Global warming? Is Yalta in Alaska now?

World War II ended 80 years ago.

That means that much of the shape of the world as we know it was pressed into being then. The concentration camps, with their walking skeletons and ash piles, were liberated then. Nuclear bombs were unleashed then. Our often-breached but still widely respected understanding of the rules of war was forged then. The often-disregarded and mocked but still at least morally effective world governing body, the United Nations, was established then. And our general understanding of the balance of the world’s powers, as set forth at the Yalta conference, was codified then.

That, according to our analyst Alexander Smukler of Montclair, was then. And today, like it or not, is now.

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Mr. Smukler spent the first 30 yearsof his life in the Soviet Union, many of them as a Jewish activist. Just months before the empire fell, he received an exit visa from Gorbachev and came to the United States with his family. So he understands the way the Russians in general, and Vladimir Putin in particular, think in ways that most of the rest of us do not.

Applying that understanding to the world in front of us — and with the meeting that Donald Trump and Putin have planned for themselves on August 15 — Mr. Smukler sees the radically new world order that he has predicted for more than two years now taking shape.

This is what he sees.

The February 1945 meeting between the leaders of the Allies that were well on their way to winning World War II — America’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United Kingdom’s Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin — “created a platform for the peaceful coexistence of the future powers after the war,” Mr. Smukler said. “They met to discuss how they would coexist. After that, global politics moved in different directions — the Cold War, the global arms race — but still, there were no global conflicts or world wars for 80 years.

“In February, I said that the world needed a new Yalta meeting, because right now the world is basically disassembling and destroying every pillar that supports peaceful  coexistence. International rules cannot keep the superpowers from fighting with each other, because there are no rules, or if there are, authoratarian leaders no longer respect them.

“Unfortunately, during the last four years the U.N., including the Security Council, has shown that it’s not playing the role of the international body that was created and supported to stop wars,” he continued. “Now, as we see, it’s toothless and impotent, and it’s not playing any role in international affairs anymore.

“And now, with Trump in the White House, history has taken a completely different direction. Trump, I said then, would do anything possible to stop the war, because he is trying to preserve his legacy and pave the road to a new Yalta.

“The new Yalta will take place in the next three years, between the three superpowers. They are Russia, because Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weaponry; and China, because it is the world’s fastest growing economy, with one of the world’s largest populations and the world’s largest army and the world’s strongest economy.” The third superpower, of course, is the United States.

“Probably these country’s leaders have to meet, based also on their understanding of their personal political futures.” Those leaders are Putin, Trump, and China’s president, Xi Jinping.

There won’t be any European representatives, Mr. Smukler said, because the European Union is so amorphous, and without any unquestioned leadership. There probably will be a Muslim leader, though, because “the Muslim world is playing a very substantial role in the global game of thrones.” That leader’s likely to be Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

What would these leaders get out of the meeting?

According to Mr. Smukler, Trump “wants to have his own page in the history textbooks.” Putin “desperately needs to get out of the corner that he put himself into 3 1/2 years ago, when he started a brutal, inhumane aggression against Ukraine, violating every possible rule that was written at Yalta, as well as every possible U.N. and Security Council resolution.”

For an example of that rule-flouting, Mr. Smukler said, look at the “military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, despite the strong resolution, supported by every member of the Security Council, against doing that. No country in the world is allowed to have economy or military cooperation with North Korea. China is of course a major economic sponsor of North Korea, but even China never allowed North Korea to send its troops around the world as Putin did. We know that almost 13,000 North Koreans have been fighting in Kursk, and another 30,000 are being trained to participate on the Ukrainian/Russian front lines.

“A South Korean source reported that during the last eight months, North Korea supplied almost 4 million 155-millimeter artillery shells to Russia. That’s what’s being used on the front lines. Some European countries are trying to help Ukraine by supplying the same caliber shells. Europe was able to supply about 700,000 artillery shells. Compare that to North Korea’s 4 million. And that doesn’t include the shells Russia produces on its territory.

“Now many sources say that on the front lines, Ukrainians are suffering because they can do only one round against 10 rounds from the Russians.

