Vil europæerne gerne spænde ben for Trump-Putin-fredsinitiativet?:
Schiller Instituttet Webcast med Helga Zepp-LaRouche den 21. august 2025

DIANE SARE: Good morning, good afternoon wherever you are. This is the weekly webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is August 20, 2025. I think we’ll get right into it, because there have been some truly major developments which the British and their lackeys in Europe and the American intelligence agencies have wanted to stop; namely that we had at the end of last week the meeting in Alaska of President Donald Trump and President Putin. Helga, as you and I were discussing yesterday, I’m certainly finding here in the United States a great deal of confusion among the American people about what the significance is of this, what really happened. Was it a failure because they didn’t get a ceasefire right away? If you don’t mind, I’d like to start there, if you can elaborate for people your understanding and view of the significance of this meeting.

          HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it was a major breakthrough, because the real issue is not Ukraine. In the same way the war in Ukraine was not a war in Ukraine, but a proxy war between NATO and Russia. Therefore, the fact that President Trump and President Putin were able to have this meeting in Alaska and reestablish a direct communication between the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers in the world is of the highest significance. Everybody who is not blinded by ideological spectacles and prejudices should be happy about that.

       This morning, President Trump gave an interview to an American journalist—I think his name is Mark Levin—and he made the point that people can relax. We are no longer on the verge of World War III, which we would have been in the end-phase of the Biden administration, and that that immediate danger was no longer there. I tend to agree with that, although with some reservations. But I think anybody who is not a complete moron really should be happy first of all to recognize that we were on the verge of World War III, and if that danger is reduced significantly to the point that it’s no longer the most pressing topic on the planet, that is really the big news.

       Obviously the Ukraine issue is an important aspect of this discussion, and there I can say that things are moving relatively rapidly in a positive direction. Foreign Minister Lavrov just indicated that an official invitation to President Zelenskyy [she mistakenly says Putin] has been issued to come to Moscow, which President Trump had commented on, saying this will create a lot of trouble for him, but he thinks it’s possible. Obviously given Russiagate and the whole effort to demonize Putin, Trump knows that that will not be so easy; given the fact that the real problem is the mainstream media, because they are clearly in the pocket of what people on both sides of the Atlantic generally call the Deep State. But I think it’s an important step. Next, probably if President Zelenskyy agrees to it, he will go and meet with Putin. Trump said that if need be, he is willing for a trilateral meeting after that with Trump, Zelenskyy, and Putin. Obviously the fact that Trump no longer insisted on the ceasefire first before any negotiations, is very important. Because, as Trump emphasized, ceasefires are broken frequently. On the other side, he claims that he got several conflicts settled without going to a ceasefire first. Putin’s in my view justified concern was that if you just go for a ceasefire, if there is the intention by the so-called Coalition of the Willing to “defeat Russia,” which they have said many times; if that intention is not changed, a ceasefire would only serve to re-arm the Ukrainians with more lethal, far-reaching weapons. And therefore, it would be very much against any effort to settle this conflict. Russia, on the other side, has emphasized repeatedly, for anybody who was willing to listen, that what was necessary to be addressed was the so-called core issues. The core issues in the Ukraine crisis are not what people say; that this was an unprovoked war of aggression by Russia. It definitely was not. But the five-time NATO eastward expansion which occurred after the end of the Cold War despite the promises which were given to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze at the time by Secretary of State Baker and Foreign Minister Genscher that NATO would not move one inch to the east, was indeed the core issue. Because that meant that offensive weapons systems were moved into Ukraine up to the borders of Russia; meaning that the warning time for any pending attack would be reduced to four, five, six, seven minutes and therefore creating a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis.

       Anybody who does not put themselves in the shoes of Putin and the Russians. … You have to understand that given the fact that Russia has a long history of Western attacks: Napoleon tried to invade and conquer Russia, which was very bloody. It was an incredible military campaign which was launched. Napoleon was shamefully defeated. Then, naturally, Hitler and the Nazis tried likewise, and it was a horrible war in which 27 million or maybe even more Soviet citizens were killed. That was only 80 years ago, so that memory is still very vivid in Russia. The memory of the Great Patriotic War is very much alive in the minds of the people.

