A brutal war has been engulfing Ukraine for three years now. United States President Donald Trump campaigned with the promise to end that war in 24 hours. Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored the request and continues his butchery. The Trump team now seeks to negotiate to gain some kind of deal that is supposed to do the impossible: Please Ukraine, which has fought to defend every inch of its territory, and please Russia in its quest for land and people.

Following a four-hour discussion in Saudi Arabia with Russian representatives today, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they agreed to appoint a high-level team to help “negotiate and work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine” in a way that’s “acceptable to all the parties engaged.”

But the Ukrainians were not invited to the negotiations in Saudi Arabia, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would not accept a deal negotiated over his head.

Since Russia made large territorial gains and has no risk of losing them to Ukraine, it will be hard to convince President Putin to stop the war. At this point, it doesn’t look like President Trump is putting much effort into pleasing Ukraine; his main objective now appears to be appeasing Russia.

Many have harshly criticized Donald Trump for this. Yet there is another layer to the story that even the best analysts fail to recognize.

The war over Ukraine isn’t primarily about Ukraine. It is about building up an empire strong enough to overthrow the United States. In fact, there are two empires in the making that are working in cooperation and simultaneously in competition to achieve this level of power. Ukraine is caught between these two powers and is the victim of their ambitions—but it is not their primary target.

This is what Donald Trump fails to see—as does almost everyone else.

Putin ‘Wants Peace’

In remarks last week to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said: “I believe President Putin when I spoke to him yesterday. I know him very well. I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t. I trust him on this subject.”

He also said that he believed Putin felt provoked by Ukraine possibly joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Tucker Carlson, believing the same thing, asked Putin about this in February 2024. In response Putin gave a lecture on Russian history. This was not the first time Putin revealed his ambitions.

In an address on Feb. 21, 2022, just before invading Ukraine, Putin explained: “Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.”

Putin has clearly, publicly and repeatedly outlined his goal: He wants to resurrect the Soviet Union and make Ukraine part of Russia. As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 2023 in “The Ukraine War Will Not Start World War III!”:

Mr. Trump believes he could negotiate with Vladimir Putin, giving him sections of Ukraine and expecting this to pacify him. That reveals a total lack of comprehension about who he is dealing with.

The elites in Europe also accuse Mr. Trump of appeasing Russia while alienating Europe. Yet their accusations come with another layer of deceit.

German Deceit

While everyone expected a speech addressing the conflict over Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference this past weekend, U.S. Vice President JD Vance lectured European leaders about democracy, as if he spoke to his most hostile enemies. For the first time since the beginning of the Cold War, the U.S. appears to be at greater odds with continental Europe than with Russia.

The very things that the European elites pride themselves in, Vance called hypocrisy.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” Vance stated. “What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.”

This threat from within alarms the new U.S. administration more than Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine or China’s inroads in the Continent. One could argue that Vance is right, yet at the same time fails utterly to understand the danger.

What specifically concerns Vance so much? Some of the examples he gave revolved around censoring individuals, canceling elections on allegations of misinformation, and excluding political parties. Furthermore, Vance sees the EU’s authoritarian censorship regime as more dangerous than the far-right ideologies of the parties being excluded, such as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the Freedom Party in Austria, or the Rassemblement National in France.

Elon Musk, who works closely with the Trump administration, even went as far as endorsing the AfD at one of its party rallies.

To some extent this can be understood. The far-right parties have mostly stopped making overtly racist statements and are currently not calling for the death of America in any public statements. But does that mean all is well? Is there really no danger?

In 1998, Mr. Flurry made the exact opposite argument: “I believe there is going to be a backlash against the extremist parties in Germany. But that is not going to change the dangerous direction Germany is going. It is only going to make these political parties more subtle and deadly.”

This strategy has worked. By this point, far-right parties have shifted so much into the mainstream and the mainstream so far to the left that the U.S. sees the far right as the new mainstream.

One could now say that the European establishment is more alert to the danger posed by these parties than American conservatives are.

But here we enter an even greater layer of deceit that even the far-right parties do not understand.

In “The EU’s Hidden Agenda” in the May 2000 Trumpet, Mr. Flurry wrote about the EU’s opposition to Austria’s far right:

Jörg Haider’s political party recently became the second-most powerful party in Europe. They comprise one half of the Austrian cabinet. Mr. Haider has openly expressed his Nazi and fascist views to the world. Now he has been forced from office by the EU, and his country has no political power as a member.