“About a year ago, Ukraine was ahead of Russia in drone production and use. But today, Russia is way ahead of Ukraine. It has built almost 76 military plants that produce drones, using licenses and technology supplied by Iran and China.”

Mr. Smukler paused in the discussion of the upcoming Alaskan Yalta to talk about the state of the war.

“It is clear to every analyst looking at the situation that Ukraine is slowly, slowly, slowly deteriorating,” he said. “Today we can say that Ukraine is losing the war.

“And at the same time, Russia is not winning the war,” he continued.

“It is moving very, very, very slowly in its occupation of Ukrainian territory.”

The situation basically is that Ukraine can only defend itself. “You cannot win a war without offensive operations,” Mr. Smukler said. “No one in the world has ever won a war without an offensive operation.”

But Ukraine no longer can do anything beyond defending itself, because “Ukraine is exhausted. And Ukraine lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers.” Some were killed or wounded; some would have come from families that have been displaced from their homes and moved out of the country. “I believe that there are probably about 20 million Ukrainians now spread around the world,” Mr. Smukler said.

And Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “is extremely reluctant to sign a law allowing the military to mobilize kids from 18 to 26 years old,” he continued. “So Ukraine is not able to mobilize new divisions to replace the people who have spent months and months, or maybe even years, on the front lines.”

It’s hard to learn how many Ukrainian fighters have died or have been seriously wounded, Mr. Smukler said. Their government does not release those numbers. But it’s easy to see what’s happened to Russian soldiers. “There are several organizations that try to monitor and confirm those numbers,” Mr. Smukler said, using tactics that range from gathering information online to counting the number of freshly dug graves. “And there is a list of people confirmed to have died. That list includes 145,000 names. We know everyone on that list by name, by the place and date of birth and of death, and by where they died. But the numbers do not include those who disappeared and never were found again, or those who were brutally injured. Not every family puts an obit in the paper when their father or son or brother dies.”

He contrasted those approaches to providing information to Israel’s. “We know every soldier who died on or since October 7,” he said. “The Israeli government releases the names, with the family’s permission. But in Russia it’s different.”

He estimates that when everyone is counted — including the prisoners Putin sent to the front lines with pardons should they survive it — “after 3 1/2 years, Russia lost more than one million soldiers.”

He estimates that Ukraine most likely lost about 30 percent fewer soldiers, because that’s how defensive battles tend to work. But still, given their relative sizes, Ukraine has lost proportionately more fighters than Russia has.

“And morale is very low in Ukraine,” he added. “At the beginning of the war, Ukrainians fought like lions, with heroism and to defend their country and their democracy and their president. They saved Ukraine then, when Putin was near Kyiv.” They repelled the Russian forces.

But now, the exhausted, depleted Ukrainians, who already had to deal with the “sabotage by the Republicans,” as Mr. Smukler put it, who held back weaponry that had been promised to them, and then by the hold that Trump put on it when he took office, after Biden had gotten it released. “Trump suddenly stopped the aid and announced that the United States government will not spend a penny on it.”

So the combination of uncertainty, fatigue, and despair — along with Putin’s bombardment of its cities — have begun to eat away at Ukrainian resolve.

“Civilians are dying every day,” Mr. Smukler said, his voice rising in anger. “Children are dying every day. Many more children are dying in Ukraine than in Gaza, but the world is silent about it.

“Ukrainian civilians are sitting in the shelters or in the subway every night, and every night Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia and other cities are hit by missiles, and by hundreds and hundreds of drones. According to Russian propaganda, they hit only military targets, but only last week, President Zelensky said that 328 civilians were killed or severely injured, and among them were a substantial number of children.

“Where could you find in the press that the civilian population in Ukraine is under missile attack every single day now? Nobody wants to talk about it. This is not news anymore. Nobody cares.

“Everybody cares about how Greta Thunberg is going to leave Spain with the fleet of ships to support Gaza. We live in an absurd world. But we have to talk about Ukraine.

