Author Topic: Ukraine  (Read 287133 times)

ccp

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1650 on: February 04, 2025, 07:45:22 AM »
" Do I remember correctly that at the time some of us on this forum (e.g. me?) were rather sympathetic to this line of thought? "

I dunno.  But I recall I had been skeptical from day 1.   :-D :wink:

I do also remember the experts thought Russia would crush Ukraine but then we got something don't send Z a plane to escape but send me weapons.


DougMacG

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1651 on: February 04, 2025, 10:47:18 AM »
"Two fellows who purport to speak for America but didn't ever win any national elections."

Do I remember correctly that at the time some of us on this forum (e.g. me?) were rather sympathetic to this line of thought?

Me too. I was definitely sympathetic to helping Ukraine stand up to Russia.

My point above being that two members of the party out of power who both had failed presidential attempts are telling the Ukranian crowd that they have the full support of America behind them, when in fact they have the divided support of America behind them.

We had differing opinions on the Forum, as I recall, of the degree to which the Russian invasion was triggered by US and NATO words and actions.

There were also differences about how much of our support does Ukraine deserve.
--------------
Replying to another point on the thread...

"BREAKING: President Trump just announced that he is demanding Ukraine to give its rare earth minerals to the United States as payment for all the aid."

   -In the debates of the Iraq War, the US was accused of just wanting Iraq's oil. But we didn't want their territory and we didn't take their oil.

That made our motives more pure. We were righting a wrong, not trying to profit or benefit from it.

It also made us more broke.

In the case of rare earth elements in Ukraine, are we selling our military capabilities to the highest bidder or are we taking sides for our own security interest?

If this is reduced to being transactional, why not sell to Russia in exchange for the minerals in Siberia?

And what about European countries who in total I think have given more than the US has?

Did we pay back France and the Netherlands for their help with our independence?
« Last Edit: February 04, 2025, 10:54:07 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1652 on: February 04, 2025, 12:17:26 PM »
I can see reframing this as any further Russian fukkery with Ukraine after a deal would also be direct fukkery with American strategic interests-- and as such be an implicit but not explicit reassurance to the Ukes.

ccp

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1653 on: February 04, 2025, 12:59:45 PM »
"Did we pay back France and the Netherlands for their help with our independence?"

Well I did go to a college named after Marquis de Lafayette in the 70s.

 :wink:


Crafty_Dog

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"Msyterious disappearance"
« Reply #1655 on: February 11, 2025, 09:39:54 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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Simplicius
« Reply #1656 on: February 13, 2025, 06:07:56 AM »
« Last Edit: February 13, 2025, 06:13:11 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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Demographic death spiral
« Reply #1658 on: February 13, 2025, 04:29:05 PM »
Third:

I'm not finding it at the moment, but the Ukes are in a demographic death spiral.

DougMacG

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Re: Demographic death spiral
« Reply #1659 on: February 13, 2025, 09:14:15 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1660 on: February 14, 2025, 08:33:54 AM »
Thank you.


Body-by-Guinness

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Peace Talks Supposedly Sans Ukraine
« Reply #1662 on: February 17, 2025, 04:45:28 AM »
It appears the talking point du jour in Dem circles is that Ukraine peace talks began without the Ukraine, as though speaking to one side and then the other as a prelude to something further is unprecedented. Some of the stretches made by the MSM to ding Trump—stretches they would have spared Biden—are sights to behold. Note, additional asshattery also available at the same link:

Morning Report — Trump is starting Ukraine peace talks — without Ukraine
The Hill News / by Alexis Simendinger / Feb 17, 2025 at 6:28 AM
In today’s issue: 

U.S. prepares for Russia talks without Ukraine
Congress upheaval over DOGE
Trump czar denies mayor got a DOJ deal
Gaza ceasefire shaky but in place
Close
The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Morning Report newsletter
The Trump administration will meet this week with Russian officials to discuss an end to Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine — but no delegation from Ukraine is scheduled to take part.

The meetings, hosted in Saudi Arabia, will feature a cadre of high-ranking U.S. officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff — working to fulfill President Trump’s long standing campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine. Rubio landed in Saudi Arabia today, and Kremlin officials confirmed they will be arriving today for talks beginning tomorrow, focusing on restoring ties, Ukraine and preparing a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.

The trip follows a recent phone call between Trump and Putin,in which Trump said the two leaders “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.” The call upended years of U.S. policy, ending Moscow’s isolation over its February 2022 invasion. Trump spoke separately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Notably absent from the meeting roster: U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg, as well as Ukrainian officials. A Ukrainian official said a delegation from Kyiv is in Saudi Arabia to pave the way for a possible visit by Zelensky. Trump on Sunday told reporters Zelensky “will be involved” but did not elaborate on the role he’d play in the talks. The Ukrainian president on Sunday traveled to Abu Dhabi, where his agenda was not immediately clear.

Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday “we have a long ways to go” before commencing any potential peace talks with Russia aimed at ending the war, adding that “nothing has been finalized” regarding upcoming meetings.

“We stand ready to follow the president’s lead on this and begin to explore ways, if those opportunities present itself, to begin a process toward peace,” Rubio said.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Russia’s advance in Ukraine is slowing. Here’s what’s happening and why.

▪ Reuters: The U.S. has asked its European allies what they would need from Washington to participate in Ukraine security arrangements.

During a Saturday speech at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky said Ukraine must be involved with any negotiations to end the war.

“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs,” he said. “No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine, no decisions about Europe without Europe.”

Senior administration officials, including Vice President Vance, Rubio and Kellogg had huddled in Munich last week, where the Russia-Ukraine war was a critical topic of discussion. On Wednesday, Zelensky rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support. Zelensky said he rejected the deal because it did not tie resource access to U.S. security guarantees.

As Ukraine remains iced out of the Trump administration’s peace talks, Europe is scrambling to respond. French President Emmanuel Macron will host European leaders today for an emergency summit on the Ukraine war after U.S. officials suggested Europe would have no role in any talks on ending the conflict.

Macron’s office said the “consultation talks” would address the tumultuous change in the U.S. approach to Ukraine and the attendant risks to the security of the European continent.

In a Sunday interview on Fox News, Waltz said U.S. negotiators “will bring everyone together when appropriate,” while specifying that the Europeans will be expected to “provide long-term military guarantees.”

▪ CNN: An isolated Europe worries the U.S. will negotiate on Ukraine badly without it.

▪ NPR: European leaders scramble ahead of Trump's Ukraine summit with Putin.

▪ The Guardian: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who raised the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine — will discuss the views of European leaders when he visits Trump at the White House at the end of this month.

▪ The Hill: The foreign minister of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, said that a united European army “will not happen.”

New targets: On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Zelensky said his country has intelligence that Putin plans to target Russia-friendly Belarus and warned against the weakening of NATO.

“And at that moment,” Zelensky continued, “knowing that he did not succeed in occupying us, we do not know where he will go. There are risks that this can be Poland and Lithuania because we believe — we believe that Putin will wage war against NATO.”

SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN

Blake Burman, who hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation, is off for President’s Day and returns Tuesday.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/5148844-morning-report-trump-is-starting-ukraine-peace-talks-without-ukraine/


« Last Edit: February 17, 2025, 10:17:45 AM by Body-by-Guinness »

DougMacG

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Re: Peace Talks Supposedly Sans Ukraine
« Reply #1663 on: February 17, 2025, 10:13:19 AM »
Don't we already know Ukraine's side of the story? They want their country back.

ccp

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I am not sure about the concept of leaving Zelensky out of the negotiations
« Reply #1664 on: February 19, 2025, 06:47:26 AM »
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/volodymyr-zelenskyy-money-ukraine/2025/02/18/id/1199612/

"Zelensky doesn't want peace, he wants money and power," the X user posted, to which Musk replied with a "100" emoji, signifying his agreement."

This is a bit slanderous frankly.  How many Ukes have perished?   

DougMacG

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Re: I am not sure about the concept of leaving Zelensky out of the negotiations
« Reply #1665 on: February 19, 2025, 07:34:24 AM »
Yes that quote is bad but the idea of talking to one side at a time, shuttle diplomacy, is fine (with me).

One term mentioned is elections in Ukraine.  How about (free) elections in Russia while we're questioning legitimacy of the parties...

