larry johnson has some thoughts about the upcoming meeting of the orange and the putin;

While in Moscow I have learned that Donald Trump is having more extensive conversations with Vladimir Putin than is being reported by the White House and the Kremlin. For example, while it has not been publicly reported, Donald Trump called the Russian President on Putin’s birthday and they talked for more than 40 minutes. This suggests that Trump is engaged in some fairly sophisticated acting when it comes to the war in Ukraine… He is avoiding taking public positions that could inflame the pro-war hawks in Washington, DC. But he continues to engage Putin.

For Putin’s part, his position has not changed — i.e., Crimea, Luhansk, Zaporhryzhia, Kherson and Donetsk are permanent parts of Russia; no NATO presence in Ukraine and a ban on NATO-backed military exercises; and new elections. He is not going to compromise on these and will continue fighting until Russia has secured control of all of that territory. Putin has not ruled out adding other Ukrainian oblasts to the Russian Republic, such as Dneipropetrovsk, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkhiv. The ball is in Trump’s court.

My Moscow interlocutor raised the possibility that Trump and Putin are collaborating on a mutual goal of weakening the European Union. An interesting possibility. The United Kingdom and MI-6 were major players in Russiagate… Is Trump thinking about revenge?...........more.........