Trump is likely to deliver a quick end to the war, as promised. Europe gets the message, Biden doesn’t. And Lindsey Graham now looks like a fool.
Growing Acceptance in Europe
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump’s Push for Ukraine Peace Finds Growing Acceptance in Europe
President-elect Donald Trump’s push for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine is finding growing acceptance in Europe as one of the biggest aerial bombardments of the war added to growing concern about Ukraine’s ability to withstand mounting Russian attacks.
The increased alignment between Europe and the Trump administration over the openness for talks is a sharp turnaround from even six months ago. Back then, European officials looked in dread at the Trump team’s pledge to end the war with swift negotiations amid fears that the former president would cut a deal with the Kremlin at Ukraine’s expense.
The big question that remains is how Trump will proceed—and whether Putin will engage in good faith negotiations. His advisers have come up with various plans, all of them significantly breaking from the Biden administration’s “as long as it takes” approach. The proposals, if adopted into a final Ukraine-Russia deal, could require Ukraine to refrain from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 20 years while it accepts more weapons to deter a renewed Russian invasion.
While the current German government has made clear that it opposes Ukraine’s entry into NATO in coming years, it is unclear if other European allies would go along with that, however, even if they agree that there is a need to start end-of-war talks.
Europe Has Two Choices
- Choice One: Go along with Trump
- Choice Two: Take over from the US all the military aid the US is providing and keep providing its share as well, continually losing Ukrainian ground in the process.
Let me reframe that. Europe has one choice, and Trump made it easy.
Europe’s budget deficits are a total disaster, especially France.
European governments may say one thing publicly, but privately they will be relieved to be able to stop funding this disaster.
Biden Approves Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia
Meanwhile, as Europe comes to grip with reality, the US has to face increasing senility until January.
Please note Biden Approves Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Missiles Inside Russia
President Biden has for the first time authorized Ukrainian forces to use Western-made long-range weapons to strike inside Russia, allowing Kyiv to better defend itself against Russia, according to U.S. officials.
The relaxation of Ukraine’s use of the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, comes after Kyiv pleaded for months to be allowed to strike inside Russia. The restrictions gave Moscow the upper hand in the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides said publicly and privately.
But Biden administration officials were loath to greenlight the strikes until now for fear it could cross a red line for Russia and provoke a wider conflict. Some American officials were also concerned that the U.S. didn’t have enough ATACMS in its own inventory to replenish what Ukraine would use.
Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first known call between the autocrat and a Western leader in two years. It is a sign that Putin’s international isolation might be ending. Both Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Zelensky criticized Scholz for holding the call.
Political Reality Sets In
Russia has already moved most military targets outside the 190 mile ATACMS range.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is getting hammered in the polls. A quick settlement might help his SPD party.
But it’s all over for the chancellor anyway. Scholz will be booted in the next German election. What we are discussing is how big the slaughter.
But we need to go back to the beginning to make sense of it all.
What Happened in Ukraine?
The mess today in Ukraine has its roots in the 2014 when democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych was toppled in a US-backed coup.
Q: Why did the US want to get rid of Yanukovych?
A: Because he was against Ukraine joining NATO.
The current comedian president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, repeated two days ago his desire to join NATO. I use the term comedian because he literally is a comedian who ran for office and won.
McCain dined with Svoboda Party leader Oleg Tyagnibok. The Svoboda Party is a group of neo-Nazis.
The citizens of Ukraine were used as pawns in yet another US mission that backfired. Well who cares about Neo-Nazis as long as they want Ukraine in NATO. And that’s the rest of the story US media will not discuss.
This no way absolves Putin, but US meddling backfires again, and again, and again.
Negotiated Settlement
Since the war began, I stated it would end in a negotiated settlement of land for peace. Let’s recap what I have stated every step of the way.
August 27, 2022: Ukraine Violent Stalemate Sets In, How Long Can It Last?
Ultimately, this will end in a negotiated settlement. How long can Ukraine deal with 60% inflation? EU with energy costs? Russia with difficulty in getting parts and losing military equipment?
October 9, 2023: Here Comes the Big Push for More Money for Ukraine and Israel
Expect a Congressional deal: More money for Ukraine; more money for Israel, and more money for a wall. It won’t stop there.
One of the gang of eight demands is no more money for Ukraine. Care to take bets?
Senator Lindsay Graham has suggested $60 billion to $70 billion as the amount needed for Ukraine aid through the November 2024 presidential election. He said he sees that estimate as the “outer limits.”
What a hoot.
Expect more money for all three (and God only knows what else now that there is a crisis in play).
November 3, 2023: Russia’s Suicide Drones Take Over, Begun the Drone War Has (Yoda Analogy)
I said at the outset that Ukraine will not get back all the territory it lost and there would be a negotiated settlement that would please no one.
Like it or not, this increasingly appears to be the correct view.
How Long Can This Go On?
This can go on as long as the US is willing to fund Ukraine. European support is anemic.
November 30, 2023: Is a NATO Backing a Negotiated Deal Between Ukraine and Russia?
A Tweet from NATO appears to back a negotiated peace in Ukraine. That was followed hours later by an official denial. What gives?
What’s Guaranteed to Happen?
I have written about this many times before. There is going to be a negotiated settlement that is not going to fully please anyone.
When? It will happen after both sides have had enough of destruction and lives lost, likely accelerated by political events in the US.
April 16, 2024: What is the Best Way to Help Israel and Ukraine?
House Speaker Mike Johnson has turned into a do whatever it takes to spend more money on warmongering campaigns. He now has a divide and conquer plan that will likely work.
May 2, 2024: Ukraine’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Weapons, It’s Lack of Fighting Men
Now that Congress rammed through a huge weapons package for Ukraine, what will Ukraine do with the weapons and how long will they last?
Zelensky has a ridiculous goal, 100% of all territory lost including Crimea.
And Ukraine will badger the US and Europe forever to achieve them. So how much are we willing to pay?
Biden is unwilling to say. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is unwilling to say, and he cast the deciding vote for a massive $61 billion weapons delivery to Ukraine.
Mike Johnson Goes Full Neocon
On April 18, I commented Mike Johnson Goes Full Neocon, Nikki Haley May as Well Be House Speaker
“I really do believe the intel and in the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said. “I believe Xi [Jinping] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil,” warning that Russia could march west across Europe if not stopped now. “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys.”
That is a false dichotomy.
One does not have to make a choice between sending bullets or men to Ukraine. One could easily do neither or both.
Sending bullets does not preclude further stupidity such as sending troops.
Let’s now return once again to the beginning.
February 24, 2022: What’s the Real Background Story Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine?
The US has made a mess of things every step of the way starting with the overthrowing a democratically elected leader in Iran and replacing that person with a US puppet.
The roots of this crisis dates to 2014 when the US got involved in a coup dubbed “Maidan” to overthrow the Ukrainian president.
The Cato Institute explains America’s Ukraine Hypocrisy
Here’s another snip from the middle, my October 9, 2023 Post.