How about free and fair elections in the disputed provinces (oblasts?), where do they want their allegiance to be. How about making the disputed areas independent, free to affiliate with either side, or neither?
« Last Edit: February 19, 2025, 07:52:41 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1666 on: February 19, 2025, 10:53:14 AM »
CCP:

I would distinguish that the quote is aimed at Zelensky and not the Ukes,

Body-by-Guinness

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Trump Calls Zelensky a Dictator
« Reply #1667 on: February 19, 2025, 11:52:45 AM »

ccp

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1668 on: February 19, 2025, 03:08:33 PM »
I disagree with the above

It is slanderous

Zelensky did not start the war.

He didn't force Urkanians to fight at least in beginning they volunteered

He deserves a seat at the table .

Anyone think he is doing this to get rich or is enjoying this?

Oh and if I hear if Trump was pres this would never have happened ........

That is totally presumptive and not fact.   

I recall people on this board calling Zelensky a hero for fighting for his people and he had no choice but to beg the US for aid.

Now suddenly it is ok to bash him as being a money grubber because Trump says so.

Well,  I don't say so.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1669 on: February 19, 2025, 03:58:02 PM »
1) I confess I'm seeing a lot of carrot and nowhere near the stick that I thought we would be seeing as part of the mix.

I suspect an important part of the calculus here is that the Ukes are losing and will lose.  If that is the case, then , , , what is America's best play here?

2) "Oh and if I hear if Trump was pres this would never have happened ........

"That is totally presumptive and not fact."

Disgree here.  I think not only is his brag true, but that it needs to be made.

ccp

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1670 on: February 19, 2025, 04:13:46 PM »
You don't think Zelelensky has a place at a table?


2) "Oh and if I hear if Trump was pres this would never have happened ........

"That is totally presumptive and not fact."

Disgree here.  I think not only is his brag true, but that it needs to be made.

Ok, so lets presume.  Say Putin would HAVE invaded during Trump presidency.  What would Trump have done?  not send money.  go to Europe and complain to them to pay for the weapons.   or what more sanctions?  threaten nukes - ours are bigger than yours.

So what was his big threat that would have scared the poop out of Putin not to invade ?   Just asking .   


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1671 on: February 19, 2025, 06:58:31 PM »
Taking out the ISIS Caliphate in six months

Killing 250 Wagners in Syria.

Sending 39 cruise missiles up Russian ass in Syria between the main course and dessert with Xi sitting at the table at Mar al Lago.

Killing Bagdaddy

Killing Suleimani

Blocking Nordstream

Driving world oil prices down and with them Russian revenues

Forcing NATO countries to increase military spending

Strong increase in US military spending

Providing Javelins and other real weapons to the Ukes

Having SOCEUR train the Ukes

Not talking shit about Ukes joining NATO.


How am I doing here?

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1672 on: February 20, 2025, 12:21:17 AM »
Something else not being discussed in the whole Zelensky mix: just what are American interests here? Will Putin be rolling his remaining T 72s, 80s, and 90s toward the Fulda Gap? I’m having a difficult time understanding just why we should care what happens in Crimea, particularly as the US has been degrading its readiness by tossing everything from artillery shells to surface to air missiles at a war where we won’t provide the capabilities to win so our goal instead is what, see how many Russians the Ukes can kill while getting their asses kicked by a superior force? What a fine message to send to folks we want siding with us.

Toss in the European oligarchs that have been playing patty cake with our Deep State where the Ukraine and other nefarious stuff is concerned—like American elections where the “Seven Sisters” played wretched roles in 2020 IMO—their willingness to hold hands and skip where the WEF, UN, Davos nitwits, et all are concerned, and I end up with few reasons to back those effete clowns or their plays.

And hey, let’s not forget Zelensky himself has stated he can’t account for what, half of US aid, which leaves the Ukraine looking like a major money laundromat with who knows whose pockets getting filled, and indeed with Trump’s mere mention—as chief US law enforcement official, no less—that Biden’s corruption in that country should be investigated leading to an impeachment attempt (against Trump!) and I can’t find an argument for the status quo that makes any sense or any reason for breathing life into that clown show, or supporting any of the players that thought that ill-conceived war makes any damn sense at all.

ETA this tweet:

@nicksortor

🚨 #BREAKING: Elon Musk has acknowledged DOGE’s intent to audit the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS in “aid” sent to Ukraine
A LOT of heads are going to roll!

Keep a close eye on which politicians and ex-intel officials start screaming about this the next few days—such as John Bolton or the Vindmans.

THEY will be the ones who need to be scrutinized the most.

Follow the money!
« Last Edit: February 20, 2025, 12:36:41 AM by Body-by-Guinness »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1673 on: February 20, 2025, 06:01:11 AM »
On the whole, of course I agree, but

" I’m having a difficult time understanding just why we should care what happens in Crimea"

Given Russia's geography, the Russian navy is fragmented between the Baltic Sea, the Pacific, the Arctic, and , , , with Crimea it still aspires to substantial mineral rights on land and into the Black Sea.  Crimea/Sea of Azov give Russia a warm water port and, subject to interactions with the Turks, naval access to the Mediterranean-- hence the importance of its now apparently lost port in Syria and efforts to establish new ones in Libya and on the Red Sea/Sudan.

ccp

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1674 on: February 20, 2025, 07:01:04 AM »
Well it was not only about Crimea per se
It was always if we do not stop Putin there he will be encouraged to go for more.

I still not sure what DJT would have done if Russia stepped in while he was President - send in US military which he has always been loath to do.  It would not be clean easy targets such as ISIS whose pick up trucks fitted with a machine gun can't match Abrams tanks, or boming the Iranian nuc prince or a single bombing or some chem weapons depot somewhere in Syria etc.

I don't want to be in Ukraine either.  Was always on the fence about it.  After much internal debate with myself came down to agree sending weapons and money to Ukraine was probably better then not.  Now we can see it may have cost us more then we gained.

OTOH we have shown we will not let Putin get away with easily in the future like o'hamster did.

Frankly all I feel is that Zelensky should be at the table.  Not that we should not negotiate our way out of having to spend billions on equipement to continue supporting them forever.


Crafty_Dog

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VP Vance on the Uke War as of now.
« Reply #1675 on: February 20, 2025, 07:34:09 AM »
My point about Crimea was simply a response to a comment in a larger post by BBG.

Here is VP Vance's take on things:

https://x.com/i/web/status/1892569791140946073

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: VP Vance on the Uke War as of now.
« Reply #1676 on: February 20, 2025, 08:13:52 AM »
My point about Crimea was simply a response to a comment in a larger post by BBG.

Here is VP Vance's take on things:

https://x.com/i/web/status/1892569791140946073

And indeed, a warm water port has been a Russian goal for centuries. It’s not that I don’t understand this, it’s that I’m not sure there is much point in lamenting imperial, er, Bolshevik, er, communist reform, er, Putin’s oligarchy’s ends. Up there with complaining about the weather, and unless we are willing to toss a fleet into the Black Sea, not something we are likely to prevent without loss of blood and military assets, again to what end?
« Last Edit: February 20, 2025, 08:16:49 AM by Body-by-Guinness »

DougMacG

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1677 on: February 20, 2025, 08:30:28 AM »
Some thoughts.

I take a wait and see approach with public utterances made during private negotiations. Z is a dictator? While Putin gets a pass? Why say that?  Perhaps because Trump probably can cause an election to happen in Ukraine and he can't in Russia. Does a new election in Ukraine include the disputed territories?

Zelenskyy was elected but postponed another election during the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

I favored limited US money going to Ukraine to stop the advance of Russia, but that can't go on forever, it's resulting in perpetual war.

No we don't want Russia to control Crimea, but don't they control it now? How do we push them out, declare US war on Russia? Over Crimea? Where would that lead?

If we want an end to the killing now, the result of a peace agreement will probably lock in the territory held now.

I don't like that one bit but I don't see a path to change it.

We can go back to lessons learned. Putin made his advances in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Notably against the US apologist, Barack Obama, and the absent president Joe Biden. Deterrence always was the answer. If Russia advanced, they would regret it. But they did advance and have no regret.

I see nothing wrong with the European allies financing and supporting the ground war in Europe while the US holds the nuclear arsenal that keeps the war from widening.

