Edition No98 | 18-02-2025 - After the meeting between Russia and the US, questions but with few answers. QUESTION: Can you take us a little bit in the room today? What was the interaction like? How would you characterize the discussions? MR WITKOFF: It was positive, upbeat, constructive, everybody there to get to the right outcome, solution based. We discussed it afterwards. We couldn’t have imagined a better result after this session. It was very, very solid.Matthew Miller @matthewamillerNegotiating an end to a war is easy if your plan is to surrender.John Sipher @johnsipher.bsky.socialRussia is at its weakest in years. Putin is in a precarious situation. They are attacking western interests around the world and murdering Europeans. Why is Rubio bending a knee and showing weakness?David Frum @davidfrumWhen FDR struck an over-the-heads-of-eastern-Europe deal at Yalta in Feb 1945, Stalin had 300+ divisions in the field vs Nazi Germany. The impending unilateral Trump sellout of Ukraine occurs when Putin is battered and almost broke.¬ Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63This looks more like Molotov-Ribbentrop than Yalta. It’s business, dividing up Ukraine for profit. And they will try and may succeed unless Europe acts quickly instead of just talks.----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN 10 Events in 10 months - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run 10 events in 10 months (at a minimum). We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------

Ben Hodges is a retired United States Army officer, who became commander of United States Army Europe in November 2014, and held that position for three years until retiring from the United States Army in January 2018. Until recently he was the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, specialising in NATO, Transatlantic relationship and international security. ----------Over the past week, Russia sent 1,220 glide bombs, 40 missiles and more than 850 drones into Ukraine, including a couple of high explosive drones that hit the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. The idea that Putin wants peace is a dangerous delusion. Yet at the Munich Security conference last week several things came into sharp focus. The Trump administration seems desperate to secure peace and is prepared to grant any concession to get Putin to simply agree to negotiations. The victim of the war, Ukraine, and its largest supporter in monetary terms, Europe, are being cut out of the negotiation process. Ukraine is denied the security of NATO membership. Sanctions against Russia may be eased, and war criminal Putin normalised on the world stage. Moreover, the US under Trump is prepared to extort and blackmail victims of war and terror such as Ukraine, to strip its mineral resources, deny its agency and negate its sovereign borders. Europe is being told it’s on its own, with the implication it comes under Russia’s Eurasian imperial sphere of influence. In this episode we ask, how much worse can the situation get, and what does Putin want us to feel at this point of inflection? ----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN 10 Events in 10 months - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run 10 events in 10 months (at a minimum). We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------CHAPTERS00:03:41 That was that was a gloomy intro, even for you, but we're at a critical juncture.00:04:47 3 things come to mind immediately: one, the importance of allies and partners.00:06:10 The Russians clearly have no interest in actually negotiating with Ukraine.00:08:33 Ditching Europe would be a massive, catastrophic, self-inflicted wound for US.00:13:13 French president hosting an emergency summit of European leaders in Paris.00:16:13 It's to our detriment, that article 5 of the Washington Treaty is even a question.00:21:10 Dayton accord - You had a different structure, mission, rules of engagement.00:27:57 I don't know if it's desperation. The president would like to get this peace done.00:32:20 That's not going to cause a Russian tank regiment to turn around and go back.00:35:26 If Europeans feel uneasy about it, roll your sleeves up and do something.00:40:16 I've got nothing against Russians retreating themselves into a total collapse.00:42:17 This is a call for leaders, elected officials, to talk to fellow citizens as adults.----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyślhttps://kharpp.com/NOR DOG Animal Rescuehttps://www.nor-dog.org/home/----------

Joe Lindsley is a traveller and a writer, and American reporting on Chicago's WGN Radio from Ukraine each and every weekday of Russia's full-scale war. He once was protégé to Fox News founder Roger Ailes, but Lindsley escaped that frenzied world where power mattered more than truth. He came to Lviv for a Ukrainian Catholic University journalism conference on Information Overload, AI, and Responsibility. Then the Coronavirus shut down world travel, and he stayed to build a better vision for the media industry.OTHER VIDEOS: 1. https://youtu.be/DM42QAF2ia4 (07-Nov-23)2. https://youtu.be/KAGt83FzXmI (26-Jan-24)3. https://youtu.be/AlD3HUTQAag (20-Feb-24)4. https://youtu.be/w8Y1XLuhB9Q (04-Apr-24)5. https://youtu.be/eA6DI5bwrq8 (05-Jun-24)6. https://youtu.be/VmQE32SHg88 (14-Nov-24)7. https://youtu.be/_0YldajNrWg (29-Jan-25)8. https://youtu.be/BcUHYVNZ5Ck (10-Feb-25)----------LINKS:https://www.ukrainianfreedomnews.com/donation/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lindsleyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-lindsley-60087618/https://www.youtube.com/@jplindsleyhttps://twitter.com/JPLindsleyhttps://www.instagram.com/jplindsley/https://www.facebook.com/josephlindsleyhttps://www.ukrainianfreedomnews.com/ ----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyślhttps://kharpp.com/NOR DOG Animal Rescuehttps://www.nor-dog.org/home/----------PLATFORMS:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSiliconInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.