pepe escobar has a good grasp of the trump/putin moves towards recognizing reality;

This was never meant to be Yalta. Although Yalta 2.0 may eventually happen.

This was never meant to be Yalta. Although Yalta 2.0 may eventually happen. On the Victory Day parade in Moscow next May 9, celebrating 80 years of the end of the Great Patriotic War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Putin as the host and Xi Jinping as a top guest will be in town. So might be Donald Trump. Why not have them all board a flight to Crimea and stage a Yalta 2.0 in – where else – Yalta?

“Sweet dreams are made of this”, to quote pop metaphysicians Eurythmics. Meanwhile, we didn’t have Yalta, not even Reykjavik; we had a long 4.5 hours in the royal palace of Ed-Diriyah in the Wadi Hanifa valley. Russia and the U.S. finally sat down to discuss as adults – for the first time in three years.

A delightful measure of excitement was duly provided – all related to the parties being involved in “work on normalizing diplomatic relations”. Until three months ago – under the Cadaver In The White House administration and his Secretary of Genocide – that possibility was as remote as a meteorite crashing on Earth (that will happen, but in a distant future).

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio performed the super-human feat of at least not crashing in front of the Mighty Lavrov – the top diplomat on the planet. Lavrov and Rubio agreed to create a consultation mechanism to eliminate “irritants” (American terminology) in U.S.-Russia relations, and to cooperate on “issues of common geopolitical interest”, as per the State Department. BRICS might not be one of them......more........