In that framework, the US can focus more on the threat of China. Part of the threat of China is to not push Russia into China's arms. Hence we see some placating of Putin while we also demand he stop the advance in Ukraine.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2025, 08:39:54 AM by DougMacG »

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1678 on: February 20, 2025, 09:17:29 AM »
Some thoughts.

I take a wait and see approach with public utterances made during private negotiations. Z is a dictator? While Putin gets a pass? Why say that?  Perhaps because Trump probably can cause an election to happen in Ukraine and he can't in Russia. Does a new election in Ukraine include the disputed territories?

….
Well stated, Doug, and certainly less breathless than my treatment of the issue.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1679 on: February 20, 2025, 09:27:34 AM »
Regarding Crimea:

For a variety of reasons, I see it being in Russia's hand a done deal.

I was just attempting to answer the question posed "Why should we care?"

Body-by-Guinness

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Martial Law Administrator in Chief’s Ironic Whining
« Reply #1680 on: February 20, 2025, 10:25:43 AM »
Yo Z with two Ys, if you feel excluded why not pick up the phone and call Putin yourself? More from C&C:

Well, you have to credit bravery to Ukraine’s Martial Law Administrator and Comedian-in-Chief Volodomyr Zelenskyy (two-y’s, never forget). He has declared a comedic war of words on our Nation’s top Mean Tweeter and the verbose Leader of the Free World, Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal ran the story yesterday below the headline, “Trump Calls Zelensky Dictator in Escalating Row Over Ukraine Peace Talks.” I don’t want to fight about it, but “row” is a European term for “fracas.” Just saying.

image 3.png
The fued began when Zelenskyy accused President Trump of being a Russian disinformer. So Trump predictably escalated to 11, branding Ukraine’s unconstitutional president an incompetent dictator. “He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle,’” Trump posted to Truth Social yesterday. “A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

The virtue-signaling world lost its mind.

Disgusting octogenarian Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) clutched at his pearls and declared it was “disgusting to see an American president turn against one of our friends and openly side with a thug like Vladimir Putin.”

Later, at an investor conference in Miami, Trump doubled down. “I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job,” the President said. “His country is shattered.” I hesitate to make predictions in these unpredictable times, but I’m going out on a limb and predicting Zelenskyy’s days as … well, whatever he is, are numbered.

The WSJ article then descended into predictable complaints about how Zelenskyy and the European countries have been “excluded” from negotiations with Russia. I do not understand these complaints. What on Earth is stopping them from picking up the phone and calling Putin themselves? They are literally on the same continent. Zelensky is right next door. Just go to Moscow, for Peter the Great’s sake.

Seriously, why are they whining so bitterly about Trump not “including” them, like flabby children sulking on the sidelines after getting passed over for the cool kids’ team? Poor babies, they weren’t invited? These people are supposedly leaders of important countries. They have diplomatic staff. They have embassies. They have armies. Their complaints reek of childlike dependency, tantrums, and weakness. Low-T.

🔥 Only Le Monde reported about French President Macron’s second counter-summit, in a story headlined, “Macron holds second day of emergency talks on Ukraine.. This time, the dainty espresso-sipper invited all the EU countries, many of whom —probably still resentful over not being invited to Monday’s useless counter-summit— phoned it in over zoom.

image 4.png
But one particular country wasn’t invited to this high-profile ‘emergency’ counter-summit on the Ukraine war. I’ll give you one guess—it rhymes with ‘Prussia.’ They completely miss the irony of whining about not being invited to summits when they first don’t invite most of the EU, and then exclude the one country with whom they wish to speak the most. Dumkopfs.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/triggering-thursday-february-20-2025

ccp

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Wow Great One reads the forum and agrees with me
« Reply #1681 on: February 20, 2025, 11:59:22 AM »
https://www.mediaite.com/news/mark-levin-defies-trump-by-backing-zelensky-and-trashing-putin-bashes-sick-and-un-american-foreign-policy/

It absolutely is slander and repulsive to call Zelensky the corrupt dictator (corrupt well maybe that I don't know) while praising Putin

I don't Recall any previous time Mark has publicly criticized TRump for anything recently and has almost always praised everything he does.   I give him credit to criticize Trump when he deserves it rather then playing along with every word that comes out of DJTs mouth.


Crafty_Dog

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When did the Uke War begin?
« Reply #1682 on: February 20, 2025, 12:10:41 PM »
I haven't read the Mark Levin piece yet, but this piece strikes me as making some important fundamental historical points:

https://x.com/i/web/status/1892302423387000885

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1683 on: February 20, 2025, 01:04:22 PM »
Well if we are speaking in absolutes perhaps Zelenskyy isn’t a “corrupt dictator,” but merely a corruptocrat that has suspended elections as a putative wartime expedient.

And in a similar absolutist vein, perhaps pointing nice words Putin’s way fails to encompass his ex-KGB despotic habits and acts.

If, however, the goal is to end a war that has dragged on far too long with far too little of significant benefit occurring where the country we are supplying only to a degree an endless, degrading, attrition is achieved, with no advantageous end in sight, and where no coherent statement as to why the status quo is in US interests being made or found and, if, calling our putative ally names while buttering up a megalomaniac helps all sides extricate themselves from a situation where no winning hand is found or played, doesn’t it make sense to do just that?

Body-by-Guinness

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Scott Adams on Negotiations
« Reply #1684 on: February 20, 2025, 01:20:29 PM »
@ScottAdamsSays

Persuasion tip:

If you are negotiating with Putin, you compliment him while being extra tough on terms. That sets the tone for mutual respect. You need that to get the best deal.

If you are trying to persuade Zelensky to go along, you make sure he knows how expensive it will be to resist. You slap him hard, in public, and don’t apologize.

Treating Putin and Zelensky the same in this context would be a huge negotiating mistake.

Trump’s approach seems shocking to many Americans because they’ve never seen anyone this good at negotiating. He’s pitch perfect in technique.

Putin is in the same weight class as Trump, as far as persuasion skills, which is rare. It’s a fair contest. But I suspect they both see a MUTUAL big win opportunity that could be historic.

Watch and learn.

Body-by-Guinness

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Testimony re Torture, Extortion, Killing of Americans by Uke Secret Service
« Reply #1685 on: February 20, 2025, 01:31:53 PM »
I dunno, the fifth post today?

Testimony alleging that Ukrainian Secret Service tortured Americans, killing one, among other acts that, if true, are hardly those of an ally or western democracy:

Ukrainian Whistleblower: ‘How the SBU Robbed and Killed a U.S. Citizen’
FEBRUARY 19, 2025 BY NEWS WIRE 2 COMMENTS

One of Ukraine’s most important whistleblowers, former Parliamentarian and People’s Deputy, Oleksandr Dubinsky, currently imprisoned by President Zelensky, has released a stunning video testimony this week – which exposes an egregious crime committed by his country’s Secret Service (SBU) against a U.S. citizen who was residing in Ukraine.

Presently, Dubinsky is being held in a secure facility where his is currently awaiting trial, after the state after a criminal case had been initiated against him for the alleged crime of high treason.

In his video below, Dubinsky reveals more crucial details about the death of Gonzalo Lira, a popular American video blogger and independent journalist, who reportedly died under unusual circumstanced while held in custody for criticizing the Zelensky government’s performance in the war, as well as criticism of Kiev regime’s repression of religious freedom in Ukraine.

The following is an English translation of Dubinsky’s recent video, interspersed with statements made by Vasily Nebenzya, the current Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations:

Dubinsky: Friends, hello, everyone. I am glad to see and hear you all. Another important statement that came from the representative of the aggressor State, the representative of the Russian Federation in the UN Security Council, Nebenzya. This is a statement that a US citizen, Gonzalo Lira, died in the SBU concentration camps, in the so-called ‘torture and secret prisons.’

