How three kings will decide the fate of seven kingdoms

Sometimes understanding the machinations of the world around us is a giant game of connect-the-dots, Alexander Smukler said.

Mr. Smukler, who lives in Montclair now, as he has for decades, but grew up in the Soviet Union, leaving it as a refusenik just months before it imploded in 1991, is well situated for dot connection. His network of friends and sources in Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of the Soviet diaspora provide him with information far earlier and in far more detail than the rest of us can have.

Now, as the idea that the autocrats who control much of the rapidly shifting world — Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and our own Donald J. Trump — plan to meet to re-establish the world order that has held since the end of World War II, when Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin (two complicated visionaries and one monster) met at Yalta to establish it, has reached the mainstream news, Mr. Smukler, who foresaw what he calls Yalta 2 a few years ago, connects more dots.

“If you look at a map of the world, you can mark the events now — the war in Ukraine, the riots in France, anti-Jewish demonstrations in London, the tankers sinking in the Strait of Hormuz, the deal with Lukoil — and see that these events all are connected,” Mr. Smukler said.

“Somebody is initiating these events in their best political interests, and by pulling the strings, they are effectively influencing the events, to the benefit of the major players in the world.”

We can’t connect all these dots in one story, but let’s start with the war that Russia began when it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“February will be the fifth anniversary of the brutal aggression against an independent, fully recognized member of the United Nations by one of the countries that is a major player in the U.N.’s Security Council,” Mr. Smukler said. “As I’ve said before, I predict that the hot phase of that war will end by the end of this year or the first quarter of next year. The latest events are proving what I’ve been saying — the major players in the global game of thrones are looking for a way to get out of the conflict, or at least to get out of this hot phase. They’re not moving toward a peace agreement, which would be extremely difficult to design, but to find a solution similar to North and South Korea’s. The superpowers created it in 1958; as we know, that conflict is not resolved, there is no peaceful coexistence or peace agreement between North and South Korea. I think that we will see a similar situation in Ukraine and Russia.

“The frontline is at a stalemate,” he continued. “The Russians are advancing very, very slowly, attacking the city of Dobropolye, which is a gateway to Kramatorsk and Slaviansk, two fortresses in the Donbas area that they still have not occupied. Russia is still trying to taken them over, and the Ukrainians have had a successful counteroffensive. During the last two months, Russia has been able to occupy 980 square kilometers. And despite Ukraine’s deficit of everything right now, particularly manpower, they were able to successfully liberate 835 square kilometers and tens of small villages and little towns, and slow down Russian offensive operations.

“Today, Russia does not control approximately 18 percent of the Donesk region, which they claim is theirs. They do not control a substantial part of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson districts, which, according to their constitution, is theirs.” (In October 2022, about seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin had the country’s constitution amended to say that the country includes Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson.)

“As we’ve said before, Russia is losing approximately 35,000 soldiers on the front lines every month. That’s the number of people who are dead, wounded, or disappeared. So that means that every month Russia has to throw more than 40,000 fresh soldiers on the frontline.

“With the speed that Russia is moving toward its goals, it will take them years,” Mr. Smukler said. “But Putin demands that the Ukrainians must withdraw all their troops and give the four regions to Russia. He announced it during his recent call with President Trump.” Until Ukraine does that, Putin will not start any peace negotiations, the Russia strongman has said.

There is a question about how much Putin actually knows about the real situation on the front, Mr. Smukler said. “During his October 13 press conference, much of what he was saying to the journalists was either completely untrue or misleading. And a lot of experts are saying that he was not lying — he was misled by his general staff.” Why? Because many of the facts Putin cited are known not to be true, “and there is no reason for him to lie about it.

“Most experts think that Putin is not getting accurate reports from his chief of staff and is being misled by his generals about the real situation on the frontline.”

Ukraine has been able to keep Russia from moving forward because the frontline is now a kill zone, with “drones able to eliminate everything that moves,” Mr. Smukler said. “Ukraine was able to develop intensive and very effective production of drones that are able not only to monitor but basically to eliminate the gigantic numbers of Russian cannon fodder” — aka soldiers, human beings with parents and lives and futures, turned into objects — “and not allow them to move forward.”

So Putin is doing something different. He is trying to destroy Ukraine.

