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Editor’s Note: This essay is part of a week-long series of essays at Public Discourse reflecting on Pope Francis’s pontificate, his legacy, and the Catholic Church’s future.

On the day of Pope Francis’s election, I spoke with a respected Jesuit professor, offering him my congratulations on a Latin American Jesuit’s becoming pope. To my surprise, he looked dour. This was bad news, he said. Fr. Bergoglio had had a reputation for being an authoritarian provincial; the Jesuits in Argentina had a lot of trouble with him.

In time, the professor’s premonition proved correct. The man who had been a difficult superior became a difficult pope. As I have reflected on Pope Francis’s words and actions over the years, I realized that if I treated my sons the way Francis treated my fellow believers and me, I would rightly be considered a bad father. This remains the best hermeneutical key I know for explaining Francis’s pontificate: he was a man whose tragic flaws undermined the good he sought to do and the duties of the office that he bore. When such a father dies, it is fitting to mourn his passing. But it is also fitting to name the damage done and lament the growth and closeness that could have been there. Perhaps a reflection on fatherhood can serve as a diagnosis of the recent pontificate, and provide some counsel for the next one. 

A good father loves his children by keeping order in the home. Children need to know what they can expect from their parents. Parents, in turn, need to treat their children fairly and not play favorites. Discipline should be clear and regular, firm but not harsh, edifying without being humiliating or insulting. Parents should explain why they are acting as they do in terms that children can understand. By this common standard, Pope Francis was a deeply flawed father. His remarks frequently stung, whether or not they were intended as insults: large families that breed like rabbits, priests who cling to grandma’s lace, seminaries with too much “frociaggine.” Then there were the actions taken to undermine the faithful who should have been his most loyal followers, most notably the restrictions on the Latin Mass. Too often during his pontificate, the faithful were left waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Or not drop, as the case may be. For, as J. D. Flynn and Ed Condon have amply documented, Francis undermined the rule of law in the Church and made its application deeply personal. Their report concludes: “When instability replaces the rule of law, the law no longer becomes the tool protecting human dignity that Pope Francis praised; rather, it becomes an instrument that can be wielded arbitrarily, to the harm of that same dignity.” Flynn and Condon offer numerous cases of this, but the most infamous are connected to sexual predation and are well known: Marko Rupnik, Gustavo Zanchetta, Juan Barros, and Ariel Alberto Principi. If Pope Francis had “a pontificate of the heart,” it was unfortunately a heart too wedded to its own judgment and preferences.

A similar dynamic played out in his teaching magisterium. A good father teaches his children the truth about themselves and the world around them. He hands on skills, lore, and family traditions. But most importantly, he tells children their own story, from the way their parents met to the fact that God has created them to love him and the world that he ordered well. He leaves room for them to question and discern, but provides a bedrock of belief on which they can build their lives. He teaches them right from wrong and inspires a vision of what the moral life looks like when lived well. 

Unfortunately, Pope Francis sowed confusion where clarity was much needed, inasmuch as his teachings on certain issues seemed to contradict the Church’s tradition and practice. This was a matter of both form and content in many of the documents of his pontificate. Too often his writings exhibited a disregard for rigorous, clear thinking rooted in the Church’s tradition, or framed such thinking as the enemy of real pastoral work. Too often they seemed to create ambiguities that allowed for work-arounds to the universal call to holiness. Take the case of Amoris Laetitia. As I noted when it was published, the document treats Christ’s teaching about marriage in three different ways: “exhorting it as an ideal—noble to be sure but too difficult for many (298, 307); repeating it as a doctrine or a duty (134); and stressing it as a moral issue without regard for the consciences we might be burdening in the process (37).”

Francis cited Thomas Aquinas to argue that general principles may be necessary in pastoral discernment, but they break down as we descend into particular cases (AL 304; ST I-II q. 94 a. 4). The passage comes from the Summa’s discussion of natural law. But Christ clarified that the indissolubility of marriage is part of the divine law, whose purpose is to lead us to communion with God forever. And the new law of Christ is the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, in part by means of the sacraments, including “indissoluble matrimony” (ST I-II q. 106 a. 1–2). In short, I concluded, “Thomas corrects how Amoris Laetitia tends to speak about indissolubility. The New Law Christ teaches is not just a matter of natural law, a duty, a moral issue, or an ideal. It is life-giving, perfect; it revives the soul and giving joy to the heart (cf. Psalm 19:7–8). Christ’s teaching about marriage clarifies the path of perfection God desires for us. But it also turns that path into a sacrament, a vehicle by which the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with love and realizes that perfection in us.” 

