering, some posturing. But I believe at the end of the day, we are on a path towards conflict resolution in Ukraine as well. So I may be grasping at straws and trying to paint a silver lining on a very dark cloud that might not really exist. But if I don’t, then what is there left to do? Grab a stroke of scotch and down it, because that’s pretty much where we are right now.

I mean, if you dig too deep into the horror that is taking place in the world today, it’s extraordinarily negative and all that. So I’m a realistic person, and I honestly believe in my assessments, it doesn’t nullify the horror that’s taking place. But it allows me to at least say, we got to keep doing what we do, what you and I do, what Gerald Solante does, what everybody does, which is pursue fact-based truth and present it to a broader audience in hopes that we can turn the corner on these horrible conflicts that are taking place in Gaza and Ukraine and Iran and elsewhere in the world.

We need hope. Otherwise, why the hell do we do this? I’ll talk about, I know you have a limited amount of time. I’d like to talk about, maybe we’ll start with Israel first, and then we’ll just go to Ukraine. I have a couple questions with Israel. Obviously, we just mentioned the Nasser hospital attack and the fallout from that. Germany came out of post to it and said it needs an investigation. The UN also did. Even Trump from the White House said that he was unhappy about that attack. At what point do you think that there’s a point that Trump and his administration have in mind that even they wouldn’t continue support or they would step in? Is there anything that Israel can do that do you think would prompt the Trump administration to take any significant action opposed to what it’s doing in Gaza? Or does Israel really write its own check? Can it do anything it wants? Because even the strike on the hospital did get criticism from the Trump administration.

At what point is there a red line that you think that Trump just couldn’t politically support Israel anymore? Look, I personally believe that if it was just the United States and Israel, Israel could literally get away with the slaughter of two million Palestinians and the United States would do nothing. Donald Trump has embraced the Israeli narrative and has facilitated, condoned Israeli actions. This isn’t so much about the Israeli action. This is about international response to those actions. Donald Trump is now trying to, you know, make things happen around the world.

And what he’s finding is more and more nations are turning their back on Israel and it’s becoming very difficult for the United States to blindly support Israel. And so it isn’t necessarily the fact that Israel killed 20 people, including five journalists in this attack on Nasser Hospital, but they killed 187 men and women and children yesterday. Where was Trump? So it’s not the act of violence. It’s how the world is responding to the violence that puts the United States in a difficult bind. And that’s what’s prompting President Trump’s reaction. And if that’s what it needs, so be it.

I mean, it’s a sad state of affairs that the United States is willing to turn a blind eye to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. And we continue to turn a blind eye and facilitate these crimes if the world just remains silent. But the world is speaking out and we’re starting to see the condemnation of Israel resonate in a manner that reflects on the United States and Trump has no choice but to take action. But left to its own volition, he would let the Israelis kill every single one of the Gazans and not say a word.

That’s what you mentioned. You mentioned before that you see this as leading to Israel’s ultimate demise. Wouldn’t there be people who say Israel is on a role here? Israel’s has, they’re negotiating right now with Syria to solidify ties with the new Syrian regime. They’re seeking help to help Lebanon to root out Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. They just carried out a major strike on Yemen’s infrastructure yesterday. And in fact, Israel cats, the defense minister said that the plague of the firstborn may be struck down on Yemen over its attacks and defensive Palestinians. Would there be an argument that Israel, like other than statements, strongly worded statements from, let’s say, the German foreign ministry, doesn’t Israel seem to be on a bit of a winning streak, at least on a battlefield, and could someone make a rational argument that they’re on a roll? I don’t know.

Just the other day Hamas had an 18-man unit emerge from the ground attacking Israeli convoys, slaughtering the Israelis there, then turning their attention on the Israeli occupied building, going in and shooting this shooting. Yes, they took casualties, but they hurt the Israelis a lot. And every day Israelis are dying, Israeli soldiers are dying in Gaza as the reality that there’s nothing Israel can do to win this battle sinks home. I don’t call that on a roll. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are in the streets condemning Benjamin Netanyahu, his policies. I don’t call that on a roll.

Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure from domestic courts that are seeking to hold him accountable for his actions, including lying to the Israeli people violations of Israel’s security and, perhaps more importantly or more effectively, the corruption that he’s clearly guilty of. And if the courts have their way, he’ll be found guilty and that’s not on a roll. Egypt mobilized 40,000 troops and moved them into an area in northern Sinai, which Egyptian troops aren’t supposed to be. This is a direct response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. That’s not on a roll.

Saudi Arabia has spoken about the need for the Arab nations to come up with deterrence against Israel. That’s not on a roll. Iran has fired new ballistic missiles that not only can penetrate Israel’s ballistic missile defense shield, but when hitting the ground will increase by orders of magnitude the damage done to Israeli targets. That’s not on a roll. The United Nations has condemned Germany’s stop sales. Nations are talking about the recognition of of Palestine. That’s not on a roll. So, no, I think the things you mentioned, yes, they’re there, but those are superficial.

Those are cosmetic. Those aren’t substantive victories for Israel. Israel will always be able to bomb nations. Bombing Yemen doesn’t signify anything. Hezbollah, it’s not a done deal yet. I mean, the Lebanese government’s always been talking about the necessity of disarmament Hezbollah. Turning that into reality is different. Negotiating with Al Qaeda can never be seen as a victory, even for a nation with such low standards as Israel. So, no, I don’t see these as positives for Israel. I think it’s actually, when you look at it more closely, it’s a manifestation of just how low Israel has sunk and how poorly positioned Israel is in terms of global geopolitics.

And now I just want to move on to Ukraine. Scott, thank you for that analysis. I want to move on to Ukraine while I still have you. Trump, we’ve discussed this before. He seems very erratic with some of his positions on Ukraine. One minute, it looks like he’s backing Zelensky. One minute, he’s backing Putin. It’s Zelensky’s fault. There was an actual incredible moment this weekend because the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s, the Pentagon, told Ukraine not to use certain long-range missiles to strike Russian targets deep inside Russia. And then that follows Trump on Monday after he posted, quote, it is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country.

It takes a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but it’s like having a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but not allowing it to play offense. There’s no chance of winning. He blamed crooked Joe Biden for not letting Ukraine fight back and only allowing it to defend itself against Russia. So he posted that days before the Wall Street Journal reported that he pretty much has the same positions in place, policies in place with Ukraine. Is Trump confused with his Ukraine logic? Does he not understand his own policy, you think? I think Trump understands this strategic direction that he wants to go.

And I do believe that he is sincerely looking for a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine, but more importantly, the normalization of relations between Russia and the United States. He has a lot of political enemies here at home. And I think a lot of what, you know, observers like yourself and myself take for inconsistency or flip-flopping is more or less a reflection on the fact that Trump has to, he was fighting fires on a number of fronts, the European front, the Ukrainian front at home against Democrats, Republicans, the deep state, even within his own administration.

And so he has to do things, react to these various inputs, and it makes it look chaotic. And oftentimes it appears to be inherently self-contradictory, what he talks about. But when you get down to the substance of things, first of all, we know that Donald Trump was aware that the CIA back in last fall, a year ago, said there’s a greater than 50% chance there’d be a nuclear war between Russia and the United States by a year’s end. And the main reason was because Joe Biden was authorizing Ukraine to use American provided attack of his missiles to strike into the strategic depth of Russia.

This prompted Donald Trump in early December, I think in an interview given to Time Magazine, to say that under his administration, he would not allow this policy to continue. Russia read that, realized that they’re listening to the future president and held off a responding in a, you know, in the excessive manner to the provocation of the United States and Ukraine under the Biden administration. Trump knows this. So he has to understand that by providing Ukraine with long range missiles, the ERAM missile, which, you know, isn’t even in serial production yet, but to provide that and then to give Ukraine permission to strike targets, knowing that the only way they can hit the targets is using U.S.

intelligence. This would be a complete reversal of what Trump understood to be reality. So why would he do it? Because there’s not a snowball’s chance and how this policy will be implemented. First of all, he’s not going to do any of these missiles yet. When they do, the maximum production output is 1,000 a year. So in six weeks, we’re talking with serial production just now beginning, he could bring in a dozen, you know, 20 missiles. That’s not a game changer. And they can’t be targeted without American intelligence, which means if he does this, he’ll become a direct party to the conflict.