“This is the fourth time during the war that I am using the famous quote ‘winter is coming,’’ Mr. Smukler said. “This winter will be the most difficult yet for Ukrainian cities, and Ukrainian citizens, because Putin’s strategy is to completely destroy power generation plants and infrastructure in Ukraine’s major cities.

“He has destroyed the Ukrainian economy, including major factories, data centers and logistical centers, railways, and wheat and grain storage systems. Last year, Ukraine was able to sell or export its grain — remember that Ukraine has been one of the world’s larger grain exporters. Today its port facilities have been completely destroyed by Russian ballistic missiles, particularly in Odesa. Ukraine today has completely lost its ability to put millions of metric tons of grains on the world market, losing approximately $10 billion to $14 billion in exports, compared to before the war started.

“Russia is now bombing Ukraine almost without any interception, because Ukraine lost the ability to defend itself from ballistic missiles and drones. Ukraine doesn’t have enough munitions, especially Patriot missiles, which it had used to protect Ukrainian cities from Russian attacks. Ukraine is losing major industrial and infrastructure objects every day and every night, because Russia was able to start massive production of so-called turbo or jet drones. That’s basically the next generation of drones, which can reach a speed of over 600 miles an hour. Those drones can be intercepted only by very sophisticated anti-missile and anti-drone systems, which Ukraine doesn’t have.

“Those turbo drones are able to reach western Ukrainian cities that are very far away from the front lines, and from Ukraine’s border with Russia. Russia has been able to start attacking Ukrainian plants near the Lviv region, in western Ukraine, that it had never been able to reach before.”

That’s because Ukraine had developed a real expertise in designing and producing drones, replacing the brute force it lacked with the brainpower and sheer survival instinct it did have. “But developing the production of jet drones has made Russia a winner in the technology competition with Ukraine,” Mr. Smukler said. “During 2025-26, Ukraine demonstrated an enormous ability to attack Russia with their drones, and they were way ahead in their technology, but now Russia is able not only to modernize its drone production but also design and start massive production of jet drones. Ukraine doesn’t have that.

“Because of that, hundreds of people are dying or getting hurt, because Russia is bombing not only industrial and infrastructure targets but also Ukrainian apartment buildings and private homes.

“The U.N.’s official data shows the Ukrainians have lost 954 children younger than 14 during the last four years, and more than 22,000 civilians were killed or injured. Putin calls them collateral damage.

 

“I would like to mention here that we do not see any demonstrations or hear any speeches or reports or any kind of political statements from the U.N. or any other institutions condemning Russia for the massive numbers of civilian deaths or the enormous humanitarian crisis in major Ukrainian cities,” Mr. Smukler said pointedly. “We hear about Gaza every day. Many many times a day. Why don’t we hear about Ukraine?

“Once again, there is a double standard. We have seen demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags. Why aren’t they also carrying Ukrainian flags and condemning Russia for the enormous humanitarian crisis? Ukrainians will freeze to death during the winter that is coming.”

And that’s not the only humanitarian crisis the war in Ukraine will cause.

Ukraine cannot export its grain. Neither can Russia, because Ukraine has been able to harm its ability to use its Black Sea ports. “The United Nations is very concerned that this year, the world market will not receive the grain that it sends to the poorest countries in the world,” Mr. Smukler said. “It is expecting a big deficit of food.”

Ukraine will not be able to export the metals that it usually supplies, he continued. “This is the first time since the Second World War that Ukraine has completely stopped its production, because of the heavy bombing in the city of Kryvyi Rih, where Zelensky was born and grew up. It produces millions of metric tons of metal every year. The plant closed. And Ukraine lost between $14 billion and $21 billion from its budget because of it.

“Ukraine has lost almost 70 percent of its prewar economy, because of its lack of an anti-missile defense and because of the very heavy bombing of its cities, every day, with thousands of drones and hundreds of bombs and ballistic missiles.”

The winter will be nearly unendurably harsh in Ukraine, and that is what Russia wants, Mr. Smukler said. “Putin’s government is trying to cause this gigantic humanitarian catastrophe because it wants not only to defeat Ukraine, but to push it to capitulate. It will demand that Zelensky sign a peace agreement that it will dictate.”

On the other side, “as we know, Ukraine is responding to Russia with a successful counteroffensive on the frontline, and it started bombing and eliminating Russian infrastructure targets on Russian territory, very far away from the frontline and from Ukraine’s border with Russia.