Or take the case of Francis’s second social encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. Chapter 2 offers a moving exegesis of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and later Francis reminds his readers of the connection between the right to private property and the universal destination of goods. Unfortunately, other parts employ argumentation that becomes embarrassing. Francis exceeds his predecessors’ condemnation of capital punishment by calling life imprisonment “a secret death penalty,” but never gives a sense of what to do with unrepentant, dangerous criminals. As I observed after its publication, “He concludes by writing that Christ’s command to Peter to sheathe his sword (Matt. 26:52) is an echo of the ancient warning: ‘I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed’ (Gen. 9:5–6). An echo may be there, but Francis ends multiple paragraphs against capital punishment with the first of many divine commands for it.” 

Capital punishment proved to be a sample case for Francis’s approach to the theological tradition. As Ed Feser has ably argued, the Catholic Church has repeatedly taught throughout its history that capital punishment is permissible. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI made it clear that they believed as a prudential matter that it should very rarely be used. But Francis changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church to say that the death penalty was “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and made statements that clearly implied the death penalty per se violates the natural law and the law of the gospel.

However, Feser argues: “If capital punishment is wrong in principle, then the Church has for two millennia consistently taught grave moral error and badly misinterpreted scripture. And if the Church has been so wrong for so long about something so serious, then there is no teaching that might not be reversed, with the reversal justified by the stipulation that it be called a ‘development’ rather than a contradiction.” Hence Cardinal Avery Dulles, who was personally opposed to capital punishment, argued that “the reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the magisterium.” In this matter as in others, Francis was more concerned with getting to the answer he wanted than with the impact that would have on the Church’s doctrine as a whole.

Later in Fratelli Tutti, Francis dismisses the entire just war tradition in a footnote. He writes that “war can easily be chosen by invoking all sorts of allegedly humanitarian, defensive or precautionary excuses.” True enough, although John Paul II called for exactly such intervention to stop atrocities in Yugoslavia. He claims that “every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.” But then one thinks of Great Britain, which Benedict XVI thanked for “courageously resisting the forces” of Nazi tyranny. Francis concludes by arguing that military spending should be redirected to “establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favor development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.” We should not be surprised that a few years later, the people of Ukraine would find his response to their plight frustrating.

In sum, Francis was much more interested in solving pastoral problems than in theological doctrines. But his responsibility was to safeguard the Church’s doctrine and to cherish and promote its theological reasoning. It is a cause of enduring sadness that he failed to do so. His successor should take this task up again with renewed vigor. And he should remember that in the Church, theological reasoning outlasts politics. Francis made a mess, but messes can be unmade.

During Pope Francis’s final days, numerous outlets reported an increasing number of conversions to Catholicism in the U.S., France, and Britain. Francis and his inner circle had a complicated relationship with converts, especially American ones. He appeared not to understand how beauty and tradition are important and attractive to young people, how justice and order are for the Church’s good, and how doctrinal clarity and stability make the Church a shelter in the midst of the storms of our age. As Ross Douthat recently put it, we live in “an age of extinction” in which technology-driven change puts pressure on social institutions and inherited beliefs. Catholicism will flourish insofar as it is chosen and practiced, not inherited and taken for granted. It will require spiritual fathers who give persuasive answers to the question “Why should I become Catholic?” Let us pray that the next pope can do so, joyfully.

Image by JoniVideography and sourced via Wikimedia Commons.

Breaking News

According to the Financial Times Russian President Putin Has Signaled His Readiness to Sell Out His Country

Paul Craig Roberts

This morning I wrote that Putin had so badly mishandled the Ukraine conflict that his only choice was surrender or military victory, a victory he has been avoiding for more than three years. If the Financial Times can be believed, Putin has chosen surrender, or perhaps more accurately, partial surrender or semi-surrender.

The Financial Times reports that “Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine at the current front line as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with US President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.” [The Financial Times continues to display its ignorance or its partisanship by designating Russian military action limited to the Russian territories as an “invasion of Ukraine.” The Financial Times has proven so unreliable in its coverage that I cannot say I have confidence in this report.]

