Posted originally on CTH on May 16, 2025 | Sundance

The agenda behind Zelenskyy and his handlers is very clear, the EU need to keep distance between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin; so, they keep playing the narrative game around the pretense of a ‘ceasefire.’

Using his Twitter account today, the vertically challenged EU members led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy note, “if the Russians reject a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings, tough sanctions must follow. Pressure on Russia must be maintained until Russia is ready to end the war.”

The picture Zelenskyy presents of Donald Tusk (Poland), Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron (France), Keir Starmer (UK) and Friedrich Merz (Germany), represents his “coalition of the willing.” The group who has pledged to send troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping coalition, as long as the USA military backstops their presence against Russia.

If President Trump does not agree to position U.S. military as part of the coalition, then the “willingness” changes.  Hence, Friedrich Merz says “we must maintain good relations with the United States.”

GERMANY – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has urged his European partners to do everything they can to maintain good relations with the United States.

“I think that we have to undertake all efforts we can to keep the Americans on our side,” Merz said at a European Political Community (EPC) summit in Albania on Friday.

“We cannot substitute or replace what the Americans still do for us in Europe, on our continent, and for our peace and freedom,” he added, emphasizing that Germany was extremely grateful to the US for this.

Merz did not say whether he meant that all NATO partners should comply with US President Donald Trump’s demand to increase defence spending to 5% of their economic output.

Instead, he reiterated the call not to focus only on money when it comes to defence. “We have to talk about efficiency, about the numbers of systems and about economies of scale,” he said.

Merz noted the complicated defence procurement processes and the problem with spending money on too many different systems. “We are not receiving enough material for our money,” he said.

At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Turkey on Thursday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul backed Trump’s demand for a massive hike in NATO members’ defence spending to 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP). (more)

It’s all about the money!  {BACKSTORY}

For President Trump and Vladimir Putin to join in strategic interest is to disrupt the global order of things, and I do mean everything.  The military industrial complex, the global banking system, the World Economic Forum assembly, the multinational stock markets, the world trade system, the entire European continent, Asian continent, Australian continent, African continent and North American continent, as well as every conflict therein, could be impacted by joint decisions between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.  To say the stakes are high, would be to understate the scale of the dynamic.