       Therefore, if you have now again NATO with a long history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the British intention to launch a preemptive war with Operation Unthinkable of Churchill; all of these are in the memory of Russia. Therefore, when they say that these core security interests have to be addressed, anybody who knows anything about history and about military matters will agree with Putin that he is absolutely right to say that that is what has to be settled. That is apparently what Putin got across to Trump in Alaska, because in Alaska Trump all of a sudden dropped the idea that there must be a ceasefire first. Because obviously, he recognized that Russia has a legitimate security interest—not only Ukraine, but also Russia has a legitimate security interest. So, basically he agreed to go for peace negotiations directly without a ceasefire.

        SARE: I wanted to just raise something, because you know of course yesterday here in the United States we had this very large delegation of Europeans showing up at the White House. I think Americans don’t really have any idea what that was all about. The media of course tried to say that they were all very unified; and perhaps some of the people there were unified—Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and Finnish President Stubb and the head of NATO, Rutte, who is the one who calls Trump “Daddy.” They were all there, and the {New York Times} headline was, “Well, at least they stopped Trump from giving away everything.” My sense of this is that once the Alaska summit actually concluded, and it looked like Presidents Trump and Putin had come to some kind of understanding on the situation, Zelenskyy of course wanted to somehow get involved or be deployed to be involved; because I don’t think he does much on his own. There was a great panic among these warmongers and they quickly put together the most powerful delegation they thought they could come up with, and rushed to Washington to see if they could somehow derail this thing. I don’t think it’s a show of strength at all, but I’d like to get your thoughts on this. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in quite some time of this number of European heads of state and the European Commission and NATO all meeting in Washington. What was this all about?

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Ray McGovern, who has an unbeatable sense of humor, called it “Trump and the Seven Dwarves.” He emphasized that he does not imply that Trump is Snow White. So, these people—and as you say, they were not united, because I think there is a difference between some of them. Meloni is not exactly on the same line as Merz and Macron and von der Leyen. But I think they tried to “prevent the worst”; namely that Zelenskyy would be influenced too much by Trump. But I think they all felt compelled to pay lip service that this was a productive and wonderful discussion. However, that did not prevent them from returning and immediately once they were back in Europe, going back to their old lines. Merz saying “There must be a ceasefire first before anything more can happen.” Right now in Germany there is a mad debate which has broken out, talking about how there should now be European troops on the ground, German Bundeswehr troops. Even the British said they will do something, but they will not put their troops at risk. That is quite clever. 

This is ridiculous. If they believe their own ideology that this was an unprovoked war of aggression and that it would be true that Putin is planning to attack the next European country once he is finished with Ukraine, which is denied by any competent military experts, that Russia has no intention and no motive. Why would Russia want to invade Europe? It could not occupy Europe, for sure, because you need a lot of people to do that. I think the Russian population altogether is maybe 150 million or so, if I’m not mistaken. At best, they can mobilize 600-700,000 troops. They have a huge country; they have the largest country on the planet, with 11 time zones, which they hardly can populate. So, for them to then invade Europe and occupy with a lot of troops European countries, why would they even want to even? They have all the raw materials in their own country. There is nothing they would gain by doing that. Therefore, this whole thing is a NATO scare narrative which only has one purpose—to keep the population scared and agreeing to the militarization of Europe—but it is not founded in reality.

       I think people should really stop believing this, and think through the situation themselves. There are enough military experts—Colonel Macgregor, for example, in the United States; former head of the NATO Military Committee Gen. Harald Kujat in Germany; General Vad; General Mini [Italy], and many others in France and Italy and so on—who all say this is completely absurd. So, I would really urge people who are seriously concerned about this matter to do some of their own research and not fall for these narratives, because they could prove to be devastating.