Moreover, the Financial Times reported that Putin told President Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine, Steve Witkoff, that Moscow could sweeten the deal by relinquishing Russia’s claims to areas of the four regions currently considered by the Kremlin to be part of Russia. This concession despite Putin himself having introduced constitutional amendments barring Russia from relinquishing claims to any of its territory.

Putin has yet again shown that nothing he says in defense of Russia means anything. All along Putin has said he would not accept any peace deal unless Ukraine withdrew its troops from the front lines and gave Moscow full control over the four provinces. Now suddenly Putin is willing to piss away a military victory and, perhaps, give back battlefield gains of Russian populated areas for a deal. This point is not clear.

The Financial Times says Putin has stepped back from his demands. When you refuse to play your winning cards, what kind of deal can you expect? By showing such desperation for a deal while winning on the battlefield, Putin has further enhanced his reputation as a person irresolute in war. The consequence for Russia will be another disastrous agreement, such as the Minsk Agreement, that will not be kept and that will evolve into worse conflict.

What Trump wants is not a Great Powers Agreement, but a settlement that lets Trump claim success in ending the conflict. Any agreement will not last beyond Trump’s term of office.

Here is the Financial Times report:
Vladimir Putin offers to halt Ukraine invasion along current front line
https://www.ft.com/content/5d848403-4a15-4592-888b-eb7b754ecb3a

This is an amazing Financial Times news report for there not to be anything about it on RT, Sputnik, BBC, CNN, Los Angeles Times.

At 7:35 on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, the soul of Jorge Mario separated from his mortal body to present itself for Divine Judgement. Only on the day of the Universal Judgement will we know what sentence Pope Francis has been given by the Supreme Tribunal at which each of us must one day present […]

The post The death of Pope Francis (2013–2025): end of an era? appeared first on Voice of the Family.

“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.” Since last Sunday, we have been celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. On Low Sunday, we can think about another resurrection — one that’s still to come, and of which Christ’s Resurrection is the guarantee — I mean, our […]

The post The general resurrection: sermon on Low Sunday appeared first on Voice of the Family.

Above: the State of Puebla, Mexico. Shoulders draped with chains, heads crowned with thorns, flesh punctured with cacti, ankles bound with fetters. Barefoot penitents stood, waiting to begin the annual Good Friday tradition: Procession of the Chained. Under the hot sun, the small group of men – performing acts of faith and acts of gratitude – slowly, with difficulty…

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Gaza is suffering the most intense bombing, per capita, of anywhere on earth, ever.

Over 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area slightly smaller than the City of Detroit, Michigan, resulting in the recorded deaths of at least 60,000 Gazans and injuries to hundreds of thousands.¹

It is impossible to overstate the effects of the abominable bombing war on Gazans, their lives, their families, their health, and their communities.

What has escaped attention up until now is the undeniable environmental and health effects of the bombing of Gazans on Israelis, as well as on citizens of neighboring states, and the potential harm to U.S. military personnel in the region.

A study of explosion physics based on declassified Department of Defense data, as well as blast temperature data and consequent emissions; a review of wind patterns, together with publicly available data of health effects from 9/11, as well as data gathered from U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War, yield a shocking conclusion.

Israel, in executing the unprecedented bombing attack on Gaza, is, in effect, bombing itself, with grave consequences for the public health of its people.² What is being visited upon Gaza does not stay in Gaza.

The sustained bombing of Gaza pulverizes stone, heavy metals, and the human body. The vaporizing of human beings under extreme heat and pressure combines with dust, water vapor, and metallic particles the size of microns, all blasted upwards, aerosolized, wind-driven across borders, into Israel and surrounding countries.³

The unlimited bombing of Gaza has created an unparalleled ecological and biomedical feedback loop. Israel exhales death in Gaza and inhales the Gaza it has vaporized.

Israel, in bombing neighboring Gaza, is breathing in its own fallout, along with the vaporized remains of its declared enemies. The external consequences of violence becomes internalized. The substance of the oppressed communes with the oppressor.

On a clinical level, breathing in bioaerosols can compromise human immune systems.⁴ Breathing in ultrafine particles from non-biological war dust can cross the blood-brain barrier and contribute to neurodegenerative disease.⁵

Israel and the Palestinians share a common atmosphere. They inhale the same war dust, from bomb materials, carbon soot, and the fine particle remains of vaporized Gazans.