On the surface, his being ousted looks good. It appears that the EU will not support anybody with Nazi or fascist views. And that is a dangerous deceit!

Mr. Haider’s problem is he doesn’t understand that the war of treaties has replaced the bombs and bullets warfare—for the present time!

A close analysis reveals that the European mainstream is pursuing some of the same goals as the far right but in a dangerously deceitful way. Still, in some cases listening to the far right reveals where Europe is heading.

AfD leader Alice Weidel told American Conservative in an interview published January 6:

[W]hen President Donald Trump demands that Germany must take responsibility for its own security in the future, he should also be clear about the full consequences. That we will listen kindly to his concerns about Nord Stream and our energy supply, but that we will make our own decisions and he must accept them, whether he likes them or not.

Nord Stream refers to the now-infamous gas pipelines that were built to supply Germany with cheap energy. Mr. Flurry wrote about this in his 2018 article “Germany and Russia’s Secret War Against America.”

During his first term, before Russia invaded Ukraine, Donald Trump rightly condemned this project. But now that Russia is waging a war that was financed through these gas exports, his administration endorses a German political party that wants to return to the status quo.

While it appears that those in Germany who oppose the far-right are the good guys, there is an even more dangerously deceitful agenda being worked out.

A New Agenda

We are starting to see a shift from a war of treaties back to a war of bombs and bullets.

Germany’s historic partner in crime, Russia, has started a hot war on the Continent. Those who have closely observed Germany know it has continued to receive Russian energy through back doors, all the while delaying meaningful sanctions on Russia and blocking arms exports to Ukraine and thus never allowing Ukraine a chance to win the war.

In the meantime, the German arms industry has boomed, and German innovators have started testing weaponry on the battlefield of Ukraine. Most recently, German used this experience to design new drones, sending thousands to Ukraine.

Both Russia and Germany are testing their military weaponry on a real-life battlefield. The previous U.S. administration played along. The current one seeks to end the war without realizing the real danger of this German-Russian cooperation.

America has a hard time understanding such deceitfulness. This war has never been much about Ukraine. The objective is entirely different. As Mr. Flurry explained in the July 2022 Trumpet:

These two nations are working to empower themselves and each other at the expense of Europe and the U.S.-led world order. Both want to tear down that order and build themselves into great empires! Those empires will inevitably clash, but for now it is in both Germany’s and Russia’s interest to weaken everyone else and strengthen themselves and each other. With this in mind, Germany’s duplicitous behavior is easy to understand.

Viewed in this light, one can recognize how dangerously ignorant it is to allow this European power to build up a military empire! Yet this is exactly what the Trump administration encourages.

Empowering a Deadly Empire

Ahead of the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged European nations to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic products on their military—more than double the current nato target. On January 7, Donald Trump stated: “I think nato should have 5 percent. They can all afford it, but they should be at 5 percent, not 2 percent.”

If they understood the current anti-American sentiments in Germany, the U.S. would not be encouraging this.

Furthermore, Germany has a history of starting wars. Mr. Flurry warned in 1995: “America is acting as if none of this history has even occurred! Our nation is acting like Germany has had a peace-loving history. I can understand our leaders ignoring Bible prophecy. But how can you explain their ignoring history? No superpower can do this and survive!”

These statements by U.S. leadership are all the more dangerous when you understand Bible prophecy. Mr. Flurry explained in his 2018 article:

Jeremiah 1:13 records God showing the prophet a vision of “a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.” This symbolic language is describing modern Germany. Beneath the surface, that nation is full of simmering dissatisfaction with the current world order. Germans are angry at the U.S., and especially furious with President Trump. The imperialistic ambition that prompted Germany to start both world wars is alive and well. It is “seething”!

Verses 14-15 continue: “Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.”

America, Britain, the Jewish nation (biblical “Judah”) and others should be alarmed by what is happening in Europe. Cooperation between Germany and Russia is setting the scene for a huge “seething pot” to spill over onto these nations! This boiling cauldron will scald everybody in America and Britain! This is prophesied to be the worst suffering ever known to man! And it will occur by God’s hand because of His extreme wrath over the sins of these peoples.

We are doomed to disaster in our dealings unless we consult Almighty God to help us! No man, however powerful and smart, can avoid the curses God is sending on our nations. It is time we wake up to the dangerous deceit of the world we live in.

For more on this specific relationship, read “Germany’s Secret Deal With Russia—Exposed.”