Nebenzya: And listen to what the escaped deputy of the Rada (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine) Artem Dmytruk told. How he was tortured by SBU officers in 2022, trying to extract testimony and confession of treason. The main claim against him was that he spoke in defense of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Here are excerpts from his gruesome account published on the internet. I quote: “I was thrown on the cold and wet floor, somewhere nearby I heard the screams and groans of my friends. A little further away were the screams and groans of other people and the horrible sounds of torture. They were beating me terribly, trying to gouge out my eyes. I lost consciousness several times and fell from the chair, came to my senses and was tortured again.” End quote. He was threatened to be shot or disabled. After that he was transported to the gym of the Odessa SBU office, where he was forced to say loudly and clearly on camera that he would never again criticize Vladimir Zelensky and the head of his office, Andrei Yermak. In addition, he was forced to be an SBU agent to fight the opposition to Zelensky. Dmytruk is not the only politician who stated about the existence of SBU concentration camps in Kiev. Another Rada deputy, Oleksandr Dubynskyy, in particular, previously reported about the existence of such camps in Kiev. He claims that more than 300 people were tortured through it in order to extract testimony against now-elected US President Donald Trump for use in the electoral struggle in the United States. Interesting confessions, aren’t they? From them you can get an impression of what the American journalist Gonzalo Lira, arrested in August 2023, tortured to death and died in the SBU walls on January 12, 2024, had to go through. And what 70-year-old human rights activist Olena Berezhnaya, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison a month ago after months of torture in SBU custody, who was never broken by the Zelensky clique, had to face because she went to the United Nations and spoke out about human rights violations by the Kiev regime.

Dubinsky: This is also a confirmed fact. This is not the Russian IPSO, and of course, on the one hand, I am not happy that my investigations are being exploited by Russia Today. But if the Ukrainian government allowed the creation of torture secret prisons and concentration camps where Ukrainian citizens were being killed, broken and destroyed, and where US citizens were also destroyed there – then it doesn’t matter who is talking about it, as long as it is a fact confirmed by the reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ukrainian register of court decisions – which today contains dozens of decisions on the case of Gonzalo Lira, an American citizen who was detained under the same article, by the way, that was presented today to blogger Max Nazarov – “Glorification of the Russian invasion of Ukraine”. Under this article, he was detained in Kharkiv, brought to Kyiv, then held in the SBU concentration camp “Gym,” then returned to Kharkiv, placed there in the SBU detention center, and then from the SBU detention center he was transferred to the Kharkiv detention center, in the so-called “Common Fund” detention center.

In this Kharkiv detention center, US citizen Gonzalo Lira was tortured and money extorted from him. According to publications in his social networks and private correspondence, which I have at my disposal, Gonzalo Lira says that he was extorted for $70,000 dollars and gave it to the SBU officers of Kharkiv region, who opened a criminal case against him and kept him in the detention center. And they extorted money from him by means of abuse and torture, which were carried out on him in the Kharkiv detention center. These correspondence of Gonzalo Lira indicates that they beat him there, broke his ribs, tried to pull out his eye with a toothpick. This is how a U.S. citizen was treated in the 21st century in the center of Europe, in European Ukraine. Think about how stupid they are. I mean, people realized they were dealing with an American citizen, but they didn’t care. They tortured him, killed him, beat him to death, gouged out his eyes – so that he would just give them the money. Impunity and stupidity, under the guise of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Gonzalo Lira ended up with a broken rib.

He suffered a so-called pneumothorax as a result of this fracture. This is when bone fragments after broken ribs as a result of beating or trauma, which pierced the lung. Water begins to accumulate there, and the person dies. So, in the Ukrainian Register of Court Decisions there is a decision of the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Kharkiv, in which Gonzalo Lira is present via video link, and he already has bilateral inflammation of the lungs at that time, which is January 2024. His lawyer demands to transfer him under house arrest, because the man was really dying, but at the same time the prosecutor’s office, representatives of the SBU, judges and most importantly – the medical part of Kharkiv pre-trial detention center – claimed there was nothing threatening the life of Gonzalo Lira. And he literally in a few weeks dies in Kharkiv pre-trial detention center from pulmonary hydrocele, which was caused by broken ribs that punctured his lungs. It is obvious that he was not released from the Kharkiv SIZO after the beatings for three reasons. One: he would have clearly stated that he was seriously injured. And I emphasize again – I have his correspondence and statements, where he clearly describes what torture was, and how he was tortured in the Kharkiv detention center. The second reason is that he would have reported extortion by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine, and I also have these documents. And, finally, the third reason – if he was released with such fractures and such injuries, it would be obvious to everyone that he was tortured, and information would come out about the SBU concentration camp “Gym”, where foreign citizens were kept, and about the SBU torture in Kharkiv. And most importantly, the administration of outgoing President Biden, represented by Secretary of State Blinken and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, actually gave the go-ahead for an American citizen to be killed in a Ukrainian prison. Why did it give the go-ahead for this? Because Gonzalo Lira in his videos criticized not only the Ukrainian leadership, but criticized Americans as well, calling them out as responsible for unleashing the war in Ukraine. That’s what he was essentially killed for.

I recorded a lengthy video for you from the Kiev Court of Appeals, where they read excerpts from Gonzalo Lira’s reports about the torture that was carried out on him. Just watch this video so that you understand what Malyuk’s and Bakanov’s employees, SBU employees, were doing, how they were torturing Ukrainian and American citizens just to extort money from them. And then, after getting $70,000 dollars from Gonzalo Lira, they killed him to cover up their crimes.

Dubinsky’s speech in the Kyiv Court of Appeal

“An American citizen and blogger, Gonzalo Lopez Lira, was tortured in this concentration camp, the ‘Gym’. He got into this concentration camp, was held there (I have testimony that shows the stay of an American citizen Gonzalo Lopez Lira in the “Gym” concentration camp), and then was killed in the Kharkiv detention center. No one investigated this issue, because, of course, US and Ukrainian officials were not interested in the fact that a US citizen could be tortured to death in a European, democratic Ukraine. But we have the relevant documents personally from Gonzalo Lopez Lira, written by him. They are written in English. I will pass them on and hope that our esteemed judges on the appellate level know English and will read them. What do these messages from Gonzalo Lopez Lira say? They say that he was detained after being repeatedly beaten and after being released from the concentration camp (and he made further recordings), he was detained again by the Security Service of Ukraine, charged with glorification of Russian armed aggression and, since he is registered in Kharkiv, sent to the Kharkiv pre-trial detention center. According to reports personally from an American citizen, which I will also pass on to you for your assessment, Gonzalo Lopez Lira has been in the so-called “pressure cell” 4 times. During this time, his ribs were broken, and in order to get money from him, because I’m speaking not only about beatings, but also about extortion of money, they tried to gouge out his eye with a toothpick. He describes the process: how his head is clamped between someone’s knees, and they try to gouge out his eye with a toothpick in order to get him to pay money. Gonzalo Lopez Lira pays representatives of the SBU and the Kharkiv detention center $70,000, as it is also stated here, to stop the abuse. And to give him the opportunity to get out of the detention center on bail. After that, the Dzerzhynskyi District Court of Kharkiv decided to set bail for Gonzalo Lopez Lira in the amount of $11,000. He tries to leave Ukraine, is grabbed again, thrown into the detention center, beaten again, and suffers a pneumothorax. This is a lung injury due to a broken rib that pierces the lung tissue, bilateral pneumonia, edema, and he dies. There is a decision of the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Kharkiv, which clearly states that he is in critical condition, but the staff of the Health Care Organization of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine assure that Gonzalo Lopez Lira is not in danger. He is not provided with a lawyer, he has a free Ukrainian lawyer who does not even speak English. Then, two weeks after the hearing, he dies in the Kharkiv pre-trial detention center from pneumothorax and bilateral pneumonia. In order to cover up the crimes against the US citizen, extortion of money from him and infliction of bodily harm, including in the SBU concentration camp. This is just an illustration of how criminal cases are fabricated in modern Ukraine under such a convenient article as “high treason”. And how judges participate in this fabrication in order to keep people who interfere or threaten the regime under control.”

“I have everything, I am providing you with the relevant materials. Make a decision, give another assessment that all this does not exist.”
Watch Oleksandr Dubinsky’s video here (enable subtitles for English translation):

https://youtu.be/9V7N53cDxXc?feature=shared

https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/02/19/ukrainian-whistleblower-how-the-sbu-robbed-and-killed-a-u-s-citizen/

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1686 on: February 20, 2025, 02:24:45 PM »
IIRC for reasons of American laws against torture in the early days of the GWOT we offshored interrogation ot certain other countries to be performed by non-Americans.

IIRC one of those countries was Ukraine.
 

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1687 on: February 20, 2025, 02:52:48 PM »
IIRC for reasons of American laws against torture in the early days of the GWOT we offshored interrogation ot certain other countries to be performed by non-Americans.