       Anyway, so then Ischinger, the former head of the Munich Security Conference, this morning gave an interview, and said, “No, we have now to arm Ukraine, until it is like a—” how do you call—

       SARE: Yes, “a steel porcupine,” that’s what Ursula von der Leyen said.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: If I would be a Ukrainian, I would really reject being called a “steel porcupine.” This is so derogatory, and it shows an ugly mind. How can you call somebody like that? But it shows you the degree of hysteria of these people. Unfortunately—I don’t think this is going to last very long, because first of all, this Coalition of the Willing do not have the military forces to carry through with what they say. Why would they even do it? Because up to now, it was very clear that to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine is a red line, it’s a {casus belli}. It would mean a direct war with Russia, a nuclear power—the largest nuclear power. So, they didn’t do it, because they knew that that was a war they could only lose dramatically. So, why would you put the equivalent of NATO troops on the ground? From the Russian standpoint, it doesn’t make a big difference if they are German, French, British, or other troops who call themselves French, German, British, or call themselves NATO: It’s the same people. So therefore, I don’t think this is a realistic proposition.

       I can only hope that Zelenskyy listens to what his own people want, namely, peace. He can only get that peace when he goes along with Trump and Putin, and not listen to the Coalition of the Willing who want to prolong the war on the back of the Ukrainians. I think the more quickly the people in Europe realize that it is them who are being isolated from the world majority, if they go along with this Coalition of the Willing, and that there is a completely different option in the world—namely to ally with the Global Majority—that way, we can get out of the crisis very quickly.

        SARE: In that regard, I wanted to ask if you’d like to say something about your initiatives; namely, the proposal that Trump, Putin, and Xi meet at the 80th anniversary celebration of the end of the War in the Pacific, which is occurring in Beijing; and also at the same time, the Vladivostok conference on the development of the East.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: When the Alaska meeting became known, we immediately pulled out of the archives our previous work on the Bering Strait. Because my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and myself had fought for decades for the World Land-Bridge to connect all the continents through tunnels and bridges. The connection from Alaska to Siberia over the Bering Strait—which is just a few kilometers—you could build a corridor there with a tunnel or a bridge or both, and in that way connect the Americas with the Eurasian continent. That would obviously open tremendous economic potential; it would mean that the entire wealth of raw materials could be developed by Russia and other countries Russia is inviting. But the possibilities are that you have Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Global South countries all participating in the development of the Far East of Russia where all the raw materials and elements of the Periodic Table are located, but undeveloped. So, this potential I’m sure—even if that did not hit the news headlines—that was on the table in Anchorage as well. There are certain indications that that is the case.

       Now, the next step in that could be—and that’s what you are referring to—I issued an appeal to President Xi Jinping that he should absolutely invite President Trump to the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific at the commemoration in Beijing on the 3rd of September. President Putin already has agreed to be there, and this will be a huge event. Many leaders of the Global South will attend that as well. Prime Minister Modi from India will be there, and probably Lula and others. So, this would send a very powerful message to the world that if the United States, Russia, and China, and others are celebrating the victory over fascism and Nazism, it would really send a message of hope to the whole world that all conflicts can be solved through cooperation.

       I’m quite hopeful that this could happen. We are collecting signatures for this appeal, so if you agree with that idea, please sign this appeal. Get it around to all your contacts and networks and friends to also sign, because I think we should build up a momentum for this idea; that a peaceful solution would be easy if the great powers cooperate.

       It happens to be that on the same day, the East Economic Forum in Vladivostok opens. There, more than 6,000 firms are participating. On the table will be the development of the Arctic. So, I’m absolutely certain that in the aftermath of the conference in Anchorage, the issue of the development of Siberia and the Far East will be the hottest issue of that conference. I’m hopeful that this will then lead to a complete change in direction. If everybody would put their effort into this, I think we could see—if President Trump goes to Beijing and if the Vladivostok meeting takes up the development of this with international participation—we could be at the beginning of a completely new era of mankind overcoming all economic problems. Because if we should shift from military spending into real economic development; in the aftermath of which, you could see the United States building a fast train system connecting all American big cities through maglev and other high-speed trains. You could have a completely different spirit, like the one which you see right now in China and many other countries of the Global South that are determined to overcome underdevelopment and really start to have international relations in a completely new way.

