I thought the recent POTUS outrage about an alleged attack by drones on one of Putin's mansions, just about summed up this bullying, despicable, cowardly Putin.

It is stupefying to ponder the sheer 'brass neck' to complain about an attack on one of Putin'smany homes, (and apparently, there is no evidence anyway). I haven't seen any actual statistics, but from watching multiple news reports over the last 3 years, it would appear that Russian forces have destroyed TENS OF THOUSANDS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of homes in Ukraine - and these people only have the one !

And to see the idiot POTUS reprimand Ukraine for it's temerity to attack ((if they did), defies belief.

Why the hell should Ukraine not fight back in this way ?

The Trump/Putin love affair is a continuing disaster for the wider World . . . . .

From the DT today . . . .

" "The US president said: “It’s one thing to be offensive because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that.” The Kremlin refused to say whether Putin had been staying at the sprawling forest estate at the time, but it is a favoured getaway for the president.

Located on a peninsula between two lakes, the property – ringed by air defences, elite guards and other military assets – is very difficult to target with drones and missiles. Satellite imagery from last year showed 12 heavy-duty Pantsir-S1 air defence systems and a long-range radar station being installed in response to Kyiv stepping up its drone attacks on Russian soil. Residents who live close to the Valdai retreat told Sota, an independent Russian outlet, that they did not hear any air defence activity to support Mr Lavrov’s claim that dozens of drones had been downed."

It's also worth noting that Russia does not seem to have moderated it's attacks during the present 'negotiations'.

Noticed this today - Anthony Davis on 'Meidas Touch' . . . .

Seems a very credible analysis of the despicable Putin's manipulation of Trump, as always !

I don't know about you, but my heart bleeds for Ukraine and it's people in Putin's hell.

Trump is NOT helping.

An extract from the DT today - as for the headline, imo overstated, but an interesting article :-

"Putin is about to be knocked off his perch"

"When the internal propaganda collapses, regimes soon follow

Claims from Donald Trump that a Ukraine peace deal is 95 per cent complete, echoed closely by Volodymyr Zelensky, have clearly triggered panic in Moscow. That panic has manifested itself in familiar Kremlin fashion; crude disinformation, implausible narratives and increasingly desperate behaviour.

The extraordinary claim that one of Putin’s many palaces was attacked by 91 drones this week is a case in point. These estates are defended by Russia’s most sophisticated air defence systems; capabilities conspicuously absent from the front line. Even Russian civilians interviewed locally said they had not seen or heard any sign of the drones.

The CIA has now briefed the US president that this was almost certainly a false flag operation. It is a clumsy and unsubtle attempt to derail a peace process that is slipping rapidly out of the Kremlin’s control. More damaging still for Putin is that his own population is beginning to doubt the narrative. When propaganda collapses internally, regimes soon follow.

Putin understands that his only remaining lever is to drive a wedge between Trump and Zelensky. For much of the past year, Washington appeared uncomfortably sympathetic to Moscow’s framing. That has changed. Trump today is markedly less receptive to Kremlin manipulation than he was a few weeks ago. Quiet but effective engagement by the so-called “coalition of the willing” appears to be steering the White House towards a peace that, while imperfect for Ukraine, is far worse for Moscow.

There is no escaping the reality that the proposed settlement remains deeply unattractive for Kyiv. Ukraine, illegally invaded nearly four years ago, would cede around 17 per cent of its sovereign territory, accept limits on its armed forces and face continued exclusion from Nato. Yet the strategic optics for Russia have deteriorated dramatically. Putin set out to subjugate Ukraine in three days; instead, after four years and an estimated 1.5 million casualties later, he has achieved failure on an industrial scale.

Crucially, US and Nato security guarantees extending 15 years amount to de facto Nato protection. Even more alarming for the Kremlin is Trump’s open discussion of Western boots on the ground. That is Putin’s worst-case outcome. No amount of spin, even at the height of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, could disguise such an outcome as anything other than defeat."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/02/putin-is-about-to-be-knocked-off-his-perch/