No One Will Fix This
“Compromise is always more spending for this in return for more spending on that.”
“Neither party will fix the deficits. Neither party will do anything about mounting debt. No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.” Mish
Biden requested $24 billion for Ukraine. By holding out for nothing, the gang of 8 who dumped McCarthy and demanded nothing for Ukraine dramatically increased the odds Ukraine gets $60 billion to $100 billion now and even more later.
Anyone who thought 8 people could change the way Congress works was crazy.
Now what are the outer limits? Anyone care to make a guess?
The Perfect Call
What’s Guaranteed to Happen?
I have written about this many times before. There is going to be a negotiated settlement that is not going to fully please anyone.
When? It will happen after both sides have had enough of destruction and lives lost, likely accelerated by political events in the US.
That prophesy was from my November 30, 2023 Post.
Every step of the way I was labeled a “Putin Lover”. Many confidently told the war won’t end until Ukraine gets back 100 percent of its territory. Some called me Chamberlin.
Others said Russia would win outright and I was a fool to believe otherwise.
The End Is Near
Well this war is going to end, and Trump is going to get credit for it, and hate for it.
Biden and the Neocon nutcases will label him a Nazi while simultaneously comparing him to Chamberlin.
But here we are, political reality finally suggests that both sides have had enough of destruction and lives lost, accelerated by political events in the US.
This was easy. But very few called it every step of the way, in real time.
Quite right Mish. To point out the yanukavich coup or to say that Ukraine could never defeat a Russia which remains a great power (whatever rabid nonsense one reads in the press) has been to invite the ‘putinbot’ retort. I was barred from the UK Daily Telegraph comment section for saying as much, and although their support for the war remains strong, even they too know it’s lost, & are gradually preparing their readership for the inevitable – Trump is convenient: they will be able to say Ukraine was stabbed in the back. I heard a uk parliamentary defense committee MP saying as much on the radio this morning
I’m reminded of the movie Fail Safe when the quid pro quo for Moscow’s evaporation was New York, the nuclear fried Big Apple, not the Washington district of criminals or Florida’s Orlando. So much for Def Con 4.
You’re missing one thing, besides the utter psychosis of the Neocons and the financiers of the takeover of Russian assets (i.e. Blackrock). You almost got it by mentioning – “Europe’s budget deficits are a total disaster, especially France.
European governments may say one thing publicly, but privately they will be relieved to be able to stop funding this disaster”. However, you missed what’s right in your face.
War is necessary because the budgets are non-salvageable and they need the excuse to default and impose digital currencies to track and tax everything that moves. Until 1/20/25 the Nutjobs can and will try everything to start WWIII.
Hitler wants peace? Who would have known?
And where are all the liberal anti war protestors on the left been for the last 4 years??????????
Using their yoga skills to tie themselves into ideological pretzels.
I’m all for the war ending but the Weffies got Marshall Plan 2.0 on deck if peace breaks out so the spending will continue.
“A World Bank official estimated that fully restoring Ukraine would cost at least the equivalent of $540 billion. The Marshall Plan, in today’s money, cost about a third of that amount.”
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/03/marshall-plan-for-ukraine/
The problem goes back much further than 2014. In 1999 the Warsaw Pack countries joined NATO, thus breaking Baker’s promise to Gorbachev to not move NATO 1 inch east of East Berlin.
Anyone who posts “The Ukraine’ or The Crimea is totally ignorant about the culture and what is going on or just wants to insult. It is a Russian way of insulting Ukrainians
Frankly at this point people have had it up to the hairs with the Ukraine situation. I don’t pretend to understand the nuances of the history of grievances between it and Russia. Russia does not want NATO on it’s doorstep – I can understand their concern. Ukraine presumably wants to have the right to self determination – I get that too. It’s an imperfect world – compromises will have to be made. The bottom line is that Ukraine is not worth a WW3 scenario. We are all living with compromise one way or another. The ultimate tragedy is innocent people losing their lives over this conflict which is largely driven, as are most conflicts, by moneyed interests. In the end there will be compromise – and lives will have been thrown away for nothing.
There is an old warning about being wary of “unintended consequences” when someone undertakes an action.
In this case, to purportedly stop Ukraine from entering NATO (and “deNazify” [lol] the country), Russia has instead would up with Sweden and Finland JOINING NATO and NATO now having a new 800 mile border between FInland and Russia.
No matter what happens eventually, Russia has already lost.
The big argument in Sweden’s debate on the vote to join NATO was that it would allow them to reduce the defense budget from its then current four per cent of GDP to the NATO standard of two percent. Sweden’s strategic threat to Russia is unchanged in or out of NATO.
Finland’s population of five million and its location at the extreme north western end of Russia means it constitutes no strategic threat and a tiny, tiny tactical threat to Russia. Finland’s military has twenty four thousand active members. Russia has one and a half million active members most of whom are getting some degree of combat experience and/or associated training.
Being able to reproduce someone else’s glib statement about something doesn’t mean you have any understanding of the topic being discussed.
You’re being factor reasonable for our demented leaders who only deal in black and white!
You’re being far too reasonable- not factor- damn spellcheck!
Mish, the key question is this: WILL the RINO’s go along with Trump or NOT?
Taking Mike Johnson at face value, we have a SPEAKER that is Nikki in Man’s clothing. McConnell is still there.
They HATE TRUMP.
Why does everything need an equivalency with World War 2? Russia is not Nazi Germany. They have the GDP of Italy and cannot beat the Ukraine. The concept that Russia is going to turn into a world class fighting force and industrial powerhouse is a JOKE. NATO needs to die. It’s useless
“They have the GDP of Italy and cannot beat the Ukraine”
Which says NOTHING about Russia vs Italy. And everything about “GDP”, along with all the illiterate, indoctrinated child brains dumb enough to pay even the most rudimentary attention to anything to do with it.
“NATO needs to die. It’s useless”
Yes. All entangling alliances are. And have always been. For any country aspiring to even the most rudimentary of freedoms. That’s not hyperbole. ALL.
Napoleon is reported to have said that he would rather fight allies than have them because they caused him so much trouble.
Aside from the fact that GDP is a useless metric: both the IMF and the World Bank, two West-controlled international organizations, have said that, based on recalculations and new data they now have, Russia’s GDP in PPP is the 4th largest in the World after China, the US and India and surpassed Germany and Japan already in 2021.
Russia has also officially been put in the “high income countries” bracket.
Militarily speaking, if Russia is a “JOKE”, what does that make of the US, all of the other NATO countries and the other US vassals (Japan, South Korea etc) who are losing the war in Ukraine..?
50 countries behind Ukraine and they are now talking about having to “force” Russia to a ceasefire and desperately trying to put Ukraine in a “stronger negotiating position”… LMFAO!
Here it’s not even a question of money, the US and the rest of the Western clowns have fuck all left to give to Ukraine and all of their much vaunted “wonder weapons” have failed miserably.