Human cremation occurs at temperatures between 1,400°F and 1,800°F.⁶ The blast temperatures of the bombs identified as being dropped on Gaza—MK-84 bombs: 4,496°F; GBU-39s: 4,892°F; BLU-109s: 3,632°F—far exceed this range.⁷ In comparison, blast furnaces used to melt steel operate at 2,500°F to 2,800°F.⁸

People at the epicenter of such bombings in Gaza are instantly turned into dust. This is a factor confounding the determination of exactly how many people have perished in Gaza since October 2023. How can an accurate body count be achieved if bodies have been turned to smoke and ash?

Let’s look at 9/11. The total confirmed dead: 2,753. Almost 40% of the victims were never identified, as their bodies were fragmented or vaporized, reduced to dust.⁹

When a bomb hits its target—for example, a tent city—the high-temperature explosion can vaporize a person so thoroughly that microscopic particles of DNA and loose molecules are suspended in air, mingling with dust and smoke as bioaerosols.¹⁰

These biologicals—DNA and fat in human tissue—turn to carbon, black dust, and smoke. The minerals of bones and teeth, skeletal dust, go airborne. Fragments of cells can float in the air, bubbles holding fat, bone, and broken DNA strands travel with the wind and are breathed in dozens of miles from the blast site.¹¹

It is not only the superheat that destroys the human body. The explosive force of a bomb, in terms of pounds per square inch (psi), can produce vaporization at the blast site, an impact equivalent to a plane plunging into the earth at high speed.¹²

As 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped in Gaza, the matter destroyed takes a different form, as toxic pollutants carried aloft in gas, dust, vapor, and particulates.

Specifically, toxic quantities of cadmium, nickel, lead, mercury, and arsenic are released into the air, together with dioxins, furans, PCBs, (polychlorinated biphenyls); PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).¹³

One calculation indicates that 100,000 tons of bombs, exploded in a densely populated area of Gaza, can generate between 800,000 to 1.2 million tons of pollution.¹⁴

Add to this the dust of Gazans’ human remains and you have extreme airborne consequences carried by the wind, directly into Israel, particularly the central and northern regions, and far beyond.

There are relevant comparisons for the health effects of a tremendous explosion in an urban area. A month after 9/11, people in Manhattan began to develop chronic coughs.

A longitudinal study of members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) revealed that after six months, firemen began to suffer from chronic bronchitis; others saw the onset of pulmonary fibrosis.¹⁵

Two years after 9/11, a higher incidence of thyroid, prostate, breast, and other cancers arose among those exposed to 9/11 contaminants. Early-onset neurodegenerative, Alzheimer’s-type symptoms presented after five years or longer.¹⁶

Based on epidemiological data from studies of those near the people and buildings destroyed on 9/11, certain health effects can be anticipated in Israel.

The people of Sderot, Netivot, Be’er Sheva—all within a short distance of Gaza—are at high risk of long-term health effects of the bombing. Ashkelon and Tel Aviv have been exposed to environmental consequences, as has northern Israel and even Jordan.

While Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection operates air-monitoring stations at sites proximate to Gaza, it would be instructive, given the intensity of the bombing, to see if the effects of war-related pollution are being fully disclosed to the Israeli public.¹⁷

Given the unprecedented levels of bombing in Gaza, the types of bombs used, their explosive power, the extent of physical destruction, the extraordinary number of casualties, the creation of large plumes of black smoke containing the genetic material of burned and vaporized Gazans, the people of Israel—on the other side of the Gaza boundary—will likely experience increased levels of respiratory illness, asthma-like and other pulmonary diseases, and a sharp increase in cancer as a direct result of being exposed to toxic airborne substances present at a microscopic level.¹⁸

Added to this direct hazard is the ongoing recirculation of wind across the vast hellscape to which Gaza has been reduced. That, too, will sweep up and redistribute the contaminants from the over 50 million tons of debris from the land of Gaza to the land of Israel.

At this point, the calamity which has befallen Gaza as a result of incessant bombing will visit, in various forms and degrees of harm, southern and central Israel, western Jordan, the northeast Sinai Peninsula, northern Egypt (Delta and Cairo), Lebanon, Cyprus, southwestern Syria, northwestern Saudi Arabia, southeastern Turkey, Crete, Greece, Sicily, and Malta. Additionally, sea spray can carry aerosolized particles clear across the Mediterranean Sea.¹⁹

The United States has a substantial number of Naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, including two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as numerous other assault ships.²⁰

U.S. military installations are present at Incirlik, Turkey, Naples, Italy, Cyprus, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All face “war dust” pollution hazards as a result of the bombing of Gaza.²¹

I know well the adverse health consequences suffered by US servicemen and women who served in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–1991.