       I think this is all very exciting, and I’m actually moderately optimistic.

        SARE: Well, that’s very good. I think optimism also comes from the work that you are doing, when one knows that you are going to fight no matter what, then you don’t have room for pessimism.

       I wanted to shift to a situation which has many people very despairing; which is, of course, what’s happening in the so-called Middle East-Southwest Asia-Gaza-Israel. I want to get your thoughts on the relationship between these two processes, because something that’s very hard for people to get their minds around is how you can have this really incredible breakthrough dynamic going on in one arena, and then you have the absolute atrocities being committed by the Netanyahu regime on the Palestinian people. It seems that the world is sitting there watching, although I understand I just saw the figures of the protest in Israel on Sunday may have been as high as over 2 million Israelis protesting Netanyahu’s invasion of Gaza City. But what are your thoughts on how we bring this to an end? And what’s the relationship between these processes? It is the same planet, after all.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, but there seems to be a parallel universe where some people find themselves; like your Ambassador Huckabee, who I heard an interview with, who is out of this world. He claims that Israel has the right to take over the West Bank; he endorses the new settlements there, which, according to some of the Cabinet members of the Israeli government, are intended to make a two-state solution impossible.

       SARE: Yes, and I have to add, even killing American citizens while they do this, which makes it so unbelievable that the U.S. ambassador would condone it. Go ahead.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah, it is unbelievable. But I think this is also, if I may dare that prognosis, going to be short-lived, because what is happening is so absolutely unbelievable that while it may look for now that the lives of 1 million Palestinians are in acute danger—actually 2 million, but 1 million in Gaza City. Because the IDF is preparing the military occupation which puts people in acute danger there. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of the governments of the world and the countries of the world are isolating Israel. The resolution for the two-state approach is gaining more and more support. Also, the momentum to reform the United Nations to pay tribute to the fact that the UN Security Council has not functioned because of the veto power of the five permanent members. They could block—essentially the United States and most of the time the British—just block any kind of an approach. That has led to a situation where the momentum for the Uniting for Peace Resolution #377 is gaining massive momentum. That simply says that if there is an acute danger to the world order, which I think this Gaza situation clearly represents, that then the power of negotiation and carrying the business further goes to the General Assembly. That would basically mean that with the annual session coming up in September, that the UN General Assembly could decide that, given the fact that the UN Security Council has proven to be incapable of addressing this, that the power of decision goes to them. And they could at a minimum decide to send Blue Helmets to the Gaza border.

       One can say, “What can Blue Helmets do?” But I just talked with a top UN expert about this matter just before our discussion here, because I wanted to have advice. I said, “What can we do?” He said that the simple fact that you would have a large number of countries represented in these Blue Helmets would make clear that Israel is getting completely isolated. It would impact the present ferment inside Israel. Given the fact that you cannot send a military force because you don’t want to get into a war with Israel and then the United States backing them up; it obviously doesn’t work this way, unless you get a change inside the United States. The United States could end it with one phone call. If Trump would call up Netanyahu and read him the riot act, it would stop. But that I think depends on the American people expressing clearly what they think about this.

       Short of that, I think this Resolution #377 and the UN General Assembly expressing the will and the view of the vast majority of the world population of 85% of the people living on the planet. Therefore, I think it’s very horrible for the Palestinians who keep dying, but I don’t think this can last very much longer. The more the atrocities go on, and everybody knows that every single day it does. Can you imagine, Merz said when these six journalists were killed, he said, “One has now to investigate if this killing was justified or not.” Can you imagine?

        SARE: Oh my gosh! Well, this is the guy who they’re getting ready for a war with Russia, so I guess he’s irrational in general.