That’s the end of his peacemaking days. And then he’ll lose the midterm elections because he’s promised his base that he would avoid a conflict with Russia. He didn’t want to get further in this war. Now he’ll have lied on that. Now he’s a direct participant in the confrontation. So I think this is what Trump is doing here is posturing to mollify the people in his administration and in the, you know, in his opposition, who insist that we must continue to aggressively support Ukraine. So he puts out a stupid statement and he seems to be enacting stupid policy, but it’s policy that simply can’t be implemented for any number of reasons, first and foremost, in which we don’t have the missiles that we’re promising to sell Ukraine and the numbers that we’ve promised.

And my last question for you, Scott, is a serial surrogate lab. Rob was on NBC yesterday. You read, you reposted a comment that he made. This is from the press. He said there needs, they asked him if there’s any plans to discuss any kind of negotiations between Putin and Zelensky. He said that there needs to be an agenda first and he said the agenda is not ready at all. And then he went further and he said, we recognize Zelensky as de facto head of the regime and they’re ready to meet with Zelensky, but they don’t consider anything that he signs to be official documentation because of Zelensky not being in their eyes, the official president of Ukraine, because the elections have been banned in the country due to the emergency alerts, the emergency, what’s what I’m looking for, state of emergency.

So where does that put future negotiations if there’s really no agenda to even meet in the first place and they won’t even consider anything Zelensky signs to be official? Who then would have to sign any documents on behalf of Ukraine? Would they need to hold some kind of an election or something like that for a new person to sign such a document? Well, what the Russians are saying, and I’m not a Ukrainian constitutional scholar, but they’re saying that constitutionally Zelensky by foregoing the most recent presidential election, which is derived, the need for which is that his term expired constitutionally, that he no longer has constitutional authority.

So they would be looking for somebody who does have constitutional authority and under the Ukrainian constitution is my understanding that the speaker of the Rada of the Ukrainian parliament now has the powers of the president until which time an election is held to elect a new president. And so you have two options. One, speaker of the Rada could be the person that signs these documents, or two, Ukraine can hold an election. And I think Russia is in favor of holding an election. They’d like to see a whole new cast of characters in charge, not a continuation of a regime that they view to be, you know, Nazi oriented, close to Banderas.

They’d like to see a new government reflective of post-conflict realities, one that would be willing to work with the Russians to resolve the many issues that divide them. So, I mean, this is just reality. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t a constitutionally viable government in place in Ukraine today, and therefore Russia can’t conclude a peace deal. This reminds me an awful lot of the end of the Battle of Berlin in May of 1945 when the German General Krebs went to Russian General Chuikov, the hero of Stalingrad, and he said, I’m here to offer terms of surrender.

And Chuikov said, there’s not going to be any terms, you’re just going to surrender. And we’ll sort it out later. That’s what’s going to happen eventually. Ukraine isn’t going to be able to play these games for much longer. Their military is collapsing. Their defense industry is being destroyed. Their economy is dying. Zelensky’s credibility is diminished, not only domestically but abroad. And sooner or later, the reality is going to hit home that Ukraine’s best shot is just to basically throw themselves at the mercy of Russia, who will be very merciful. I mean, again, I just want to remind people, had Ukraine accepted the Minsk accords, which they refuse to accept, Zaporizhia would be theirs, Kerson would be theirs, the Donbas would be theirs.

1.7 million men would still be alive. A trillion dollars of infrastructure would not be destroyed. The Russians aren’t going for blood. The Russians only have done what they’ve done because Ukraine allowed themselves to be used as a violent proxy on behalf of the United States and the collective West to try and bring down Russia. Russia wasn’t brought down. Russia’s won. Russia’s winning. And at the end of the day, Russia will be the winner. Scott Ritter, thank you for joining the Trends Journal. We’re going to have links below that you could follow Scott Ritter on his sub-stack and on YouTube.

Scott, I always appreciate you taking some time out to talk to us. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Scott. [tr:trw].

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