As a Russian general put it: militarily speaking the biggest lesson from the Ukraine war is that NATO has greatly underestimated Russia, Russia has greatly overestimated NATO and NATO has proved to be a paper tiger.
And NATO without the US is a wet paper tiger.
The US is going to have to shamefully flee with its tail between its legs like it already did TWICE in Vietnam and in Afghanistan…
Vladimir Putin approves this post.
If we wanted to help “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, we should have helped the actual Nazis when they sided with Germany when it invaded the USSR. Not only did that bastard FDR side with Stalin, after the war Ukrainians in Allied custody who fought against the Soviets were forcibly repatriated to the USSR in Operation Keelhaul where they were imprisoned snd killed.
In the 1920’s young American elite were infatuated with communism : FDR and William C. Bullitt. After WWII the CIA used a nazi general Reinhard Gehlen with connection to Banderas to spy on the USSR during the cold war..
“In the 1920’s young American elite were infatuated with communism.”
And the infatuation never ended. It at best got rebranded.
Trump simply needs to say that the U.S. will not accept Ukraine to be a member of NATO. Ever. If the EU nations want Ukraine to be a member of the EU, that’s their call. The status of Ukraine can be like that of Austria: in the EU, but not in NATO. Call for Ukraine to also have a free trade treaty with Russia, but also refuse to allow any IMF/World Bank funding to rebuild the shattered infrastructure in the Donbas region; Russia blew it up, Russia can pay to rebuild it.
This whole mess started because the US never keeps it’s word about these things. Russia would be a fool to do any kind of deal.
That ship sailed long ago. They hate Russians more than the Poles.
Pavel, Catherine the great invaded the Crimea in Nov 1776. The Russian empires invaded and occupied the steppes and Persia before attacking the ottomans. The parked 15 km from Istanbul. They occupied half of Europe after 1945 for decades. As a matter of fact I don’t care about Mariupol, Bakhmut and your bs.
Good summary of the war thanks.
It is a good summary. But the flag in the cartoon is missing the other colors of the rainbow.
Compare and contrast: Gaza has been turned into literal rubble, with schools, hospitals, water supplies, churches, mosques, olive farms, etc all destroyed — after one year of Israeli attacks. Note that tens if not hundreds of thousands of children have crippling injuries, with no medical infrastructure to care for them. (Amputees are especially difficult and expensive to care for.)
In the Ukraine, Russia has largely confined its attacks to the soldiers (of course) and infrastructure. Kiev is largely untouched.
Virtually the entire adult male population of Ukraine has been conscripted and thus likely injured or killed. A generation or two of the country will suffer dreadfully.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but there’s no doubt that Bibi (with Biden’s and Blinken’s blessings) is much worse than Putin in terms of war crimes.
(Of course there is the separate story of Biden family corruption and grift in the Ukraine, along with other kleptocrats.)
They all suck.
Kherson, Mariupol and Bakhmut were totally destroyed. Hamas is a terrorist group hiding inside/ under hospitals and schools using the palestinians population as a human shield. The IDF used D-9 to avoid IED explosives, boobie traps and mines. Hamas steal food supply from the starving palestinians, making millions, causing hyperinflation. Hamas lost militarily, but it’s winning the propaganda war.
Bakhmut was a very small city which was turned into a strategic fortress, and thus a military target, by the Ukrainians after 2014. The civilians had all the time they wanted to leave and had ample warnings. In fact, almost everybody left.
Mariupol has been and is being rebuilt by the Russians, together with all of the surrounding infrastructure, which is actually much better than it was before (I have been to Mariupol several times before the war). it looks and “works” better now than before.
Kherson was partially destroyed by the Ukrainians in their famed “counterattack”, the Russians took it at the start of the war very easily and quickly, with no damage. Kherson too will be fixed once it will go back home again to Russia.
Israel has not and will not fix anything anywhere they are wreaking havoc (not that I really care, both about the Israelis and the Palestinians).
“Hamas is a terrorist group hiding inside/ under hospitals and schools using the palestinians population as a human shield.”
This is EXACTLY how the West-supported Ukrainian nationalists have been waging war in the Russian parts of Ukraine.
Putin invasion, Hamas invasion and Hezbollah attacks since Oct 8 2023 are all casus belli.
Hamas “invaded” what was their own land, Israel since its foundation has invaded Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and has continually expanded into Palestinians’ land.
As for the NATO – Russia war in Ukraine, Russia is LIBERATING the Russian parts of Ukraine from the Anglo-American installed terrorist regime in Kiev.
The countries invaded by the US and the UK are too many to list here.
As you correctly say, all are casus belli.
By the way, it looks like Netanyahu’s invasion of Lebanon is going very badly this time around…
The IDF is doing well, grinding, sausaging, pressuring Hezbollah. Hezbollah might agree to Hochstein deal : The US and French troops will takeover S.Lebanon. Israel will have the right to eradicate terrorists south of the Litani river. The US and Arab state will rejuvenate Lebanon. Bibi chemo the Iranian cancer. Bibi has a court appearance on Dec 2. He might cleanse the legal system that try to topple his gov for one year. He is too busy for Biden. No rush, waiting for Trump. Suleimani head was gift #1. That’s how things work if u want to achieve peace.
This is as delusional as the hope of imposing a ceasefire on Russia while Ukraine (read: NATO) is one step away from catastrophic defeat…
BTW Both Ritter and McGregor have unrealistic ideas about how the war in Ukraine will end, they too are partially buying into Western agitprop and believe that it will end with some sort of negotiation before Ukraine (and for extension the combined West) capitulates.
Anyway, we will see who is right about the Ukraine and the Israel situations (and both conflicts are in many ways profoundly linked). We are going to see epochal changes.
P.S. Just look at how quickly the Israelis reached the Litani river the first time they invaded Lebanon, look at how much slower the second time around and look at where they are bogged down (and taking heavy casualties) now…
Ditto, to a much greater degree, the Zionist invasion….
The borders hastily “enshrined” post Soviet Breakup, were always a lot more arbitrary than borders with decades to centuries of demographics supporting them. Lots of “Russians” were caught on the wrong side of the fence overnight, to put it that way. Hence why there there were viable separatist movements in the easternmost Ukranian republics to begin with.
Things would be a lot more clear cut if the Russians had instead just bombed their way into Germany and France and started building Russian “settlements” there; while relegating the French and German population to refugee camps / live-target firing ranges.
As it stands: While Kyiv will no doubt be miffed about having to nominally “give up” territory, those Eastern republics were demographically rather 50-50 to begin with. Crimea probably more like 80% “Russian”.
Which is the only reason the Russians ever even entertained the notion of annexing them in the first place. The Russians know full and well that they don’t have the manpower and resources to subdue any meaningful sized population who really don’t want them there. They learned that lesson in Afghanistan. Only the dumbest and most gullible of neocon-indoctrinated Western dupes, are vapid enough to fall for the notion that “Putin” will somehow occupy Paris in a few years, if “we” let “scary him” “win” in half-Russian-already Donbas.