“The reality in Ukraine is that although Zelensky wants to win, and of course everybody wants them to win, they simply cannot win. They cannot win back the territories that the Russians are occupying and they cannot sustain the defense against the Russian invasion and the Russian military machine.

“In my opinion, the only way to change the situation on the frontline would be if NATO would send in troops on the ground. Otherwise, the Ukrainian frontline will collapse.

“It’s not going to happen tomorrow. Some experts think Ukraine can hold on until 2028. I don’t believe so. I think that the Russians will break the frontlines faster, and that the major crisis will take place in about five to six months.”

This is all a lead-up to the summit on August 15.

Mr. Smuckler talked about Trump’s changeable behavior toward Putin. “All of us who follow the situation and are trying to understand why the summit is happening know that we don’t have enough information,” he said. “Nobody understands it.

“Just a few weeks ago, Trump said that he was upset with his conversations with Putin. ‘He talks nice and then he bombs everybody,’” the American president said of his Russian counterpart. “Trump gave Putin 50 days to reach a peace agreement with the Ukrainians,” Mr. Smukler said. “He said, ‘Otherwise, I will do X.’ But no one in the world seems to know what X is.

“So he announced the ultimatum to Putin — of course Trump thinks that Zelensky cannot resist any solution from Putin that Trump supports, and I do believe that Zelensky wants to stop the war, because he is more knowledgeable than anyone else about the situation on the frontline.

“So Trump gives Putin 50 days, and of course 50 days is exactly how long it will take until it’s fall, and the summer offensive has to end anyway.

“But a few days later, Trump suddenly says that Putin has 10 days to finish the war, or I will implement the most serious, strongest sanctions on the countries that are buying Russian oil and helping Russia by supplying it with military aid.

“Trump put himself in a difficult position,” Mr. Smuckler said. He thinks that the president will be embarrassed, because “if nothing happens in 10 days, the world will laugh at him again. Because how many times has he said that he can stop the war?”

Two countries, China and India, buy most of the oil Russia sells, Mr. Smukler said. He doesn’t think that the secondary sanctions would bother China much — Trump already has imposed such huge tariffs on it, and lifted and then reimposed them, Last week, he granted still another 90-day reprieve for trade talks with Beijing.

“But India is in a different situation,” he continued. “India would be affected severely. In the last three years, India has increased its import of Russian oil more than 170 times, so obviously India is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Russian oil.” India buys it at a discount, and in rupees, which Russia has agreed to accept but can do little with, and then sells it. “India is making a fortune,” Mr. Smukler said.

“Trump threatened to increase the tariff on India, and I think that India will stop buying Russian oil. I think that although China did not react to the threat from Trump, it is saying quietly to Russia that they do not want to have a clash with the United States about it.”

Mr. Smukler talked about the recent meeting Putin had with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s unofficial ambassador to the Middle East and Russia. As he did the last time, Mr. Witkoff — the Jewish developer, originally from Long Island, who is an old friend of Trump’s, whose expertise is unsurprisingly in building, not international diplomacy — met with Putin without his own interpreter. That is something professional diplomats never do.

But before he met with Putin, he and Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s special envoy for peace negotiations with Ukraine, “had a fancy-shmancy breakfast at a fancy-shmancy restaurant owned by Alexander Rappoport, who used to live in Fort Lee.” News reports add that Mr. Witkoff breakfasted on a Crimean specialty called La Grande Cheburek, which apparently is a huge fried pastry stuffed with minced beef, lamb, and chopped onions, among other things. Once he was properly fortified, Mr. Witkoff went to the Kremlin, and “we have no idea what Witkoff and Putin discussed,” Mr. Smukler said.

And then Putin agreed to meet with Trump in Alaska.

“I looked for every possible explanation for why Alaska was chosen for the meeting,” Mr. Smukler said. “Everyone has a different theory. Was it because Alaska used to be Russian and so it still has a Russian soul? Was it because it’s in the Arctic? Is it to create a joint project to create a new sea path that essentially will replace the Suez Canal? And blah blah blah — but the part about the sea path is true…

“But why Alaska was chosen really is very simple,” Mr. Smukler said. “Remember, in 2023 the International Criminal Court in the Hague declared Putin a war criminal. He can be arrested. His visits to foreign countries that would welcome him can be arranged, but they would take time.