IIRC one of those countries was Ukraine.

Yup. Throw in the rumored bioweapon research facilities there (which Putin certainly doesn’t want on his borders) and you end up with at least two ulterior reasons why Uke supporters may shy away from a full understanding of what all the US is into.

Crafty_Dog

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Zelensky poll funded by USAID
« Reply #1688 on: February 20, 2025, 04:44:05 PM »

Body-by-Guinness

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Putin, Negotiations, & the Holodomor
« Reply #1689 on: February 20, 2025, 05:54:04 PM »
The Holdodomor, as the mass starvation of ~5.5 million Ukrainian “kulaks” during Stalin’s (Khrushchev was the henchman) has got to be lurking in the back of the minds of most Ukrainians, and is something I’ve some sympathy for. As that may be, perhaps this piece embraces wishful thinking, but it suggests using Putin’s proud knowledge of Russian history to note that wretched chapter and use it to help extricate Ukraine from its current wretched circumstance:

A Proposal for a Settlement to the Ukrainian War: Remember the Holodomor
DAVID SOLWAY | 5:24 PM ON FEBRUARY 20, 2025
   

Alexander Wienerberger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
My interest and concern regarding the war in Ukraine come naturally. My mother was born in Ukraine, and her story of harrowing flight from her village with her mother and brother in the middle of a snowstorm in the dead of night, pursued by a squad of White Russians and Ukrainian irregulars, remains fresh in my mind.

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My father was born in the Russian oblast (administrative division) of Georgia near the border of South Ossetia, Stalin’s home region, and was the spitting image of the Russian tyrant — short, muscular, with a heavy mustache, a tendency to violence, and, like Stalin, played the piano. A racketeer who had the mayor of Montreal in his pay, he kept an enemies list and occasionally acted on it. In some sense, a domestic version of the Russia-Ukraine conflict occurred in my own home.

Of course, the political story of the last decade or so is far weightier and more complex. Authentic scholars and political researchers can introduce us to historical realities and intricacies going back centuries, helping us to arrive at partially informed conclusions. As the Cato Institute explains with respect to the modern era, “Washington has meddled in the political affairs of dozens of countries—including many democracies. An egregious example occurred in Ukraine during the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014 [which began on Nov. 21, 2013, involving the subversion of the elected government of the country]. As Ukraine’s political crisis deepened, the extent of the Obama administration’s meddling in Ukraine’s politics was breathtaking.”

Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the time Victoria Nuland, who pronounces “the Ukrainians” as “the Ukrainions,” as if she were observing an episode of Star Trek, engaged in an infamous telephone call with U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in which they discussed their preferences for specific personnel changes in the post-Yanukovych government.

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“It is no wonder that Russia reacted badly to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government—an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing but apparently with its assistance. One can legitimately condemn some aspects of Moscow’s behavior,” concludes the Institute’s analysis, “but the force of America’s moral outrage is vitiated by the stench of U.S. hypocrisy.”

In the current situation, there are a number of salient issues we have to get straight as negotiations begin. It needs to be understood that Zelenskyy has always been a fraud, a two-bit vaudevillian in military fatigues who was the beneficiary by incremental steps of the earlier Democrat-sponsored coup under Obama and Nuland and promoted by an equally corrupt Biden. Despite the adulation in which he is held by the Left, Zelensky is not a serious actor. Big on bravado, he has little leverage.

As for Putin, the Russian dictator may be a bloody-minded autocrat but feels that he is on a mission to restore the grandeur of and international respect for his country. Steven Rosefielde in "The Kremlin Strikes Back" gives a graded and balanced account of the Russian calculation, which is intent on securing its borders along with the recovery of portions of lost territory which, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it believes remain inherently Russian. These are aspects of the political equation that need to be addressed.

Putin had already given adequate warning that he would not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO, which would have brought an aggressively audacious Europe into Russia’s sphere of influence to hover on the nation’s borders. We recall that both Obama and Biden had promised Ukraine eventual membership in NATO, a geopolitical error of monumental proportions.

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In a wide-ranging interview in The New Yorker, University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer argues that “There is a three-prong strategy at play here, E.U. expansion, NATO expansion, and turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.” Russian fear of Western power projection on its intimate borders is, for Mearsheimer, the crucial issue. This is something that Trump perfectly understands, stating categorically that the European encroachment was a triggering casus bellum, as was Zelensky’s expressed desire to join NATO.

Like it or not, Putin has operational control over considerable territory and enjoys a very strong arbitration position from which he will not be easily dislodged. It is only his putative desire to end the war, his respect for Trump, and his deep knowledge of Russian history that can lead to a settlement. This brings us to the atrocity of the 1932/33 Great Famine, or Holodomor (from the Ukrainian holod, hunger, and mor, extermination), a deliberately engineered, mass slaughter to confiscate private property, commandeer food stocks, and annihilate vast swaths of the population in order to collectivize the agricultural production of the region. The death toll is estimated at between 5-7 million. The Russian sense of guilt for the Holodomor, a continuing embarrassment tainted by the real implication of genocide, may possibly lead Putin to soften his negotiating stance.

As Jonathan Bowden points out in "The Cultured Thug," “This causes a headache for Russia,” which denied the existence of the famine until 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Indeed, the first Russian leader to attend the Holodomor Victims Memorial in Kyiv was Dmitry Medvedev in a gesture of moderate atonement. The Russian exculpatory view regarded the Holodomor not as an essentially Russian crime but as the nefarious project of the Communist Party under the sway of the psychopathic Stalin, in other words, as something distinct from the soul of the Russian nation. It is a convenient exemption. Nevertheless, writes Bowden, the Holodomor “remains a sort of albatross around the Greater Russian neck.”

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Even Robert Conquest, whose "The Harvest of Sorrow" is the definitive exploration of the Great Famine, is nuanced in his condemnations, stating in a 2006 interview, “I think there are guilty people, but they aren't the Russian nation or anybody else. They're a particular group of particularly horrible people,” associated with the Communist Party and dominated by one of the most evil human beings in the modern history of the world, Josef Stalin. Conquest does not regard him “as a modern man, a terrestrial man, an Earth man. He sounds like a monster from some strange planet.” The current attitude toward Stalin in Russia is apparently ambivalent, but it is telling that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s "The Gulag Archipelago" is readily available in the country.

I believe it is the fact of the Holodomor that may constitute one of Donald Trump’s and his delegation’s crucial bargaining chips in the current negotiations to bring the war to an end. No one can doubt Putin’s love and pride for his country, his scholarly and authoritative possession of the facts of Russian history from earliest times to the present, as Tucker Carlson’s interview with the Russian leader made clear, and his restoration of the Orthodox Church to its original national prominence. Taras Kuzio’s recently published "Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War" is not kind to Putin but acknowledges that Russia’s historical and cultural essence affirms its status as a special and unique community that must be consolidated. 

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Scott Pinsker at PJ Media alleges that “Putin is not a mindless zealot or a warmongering ideologue; he’s an immoral, Machiavellian, pro-Russian pragmatist. That might not make him a good person, but it probably does make him someone we can negotiate with.” I suspect Putin may have a rudimentary conscience as well a genuine belief in the spirit of his land and people—and that, while recognizing the realpolitik of battlefield gains, which he will no doubt try to advance prior to a freeze in hostilities, he may be willing in light of the Holodomor to make certain concessions to the once-again suffering people of Ukraine.

It is, in my estimation, an issue that should be tactfully raised, a way of putting the atrocities of the past to rest in a cessation of further bloodshed. Territorial losses and armistice provisions will have to be accepted by the Ukrainian leadership. This is no time for corncobbing, for the truth is that the Ukrainian people have endured enough of the consequences of U.S. misconceptions, European misjudgment, NATO expansionism, internal grift, and Russian ferocity.