        ZEPP-LAROUCHE: He said the Israelis are doing the “dirty work” for the rest. This and the steel porcupine, or previously Borrell talking about the jungle and the garden; sometimes you get the real insight of the mind. Not by formal declarations, but by these sort of slips of the tongue, where they reveal their philosophical mindset. Sometimes you get insights you wish you would not have gotten, because they are so disgusting.

       SARE: I think that’s right. I just want to say, because we’re getting to the end of our time, that I do think you’re right on this shift. Yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, yanked the security clearances from another 37 people. I was speaking with one of our colleagues about this. I didn’t recognize the names; they were sort of less prominent people. But he was familiar with many of them, and many of them were directly involved not only in Russiagate, but the Ukrainian censorship of American social media and things like this. I think that her investigation is not going away, not only because of her loyalty to President Trump and the administration, but because she herself is a veteran of these wars and knows the human cost when you lie, as leaders in the United States and Britain did over the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I do think this is going to be a factor in shifting things.

       I just want to say that the {New York Post}, which is one of the most disgusting British-run, pro-war crazy newspapers—poor Alexander Hamilton would turn over in his grave. When they released her document, they actually left a phone number in it which was her direct contact for the implementation of this. That was later redacted, but I can’t help but think that some of these FBI intelligence operatives had leaked this right away to see if they could at least get some harassment going.

       Do you have any comments on what’s happening with the Russiagate unfolding? Particularly since your late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was a target of exactly this operation. Many of these people, while they may have been too young to have been the ones involved, they certainly come out of the same tradition that railroaded Lyndon LaRouche into prison and tried to stop the progress and recruitment of his ideas.

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I can only applaud Tulsi Gabbard for her unwavering efforts to try to get justice in the United States. My late husband was slandered recently again by a Belgian newspaper for having been the first one to identify what was going on on September 11th. It is true that he recognized immediately what that was, because he was familiar with the air defense of the United States. He said this could not have happened without complicity by some of the rogue elements of our own security apparatus. This obviously is the problem, what Eisenhower was warning at the end of his term—the military-industrial complex. Some of these permanent bureaucracies are what have been carrying on all these policies. I’m actually relatively confident that sooner or later all of this will come out, because there is now a growing discussion among people and institutions and forces of the Global South in this country and that country about the number of wars conducted by the United States since 1945, and especially since the end of the Cold War. The number of people who have been killed; nothing of this has ever been admitted or tried to be put back on a just level. So, I think this idea of a dominant position in a unipolar world, where you have the right to protect your privileges by all these illegal means, has to come to an end. I think President Trump, by continuing on the course which he has now fortunately found his way back to after his first term, was almost destroyed by these networks. The Russiagate just put him in an impossible position. Naturally these forces are now completely freaked out that he has gotten back to talking to Putin directly, which is what they tried to prevent by all means.

       So, while the battle is obviously not yet over by any means, I think if Tulsi Gabbard is continuously unraveling this thread leading from one thing to the next, hopefully this whole policy can be ended. I think that would be the right birthday present the United States could give to itself for its 250th birthday.

        SARE: I certainly agree, and I would love to see some of these people actually behind bars. I think it would definitely send the right message.

       I guess we should wrap up. Thanks very much for your time and your insights. Please, if there are things that you think people should do, why don’t you take a minute to tell them what they should be doing?

       ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the one thing you should do is to come on the IPC discussion on Friday. This is a very important institution because we have in more than two years of uninterrupted weekly meetings, assembled experts and forces, parts of the peace movement from all over the world. It is a place to discuss every week where we stand and what needs to be done. So, go to the Schiller Institute website and register and participate in that. Because we need to build the peace movement until it is the dominant force in the world.

       And, please sign this appeal and get active with us. This is a period you do not want to sit on the fence and be passive and observe; you want to be an actor on the world stage of history, and you are with the right people with us to do exactly that.

       SARE: Great! Thank you very much, and the IPC is only two days away on Friday, so please visit schillerinstitute.com and sign up for that. Sign up to get our emails and to donate and support our work.

       Thank you very much, Helga.