Ukraine Update:

Ukraine hired the US-UK law firm Hogan Lovells for assistance in negotiating a critical minerals deal with the US. FM Sergei Lavrov publicly stated Russia asked for sanctions to be lifted off Aeroflot. The Chinese POW captured by Ukrainian forces says: "Don't come, there's nothing good here." European countries pledge 'record' $23.8 billion to Ukraine at Ramstein summit as UK warns 2025 will be 'critical.' Young rising star in Ukrainian art world died fighting for her country earlier this month.

Billionaire oligarch Steve Witkoff is an Ashkenazi Jew whose ancestors came from Czarist Russia, one of the most antisemitic countries in the 19th-century. Remember Fiddler on the Roof? As a "mediator" between Israel and Hamas, Witkoff blamed Hamas for ruining the ceasefire. Except for his ill-gotten pelf, Witkoff has more in common with Volodomir Zelensky.

From Wiki: "Witkoff spoke positively of Vladimir Putin. He called Putin a "great guy" and "super smart". Witkoff said "I liked him, I think he was honest" and "I don't regard Putin as a bad guy". According to Witkoff, Putin told him that he prayed for "his friend" Donald Trumpf following the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. He recalled that "President Putin had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trumpf, from the leading Russian artist, and actually gave it to me and asked me to take it home to President Trumpf".