This update will be added to throughout the day
Russian Source: No Peace Unless Zelenskyy Surrenders, Faces War Crimes Tribunal
Michael Baxter, Real Raw News, August 16, 2025
(https://realrawnews.com/2025/08/russian-source-no-peace-unless-zelenskyy-surrenders-faces-war-crimes-tribunal/)
Yesterday’s historic meeting at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, ended without a peace deal or cease-fire agreement, but President Trump later said he remains optimistic that he will help broker a deal to end over four years of unremitting hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.
Since recapturing the Oval Office in January, President Trump has put an end to several global conflicts, including India and Pakistan’s Kashmir conflict, a region over which both had asserted dominion. He and his statesmen have also solved longstanding conflagrations between Iran and Israel, Serbia and Kosovo, and Cambodia and Thailand, remarkable accomplishments that go ignored by the MSM and his political adversaries.
Securing a peace deal for Russia and Ukraine would be his capstone foreign policy achievement, certainly worthy of earning him the Nobel Peace Prize.
But Russia isn’t Israel, and Putin isn’t Netanyahu or Pezeshkian or Hen Su. He is the world’s second most powerful leader and a man with an axe to grind.
Ahead of yesterday’s summit, Real Raw News spoke with longtime FSB source agent Andrei Zhakarov to glean what Putin might ask of Trump in exchange for ending the war.
“What war? There is no war. This is Special Military Operation,” he corrected. “If war, President Putin make Kyiv 2000 °C.”
Peace with Ukraine, Zakharov said, requires more than a land swap, referring to unoccupied territory in Donetsk Oblast that Ukraine annexed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, or access to rare earth minerals that Putin perceives as stolen property.
“The land rightly ours, the deposits, too. I tell you many times before this not why President Putin does Special Military Operation. Zelenskyy is pig criminal, and we proved this day one of Special Military Operation,” Zakharov said.
Russia’s opening salvo on February 22, 2022, began with naval forces shelling Snake Island with conventional and thermobaric ordnance. When the dust settled, Russian Forces stormed the island and, as Putin had predicted, found amid the rubble dead Israeli scientists and Mossad agents who had been developing aerosolized smallpox in a laboratory beneath the settlement that had been a front for Israel’s covert warfare. Putin would later obliterate a dozen more Western-sponsored biolabs in Ukraine.
“War crimes, war criminal,” Zakharov said. “What we supposed to do? How you say, proliferate. No, we had to destroy. And the children, think of the children.”
He claimed, adamantly, that 2,451 Russian children are still unaccounted for, that Zelenskyy’s forces had kidnapped them from border towns.
“We know this true because our Special Forces found many thousands of our children in Ukraine. Locked up and starving, taken for child sex slavers or Adrenochrome harvesting. How we have peace after this? I tell you how. Zelenskyy surrender to us and confess.”
Although not authorized to speak for Putin, he said Putin would likely tell Trump, in confidence, that any substantive peace agreement would center on Zelenskyy surrendering and standing before a Russian war crimes tribunal.
VIDEO: Vladimir Putin Opens Up on “Very Frank” Conversation with President Trump in Alaska – “The Visit was Timely and Very Useful”
Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, Aug. 17, 2025
(https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/video-vladimir-putin-opens-up-very-frank-conversation/)
Russian President Vladimir Putin opened up on Sunday about his “very frank” discussion with President Trump in Anchorage about ending the War in Ukraine.
Putin made the remarks in front of Russian officials back in Moscow.
Vladimir Putin: “I would like to point out that visit was a timely and very useful visit.
“We spoke about the entire direction of our interaction, but first of all, we spoke about the possible resolution of the Ukrainian crisis on a fair basis. And, of course, we had the opportunity that we would talk about the genesis, the causes of this crisis, and it is the removal of these first causes must be placed on the basis of regulation.
“I repeat, we had the opportunity to go in detail and to once again, to express our position. We Of course, with respect to our position, are in the position of the US administration, which sees the need for the soonest cease of combat. We also would like to. We would like to move on to the solution of the questions with a peace of resources.
“The conversation was very frank, supportive, and, in my view, it has brought us to the right decision.”
Via The Independent.
South Carolina and Ohio Join West Virginia in Sending National Guard Troops to Washington DC
Jordan Conradson, Gateway Pundit, Aug. 17, 2025
(https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/south-carolina-ohio-join-west-virginia-sending-national/)
South Carolina and Ohio have pledged to send hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, amid President Trump’s federal takeover and clampdown on crime and homelessness in the district.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster authorized the deployment of 200 troops, and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has authorized 150 troops.
“South Carolina is proud to stand with President Trump as he works to restore law and order to our nation’s capital and ensure safety for all who live, work, and visit there,” Governor Henry McMaster said in a press release. “As our National Guard works to support President Trump’s mission, should a hurricane or natural disaster threaten our state, these men and women can and will be immediately recalled home to respond.”
Governor Mike Dewine also released a statement, saying, “We have been asked by the Secretary of the Army to send 150 military police from the Ohio National Guard to support the District of Columbia National Guard.
These Ohio National Guard members will carry out presence patrols and serve as added security.” He added, “None of these military police members are currently serving as law enforcement officers in the state of Ohio.”
Trump announced on Monday that he is taking federal control over Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department and authorizing the use of National Guard troops to solve the “public safety emergency” in the nation’s capital.
The President signed two executive actions on Monday, including an executive order, declaring a “crime emergency” and invoking powers under section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act, which allows the President to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department under “special conditions of an emergency nature.”
He also signed a Presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of Defense to utilize National Guard troops to clean up DC and authorize state governors to send their National Guard troops. “We will bring in the military if it’s needed,” Trump told reporters.