There is no point in trying to disambiguate a tangled needlepoint of causes or convoluted hatchwork of ambiguities. It is, rather, important to remind Putin of Medvedev’s redemptive gambit. A resolution to the conflict would be in everyone’s interests, but it is also, given a cruel and sanguinary history, a Russian obligation. It is time to exorcise the ghosts of the past and end the Holodomor of the Russia-Ukraine war.

https://pjmedia.com/david-solway-2/2025/02/20/a-proposal-for-a-settlement-to-the-ukrainian-war-remember-the-holodomor-n4937177


Crafty_Dog

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GPF: The View From Russia
« Reply #1691 on: February 21, 2025, 04:38:37 AM »


February 21, 2025
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A Russian View of the Ukraine Peace Talks
They’re better thought of as a reorientation of Moscow’s foreign policy.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova

The reports surrounding the Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia held between the United States and Russia – but not Ukraine – suggest a reconciliation is underway. On Feb. 19, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia and the U.S. have “started to move away from the brink of collapse” and that their bilateral relations now have a “positive atmosphere.” He praised U.S. President Donald Trump for being the first Western leader to understand Moscow's position on Ukraine and NATO. Later, Washington condemned the use of the word “aggressor” in a G7 communique to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Yet the road to true U.S.-Russia reconciliation, let alone to a lasting peace in Ukraine, is still a long way off. Commenting on the Saudi summit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov seemed to agree, saying that despite this first step in restoring relations, the meeting alone fails to guarantee a positive outcome.

This is partly a reflection of how Russia views the context in which the talks are taking place. Traditionally, Russia’s concept of the West was more about Europe – even the parts that often go overlooked by most Americans – than it was about the United States. Their relationship was often adversarial. But after the Soviet Union fell and the European Union emerged, Europe began to see the places vacated by the Soviets as opportunities for growth, and thus they became a more immediate military threat – or so the thinking in Moscow goes. Russian strategy, then, was oriented to the west of its borders. The U.S. embroilment in this strategy is due to its alliance with Europe. The war in Ukraine stems from this long-term standoff: Russia could not live side by side with the growing anti-Russian government in Ukraine, and it could not tolerate EU and U.S. support of Kyiv in the war.

This explains why the Russian public was generally eager for Trump to win the presidency: He vowed to end the war on day one. He didn’t, of course, but many Russians see him as someone with whom their leaders could at least negotiate. This is important since they believe the U.S. is at once the stronger power and the instigator of the war.

Trump says this is a European war. And in many ways, it is. The geographical proximity to Russia distinguishes the European reality from the American one, where European countries have expressed concern about possible Russian military expansion westward. In addition, the main flow of refugees from Ukraine has been to the European Union rather than the United States, which also indicates the EU's greater involvement in the conflict.

The Russian public’s reaction to the talks ranges from muted to cautiously optimistic. The public understands that negotiations entail concessions, which they can stomach to a point, and that a war that’s been raging for three years won’t magically end in a day. Still, the market reaction was optimistic. After the first phone call between Putin and Trump, capital growth reached 500 billion rubles ($5.7 billion). The enthusiasm owes to the possibility that sanctions will be lifted. Already there are rumors that Visa and MasterCard will return to the country. The Russian stock market, however, fell after no tangible agreements came from the Saudi summit.

Poll: Effectiveness of Mediators
(click to enlarge)

Polls conducted on the eve of Trump’s inauguration showed that Russians tempered their expectations ahead of his second term. According to the polls, just over 50 percent of Russians did not believe he would make good on his promise to resolve the conflict within six months. Their doubts may be due to Trump's constantly changing rhetoric and overly ambitious promises. What has not been tempered is their desire for the war to end. Polls in January showed that 61 percent of respondents believed peace negotiations should begin immediately, while 31 percent believed the war should continue – the latter the lowest figure yet observed.

Poll: Continue War or Negotiate Peace
(click to enlarge)

But central to the resolution of the Ukraine conflict is an understanding of where Moscow stands with the West. Russia has not managed to become self-sufficient; it remains dependent on imported technologies and goods. In addition, Russia needs investments and an influx of currency, as evidenced by Moscow's plans to sharply reduce spending from the National Welfare Fund this year. It doesn’t even plan to spend money from the fund to cover the budget deficit, whereas last year it used 1.3 trillion rubles for this purpose.

Restoring relations with the West, which includes the European Union, seems unrealistic. Sanctions aside, there is a more fundamental obstacle to overcome: Both see the other as a threat rather than a partner. Russia no longer views the EU as the major customer it once was. The ongoing fragmentation of the EU amid the declining economic growth of Germany, the Continent’s economic engine, has convinced Moscow that demand for its resources won’t return anytime soon.

Thus the outreach to the U.S. was a move born of need and aided by opportunity. Having turned away from the West, Russia needed to reconsider its foreign policy toward the East. The most obvious partner was China, with which Russia had complementary interests that ensured sustained future cooperation. But it would be a mistake to assume Russia will be satisfied only with growing relations with China. It still aspires to become a global power, so it strengthened trade with neighbors and, crucially, its military readiness. Russia is stepping up military exercises and its military presence in the Pacific region and is promoting the Northern Sea Route, which ends in the Bering Sea. As the eastern vector strengthens, the Kremlin has begun to pay special attention to the Far East, increasingly focusing on the possibility of developing the territory.

This opportunity would not be possible without the crack that has formed between the U.S. and the EU. Brussels may have a direct interest in Ukraine, but under Trump, the U.S. does not. Moscow understands that Washington is changing its position, prioritizing economic development and offloading security costs and responsibilities to allies overseas. In simple terms, Washington no longer sees European security as a fundamental U.S. concern, especially if it knows Moscow cannot successfully project power there.

Russia understands that any serious decisions over Ukraine will take time to make, so it’s trying to develop postwar relations now. This is why, during the Saudi summit, both sides discussed future economic cooperation, including global energy prices, and agreed to pave the way for future cooperation and investment. It was as much a forum for ending the Ukraine war as it was a platform for future interaction. If that interaction continues, it will solidify Moscow’s turn to the East, where any potential U.S. threat is likely to come from.

ccp

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"Watch and learn"
« Reply #1692 on: February 21, 2025, 07:45:14 AM »
From BBG post above

@ScottAdamsSays

Persuasion tip:

If you are negotiating with Putin, you compliment him while being extra tough on terms. That sets the tone for mutual respect. You need that to get the best deal.

If you are trying to persuade Zelensky to go along, you make sure he knows how expensive it will be to resist. You slap him hard, in public, and don’t apologize.

Treating Putin and Zelensky the same in this context would be a huge negotiating mistake.

Trump’s approach seems shocking to many Americans because they’ve never seen anyone this good at negotiating. He’s pitch perfect in technique.

Putin is in the same weight class as Trump, as far as persuasion skills, which is rare. It’s a fair contest. But I suspect they both see a MUTUAL big win opportunity that could be historic.

Watch and learn.


I hope this is true but using brute force and unnecessary public insults  to piss everyone off is not going to endear anyone for the future IMHO.  People remember.   

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1693 on: February 21, 2025, 08:06:01 AM »
Agree, as we are about to see with regard to Canada for example.  Trump has been needlessly disrespectful to Canadian patriotism.

As far as Zelensky goes, I'm clear that he interfered with our election by giving dirt on Manafort to Clinton, and doing what in effect was a campaign stop for Biden (or was it Harris?) in PA, not to mention having Biden's balls in his hand via Hunter's grift-- but the Ukes in the field have fought hard and well, and have considerable respect in this regard from the American people-- whose government has used them as cannon fodder.  Deep respect should have, and should be, part of Trump's message even as he crunches Z as necessary.

ccp

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good points
« Reply #1694 on: February 21, 2025, 08:16:33 AM »
As far as Zelensky goes, I'm clear that he interfered with our election by giving dirt on Manafort to Clinton, and doing what in effect was a campaign stop for Biden (or was it Harris?) in PA, not to mention having Biden's balls in his hand via Hunter's grift-- but the Ukes in the field have fought hard and well, and have considerable respect in this regard from the American people-- whose government has used them as cannon fodder.  Deep respect should have, and should be, part of Trump's message even as he crunches Z as necessary.

good points.  Zelensky may not be our friend at all.  But his goals do seem to align with preserving Ukraine sovereignty which as we noted in past should be HIS goal.  His goal was always not totally congruent with ours.

I agree - lets see what happens.

Thanks to BBG CD and Doug for their input for bette insight to all of this. :))
« Last Edit: February 21, 2025, 08:18:55 AM by ccp »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1695 on: February 21, 2025, 08:49:16 AM »
Teamwork!


Body-by-Guinness

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Grim Outlook for Ukraine and a Europe that Can’t Walk the Walk
« Reply #1697 on: February 21, 2025, 01:08:42 PM »
A straightforward look at the current situation in Ukraine:

Europe’s Reality Check
February 20, 2025
By: Matthew Blackburn

As Donald Trump negotiates with Russia, Europe needs statesmanship and strategic thinking rather than knee-jerk emotive rhetoric and moral panic.

Europe’s weakness has never been so openly on display. President Donald Trump has shattered the existing framework of Western support for Ukraine. America has officially abandoned a hugely costly and failed nineteen-year quest to expand NATO into Ukraine. The commitment to ensuring Kyiv regains its pre-2014 territory is now canceled. The United States will neither send troops to Ukraine nor extend Article 5 to any Western “peacekeepers” deployed there.

Europe is now expected to foot the bill of defending and rebuilding Ukraine while America seeks to recoup some of the $175 billion it has spent on the war with a deal granting it ownership of Ukrainian rare earth minerals. According to Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, Europe won’t even have a decisive say in the deal America makes to end the war. At an emergency summit in Paris called straight after a traumatic Munich Security Conference, Europe’s leaders could not agree among themselves on any new common position.

For Europe’s pro-Ukraine commentariat, this is nothing short of a nightmare. They, as well as most European leaders, have spent three years ignoring or outright denying every sign that the West is unable to defeat Russia in Ukraine. At every juncture, they wanted to spin the roulette wheel of escalation “just one more time” to weaken Russia.

They systematically ignored the evidence of Ukraine’s military decline and still call for yet more support. Their support for Ukraine was once encapsulated by the phrase, “We stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.” In 2024, it shifted to “Ukraine is on an irreversible pathway to NATO, and we must put them in the strongest possible negotiating position.” Now, in 2025, there is a third version: “No negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine” and “peace through strength.”

What does this new slogan entail? Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski characterizes the conflict as a “classic colonial war” that could continue for another ten years. Europe’s hardliners are quite prepared to watch Ukraine turn into a Syria-style failed state as long as Russia does not win. The moral concern to stop Putin does not, however, extend to the Ukrainian people themselves, who are to be sacrificed for the greater good of weakening and containing Russia. The hardliners are proposing a truly nightmare scenario: Europe prolongs a war it cannot win until Ukraine’s collapse opens a pandora’s box just as America walks back its security commitments.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Volodymyr Zelensky call for a rapid burst of defense spending, implying that Europe’s GDP—ten times larger than Russia’s—can be rapidly converted into an effective and deployable military force. This ignores the basic facts on the ground. The balance of power has swung in Russia’s favor. Ukraine is running out of men. Lithuania’s Defence Minister admits the Russian army is three times bigger than it was in February 2022. Zelensky reports the Russian army is about to expand by another 150,000. Meanwhile, Europe cannot ramp up defense production in time to save the situation; Russia is outproducing them.

Independent reports have established the woeful state of Europe’s leading militaries, deficient not only in trained soldiers but also in weapons and equipment, much of which has already been donated to Ukraine. Building a European army without U.S. support or leadership is an unprecedented challenge that will take a decade. The fundamental disagreement among European leaders on deploying “peacekeepers” to Ukraine points to a deeper problem. Europe can talk the talk but cannot walk the walk. Without muscle or a unified plan, Europe cannot take Russia on now; a deal is a necessity.

The West has played its hand, from weapons deliveries to sanctions and diplomacy to isolate Russia. There is strong evidence that Russia’s economic problems in 2025 will not be serious enough to weaken its war effort. Yet, many influential voices in Europe are stuck repeating the same old tropes for why the war must continue.

The first trope is on Russian casualties (outlandishly claimed to be rising toward 1 million), which is used as an argument for continuing the war on the grounds that “Ukraine can still fight.” Meanwhile, silence reigns on the subject of Ukrainian losses. The hardliners do not want to admit the depth of Ukraine’s manpower problem. If they fail in their drive to mobilize eighteen to twenty-four-year-old men, they will not be able to hold the frontlines. Given the news of U.S.-Russia diplomacy, can we expect huge numbers of young people to sign up to die in a war that may soon be over?

The second trope is that Russia cannot be trusted under any circumstances. “Appeasement” of Russia will embolden its imperial expansion. There is a clear contradiction between the claim of Russian losses and the assumption of continuous Russian expansion. If Russia is already so weakened, how could it contemplate invading a NATO country? Yet, we are told Russia is simultaneously on the way to a 1917-style regime collapse and that it is ready to roll through Europe as the latest incarnation of Nazi Germany.

Fears of further Russian expansion into the Baltics ignore the fact that Russian society, while supportive of their country’s war effort, broadly wants peace. The loud, radical, warmonger voices in Russia do not reflect broader elite and public attitudes. There is no support in Russia for endless territorial expansion. Indeed, there are strong grounds to believe the narrative of Russia’s unquenchable thirst for imperial glory is partly a Western fantasy imposed from without. Inside Russia, the Ukraine conflict is viewed generally as a defensive war against NATO expansion.

By all accounts, Trump’s pivot to peace is a rejection of dangerous hardliner delusions and a victory for common sense. As U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth put it, the new approach is based on the “recognition of hard power realities on the ground.” Europe’s leaders must now adapt sensibly to this new reality. In pitching to continue the war without U.S. backing, Europe’s hardliners are selling a costly recipe for risk and insecurity in Europe. Europe’s taxpayers are asked to foot the bill while suffering in austerity and recession.

Neither Trump’s bold talk nor the hardliner rhetoric should distract Europe from the most important point: a complex deal is needed to secure peace in Ukraine and Europe. What is needed is a major rethink of how Europe can achieve lasting peace in the continent. Europe could and should be worried about the signals from Washington that shatter the fundamentals of our security thinking. It is statesmanship and strategic thinking—rather than kneejerk emotive rhetoric and moral panic—that is desperately needed. As part of a fundamental shift towards strategic autonomy, Europe will need to reconsider its relations with a range of countries, including Russia. It is time to accept that a lasting peace in Europe without the inclusion of Russia is impossible.

While building a defense deterrent is a necessity, it must be recalled that the EU’s greatest achievement is ushering in eighty years of peace and prosperity to the continent. This should be the desired trajectory. The sooner the war ends, the sooner taxpayer money can be spent on rebuilding and integrating Ukraine into the EU. When it comes to negotiations, Europe’s leaders must start talking about the world as it is, not only about how they want it to be. The statements of Trump, Hegseth, and Kellog may be bitter pills to swallow. Yet, for Europe, this is a necessary prescription that is long overdue.

Matthew Blackburn is a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs’ Research Group on Russia, Asia, and International Trade. He is also an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. His research mainly focuses on the politics of contemporary Russia and Eurasia, including both domestic political systems and interstate relations. He is engaged in research on Iran-Russia-China cooperation for the Norwegian Geopolitics Centre and is a research coordinator for The Civilizationalism Project based at Stanford University.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #1698 on: February 21, 2025, 01:24:51 PM »
A fine, clearly thought and well orgnized piece.   I will be putting it to good use.

Body-by-Guinness

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This is No “Moral” Justifications for Participating in Ukraine’s War
« Reply #1699 on: February 21, 2025, 05:14:30 PM »
A very stark take on what’s up in Ukraine, with a damning Kennedy YouTube video at it’s end:

The Truth About Ukraine: There is Nothing Moral in This Game

Everybody with the capacity to think should back the immediate end of this failed Globalist project.

JUPPLANDIA

FEB 21, 2025

I don’t particularly want to waste time on Ukraine. I don’t want to ever hear another bullshit argument in support of Ukraine. I don’t want to ever see a Ukrainian flag. I don’t want to argue for or even against supporting Ukraine.

I’m sick to death of Ukraine.

Jupplandia is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

But our world is full of stupid people who believe every psy-op going, and full too of crooked people who are happy to keep lying to everyone and paying the media and the politicians to lie too.

I’ll tell you what Ukraine is.

Ukraine is a sickness. Ukraine is a contagion. Ukraine is a symptom of a mind virus, and the sign of an intellectual pestilence fatal to 99% of brain cells. And Ukraine is a vast money laundering exercise just like COVID was.

Ukraine’s fate is indeed a crime, but it’s not an exclusively Russian crime. It’s a Globalist crime scene too.

