As Eliana Silver (right) reports,
"Russia launched over 100 drones and one missile at Ukraine overnight, a day after US President Donald Trump announced Moscow had agreed to a week-long pause in attacks on the capital and other cities.
- Russian strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure in recent days have cut power and heating to millions during freezing temperatures.
- The US is calling on Ukraine to give up the Donbas region, its industrial heartland made up of Luhansk and Donetsk.
- Putin has repeatedly demanded that Kyiv make painful territorial concessions to end the war, but Zelensky has consistently said Ukraine would not hand over the Donbas in exchange for peace." (Daily Mail: 1 February 2026) (my emphasis)
"Right now the most powerful blow to the USSR for the war; Putin has signed a death warrant for his own people.
Russia has been engulfed by an icy darkness. Retribution has been set in motion.
Russia has felt the true cost of a bloody war" (Ukraine Today : YouTube: 27 January 2026) (my emphasis)
"Over the past 10 months, Russian losses in the war with Ukraine have been growing faster than any time since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, BBC analysis suggests.
As peace efforts intensified in 2025 under pressure from US President Donald Trump's administration, 40% more obituaries of soldiers were published in Russian sources compared with the previous year." (BBC News: 30 December 2025) (my emphasis)
As Putin frantically scrambles around in his bunker, shouting 'unhinged' directives at a 'siloviki' that is rapidly fracturing into a "fight amongst thieves", emerging from the shadows onto the international political scene is the fallout from the "Epstein files" in the US.
"Epstein files show Putin's Russian spy links as emails detail 'world's largest honey-trap' "
"The [Epstein] documents reveal young Russians numbered among the
women Epstein supplied for sex to wealthy and influential men across the globe.
However, the enormous cache of materials has suggested a darker Russian tie: that Epstein could have functioned as a long-standing agent operating for Moscow
Amongst the documents are 1,056 files referencing Vladimir Putin and over 9,000 mentioning Moscow.
The materials suggest Epstein secured audiences with the Russian president – even following the American financier's 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution. (Express: 2 February 2026) (my emphasis)
These files give an added validity to the "Steele Dossier" released in 2017, which details the "kompromat" that Putin ammased on Trump before his first presidential race in 2018, and which underscores the hold that Putin has had over Trump ever since then.
More recently, what also panicked Putin was, as previously reported by Lauran O'Toole on 21 January 2026,
"Democrats are launching a new effort to impeach Donald Trump as they claim the president is "mentally unwell." Insisting the US president is "putting all of our lives at risk" Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, Representative for Arizona’s Third Congressional District, issued a scathing attack on X." (Express: 21 January 2026) (my emphasis)
"Trump's latest legal and political crisis is sending shockwaves across the globe. World leaders are reacting, and the international fallout is escalating." (Kaito : 2 February 2026: YouTube) (my emphasis)
It is against this backdrop that in his bunker Putin, like Hitler in his bunker (Wikipedia) in early 1945 when Nazi Germany was on the verge of total military collapse, now also stares into the face of the total defeat of the Russian army in Ukraine in 2026.
The imminent removal of Trump from the White House totally collapses Putin relying on Trump staying in power for him to retain his hold over Ukraine's Donbass region and Ukraine's Crimea.
Trump's imminent removal from office signals Putin's total removal from Ukraine.
