Two significant shifts for Canadians appear to come out of the recent tour of Europe as highlighted today by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The first development is the formal declaration that Canada has joined the “coalition of the willing”, along with the U.K, France and Germany.  The second announcement is that Canadian troops will join the coalition of the willing and put boots on the ground in Ukraine, as part of the coalition’s security guarantees for Ukraine.  WATCH: Prompted

Additionally, at the 33:00-minute point, Mark Carney discusses the Canadian effort to prepare for the USMCA renegotiations.

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Today, President Donald Trump will welcome newly elected President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki back to the White House.

President Trump supported Nawrocki in his successful election campaign, and with the primary topic of Ukraine likely at the forefront our U.S. President is expected to discuss the future of the conflict with neighboring Poland.

During discussions and negotiations with EU leaders at the White House last month, President Trump called Nawrocki to join the conversation instead of the globalist adversary, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

According to the White House, President Trump will greet Nawrocki at 11:00am EDT with the two leaders to meet first in the Oval Office before a private lunch. NATO member Poland borders both Russia and Ukraine.

(Reuters) – […] The U.S. military presence on NATO’s eastern flank, including Poland, remains one of the key issues for Warsaw, which is seeking assurances of continued support.

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The background issues highlight the inevitability of the latest developments.  Before talking specifically about Ukraine, let’s first consider the individual parties within the so-called “coalition of the willing,” Great Britain, France and Germany.

All three major European economies are in trouble, along with the aggregate economy in Brussels which is heavily influenced by Germany, France and Italy.

Within Great Britain, Prime Minister Kier Starmer is in a hot mess. “Starmer faces populists both left and right, with Brexit veteran Nigel Farage’s Reform UK consistently ahead in the polls. Inflation has ticked up. Unpopular tax rises loom. Starmer’s backbenchers are nervous about planned welfare cuts and reforms for children with special needs. And migrants keep arriving on small boats across the English Channel.” {link}

In France, Emmanuel Macron is in the worst political shape of his tenuous career.  Another no confidence manuever has backfired against the current French government. “In an Ifop poll conducted after [Prime Minister] Bayrou’s address, 63 percent of respondents said they were in favor of going back to the ballot box, with that figure getting to 86 percent among National Rally voters.” {link} The issues around French politics are now too vast for the Ukraine effort to hide them.

Within Germany things are not much better.  The economy is contracting, and Chancellor Merz is in the dubious position of cutting subsidy benefits in order to address the problem. “During Sunday’s interview Merz defended his coalition’s historic decision to loosen the debt brake on defense spending — made possible by an unexpected U-turn by Merz’s conservatives right after the election — and even went so far as to link it to NATO’s survival. “We were essentially able to preserve NATO with our decision,” he said.” {link}

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Previously Chairman, now serving as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Andriy Parubiy was shot several times with a short-barreled firearm, police said. Parubiy died on the spot. The perpetrator, who fled the scene and has not yet been identified, was “thoroughly prepared” according to local authorities.

Andriy Parubiy was the primary Ukrainian political activist during Victoria Nuland’s organized Maidan revolution.  In common parlance, this assassination might be considered throwing a bag over a potential risk. Remember, CNN is to the State Dept as the Washington Post is to the CIA.

(VIA CNN) – […] Parubiy participated in 2004’s Orange Revolution, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians joined in peaceful protest following disputed elections.

He was also a prominent figure in the Maidan Revolution, a movement which began in November 2013 after then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a trade pact with the European Union that had been years in the making, opting instead for closer ties with neighboring Russia.

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Like pathetic children who demand that Daddy Trump step into the chaos and punch Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin in the face, the EU leaders admit to media they coordinated and collaborated on using social media to decry the latest missile attacks from Russia.

According to their staff, who reported to Politico, the intent of the EU social media firestorm was to influence President Donald Trump.  Think about how pathetic that is in substance.