Of all the zombie attitudes, the idea that we should care about Ukraine, give a shit about Ukraine, risk anything for Ukraine, is one of the most zombie brained attitudes there is. Perhaps the worst.

Examined outside the lens of Globalist distortions, there is nothing about Ukraine that would suggest it deserves our unflinching support, and nothing either to suggest that Globalist mandated love of Ukraine is actually a sincere, healthy love from the Globalist sources demanding it, or an alliance thar really serves the interests of the average western citizen.

Here is how the mainstream Globalist narrative on Ukraine goes:

Ukraine is an allied nation that was subject to an unjustified attack by an aggressor. We must support it to defend the principles of democracy and national sovereignty, to discourage military adventurism and invasions, and to prevent a repetition of the period when appeasers refused to confront Hitler. Putin is a dictator who will threaten and seize other nations if he’s allowed to get away with invading Ukraine. Other regimes will look to how we respond, and will be emboldened if we don’t confront Russia and preserve the international rule of law and the sanctity of national borders.

That’s a one paragraph summary of the bullshit. It lives in the 1% of brain matter remaining to a zombie, the bit that can allow them to express bullshit in words akin to those of a real person. Every element of it is immediately discernible as bullshit by the simple ability to know anything OTHER than the mainstream narrative.

Ukraine was not and is not an allied nation. It had no tradition of alliance with the West. It was part of the Russian sphere for centuries, and in some ways a birthplace of Russian identity. It was a Tsarist region, then a Soviet region, always a Russian controlled region, and never a possession of Western European nations with the exception, possibly of Greece via the Greek Byzantine Empire. Oh, and it had a Nazi phase too, in opposition to the Russian Marxists. It still looks back fondly on its Nazi years. Stepan Bandera, its most famous leader during its alignment with Nazi Germsny, remains a Ukrainian national hero.

In other words, it has rarely possessed the full elements of a nation state, and both when it has and when it hasn’t, it has been on the side of our enemies.

The last time England had any direct connection with Ukraine was during support to the last White Russian stronghold in the Russian Civil War. The last time before that was the Crimean War. The last time before that was probably when boatloads of fleeing Anglo-Saxons departing the England of the Norman Conquest settled a small corner of the region a thousand years ago, a people whose trace is entirely forgotten by Ukrainians and Russians and the modern English alike.

One forgotten link very long ago, two more modern links that only represent three or four years out of the last thousand where England, Western Europe or America had anything significant to do with Ukraine.

For the whole Soviet era Ukraine was a Stalinist administrative novelty, and an enemy of the West. Its existence as a sovereign nation is a modern invention, and not a recreated modern nation with the kind of deep background of sovereign identity in earlier periods of history that one might find with Greece or Israel. The idea that this is a long standing ally who shares lots of culture and values with us is a complete, laughable fantasy. The idea that borders based on Stalin’s pen are sacred is particularly absurd when it comes from people who consider all other borders, especially our own, as not being sacred.

The moral argument for intervention in Ukraine is a fiction on multiple levels.

It’s not really true thar the West has a moral duty to defend anyone and everyone. The West constantly ignores similar situations elsewhere. If we have this absolute moral duty to intervene, why does it not apply when multiple African nations invade the Congo? Why does it not apply to the Chinese occupation of Tibet?

It’s not really true that we have a particular moral duty to oppose Putin and Russia. If the invasion of a former Soviet satellite by Russia really is an enormous crime and an enormous threat, why were we completely indifferent to Russia’s war in Chechnya?

Recent military interventionism that has occurred hardly has a track record of success. In fact it has a track record of ruinously expensive disaster in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. Why are we morally obligated to repeat disasters that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths with regimes just as bad, or anarchy even worse, replacing those we sought to oust? What is the moral justification for doing something that risks a far broader conflict, on behalf of people with whom we have no existing treaty obligations, when the regime we are defending is morally indistinguishable from the regime we are opposing, and when the only sure result of a conflict extended by our involvement is an increase in the number of deaths?

It’s not true that there is moral simplicity regarding who is responsible for the war. Yes, the Russians invaded a neighbour. But we sponsored a colour revolution that removed a democratically elected, more neutral or amenable to Russia Ukrainian leader. Ukraine then internally engaged in what might be described as ethnic cleansing of its native Russian speaking citizens in the East of the country. Ukraine and western nations broke the Minsk Accords that were supposed to preserve peace. 14,000 people died before Russia intervened. And Ukraine and the West proceeded towards NATO membership and western nuclear missiles in Ukraine and on Russia’s doorstep (as well as biolabs) despite more than a decade of Russian explanation of why they considered this a major security threat. None of this suggests an entirely innocent West and Ukraine OR an entirely guilty Russia. It suggests a murky interplay of factors with guilt on all sides for the eventual direct Russian engagement.

Compare the Russian invasion with US actions when Russian missiles were placed in Cuba during the Cold War. It’s the same reaction. If Kennedy was justified in opposing Russian missiles on America’s border, why is Russia not justified in opposing NATO missiles on its border? Or compare the Russian invasion with western invasions of Iraq. If those invasions, which were justified on the basis of IMAGINARY weapons of mass destruction, were not war crimes, why is Russia’s invasive reaction to REAL biolabs a war crime?

The moral argument that it is ok when we do it is no morality at all. The moral argument that all Russian fears are unjustified is not a moral argument, but a selective prejudice. The moral argument that what makes the difference between the invasion that is legitimate and the invasion that is a war crime is the endorsement or condemnation of western leaders is not a moral argument at all either, nor is applying the term ‘international rules based order’ to what our leaders want a moral argument. Finally, the idea that moral legitimacy is conferred by the supportive attitude of the UN does a very strange thing indeed. It says simultaneously that borders and the sovereignty of nation states are so sacred that they must always be defended, but that the decision to defend them is not one that nations can make in a sovereign fashion and must instead be decided solely on the say so of a non national body usurping the decision making of nation states.

The moral argument that the situation is a repeat of Nazi invasions of Poland or prior Nazi expansionism ignored by appeasers is based on fatuous historical ignorance rather than wise historical understanding. The people who apply ‘it’s 1939 again’ thinking apply it to everything they don’t want. They apply it to Trump or Elon Musk’s investigations of fraud as much as they apply it to Putin. It is an argument that represents zombie level lack of thought and pure propaganda programming. Hitler had outlined and published a plan of world conquest. Putin has not. Hitler moved towards expansionism everywhere, as quickly as possible. Putin has been in power for over 20 years and if he plans to conquer the world is going about it in a very slow manner. At current rates of expansion, he will be conquering London about the same time the Cow Fart Apocalypse comes. And as far as actual Nazism goes, Ukraine has the Azov Brigade and Nazi national heroes, while the rest of Russian Tsarist territory that became the Soviet Union has the historical record of the greatest casualties in the world opposing Nazism. Hitler invented ethnic protection of attacked German communities to justify invasions. Russian speakers in Ukraine actually were under attack by the Ukrainian government.

All of the moral argument is undermined by the behaviour of the Ukraine regime, which is not a democracy, which has suspended elections, banned rival political parties, murdered a US citizen journalist, banned a religion and murdered its own citizens.

All of the moral argument is undermined by the behaviour of the Globalist leaders themselves, who have shown total contempt for democracy at home, who do not protect our own borders, who have denied basic human rights at home, who have invaded other nations themselves, who have caused huge numbers of deaths by military adventurism themselves, who have blocked their citizens accessing information, who have used propaganda, who have sponsored coups and violent uprising, who have directly funded anti Putin movements, who have no mandate for increasing intervention, who have scuppered peace deals the Russians would have signed, and who have never put their Ukraine support to the test of public opinion by asking their citizens if they support it or not.

https://jupplandia.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-ukraine-there-is?r=2k0c5&triedRedirect=true

And the YouTube vid: https://youtu.be/m6hZxzRpmZY?feature=shared



All of the moral arguments are an entirely insincere cover for the real motivations of our Globalist leaders. These have been eloquently summarised by Robert F.Kennedy Jnr and have nothing to do with strategic, moral or legitimate western interests (interests of western people and voters) and everything to do with the private wealth and power of the most corrupt people in the West (US politicians taking kickbacks from the billions missing in aid to Ukraine, US corporate military industrial complex profit, and BlackRock’s private interests regardless of whether those interests are aligned with the interests of the average US citizen).