April 29, 2025 (EIRNS)—The proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin for a three-day truce, commencing May 8-10—“the Russian side reiterates its willingness to enter peace talks without preconditions, with a view to eliminating the root causes behind the Ukraine crisis and establishing constructive interaction with international partners”—has been met with panic and derision. This reaction, and rejection, is both from representatives—though not necessarily from the population—of Ukraine, and from the “Russiagate media circus,” i.e., the usual suspects from the Anglo-American intelligence agencies sometimes euphemistically called the “legacy media.”
The reason for the rebuke is not, as is claimed, because of the short length of the proposed truce—three days. It is well known that there was a previous, 30-day truce in March, initiated by Donald Trump, to which Russia and Ukraine had agreed, and which did not hold. The reason for concern about the new Putin proposal is how it is timed, and attuned, to current history.
There is an “isochronic” character to this proposal. That is, such an action, occurring on that day, May 8-9, not only implicitly re-celebrates the triumph of what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the “Four Freedoms” over the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. By commencing a truce that day, it recommits humanity—not merely Ukraine, Russia, or the United States—to a knowable, successful pathway out of Hell.
The truce is to begin on May 8, known as “Victory in Europe Day,” and the now-80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. It is celebrated in Russia on May 9, because the official time of the War’s ending was 11:01 Central European Time (CET) of May 8, 1945, making it 12:01 a.m. and later, on May 9, 1945, over Russia and the Soviet Union’s 11 time zones. Notably, May 8-9 was a celebration of victory over fascism before victory was falsely claimed to be contingent upon, and tied to the deployment and the dropping of the atomic bomb—something which President Roosevelt would not have done.
The year 2025 will be the last major anniversary that any of the surviving veterans of the Second World War will be alive to participate in. In 2024, there were still, amazingly, 75,000 veterans of World War II still alive in Russia, and 66,000 American veterans alive at the beginning of this year. Many of these, particularly in the case of Russia, would have been no older than 12 or 13—some even younger—when they fought, and perhaps killed to defend their nations.
There is also the “Immortal Regiment” assembly, largely identified with Russia, in which the photographs of those who died in the war are worn and carried by their descendants, so that they, through posterity, march, fight, and triumph again. This is not symbolic, but isochronic—the embodiment of that commitment for which, not only 27 million Russians, but tens of millions of others worldwide, soldier and civilians alike, gave their lives, “the last full measure of devotion,” that we, their descendants, might live. (It is rarely mentioned, but 100 million Chinese were refugees in their own country during that war; Chinese civilian and military deaths were likely higher than 20 million.) The celebration of that victory, not merely over fascism, but also in favor of “the better angels of human nature” over evil, is worthy of celebration, including through a truce dedicated in the image of that commitment of 80 years ago.
In this context, talks about a “peace without preconditions” are elevated from mere geopolitics to hold a deeper meaning. That is necessary; there has to be a “higher hypothesis” for peace. As former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl stated in an interview: “It’s not just about bilateral or trilateral relations—between Moscow, Kiev and Washington—but about an in-depth transformation of the entire security system in Europe. The issue is on the agenda, and Moscow has long been demanding that it be addressed. Simply negotiating a ceasefire around Ukraine won’t solve the issue, because its roots run much deeper.”
And the thermonuclear threat is only barely contained. Former Russian Security Council head Nikolay Patrushev yesterday, in a TASS interview, accused Western powers of “deploying their military machine against Russia and becoming delirious with nuclear apocalypse scenarios.” He said destabilization is originating from Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London. American Vice President J.D. Vance has pointed out that “there’s this weird idea among the mainstream media that if this thing goes on for just another few years, the Russians will collapse, the Ukrainians will take their territory back, and everything will go back to the way that it was before the war. That is not the reality that we live in….”
Vance would do well to read the RAND April 24, 2019 report, “Extending Russia: Competing From Advantageous Ground,” to get a better idea of how the “media” arm of Anglo-American intelligence, the same people that attempted to prevent Trump from becoming President, have been briefed on their assignment to stop resumption of U.S.relations with Russia. That report, which outlined ways to bait Russia into what Pope Francis once characterized as “World War Three in pieces,” recommended, well before 2022, the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine; increasing U.S. support for the Syrian rebels; promoting “regime change in Belarus”; exploiting tensions in the Caucasus; and other measures for neutralizing Russia. Re-examine what has transpired since that report was written.
This tells you why, when the foreign minister of Iran proposes, as he did last week, that the United States should rejuvenate its flagging nuclear power industry, by assisting Iran in building 19 civilian nuclear power plants, referencing Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative of the 1950s as the partial inspiration for such a plan, that the “mainstream media” would never report it to the American people. Re-conceptualized, could this actually be seen as a proposal for Russia, the world’s leading nuclear power plant producer, to potentially collaborate with the United States in making the world safe through economic development, through a pilot project in Iran—de-nuclear-weaponizing it in the process? “Our longstanding game plan is to build at least 19 more reactors, meaning that tens of billions of dollars in potential contracts are up for grabs. The Iranian market alone is big enough to revitalize the struggling nuclear industry in the United States,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a speech to be delivered on April 21 to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The United States, as the world, is at a crossroads. There is the neo-imperialist policy path of the disastrous Vietnam War, which ignominiously ended today, April 30, 1975, fifty years ago; or there is FDR’s policy path of ending imperialism, including in the form of fascism, creating prosperity in the wake of war, especially in what is today called the Global South. Though the proposal for a May 8-10 truce is but a first step, the spirit in which that truce is advanced, the spirit of the Immortal Regiment of the veterans of World War Two, is a basis for embracing the Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture that are the subject of the Schiller Institute conference, “A Beautiful Vision for Humanity in Times of Great Turbulence!” May 24-25, 2025.