“Ukraine hit an oil refinery in Omsk, about 3,000 miles away from the border with Ukraine. So Ukrainian drones have become more and more sophisticated.” In other words, Ukraine cannot defend itself well, but it is successful when it is on the offensive. As we already know, Ukraine was able to destroy Wildberries, Russia’s Amazon, and “also it destroyed four major data centers belonging to Russia’s largest banks. It destroyed Russian refineries across the country, decreasing Russia’s capacity to produce gas and diesel by 30 percent, compared to what is had been before the war.”

Ukraine also has destroyed Russia’s bot farms, which have been pumping pro-Trump propaganda into U.S. social media; the bots pretended to be American voters and patriots but in fact they were Russian computer programs. “Suddenly, the bot traffic went way down,” Mr. Smukler said. Surprise!

Now comes the most interesting part, Mr. Smukler said, but to get to it, he has to set the stage with information that already has been reported.

“Ukraine has been so successful hitting Russian refineries during the last month — and then suddenly, as we know, President Trump made several comments about the Ukrainian actions,” Mr. Smukler said. “Ukraine considers its actions legal, because they’re aimed at eliminating Russia’s ability to ship gas and diesel to the front lines.

“But President Trump called Ukraine’s president and then commented that Ukraine can do whatever it wants, but it cannot hit Russian refineries, because it’s affecting the U.S. market by increasing the price of diesel and gas here.”

This was what Trump said on October 10: “Zelensky could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to. Very difficult. It’s a war that should’ve never been started. We said, ‘You can do whatever you want to Russia. Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem.’ He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel around the world. And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He better damn well stop.”

Trump is “infusing extremely untruthful information into the minds of U.S. voters before the midterm elections, and it’s completely misleading,” Mr. Smukler said.

It is misleading “because, first of all, even when Russia supplied diesel on the world market, it was only 2 percent of that market. Secondly, it’s because President Biden and the European Union implemented sanctions against Russia at the beginning of the war.” Ukrainian actions did not affect the prices of diesel because “Russia had stopped supplying that product once the sanctions were implemented.”

But not only did Trump rail against the Ukrainians’ actions against Russia, “he also lifted the sanctions against Russian diesel for six months, and he’s saying that it will help lower the price of diesel in the United States.

“The first month, 300,000 barrels of diesel are supposed to be supplied to the American market, and that is supposed to decrease the price of diesel.

“And that is 100 percent not true.”

It takes about six to eight hours for the United States to run through 300,000 barrels of diesel, Mr. Smukler said. The lifted sanctions will make absolutely no more difference to the price of diesel than it would to the price of tea in China.

And, he added, “today the United States sells the largest amount of diesel in the world outside the United States. So when Trump says that we need the diesel on the world market, it’s such bulls**t.”

But here’s the new — and shocking —part.

Because of the war it’s fighting, Russia needs all its diesel for itself. “But Russia has so much raw oil,” Mr. Smukler said. “So Russia will fill their tankers with raw oil and sell it around the world.”

How will they do that?

“The tankers that transport diesel are exactly the same tankers that transport raw oil or other oil products. So who is going to check every tanker, wherever it goes, so see if it is filled with diesel or not?

“Nobody.”

It’s not an unusual scam, Mr. Smukler said, and it can be deadly. “Russians are buying Chinese refrigerators for their homes,” he said. There are refrigerators in the ships that go from China to Russia, but there also are drone supplies hidden in some of the containers. It’s smuggling, pure and simple. “And the U.S. administration knows it,” he added.

“The Russians will supply oil, not diesel, to every part of the world that will buy their oil. They will fill their tankers with oil, and they will say that it’s diesel on the ticket they give customs.

“That’s how the Russians have avoided many sanctions all this time. They cheat. And nobody in the world will take the responsibility or the burden to check to see if they’re cheating, particularly before they say it’s diesel and they have permission, for six months, to sell diesel.

“Right now, the gates are wide open for Russia to supply Russian oil to the world market. Already several economists and experts in the oil business are saying that it will give Putin between $150 and $200 billion during the next six months, if the price of oil stays where it is now.”

