URC2025: the Everest of Absurdity

Written on 10 July 2025.

The Ukraine Revovery Conference -- URC2025 -- is taking place in Rome. The U.S. will take part in a Ukraine coalition of the willing meeting for the first time in Rome.

The so-called 'coalition of the willing' is a group of countries that plan to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. It was established earlier this year and is led by France and Britain. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the launch of a European fund aimed at mobilising private investment for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The EU today announced a new €2.3 billion package of agreements signed with international and bilateral public financial institutions under the Ukraine Investment Framework.

Creating a Ukraine Economic Recovery Executive may sound like a mundane and bureaucratic exercise.  But in reality, it is all about leadership.  For over three years, no one has taken charge of supporting Ukraine’s economic recovery. Meloni can finally change that.

In addition to chairing the URC, Prime Minister Meloni has the relationships necessary to pull this together. She has a warm relationship with US President Trump. Her April visit to Kyiv, followed by her engagement with President Zelenskyy and renewed support for a Vatican-hosted peace process, signals her commitment to both diplomacy and reconstruction. (Kurt Volker)

Never, at least in this century, have leaders of important countries jointly engaged in such an exercise of supreme absurdity: URC2025. To be sure: they are all adults, elected leaders of their countries and institutions, braving Rome's sweltering summer heat, to achieve what?

A grandiose plan for rebuilding a country about to be destroyed and swallowed by a powerful neighbor.  As Kiev is burning under a hail of Russian drones and missiles, with desperate and exhausted people hiding underground, the circus in Rome is celebrating billions of Euros promised to rebuild what? A country led waste by Russian artillery and bombs, with a population about to be annihilated by a vengeful and cruel enemy. and possibly to be replaced by immigrants from the Russian Far East and South (Buryats, Yakuts, Tuvans)?  

The Rome circus is sure to amuse Moscow and spur ideas on how to harness European billions to the reconstruction of  Novorossiya, the sequel to the former Ukraine.

What is supposed to happen to the Ukrainians? Perhaps this:

-- one third dead;

-- one third fled to Central and Western Europe;

-- one third remaining to be thoroughly russified and mixed with the newcomers.

The situation is so bad that Russian experts are now proposing genocide as the only possible solution. That is appalling. But it's also delusional. It's just another example of how Russia thinks anything is acceptable except the idea of leaving Ukraine in peace.

Mark Sumner in Daily Kos

1. The Russian leader is convinced that Moscow’s battlefield superiority is growing, and that Ukraine’s defenses may collapse in the coming months, according to people close to the Kremlin.

   New York Times

Putin is continuing his offensive in Ukraine with great determination and brutality, despite the recent annoyance of US President Donald Trump. The New York Times claims to have learned that the Kremlin leader assumes that the military situation will develop in his favor in the coming days and weeks. What's more, Putin apparently assumes that the Ukrainian lines of defense could collapse in the coming months.

t-online

Russia will be able to routinely launch over 1,000 drones per strike package by Fall 2025, echoing a recent warning from Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces Commander Major Robert Brovdi that Russia could escalate its strike packages to include over 1,000 Shahed-type drones per day.[7] Ukrainian electronic and radio warfare expert Serhiy "Flash" Beskrestnov estimated on June 20 that Russia has increased Shahed production sevenfold and forecasted that Russian strike packages may soon incorporate up to 800 Shaheds — a forecast that is in line with the July 8 to 9 Russian strike package.[8] ISW previously reported that Russia is significantly expanding its long-range drone production capabilities for modified Geran-2 drones (the Russian-made analogue of the Iranian-origin Shahed-136 drones), including by opening production lines with companies in the People's Republic of China (PRC).[9]

The continued increase in the size of strike packages is likely intended to support Russian efforts to degrade Ukrainian morale in the face of constant Russian aggression. 

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