What lunacy. Here’s the math:
Gaza 140.93^2 miles / 233,003^2 miles
Or .0006 the land mass.
There’s a simple reason why Gaza has the obliterated, and it has nothing to do with Israel prosecuting an unjust war: land mass.
LMT PrSM missile relaced ATACMs missile. After Putin attacked Kiev energy infrastructure Biden ordered a payback. The ATACMs missiles are old recycled missiles. In the last 3 years Ukraine used what we and the Europeans got, while we replenish our stocks with new modern inventory.
Ukraine engineers refurbished soviet era missiles, rotting in their warehouses, with a new warhead and a modern navigation system. They launched them against Engels airbase and other medium range targets.
Nukes are options. Putin had to use 10K north korea foot soldiers, drones and missiles from Iran, bc what he got isn’t enough. He depleted his oil wells with 20% discount to finance his war against the Ukraine.
Bibi trial starts on Dec 2.
“Had to use 10,000 NK foot soldiers”. Ridiculous. Russia has more than enough of their own soldiers. Allowing North Koreans into the theater was to demonstrate that they’ve entered into a true alliance. The brainiacs at RAND need to dispense with any fantasy of South Korea liberating the North.
But we can know an important consequence. Since Russia has a certain sanctuary status because it has nuclear weapons, the logical conclusion is that in the coming world having an arsenal of nuclear weapons gives you protection. Ukraine gave theirs up and look what happened. Nuclear weapons are easy to make if you have the fissionable material and just about all developed nations can build one in a long weekend. Less developed ones take longer but they can do it. Now expect most of European nations including Germany to build them as well as Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and anyone else who can. If you think this world is dangerous, how would you like a world with 50 nuclear powers all with nervous trigger fingers?
50 nuclear powers with 3/10 proxies each might force nations to preempt.
Depleted Uranium are used daily. First for deep penetrations, before the explosion.
The New World. Get used to it.
“Ukraine gave theirs up and look what happened.”
Ukraine never had nuclear weapons.
Their launch codes and the centralized control over them was and had always been in Moscow…
What happened would have happened much sooner if they tried to keep the material possession of those weapons which, for the reason given, they were NOT able to use anyway. And what happened, happened only because after the Anglos-orchestrated coup of 2014 they changed their Constitution, renounced their neutrality, started to seek NATO accession and actually began NATO integration.
The 2 biggest NATO excercises of 2021 were conducted in a NON-NATO country: Ukraine.
And in 2021 Zelensky actually spoke for the first time about acquiring nuclear weapons…
There is a little trick you can use. Take out the fissionable material and put it in another rocket and voila! You have a nuclear missile with your codes. I am surprised you didn’t think of that.
What would the US do if Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands or Turkey began to do that with the American nuclear weapons based in their countries (of which they do not have the launch codes nor control over)?
Well, the Russians would have done the same thing if Ukraine (or any other ex-Soviet state) tried to do that…
I am surprised you didn’t think of that.
If they had done that then the US would have thought twice before invading them but since the US didn’t invade them the problem never came up. Now if Russia had had a president without a Napoleon Complex Russia would have had the cooperation of Ukraine, the EU and the US but unfortunately Russia has Putin.
“If they had done that then the US would have thought twice before invading them but since the US didn’t invade them the problem never came up. “
I have no idea what you are trying to say here, but Germany and Italy HAVE been invaded by the US and, together with Japan, we are still occupied countries. The unwanted US bases are still here 80 years after the end of the war and after the 3 of us have been staunch friends and allies ever since…
As for the rest, yours is the perfect representation of the “knowledge” displayed by anyone whose sole source of “information” is the Western MSM.
A pretty sad display…
Of course you have no idea what I am saying.
Screw with the PALs and the weapon will be mis-detonated to destroy it without a nuclear detonation. I guess the survivors might be able to gather the remaining fissile material ….
Most of those weapons were built in Ukraine by Ukrainian engineers.
To make it more clear: are Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Belarus among the countries which possess nuclear weapons? No.
Even though they do host nuclear weapons in their countries, they are not listed together with Russia, the US, China, India etc
Why? Because they do not have the launch codes nor control over them. They are America’s (and in the case of Belarus, Russia’s) nuclear weapons, kept there under their “nuclear sharing”/”nuclear umbrella” schemes.
Same exact situation as Ukraine in Soviet times.
We are no longer in Soviet Times although some people look on it with nostalgia. Today most of the countries you mentioned can make an atomic bomb fairly easily and quickly and if they do they will be aimed at Russia.
There is nothing easy and quick about making atomic bombs and their delivery systems. If it was so easy and quick, the US would have way more atomic bombs aimed at them by way more countries than Russia would…
You are behind the times. It is easy now with modern machine tools.
It’s not a question of “machine tools” at all.
And the ultimate proof that making atomic bombs is NOT easy and quick is how few countries have nuclear weapons still today…
I have. You take North Korea and Iran for examples. it Took them a long time because of sanctions. The cat is out of the bag now. Hope you like looking for mushrooms in the forest because you will be doing a lot of it if things get worse where you live.
North Korea was GIVEN its nuclear technology (by Russia) and Iran is not clear at all if and what nuclear capability they have so no, they are not proof at all.
If things “get worse” in which way? A nuclear exchange?
If that’s what you mean (God, is it hard to follow you…): I don’t like mushrooms and I don’t need to: in any NATO – Russia nuclear exchange Italy, and especially the area where I live, will not be a primary target. The only objectives in Italy that the Russians will probably target are US bases.
Unless you are not an American (or a Brit), it’s you the one who will be shitting his pants…
And that’s assuming that it would be a limited exchange with fewer and smaller bombs, of course. Were it be a full blown exchange, we would ALL be dead.
They will aim at Tehran 1,000 miles from Ukraine. They can land in H-2 in Iraq, before attacking Iran. Putin is the symptom. Iran is the real cause. The European military industry counter Muslim Bros and the Ayatollah in EuroArabia. When the proxies are more powerful than a nation army they can dismember it.
They may be “easy to make”…..but they’re tricky to detonate.
‘If you think this world is dangerous, how would you like a world with 50 nuclear powers all with nervous trigger fingers?”
Only upside being: It’s not at all obvious than anything, even nuclear Armageddon, can possibly be worse than a world run by central banks and their groupies. So, from where we’re currently stuck: even that’s hardly worse than a lateral move.
Since we don’t know Trump’s plan nor Putin’s possible response nor Europe’s reaction it’s pretty much the definition of pure speculation.
But will the stock market keep going up?
Of course not. The Russians have been deceived 6× in a row, and there is nothing the West can do that they will not regard as more deceit. The West is not prepared to offer anything that satisfies Russia aims [no NATO east of the Oder; no more illegal sanctions; etc etc]
You’ve got to be kidding. Even a trillion dollars would not help.
