Mark - RIGHT WITH JESUS

🇳🇴🇫🇮 NORWAY SENDS A MESSAGE TO PUTIN: WE ARE NOT NEUTRAL. WE STAND WITH UKRAINE 🇺🇦🇷🇺 Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has rejected the idea that European countries should position themselves halfway between Russia and Ukraine. “We are not here to be facilitators or mediators. We are not in the middle ground. We are on Ukraine’s side.” For Norway and Finland, this position is shaped by geography and experience. Both share borders with Russia and understand the security implications of Moscow’s aggression. Eide also insisted that no decisions about Ukraine’s future should be made without Kyiv’s involvement. Any diplomatic initiative, he said, must be coordinated with President Zelenskyy. But perhaps his most important point concerned the supposed choice between military assistance and peace negotiations. Eide rejected that distinction entirely. Supporting Ukraine militarily and economically does not prevent countries from pursuing diplomacy. In his view, the two efforts reinforce each other. There is a strategic logic behind that argument: negotiations conducted while Ukraine remains capable of defending itself are fundamentally different from negotiations in which Kyiv is pressured to accept terms because its support has been withdrawn. Norway’s position is clear. Seeking peace does not require pretending that the aggressor and the country defending itself bear equal responsibility for the war.

🇺🇸🇺🇦 FIONA HILL: TRUMP WANTS UKRAINE TO SURRENDER BECAUSE HE CAN’T MAKE PUTIN STOP Former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill has delivered a devastating critique of Donald Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine during testimony to Britain’s House of Lords. Hill argues that Trump is frustrated by his failure to deliver the peace agreement he once promised within 24 hours. Rather than confront Putin, whom he regards as a fellow powerful leader, she believes Trump directs his frustration at Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to accept Moscow’s demands. But Hill insists that Ukraine’s future belongs to neither president. “Ukraine is not anybody’s to give. It’s not Putin’s to have, and it’s not Zelenskyy’s to trade away either.” She also questions Trump’s belief that economic incentives can persuade Putin to abandon his objectives. According to Hill, the Kremlin has repeatedly made clear how central Ukraine is to its ambitions, yet Trump continues approaching negotiations through the lens of business deals. Hill recalls that during Trump’s first presidency, his advisers struggled to get him to listen to their assessments of Putin. They even turned to Finland’s then-president, Sauli Niinistö, to help explain the Russian leader’s thinking. She also acknowledges a serious failure in Western policy before the full-scale invasion. Russian officials repeatedly asked Washington why Ukraine mattered to the United States, and Hill believes American officials never provided a sufficiently convincing answer. After the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Putin apparently concluded that Washington would not respond decisively to an invasion. He also underestimated Europe’s willingness to act. Most importantly, he underestimated Ukrainians themselves. Hill notes that many outsiders assumed Ukraine’s linguistic and regional differences would weaken its resistance. Instead, the invasion exposed the strength of a national identity that Putin had profoundly misjudged. Russia expected a quick victory. Years later, Ukrainians are still fighting for the right to determine their own future. Hill’s central argument is that no foreign leader, whether in Washington or Moscow, has the authority to decide that future on Ukraine’s behalf.