As many pundits in many mainstream media platforms have explained, “diesel fuel is high because Trump completely stepped into the swamp in the conflict in Iran,” Mr. Smukler said. “Because of that, and because of the Strait of Hormuz” — which has driven the cost of gas way up and Trump’s popularity way down — “a lot of commentators say that Trump is trying to reorient the public opinion away from his debacle. That’s why he’s blaming Ukraine, and especially Ukraine’s president, for why our farmers are suffering and paying such high prices.”

He thinks that what Trump is doing “is all wrong,” he added. “It’s all wrong that Trump lifted the sanctions and refused to implement the Lindsey Graham law.” (Trump had 30 days to sign the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act; he did, but waived the sanctions against Russia, as the bill allowed him to do.) “Graham is probably turning in his freshly dug grave,” Mr. Smukler said.

“It’s happening because the masks are off now. The dots are connected. Nothing happens without someone pulling the strings. Now Trump gave the Russians the opportunity to sell their oil.”

What’s behind it?

The chance to buy Lukoil, Mr. Smukler said. Lukoil is a multinational energy company, headquartered in Russia but with business interests around the world; including gas stations that can be found across the tristate area. The impetus behind all of this is “about buying a huge stake in Lukoil, like, say, one of the big refineries in Greece.”

That would give the buyers massive amounts of money. Mr. Smukler said that “experts are saying that Putin offered them Lukoil in return for lifting the sanctions.” And if part of the cost of that is destroying Ukraine and salting its earth, it would be well worth it to Putin.

It also is worth it to Donald Trump.

“After the diesel deal was announced, there were millions of comments from every possible source saying that Trump betrayed Ukraine,” Mr. Smukler said. “In his press conference, Zelensky said that he feels betrayed, because all the money that Russia receives from the diesel deal will go into the war to kill his people.

“And right after he said that, Ukraine stopped receiving intelligence reports from the United States and Elon Musk slowed down  Starlink and the military version of the service, called Starshield.

“Ukraine stopped getting a signal when Russian ballistic missiles took off,” Mr. Smukler said. “This is very important because it all comes from U.S. satellites, and for three days Ukraine was completely defenseless against Russian ballistic missiles, and dozens of people were killed because of it. They did not get the alarm and they were not able to get to shelters.

“This is how the dots connect.

“Trump announced the diesel deal. Zelensky criticized him, which was absolutely correct. He had the right to do that. It is an act of betrayal. And then Trump stopped providing the intelligence report, and because of that innocent people in Kyiv are dying.

“Nobody knows who gave the order, because Trump denied doing it and nobody else takes responsibility for it, but somebody gave the order to slow down Starlink and Starshield.

“Because of the slowdown, Ukrainian drones did not actively bomb targets or identify targets far away, deeply in Russian territories. So it eliminated the use of the long-range drones that attack the refineries.

“So the U.S. has punished Zelensky, and not only Zelensky but the Ukrainian people. They did not punish Vladimir Putin, who started the war and who is killing Ukrainians, and they did not punish his people, the Russians. Just the Ukrainians.

And that gets us right back to what’s going on right now.

For at least a year now, Mr. Smukler has been saying that the culmination of the war in Ukraine, Trump’s actions around the world, and the way that China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin, autocrats all, have governed their people, is leading to the reordering of the global rules that have kept countries and national interests in check since the end of World War II.

Those three leaders are preparing for a Yalta 2, Mr. Smukler has said.

Now we see that a first meeting between the three rulers is set for November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, China. “They will have a series of meetings to rearrange the world and redraft the coexistence rules, as Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin did in 1945,” Mr. Smukler said.

“This is the most important legacy point for Trump. And all three of them are in a hurry now, because for Putin it’s extremely important to start the process before Trump leaves the White House.” That gives them two years. “He understands that he cannot continue the war in Ukraine for a long time, and he wants to stop it because of the growing internal political tensions in Russia, and because his popularity is going down rapidly.”

“The next American president probably will never sit at the same table as Putin. And Xi is having a major congress of China’s Communist party, and experts predict that he will announce who his successor will be there.”

Mr. Smukler predicts that Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, might eventually become the fourth at these new Yalta meetings; he represents the growing, politically potent Muslim world. As for Europe, nah. The three potentates heading for Yalta think of Europe as effete, weak, and basically over.

There’s always Iran — that’s another huge dot. Wait for our next installment, when we connect the Islamic Republic to the Global Game of Thrones.