Russia has won; NATO is out of ordinance and weapons.
You cannot order shells and interceptor missiles at Amazon; funds are irrelevant.
Approves? What missiles? How many are there? Russia has already been intercepting the ones that have been used (most). It will be NATO operators shooting any missiles, as many officials, including Scholtz, have openly stated. They are desperate to avoid the unmasking of personnel surrounded in Kursk.
“European … privately they will be relieved to be able to stop funding this disaster.”
+++
Nope, theyre banking on receiving the collateral pledged by Ukraine in exchange for the Ukie loans they have guaranteed, so they have real skin in the game. If 404 falls, it’s taking the UK and European financial systems with it.
No. They have tapped into Russia’s Forex Dollar reserves to pay for the war.
“Others said Russia would win outright and I was a fool to believe otherwise.Others said Russia would win outright and I was a fool to believe otherwise.”
I am one of those who replied to your repeatedly stated assertion that this war will have an ugly end with a negotiation which will leave both parties unhappy and I will try to explain again why you were and still are wrong. Dead wrong.
I am an ex-expat from Italy who has lived and worked around the world for 15 years including 1.5 years between Russia and Belarus, I can read Cyrillic and speak a basic Russian, my wife is from the Donbas, where we also have an apartment, her closest relatives fled to Russia years ago, between us we have friends and relatives all over those 3 countries and I know them all, and the people, very well.
You were and are wrong because, as you write: “But here we are, political reality finally suggests that both sides have had enough of destruction and lives lost, accelerated by political events in the US.” what you think you know about the “political reality” is mainstream Western BS. Russia and Russians have NOT “had enough”.
Ukraine lost the war in 2022 which is why they signed the Instanbul agreement that they were then pushed by the anglos, hell-bent on waging war against Russia, to renege on. Since then Russia has been fighting NATO, not Ukraine.
NATO is today very close to a strategic defeat and the Russians are very close to the total, decisive victory which was easily predictable by those (like me) who realize how existential the Ukraine question is, how strong Russia is today and how weak the combined West is.
Land was not the reason Russia started this war and “land for peace” will not be how it will end. But, above all: any and all proposals which include a ceasefire are DOA.
Not only the last thing the Russians want is a Minsk 3 (which will be used by the West, like the first two, only to rearm Ukraine and prepare it again for war), THEY DO NOT NEED A CEASEFIRE.
Ukraine (and the West) do.
Which is exactly why all of these talks about a ceasefire suddenly appeared in our “public discourse” and the Western public is being prepared to accept it as the right thing to do.
All of your analyses on the NATO – Russia war in Ukraine were and are wrong because your idea about the real situation on the ground and the socio-political, economical and military situation in both Russia and Ukraine is the one fed to you by the Western MSM, which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of reality.
GIGO.
I know Putin wants at worst a neutral and disarmed Ukraine.
Ideally he wants it to be a Russian state, but I’m not even sure as far west of Poltava has much sympathy or loyalty to the Kremlin.
How many Kharkiv residents want to be part of Russia ? The same question applies for Odessa.
For a lot of good reasons, Putin does not want the whole of Ukraine to be a part of Russia and never has.
As for Kharkov and Odessa, they are both Russian founded cities, those oblasts are part of the historical Russian region of Novorossiya and, following closely Russian politics as I do, I am firmly convinced that they both will, along with all of the rest of the historical Russian regions in South-Eastern Ukraine, go back home to Russia.
Odessa was founded by the Empress Catherine the Great and its name comes from her love for Greek classics like, in this case, the Odyssey.
It holds a special place in Russians’ heart and to them is more important than Kiev itself.
After the US-orchestrated coup in 2014 Odessa, like all of the other historical Russian cities, revolted against the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists put in power by the Anglos and the massacre in the Trade Unions House, where pro-Russia Odessans were burned alive by NON-Odessan militias dispatched by the oligarchs and the other forces behind the coup, has never been forgotten nor forgiven by the Russians.
As for Kharkov, do you know which was the FIRST city, in 2014, to revolt against the criminal Ukrainian extremist scum put in power by the Anglos..?
No, it wasn’t Donetsk.
No, it wasn’t Lugansk.
It was Kharkov.
Your wife and her relatives from Donbas are Russians more than Ukrainians, as my friends from Uman, Ukraine and Poltava are Ukrainian and not Russian. They will tell you this in Ukrainian which is about 50% different than the Russian language.
That region of Donbas was Stalinized years ago, and that is why you have that much loyalty there to the Kremlin. Donbas is the home of Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to his “home country” of Russia.
You will learn nothing about Ukraine through a few Ukrainians whom you have probably met in the West… I would be curious to know where they live now, when they moved and especially how old they are.
Have you ever been to Poltava or Cherkasy (the oblast Uman is in)?
I have (and in Poltava several times) so let me give you the real picture.
Ukraine and Ukrainians as we know them today have never existed and are largely a Soviet creation, that’s why you can’t find “Ukraine” on ANY old European map…
Ukraine is a frankenstain state made up of 3 very different ethno-linguistic groups (especially Western Ukraine) who inhabit 3 very different macro-regions (especially Western Ukraine) and who have gone through a process of “Ukrainization” especially under Stalin (so it’s the exact OPPOSITE of what you wrote) when the Ukrainian language was imposed on the whole of the newly created population and was made mandatory teaching in all schools.
There is too much to say here so to keep it short and stick to the issues you wrote about: no, only 38% of the Ukrainian vocabulary is different from Russian and that’s why even I can usually get the gist of what’s said in Ukrainian and the most spoken language in Ukraine, as a whole, is still Russian.
Even in the present ultra-nationalist government most of the people, starting with Ukraine’s very President, are native Russian speakers.
Do you know that Zelensky, who has always and only spoken Russian and used to go on tour in Russia in his comedian days (which have really never ended..), had to study and learn Ukrainian when Kolomoisky created his party and he went into politics? He still speaks a bad Ukrainian by the way, like most of the other “Ukrainian” politicians…
Talking more generally about the languages spoken in Ukraine, basically ALL of them understand Russian (which is NOT true about Ukrainian) and the overwhelming majority speak a very good Russian (which again is NOT true about Ukrainian), the difference between the various areas is what is the native/first/preferred language, keeping in mind that Ukraine has 3 major languages, not 2. They are, in this order: Russian, Ukrainian and Surzhik (which is a sort of mix between Russian and Ukrainian, but closer to Russian).
So for those two regions where your friends are from: in Cherkasy the relative (NOT absolute, meaning less than 50%) majority of the people speak Ukrainian, followed by Russian and with a minority who prefer Surzhik. In Poltava the relative (not absolute) majority of the people speak Russian, followed by Ukrainian and with a sizeable (more than 1 in 5 people) minority who speak Surzhik.
As for the cultural and political preferences of those 2 regions and of Ukraine in general, let’s take the last free, democratic and universally recognized election Ukraine has had as a pretty good example.
