Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is way behind the times. On Sunday he very belatedly expressed willingness to drop Ukraine's bid to join NATO. In place of this, he's seeking robust security guarantees. "We are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States — namely, Article 5-like guarantees ... as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and from other countries such as Canada, Japan and others," Zelensky told journalists in a group chat, as reported in Financial Times.

"These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression," he said. "And this is already a compromise on our part." But this should have been taken off the table all the way back in February of 2022, on the eve of the Russian invasion, or even well before. He's much too late 'offering' this 'concession' just as White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner are meeting Sunday in Berlin with Zelensky, and then separately with the national security advisers of Germany, France and the UK.

The open secret has for years been that the Washington and EU establishments know full well that it was historic and recent constant NATO expansion which led to this horrific, grinding war. This reality is so well understood that in their private, non-official commentary even former top Biden officials fully admit the fact. Yet these same Biden officials had while in government pursued policies fueling the Ukrainian proxy war as they wanted to 'weaken' Russia. They considered the issue of NATO expansion as a prime rationale of Russia's invasion to be an off-limits talking point. Indeed for any sincere, independent commentators... to so much as raise the issue would get them smeared as a "Putin apologist". But watch this recent and highly revealing clip below of Joe Biden's top official for Europe and former national security official Amanda Sloat admitting the truth: