(End of the American Dream)—Decisions that are made in the coming days will have enormous implications for the future of humanity. I love the fact that President Trump is going to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. But the fact that Russian forces are penetrating very deeply into Ukrainian-held territory in the Donetsk region is going to make negotiations very complicated.
The Russians feel like they have more leverage than ever, and so they have absolutely no incentive to make compromises. If the Ukrainians don’t hand over the territory that the Russians want, the Russians will just take it. Of course the Ukrainians and our European allies have no intention of giving the Russians what they want, and so it will literally be a major miracle if President Trump is able to come up with a deal that will satisfy everyone. But there is no other choice than to shoot for a miracle, because the road that we are currently on could lead to nuclear war with the one nation on Earth that has enough firepower to completely destroy us.
It is being reported that Russian troops have suddenly advanced “by at least 10 km” in the vicinity of the town of Dobropillia…
Russian forces have made a sudden thrust into eastern Ukraine near the coal mining town of Dobropillia, a move that may be an attempt to increase the pressure on Kyiv to give up land as the U.S. and Russian presidents prepare to meet.
Ukraine’s authoritative DeepState war map showed on Tuesday that Russian forces had advanced by at least 10 km (six miles) north in two prongs in recent days, part of their drive to take full control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
I saw another report that indicates that Russian forces have advanced 17 kilometers beyond the existing front lines in recent days. But no matter whether it is 10 kilometers or 17 kilometers, everyone agrees that it is a huge incursion.
A map that is regularly updated by DeepState shows a two-pronged corridor which has cut off the Dobropillya-Kramatorsk highway…
A map published by Ukrainian battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties with Ukraine’s military, showed Russia had advanced around 10 kilometres (six miles) over around two days, deep into a narrow section of the eastern front line.
The corridor – now apparently under Russian control – threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has come under Russian drone attacks.
It also further isolates the destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.
If the Russians are able to successfully pour additional troops into this salient, it could dramatically alter the trajectory of this conflict.
And it certainly appears that they have plenty of troops in the area.
According to the Ukrainians, the Russians “have concentrated a group of more than 110,000 personnel” in the vicinity of Pokrovsk…
“In the Pokrovsk direction alone, the occupiers have concentrated a group of more than 110,000 personnel,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in an update Tuesday evening, adding that the army is allocating additional forces and assets to strengthen defenses in some areas.
Zelensky said that the overall ratio of manpower is 1 to 3 in favor of Russia’s troops, but added that Russia’s losses are also three times greater than Ukraine’s.
“They are preparing for an offensive operation, we believe, in three directions. The main directions are Zaporizhzhia, Pokrovsk, and Novopavlivka,” Zelensky said, emphasizing that Russia’s troop buildup is happening just before Trump and Putin sit down in Alaska on Friday.
The Ukrainians had been able to keep the front lines at least somewhat relatively stable for a long time, but now they are crumbling.
In fact, Lt. Col. Bohdan Krotevych is openly admitting that the situation for Ukrainian forces near Pokrovsk is “a complete mess”…
Lt. Col. Bohdan Krotevych, a former chief of staff of the 12th special forces of Ukraine’s elite Azov Brigade, gave a rare public warning to Zelensky about Ukraine’s dwindling defenses. “Mr President, I honestly don’t know what you’re being told, but I am informing you that the situation (near Pokrovsk) is, without exaggeration, a complete mess,” Krotevych wrote on X.
“The front line is virtually non-existent,” he said.
Krotevych’s assessment was echoed by another Ukrainian commander that just spoke to CNN…
A commander near Pokrovsk, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CNN that Ukraine’s defenses in the area mostly comprise two-man positions resupplied by drones alone. Rather than two frontline trenches facing each other, the battlefield now consists of a series of mostly hidden, isolated and small outposts, where infantry try to hold ground covertly, without being spotted by enemy drones.
The Russians are starting to gobble up territory quite rapidly now.
But most European leaders are still in a state of denial. For example, just check out what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is saying…
“Ukraine cannot lose this war and nobody has the right to pressure Ukraine into making territorial or other concessions, or making decisions that smack of capitulation,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a government meeting. “I hope we can convince President Trump about the European position.”
Tusk seems to believe that the negotiating leverage on both sides is roughly equal.
That is simply not the case.
The Russians are clearly winning this war and they know it.
Heading into the summit with Vladimir Putin on Friday, President Trump is attempting to downplay expectations that some sort of a deal will be made…
“I’m not going to make a deal,” Trump said. “It’s not up to me to make a deal. I think a deal should be made for both.”
The White House on Tuesday characterized the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage as a “listening exercise.”
Even though Trump has clearly said that he is “not going to make a deal”, many prominent voices are still insisting that a deal is already done and that it will be announced to the world in Alaska.
That is simply not accurate.
According to Trump, if the Russians offer a “fair deal” he will present that deal to the Ukrainians and the Europeans…
Mr Trump has taken pains to lower expectations of a Ukraine ceasefire, instead describing the Anchorage summit as “a feel-out meeting” to see what Putin “has in mind”. If the US president feels that Putin is offering a “fair deal” he promised to “reveal it to the European Union leaders and to Nato leaders and also to President Zelensky”.
I can already tell you the deal that the Russians will put on the table, because they have put it on the table many times before.
The Russians want 100 percent of the territory in the five provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea. Any Ukrainian forces in those provinces will have to withdraw, and NATO will have to agree to ban Ukraine from ever becoming a member of NATO.
Over and over again, the Russians have told us that this is what they want to end the war, and over and over again this has been rejected by Ukraine…
Russia says Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – which were recognised by Moscow as part of Ukraine as the Soviet Union collapsed – are now parts of Russia.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine’s territory within its 1991 borders.
Until Ukraine is ready to accept Russia’s demands, there isn’t going to be a deal.
As far as the Russians are concerned, the Ukrainians will either hand over all of that land or the Russians will take it.
And more of that land is falling into Russian hands with each passing day.
I think that the Russians are making a mistake by demanding so much, but they are holding all the cards.
Sadly, so far the Ukrainians don’t seem inclined to make any significant compromises either even though the vast majority of the Ukrainian population now favors a negotiated solution…
Gallup released a poll last Thursday which demonstrates a dramatic shift in Ukrainian public opinion, with 69% of the population now favoring a negotiated settlement to end the grinding war as soon as possible.
General war weariness has long been a feature of the conflict, which has been raging for over 540 days at this point, and has taken at least tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of lives. Many Ukrainians fled abroad during the first year, and huge amounts of people are still internally displaced in the war-ravaged country.
The fresh Gallup poll found that just 24% support continuing the fight until achieving a military victory, which is a stark reversal from views held at the start of the war more than three years ago.
I feel so bad for the Ukrainian people.
An entire generation of young men is being wiped out on the battlefield.
The only thing that could stop the Russians from taking what they want in Ukraine would be direct military intervention by NATO.
Needless to say, that would put us just one very small step away from the unthinkable.
So let us hope that cooler heads prevail.
We do not want an apocalyptic conflict with Russia.
And it should deeply alarm all of us that the Russians and the Chinese are now working so closely with one another…
A fleet of Russian and Chinese warships has moved closer to Alaska during a joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region, as Moscow and Beijing challenge the United States’ military supremacy.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Northern Command via email for comment. The Russian and Chinese foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Trump is the only major western leader that is looking for an off ramp.
We should be thrilled that he is going to sit down with Vladimir Putin, because the stakes are incredibly high.
But until the Ukrainians and the Europeans are ready to make serious compromises, nothing is really going to change.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