Veterans of that war came to my congressional office complaining of constant pain, neurological, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, all of which were ignored or covered up by the Department of Defense.

As a Member of Congress, over the objections of the Department of Defense, I took up the cause of veterans who suffered what came to be known as Gulf War Illness, a multi-symptom condition still affecting, to this very day, nearly 245,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War.²²

Bernie Sanders and I worked together in Congress to obtain funding for research into GWI, which is now a medically recognized, war-related condition.²³

When you see the measurable, catastrophic effect which war environments can have on those who serve, and the measurable catastrophic effect of those proximate to the 9/11 attacks, and the indefensible obliteration bombing of Gaza and its people, you may come to an understanding of the wholly fallacious notion of the containment of war and why I assert Israel is bombing itself.

The bombing of Gaza has created a human health crisis which cannot be ignored any longer.

There must be an immediate cease-fire on humanitarian and ecological bases.

• The UN must urgently address the collapse of the Palestinian public health system, including the implications of the war for respiratory diseases and cancers among survivors.
• The UN must lead a Transboundary Environmental and Human Health Assessment of the Immediate and Long-Term Implications of War Dust, which will include transboundary assessments of the toxic environmental effects of the war.
• Monitoring stations must be set up. The people of the world have a right to know what is in the air they breathe.

International humanitarian and environmental law must, at last, be enforced.

UN representatives must determine a path forward.

Israel and the United States must consider the far-reaching consequences of the decision to attack and bomb the people of another country.

The tortured mindset which licenses the extinction of Gazans is now a spectre haunting the entire world, with its ghoulish designs on Iran. I will explore that approaching cataclysm in a future column.

Human rights and compassion are not considerations in bombing Gazans. Perhaps enlightened self-preservation can be introduced as a means to stop the bombing, once and for all.

The war against Gazans must end, and perhaps through the suffering of Gazans, and understanding the regional and global health impact of bombing, we may understand why it is time to call an end to all wars.

Reprinted with permission from The Kucinich Report.
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Amidst the horrific US abuse of foreigners through the use of tariffs and police-state enforcement of immigration controls, it’s easy to forget that the US government abuses foreigners in other ways, such as sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, torture, indefinite detention, and state-sponsored assassinations.

Perhaps the longest-lasting, continuous example of this foreigner-abuse syndrome is the US government’s horrific abuse of the Cuban people, which has gone on for more than 60 years. Given that there is no good reason for abusing the Cuban people — and there never has been one — this would be a good place to begin breaking with the longstanding, ongoing US policy of abusing foreigners.

It’s worth pointing out that Cuba has never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. Ever since the Cuban revolution in 1959, the US government has always been the aggressor against Cuba, not the other way around.

For more than 60 years, the US government has imposed and enforced a cruel and brutal economic embargo against Cuba. The embargo is designed to inflict maximum economic harm on the Cuban people with the intent of impoverishing them and even killing them through starvation.

The aim of this embargo is one that has been standard for many decades within the US Empire: regime change. Ever since the Cuban revolution, US officials have been obsessed with ousting the communist regime that controls Cuba and replacing it with a pro-US dictatorial regime — that is, one that will be a loyal, obedient servant of the US Empire, much like the current dictatorial regime in El Salvador. The idea has always been that to avoid death by starvation, the Cuban people can rise up and violently revolt against their regime.

The embargo strategy is much like the thinking that undergirds terrorism. Terrorists kill innocent people as a way to pressure a regime into changing its political system or behavior. That’s what the US embargo against Cuba does also.

But it’s worth mentioning that the US embargo is not the only way that the US Empire has inflicted abuse on Cubans. During the early 1960s, the Empire also engaged in real acts of terrorism against commercial facilities inside Cuba.

That’s not all. US officials, in partnership with the Mafia, also engaged in secret state-sponsored assassination attempts against Cuba’s first president, Fidel Castro. US officials maintained that such assassination attempts were morally justified because Castro was a communist. However, it is difficult to understand how that would morally justify murdering someone. It’s also worth noting that the US Constitution makes it illegal for US officials to murder anyone, including foreigners.

Needless to say, the US embargo against Cuba has never worked. For one thing, many Cubans hate the US government. Moreover, many of Cubans who hate Cuba’s communist and socialist systems hate the thought of being under the control of the US government even more. For another thing, there is a strict system of gun control in Cuba, which means that the Cuban people lack the means to violently overthrow their government. Thus, all that the US embargo has accomplished for the past six and a half decades is extreme economic suffering among the Cuban people.

Proponents of the embargo do their best to avoid personal responsibility for this intentional infliction of suffering on innocent people by focusing exclusively on the harm caused by Cuba’s socialist system. What they avoid confronting is that the US government’s embargo is the other side of an economic vise that, in combination with Cuba’s socialist system, succeeds in squeezing the lifeblood out of the Cuban people. What these embargo proponents also fail to confront is that while Cuban socialism inflicts harm on the Cuban people, it’s misguided harm. The harm inflicted by the embargo is fully intentional and deliberate.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the embargo against Cuba has contributed to the destruction of fundamental rights of the American people, such as economic liberty, liberty of contract, freedom of travel, and freedom of association. In a genuinely free society, people have the right to travel wherever they want, spend their money anyway they want, sell whatever they want to whomever they want, and associate with whomever they want. Yet, if an American sells things to Cubans, buys things from Cubans, or travels to Cuba and spends money there, he is immediately arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated by US officials upon returning to his own country. He is also condemned as a “bad person” by US officials for exercising fundamental rights.

Inflicting abuse on foreigners does not make a country great. It actually does the opposite. It produces a weak, frightened, contemptible country. A great country treats everyone, including foreigners, with decency and respect. A great way for America to start becoming great again would be by lifting the decades-old cruel, brutal, and unjustifiable US embargo against the Cuban people.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

There Will Be No Ukrainian Peace Deal

Paul Craig Roberts

There cannot be a peace deal when President Trump only proposes that Russia keep Crimea, which Russia did not take in war but in an unanimous vote of the population in Crimea to be reunited with Russia from which Crimea had been torn.

Trump has not included in the deal Russian Donbas, which also voted to be returned to Russia or the other Russian areas that Russian forces have liberated and have been reincorporated into Russia.

In other words, so far, other than Crimea, President Trump has offered President Putin none of the former Russian territory that is now again part of Russia herself.  Is the implication that Putin must hand back to Ukraine the territory from which Russian soldiers have driven out Ukrainian soldiers?  So Putin’s 3+ years of war was all for nothing?

Zelensky himself, treated by Trump as Ukraine’s leader despite the fact that Zelensky’s term has expired and he is no longer legally or constitutionally the president of Ukraine, states that he will not even discuss recognizing Crimea as Russian territory:  Crimea “is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine. We have nothing to talk about on this topic.”  https://www.rt.com/russia/616120-ukraine-crimea-recognition-zelensky/ 

To understand how absurd Zelensky is, consider that Crimea is the home since the 1700s of the base of Russia’s Black Sea Navy, Russia’s access to the Mediterranean. 

As Zelensky appears to have a veto, even Trump’s partial concession to Russia has no chance.  

Trump threatens that he will walk away from the negotiations.  That w0uld be a good thing if he takes American weapons and money when he goes.  

Zelensky would be left to deal with Putin, perhaps an easy task as Putin and Lavrov continue to bleat for negotiations, neglecting their responsibility to win a war that has gone on for far too long drawing in the US and Europe.  It seems Zelensky is relying on Britain and France to send their troops to continue the fight against Russia. The French president is talking about extending France’s nuclear umbrella to include Ukraine.

Putin and Lavrov seem to prefer a negotiated deal to a military victory.  Would the Kremlin accept a deal that requires Russia to give up battlefield successes won at a large cost in Russian life, the life of young men lost and gone and unavailable to create needed Russian population?  Is it Putin’s hope for a Great Power Agreement that has prolonged the conflict?

A great power agreement happens only among great powers, but President Putin has convinced the West that Russia is irresolute, averse to using force, and only wants a negotiated settlement to the conflict with Ukraine, for which Putin will pay almost any price, no matter the humiliation.

Russia’s inability to bring a war with Ukraine to a victorious conclusion after more than three years of fighting negates any recognition of Russia as a great power as far as the West is concerned.  Even Britain and France feel confident to fight Russia. Several of the NATO countries are saying that they are preparing for war with Russia.  The Baltic states are even interdicting Russian shipping.

Putin’s conduct of the war has convinced the West that he is irresolute and averse to fighting.  The choice facing Putin is:  Surrender or win a victory and impose the peace.