In 2010 all of the candidates for President from the nationalist West lost in the first round, like they ALWAYS did before the Anglos’ coup d’etat put them in power, and Yanukovych (the candidate from the pro-Russia East) won the majority of the vote against Timoshenko (another candidate from the East but pro-EU and with a Latvian father) with the compact vote of all of South-Eastern Ukraine (including Timoshenko’s own oblast), with lots of votes from center Ukraine and even with a sizable minority vote from some Western regions (in one of them, Zakarpatia, he even got the relative majority of the vote in the first round).
In Cherkasy the majority of the people voted for Timoshenko but Yanukovich got lots of votes too. As for Poltava, one of the 3 regions where the votes were more evenly split between the two candidates was… Poltava.
One final note:
“who fled to his “home country” of Russia”
Russia is the “home country” of at least a third of the “Ukrainian” population…
Do you know which is the country with the single highest number of Ukrainian refugees after 2022? It is not a Western country, it’s Russia.
And the number would have been much higher if the Ukrainian war criminals didn’t close the border and didn’t fire on those fleeing towards Russia and Belarus.
As I ask my colleagues who talk about Russian aggression, where are the tears for 14k Russian-ethnic Ukrainian citizens killed by the Ukrainian Army between 2014 and 2022 ? Where is the outrage for the Ukrainian laws and actions to ethnically cleanse Ukraine of Russian language and heritage ?
The only compromise that might be reached is one where Russia leaves enough resources for the Ukies to cover their debts to the West and various global agencies like the World Bank and IMF, debts that have been heavily guaranteed by the UK and several EU countries. They’d also have to leave enough farmland to cover that already sold to Black Rock and other Western companies, otherwise the paymasters of Western governments won’t let them take a deal.
President Trump told Joe Biden to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war. The war thus ends as promised. Zelinski is smiling.
Peace in Ukraine ? Russia just launched the largest attack ever on Ukraine. This is after Trump became the president-elect. I will enjoy seeing missiles landing in Moscow. Biden isn’t finished yet and Putin should not count his chickens before they hatch. Trump has not brought peace anywhere ever. Only kneeling to Putin. Anyone who supports this is a pacifist at any cost — even giving up on our allies and the very idea of open and free societies. I never though the Republican party would become pacifists and kneel to the USSR.
You are an imbecile. Get real. Stop lying.
The US doesn’t have allies – only tools to be used to serve American purposes. The Ukrainians are finding that out the hard way. They F’d up. They trusted us. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MYQCb3qrBpo&pp=ygUdWW91IGZ1Y2tlZCB1cC4gWW91IHRydXN0ZWQgdXM%3D
Do you have any concept of Nation State or has globalism so tainted your mind that is not a possibility?
That Nation States exist is not kneeling to Russia or pacifism it is the Basis for a negotiated ceasefire and step towards ending a War that should never have started.
Russia is and was an Empire. Size wise it dwarfs any other country and even continents on Earth. It is not going to yield to NATO or anyone else.
“even giving up on our allies and the very idea of open and free societies.”
I know that’s not saying much, but even Russia is freer and more open than “The West” by now.
US, China, agree machines must not be allowed to control nuclear weaponshttps://www.theregister.com/2024/11/17/asia_tech_news_roundup/
Here is a question nobody seems capable of asking. If US and NATO policy decisions were designed to hinder Russian aggression then why does Russia now hold more of Ukraine then when this all started?
Going backwards is now decreed as successful policy achievements by Washington and the neocons.
Russia has done quite well out of this.
Not as well as insider traders in Washington.
Nor as well as Ukrainian oligarchs.
They all won long ago. As often happens.
Because Biden and the wimpish West refused to give Ukraine the weapons and support it needed and unleash them to use those weapons as they saw fit.
They don’t want a quick end to the war. That doesn’t benefit the MIC.
Ukraine was in position to benefit from both trade with Russia and Trade with Europe.
Instead of having vast new graveyards Ukraine’s people would have been driving Mercedes.
Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if it did not believe NATO intent was not peaceful coexistence but aiming Missiles at Moscow.
will add: Russia understands money as well as anyone else.
Trade works to benefit of Nations who have secure borders. What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours, is sacrosanct to successful commerce.
I will venture even further, that a Businessman can bring solutions that Warmongers and those hell bent on One World Government are unable to grasp.
Money does make the world go around.
Russia is going to need a LOT to pay for rebuilding Ukraine before Western sanctions will be lifted.
– If US and NATO policy decisions were designed to hinder Russian aggression then why does Russia now hold more of Ukraine then when this all started?
> Because NATO doesn’t “Go to War” it’s merely talks War, and then sends everybody else’s Sons and Daughters to lose their lives for petty games and egos, that’s why!
– Going backwards is now decreed as successful policy achievements by Washington and the neocons.
> This IS “Moving Forward” for them. Securing secrets where they don’t belong, providing weapons where they are not supposed to. Assisting Ukraine as a NATO Member when they are clearly Not! Pushing the Russians to act aggressive, and then using that excuse to “Go to War” perhaps?
>> It’s not as if we have even a remotely coherent Leadership in place. They thought Our Leader was a capable individual, as he fell, spoke nonsense, licked babies, was incoherent most meetings, and I am not sure He can dress himself without help, but I digress…
Trump is coming TG, and things will change TG, and America can be Proud and Prosperous again, Let’s All Hope!!!
Actually Russia hold much less territory than it had captured in the beginning.
I know some Ukrainians and I don’t think they would agree with your characterization of the situation. Maybe you should interview a few.
…and how much do those Ukrainians know about national budgets and willingness to spend it on a self-destructive war in The Ukraine?
I mean, the ones I know are refugees who don’t have homes and in some cases loved ones anymore because of Russia so they’re pretty big fans of fighting back, at least thus far. You’re right that they’re not concerned about spending money on staying free/alive. Money isn’t very useful if you’re dead/enslaved.
I would imagine I’d feel similarly, but that’s just me.
Who have the Russians enslaved in Ukraine? They do not stop Ukrainians who want to leave captured territory to go to other parts of Ukraine, or to Russia itself or to the West. Now the Ukrainian rulers restrict Ukrainians, especially those of conscription age, from leaving the country.
And most Ukrainian dead are conscripts, which is a polite term for slavery.
Plus Ukraine started the war in 2014 with 8 years of shelling the free part of Ukraine (Donbas) that refused to accept submission to a Nazi coup. In 2022 the Nazis were warned by Putin what would happen if there was an attempt to destroy the free people in the Donbas and the Nazis ignored that warning and prepared the attack. Putin then stepped in and the fight was on. Let’s hope Putin achieves denazification of Ukraine so that there will be peace.
Probably a lot more than you or any other poster on this blog!
Proving General Butler’s point: War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
Smedley Butler
Tell that to Putin.