The Presidents, Prime Ministers and Commissars of the EU collective couldn’t pick up the phone to call President Trump and discuss their position.  No, instead their best approach, as organized by the group, was to take to social media and protest.

These are not serious people.

“A second European official confirmed that the morning messages were an effort to influence Trump’s thinking, although the person was not optimistic that the attacks would lead Trump to ratchet up the economic pressure on Putin.”  {link} The discussion of conflict that began as ‘World War Reddit’, has now devolved even further and becomes a messaging war on teh Twitter.  Yeah, these are not serious people.

I am reminded of how the White House initially responded to the beginning of the conflict in February 2022:

I said at the time, “Singh’s remarks outlining the view of the ‘West’ toward defeating Russia are eloquent yet batshit crazy in their ideological context. Daleep Singh sounds like the senior head of a Google Human Resources operation telling the department heads how they need to convey their feelings in order to hire the talent for continued growth in the industry.”

Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boils down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability. Pro Tip: Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t care if EU leaders like him.

The leadership of the Western NATO alliance and the European Union are reduced to shouting on Twitter, ‘Help us Trump, help us’.  Meanwhile, these same leaders wonder why Vladimir Putin doesn’t take them seriously. You just cannot make this stuff up.

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I guess we can call this a FAFO war edition.  Ukraine, likely the CIA all things considered, built a drone manufacturing facility next to the buildings housing the EU and British delegations in Kiev.  Putin blew it up.

None of the EU or Brits were harmed, but the EU and British go bananas.

(Via Politico) – Early Thursday, Russia launched a deadly attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 and damaged buildings housing the EU and British delegations.

There were no injuries to EU staff in the attack. Commission spokesperson Arianna Podestà said Thursday: “The attacks are completely unacceptable. In no way will they shake our support for Ukraine.” She added that diplomatic staff would remain in Ukraine despite the attack.

The EU’s ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, said the building was “severely damaged by the shock wave” of the “massive” barrage of drones and ballistic missiles Russia launched at Ukraine overnight. (read more)

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Vice President JD Vance appears on Meet the Press for an extensive interview about current events and the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

The beginning of the interview starts with questions about the FBI investigation of former National Security Advisor John Bolton.  WATCH: 

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appears on Meet the Press (NBC) to outline the Russian position on further discussions for a peace agreement with Ukraine.

Lavrov notes the working group from the Russian delegation is willing to meet in Istanbul to further negotiate the parameters for any principal meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy. WATCH:

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A very interesting response from President Trump against the U.S. President stepping back and awaiting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to organize their teams and schedule a bilateral discussion.

President Trump has said he expects the diplomatic teams of Zelenskyy and Putin to coordinate a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in the next two weeks.

As noted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sometimes it just takes putting the principals into the same room to break the logjam.  However, both regimes have entrenched ideologues who are positioning for maximum leverage.

President Trump is asked what he will do if Zelenskyy and Putin cannot or do not organize a meeting. WATCH:

For the first time President Trump indicates he’s willing to take a full retreat position from the effort, “or do we do nothing, and say it’s your fight.”  Doing nothing seems to indicate the U.S. withdraws all support and lets them fight to the point of defeat or surrender.  Doing nothing is actually doing something quite remarkable.

In the background of all of this, DNI Tulsi Gabbard has issued a directive telling all of the intelligence agencies all information regarding the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations is not to be shared with U.S.-allied intelligence partners.

[…] “The memo, dated July 20 and signed by Gabbard, directed agencies to not share information with the so-called Five Eyes, the post-World War II intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, multiple U.S. intelligence officials told CBS News.” {LINK}

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It is said that pictures tell a thousand words. If that oft-cited phrase is correct, then this picture speaks volumes.

The image below is from when President Trump asked Zelenskyy and the EU leaders to vacate the Oval Office while he called Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to discuss the results of the Zelenskyy/EU leadership meeting.

While President Trump was on the phone with President Putin, Zelenskyy and the EU team waited to return.

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