The U.S. side summarized the key points of the meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on August 18, including that President Trump stated his meeting with Putin went smoothly and had the potential to yield results; Trump expressed optimism about the possibility of a trilateral meeting between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine; Trump said he was convinced that Russia hoped to resolve the war conflict; Trump said he would formally announce whether it is possible to send U.S. troops to Ukraine after the war as a security guarantee for Ukraine before the end of all meetings; although the war is still ongoing, a peace agreement may still be achieved; European countries are ready to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, and the U.S. will assist in this.
At present, it is likely that even though Western countries have halted the fighting, this ceasefire is temporary, giving Ukraine some breathing space to continue the attrition war with Russia, allowing the U.S. to continue providing military aid, thus not wasting previous efforts. From the current actions of the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian military, Zelenskyy does not want to stop the war, nor does he want the U.S. to stop military aid.
On August 18 local time, the Russian Federal Security Service intercepted a suicide truck preparing to cross the Crimean Bridge, which was loaded with a large amount of explosives. It is reported that the Russian driver received the job on the spot, and he did not know that the cargo compartment was filled with explosives. This is a replica of the first attack on the Crimean Bridge by the Ukrainian Security Service. According to Russian media reports: "Ukraine tried to destroy the Crimean Bridge during the meeting between Putin and Trump," "the explosives came from Finland, hidden in the car battery group," "the vehicle was transported through multiple European countries, starting from Ukraine, finally entering Russia (this vehicle entered from Georgia, not directly from Ukraine), "The Ukrainian Security Service originally planned to transport the suicide truck filled with explosives to Krasnodar Krai via a car transportation plan, using a Russian driver as a scapegoat to drive the truck onto the Crimean Bridge and remotely detonate it."
Evidently, Russia successfully prevented another attempt by the Ukrainian Security Service to destroy the Crimean Bridge. Indeed, it shows that the Russian military and law enforcement agencies were well-prepared, and the Ukrainian side was just trying to draw attention, as the Crimean Bridge's role has become much less significant. The explosives were placed inside the car battery, which is hard to detect, as most people cannot open the battery group unless they are at a professional repair shop. The Ukrainian Security Service doing this can be understood as similar to the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency preparing explosive pagers for Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. It is unlikely that Israel directly shipped them, but there must have been a well-planned scheme and internal accomplices to avoid detection. If the Russian military had no intelligence, it would be difficult to detect such modified bombs with ordinary inspections. Using an unsuspecting person as a scapegoat is the third time, in 2022, the first attack on the Crimean Bridge, the Spider Web Operation, and now, the Ukrainian Security Service has used Russians. The plan was to have an innocent Russian driver drive a car loaded with explosives onto the Crimean Bridge, and then detonate it remotely. There was previously an innocent truck driver who was blown up, and the Ukrainian Security Service is quite ruthless.
Original article: www.toutiao.com/article/1840829700803588/
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