“Alaska is the only place Putin can fly now, because he doesn’t have to go through any other country’s airspace,” Mr. Smukler said. It’s all in the timing. “Trump announced his 10-day ultimatum, so to get out of the corner that he put himself in, their meeting has to be organized quickly. It has to be in either the United States or Russia. Those are the only places that can satisfy Putin in terms of his safety and security. It’s the only place where the logistics can work.

“There are only 2.5 miles separating Russia and the United States at the Bering Straits. So Putin can fly over all of Russia, across 11 times zones, and Trump can fly for seven hours, and they can meet in Anchorage.”

“It is also very symbolic — the Russian tzar meets the American president on what once was Russia soil and now is American, but it was chosen for security and logistics, and Trump has to meet as soon as possible because otherwise he will lose face.”

Trump also relishes the meeting because he’s been spending the last few weeks doing whatever he can to turn his base’s attention away from the fetid scandal that is the Jeffrey Epstein affair. A meeting with Putin is a great chance for him to change the subject.

Putin also needs the meeting, “because his economy really is suffering,” Mr. Smukler said. He really needs the war to end. “He has no problem with a shortage of soldiers, and he already has increased military production to unbelievable levels at high speed — he does have a problem with an enormous shortage of workers in those factories — but now, finally, everyone in Russia says that the sanctions finally are starting to work.

“Those stupid, toothless sanctions have started to affect the economy. He’s getting messages from his economic advisors that the economy is stagnating. Its growth from military expenditures has stopped. The economy is turning into recession.

“And now the Russian population is in favor of ending the war, because Ukrainian drone attacks are starting to affect them. Unlike Russia, Ukraine sends drones only at military and infrastructure targets. It does not target civilians. But the drones are flying every night, and the anti-aircraft systems are always on alert, and Russians often have to spend time in bomb shelters.

“Russian airports are not functioning properly, because of the massive drone attacks. Civilian airplanes cannot fly. This is especially a problem for Russians during the summer months, when they want to fly for vacations.

“So now Russians really think it’s time to stop the war, because it has become inconvenient for them.”

Mr. Smukler has one last point about Vladimir Putin. “He is turning 73 on October 7.” (Yes, ironically, that is the strongman’s birthday.) “If you look at Russian leaders during the last 400 years, none of them — czars, dictators, none of them — lived past 76. The official life expectancy for Russian men is 64 years.” So a 73-year-old is very, very old. “My personal theory is that for Putin, it’s not important to win the war, or get more territories to occupy, or to destroy Ukraine. It’s just important to him to get himself out the corner he put himself in when he invaded Ukraine.

“He wants to become a recognized world leader again. He wants to sit in Yalta with other global leaders as an equal partner, and when he dies to be buried as a person who fought for greater Russia. It is important for him not to die as a war criminal, cursed by everybody in the world.

“He doesn’t care how many casualties he causes, how many deaths he’s responsible for. He wants to be able to sit and draft the rules, as Roosevelt and Stalin and Churchill did.

“Trump gave him the chance to be back in that elite, and that is why he is going to Alaska. I predict that they will form some kind of relationship there that will be a framework for future peaceful coexistence between Russia and the United States — between Putin and Trump.

“I think that after this meeting, the world will create new rules that will allow us to continue life without a third world war.”

What about Zelensky? Why isn’t he there?

“Nobody needs Zelensky there now,” Mr. Smukler said. “These three guys — Putin and Trump, and also Xi — are paving the way for the new Yalta. Everyone else is way below them. Zelensky won’t be happy, and there probably will be lots of diplomatic work to make it a little better for him, but that doesn’t affect the global games of thrones, because his throne is very, very shaky.”

So yes, the Russian grizzly bear and the American polar bear will meet, and the result will be pizzly.

(And no, I am not making this up. The climate change that President Trump denies is causing both Russian and American bears to move in search of colder weather and more food. They mate, and the resulting cub, for real, is called a pizzly bear.)