Ukraine has been in a no win situation since the majority of western Ukraine wanted closer ties with the EU. This is what has driven the dynamics of the situation. US influence is not what drove Maidan protests. Yanukovych was a Putin puppet and fled Ukraine to avoid prosecution. Putin would not accept Ukraine leaving Russia’s sphere of influence. Putin was misled and thought he would meet minimal resistance and the Russian troops would be greeted as liberators. If they had succeeded in capture Kiev they most likely would have put Zelensky is prison or murdered him for his defiance. Independent Ukraine would be no more. Based on how Ukraine has stood up to a much larger Russia, I would say the majority of Ukrainians supported the war at least initially. Now the world is in a no win situation. Give in to a dictator, or continue a war of attrition in which both sides will continue to loose a whole generation of young men. If a negotiated settlement is reached leaving Russia in control of eastern Ukraine, Putin will rebuild his army and come for the rest of Ukraine. More people will still be killed. The only way to stop the killing is to prove that it is not in Putin’s interest to eliminate Ukraine as an independent Country. He will keep trying no matter what the cost is in Russian and Ukrainian lives. NATO has no desire to invade Russia. Putin knows this otherwise he would not have hollowed his defenses in the west to support his misadventure in Ukraine. NATO countries for the most part did not want Ukraine to join NATO. Putin just used his fear of NATO limiting his ability to expand unchecked as an excuse to invade.
Although Zelensky was once a actor/comedian, he has turned into a true leader. Your pointing out he was a comedian is a biased attempt to lower him. Remember Trump is also a failed Businessman who became a reality TV star before becoming a leader of a superpower nation. Democrats use that to demean Trump. From what I can tell, Zelensky has more support in his country than Trump does here. Dropping support for Ukraine will not decrease the number of eventual dead Ukrainians. It may lead to less dead Russians and an emboldened Putin such that he may try his luck in other parts of eastern Europe. I don’t believe there is an easy way out of this mess.
The right thing to do would have been to give Ukraine weapons on day one and let them fire into Russia. That would have stopped Putin in his tracks. This is what Reagan would have done. When did the Republican party get hijacked by Russians and pacifists ? Trump is effectively giving up.
It would have precipitated nuclear war.
“The right thing to do would have been to give Ukraine weapons on day one and let them fire into Russia. That would have stopped Putin in his tracks.”
And then Russia would have ramped up arms production…. And would not unlikely feel they were forced to wage war in a much less considerate manner than they have so far. Ultimately leaving Ukraine even more trashed than they currently have. Beating Russia in next-door Ukraine is; if anything; even less viable than beating America in Mexico if the Americans for some reason decided to invade. And, for that matter, China in Taiwan. The only thing which can possibly be accomplished by “trying” such follies, is massively upping the destruction and the suffering of the locals who live in the respective places.
“This is what Reagan would have done.”
America was still a much wealthier country than Russia back then. The US MIC could handily outproduce the Russian MIC. Even wrt useful kit. That’s no no longer even remotely the case, unless you believe wars are won by the ones best at producing fraudulent invoices for $2000 toilet seats, Fed pumped up stock certificates of failures bailed out to enrich Blackrock, and empty promises of Elon Musk battling “evil” Putin for the dominance of Mars, with battery powered laser swords.
There was a settlement of the war in the works in April, 2022. Boris Johnson sought to scuttle it and succeeded. Johnson didn’t want peace. Not knowing what goes on in secret, behind closed doors, i’m guessing that Johnson wasn’t simply operating on his own accord. NATO was fine with operating a proxy war with Russia. The idea of NATO invading Russia, when Russia has numerous nuclear weapons, with which to defend itself, seems rather ludicrous. Likewise in the reverse. There was no nuclear war between the Soviet Union and NATO during the Cold War.
“NATO has no interest to invade Russia” . Really?
Yes really, or do you want nuclear war?
NATO should have no interest in invading Russia, but Alan is pointing out that NATO has contemplated it. Recently the foreign minister of Latvia talked about how Russia should be divided into five parts.
Half of The Ukraine voted for pro-Russia candidates because millions of them are ethnic Russians, who have been there since before The Ukraine emerged as a concept.
All the cities in The Ukraine were built by Russia since Catherine the Great.
Putin is exterminating Russian men and Russian culture with meat attacks on well defended Ukraine positions. Moscow is a slave society. Moscow’s military strategy is “cover the enemy with Russian corpses”. Moscow always succeeded and acquired enough new slaves to compensate for the losses. Moscow invaded Ukraine with 7 million military age men. One million fled. 700,000 are casualties. The current rate of attrition is ~1,400 per day. The Russian birth rate is far below replacement. The Moscow slave culture cannot recover from this war.
And this is why Biden should let Ukraine fire every missile into Moscow and give them MORE until his last day in office. There is still a chance to end the Putin regime and free the Russians.
You sound like that cowboy sat on the falling nuke in Dr Strangelove – you are an idiot who has learnt nothing from history.
One does not win a war of attrition by killing its own soldiers. It is Ukraine which is running particularly low on people available for a meat grinder.
Numbers seem to be that Putin invaded Ukraine with a few hundred thousand soldiers. Generals Zinni and Shinseki said that the U.S. needed some 400,000 troops with which to invade and control Iraq. They were ignored and Iraq was in chaos for quite some time after Saddam was overthrown.
Bear in mind too that the initial stages involved ethnic Russians in The Ukraine taking arms against their government that was trying to ethnically cleanse them.
Donbas is called the women’s republic. Russia ethnically cleansed Donbas of all men. The joke is on ethnic Russians in Donbas.
The DPR and LPR troops fought alongside Russia against the Kiev regime.
The Donbass and Luhanks militias are the mainstay of the fight going on in their respective regions. It is much more significant than just fighting alongside.
Mostly correct, but it wasn’t their government but an illegitimate group that had overthrown the legitimate government and Donbas refused to bow down to the bastard Nazis.
Much of the west has become a “slave society” recently, it’s just hidden by niceties.
In fact, most countries are slave societies now.
A common link between Ukraine and Trump:
How Paul Manafort Helped Elect Russia’s Man in Ukraine
https://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukraine-russia/
“Oafish and inarticulate, Yanukovych had served jail time in his youth for theft and battery. He also had a hard time speaking Ukrainian – the national language – as he had grown up in the Russian-speaking province of Donetsk. Yet Manafort accepted the challenge of trying to make Yanukovych electable.”
Yep. Some would have you believe it all started in 2014 with the US. Putin has been messing with Ukraine as far back in 2001.
Russia has been “messing with” The Ukraine for centuries before it even existed. Ukraine means “borderlands”.
Clinton interfered in the 1996 Russian election, to get the apparently not so popular Yeltsin re-electable. Would Putin be in charge now, if Yeltsin’s opponent had won? It was Yeltsin that handed over to Putin. Modi is not particularly happy with the Biden administration in relation to Bangladesh and alleged interference in Indian elections, according to a story about Trump working to mend relations with India to pull India back from more friendly relations with China.
The Biden regime will not be treated kindly by history. It was an appalling destructive abomination and parody.
Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian.
Note that Russian-speaking citizens, who have always been there, their language was prohibited from being a national language, just like the Romanians, who have been there for centuries, and the Greeks who have been there for millennia.
Russians have NOT always been in Ukraine. Stalin exterminated the population of Donbas during holodomor 1933 and resettled Russians on the vacant land. During the Ukraine war Russia conscripted and exterminated the male population of Donbas again.
Russians as a people started in Kiev. Kievan Rus. The Ruthenian part was cleaved from other lands further west.
Donetsk was initially called Yuzovka (Hughesovka) founded by Welshman John Hughes in the 19th century in what was then called the Russian Empire.
Yet over on Zero Hedge I’m reading Biden (or rather his handlers) are authorizing use of weapons deeper into Russia because it’s now or never to use them. More importantly, once peace does come, all the corruption that Biden was behind will be exposed and a lot of people are in a panic about that and need everything to be destroyed.
Putin is a lot more intelligent than every American president in living memory.
He ran rings around Obama.
No. He got himself and Russia into a no-win situation economically, demographically, financially and internationally. He accelerated Russia’s decline.
You are wrong. Russia is not interested in a cease fire. It wants a permanent solution, not Minsk 3.
…which is logical, trust has been severely damaged. It’s inconceivable for The Ukraine to ever join the EU or NATO. Both of these organisations have uncertain futures anyway. Even if The Ukraine is partitioned, the western half will be a bugfer state like Belorussia. Russia will now not give up it’s outposts in Transdneistra or East Prussia (Kaliningrad).
The end of Moscow slave culture is a permanent solution. Next week Ukraine can use long range missiles on high value targets. Oil, electricity, aircraft, and rail. Putin has thee months to surrender or suffer the end of Russian civilization.
And where will all your devastating missiles that are to be launched into Russia come from? I mean it. It is a serious question. You are talking in your post about an avalanche of Atacm missiles into Russia.
There were only 3700 such missiles produced. Those are now owned by over a dozen countries, many of which are not NATO and feel militarily threatened by hostile forces in their own area. Even if all the atacms ever produced were still operational and even if every one of the countries that bought some of them gave them back and even if NATO decided to fire off every single atacm ever produced, the weapon has a range of a couple of hundred miles and a small warhead.
Russia has demonstrated by countering them when they are employed in Ukraine, that they are not the game changer that the weapons manufacturers have convinced the media that they supposedly are. A weapon with a range of a couple of hundred miles is not a game changer in an industrialized country five thousand miles deep
The Abrams tanks, the Patriot anti air missile systems, the himars, the f-16s and the atacms have not changed the battle outcome in the Ukraine theater. Why would you think they would do so if the theater was suddenly expanded by five thousand miles?
You keep posting about how if the gloves are off, Russia would be destroyed. Yet the gloves are off inside the Ukrainian theater and Ukraine is not only losing but being devastated. What can NATO do inside Russia that they can’t do now inside Ukraine?
That’s because stubborn a** Biden refused to give his permission to use them inside Russia. That is changed as of today.
I say attack the Kremlin itself. What has Zelensky got to lose?
Biden ain’t doing jack s- except making sure he and Jill don’t forget where they stashed their $50,000,000 foreign government bribes.
To be fair, the $50M is for the whole family, not just J&J Biden.
We all know that children are expense … esp Hunter.
Every step of the way I was labeled a “Putin Lover”. Many confidently told the war won’t end until Ukraine gets back 100 percent of its territory. Some called me Chamberlain.
Ignoramuses use Chamberlain as a slur against everyone who proposes the current way of doing things is not right. But they don’t know history.
It was Chamberlain who declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, turning the German-Polish War into a World War.
In 1943, Hitler was recorded as blaming exclusively Chamberlain for his difficulties. Eager for a war with the West owing to an extreme military advantage in 1938, Chamberlain removed all reason for war with his Munich offer.
Hitler swore he could have smashed the British and French finally and fatally in 1938, but Chamberlain duped him into giving Britain a full year to catch up on armaments production.
Thus, Chamberlain was instrumental in the final defeat of Germany, even though he was saddled with blame for encouraging Hitler’s aggression.
Yes, good reminder.
But how do we assign all politicians into the “evil” vs “bad” categories while fitting our message into TikTok? /s
Holy smokes someone who knows real history.
Hitler and his cohorts hated the Versailles Treaty with passion, the treaty that also gifted Poland a corridor to Baltic sea cutting German territories in two. So it was par for the course, that they wanted to reunite the parts by hook or crook.
WW2 started when Britain and France declaring war on Germany, not the other way round. Hitler’s first miscalculation.
The victors decided what history would record, East and West both agreed on the final story. History a pack of lies commonly agreed upon.
Today, the rule based order jokers call Putin evil and tyrant, but who is still listening?
Since neocons are getting cancelled as soon as Trump gets into office this is their last chance to start somethings so Big not even Trump can stop it.
But just keep up the work of globalist agenda by bashing Trump whenever possible.
Putin is not unaware of the machinations going on inside America. He will not simply react to every provocation.
The only reason Trump might be pushing for Ukraine peace is that he is carrying Trump’s water.
Putin is rumored to have stolen over $200 billion from Russian oligarchs and the country itself. Trump wants a piece of that. Same reason why he is putting up with Musk.
“Putin is rumored…” Seriously?
Yes. It could be twice that amount.
“stolen” from theives?!
Yes you did.
Zelensky is a martyr.
He has to die first to be a martyr.
Inshallah
…and give up his mansions and gold.
Are you referring to Zelensky or Putin, who is purportedly worth $200 BILLION, that he stole?
And cocaine.
Zelensky is an imbecile. His country is being destroyed because of his foolishness. He’s stopped elections for a reason. Guess why?
Personal enrichment?
I’m still one of the ‘others’: Others said Russia would win outright and I was a fool to believe otherwise.
Ditto. Sheer size and population make Russia the winner. We can thank Virginia Nuland for most of this mess.
In case it is not clear: Nuland is an ego-centric, liberal, militaristic bitch, incapable of détente. Because of her, the US forced Russia and China closer together, creating the ideal environment for WW3.
Nuland’s tribe hates Russia for reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of us. Its a Kagan thang.
Most (90+%) of the US Department of State suffers severe Russia-phobia. It is a giant, expensive hive-mind churning out hatred. And yes, religion is a major factor.
Victoria the HUTT, baby!
x.com/CirthLiu/status/1707954556511158282
When Biden gets to choose between ending the war and extending the war, he decides to extend the war. Clearly his side has NOT had enough of destruction and lives lost.
What ulterior motive might Biden have to continue the war? How about to present Trump with a complete mess, a bad economy, two wars, pissed off Democraps etc?
Russia’s oil refining infrastructure is within the range of the new rockets, and oil is more important to a war effort than troops.
They have refineries as far as Omsk. That’s 2,000 miles from Kharkov. Not to mention a refinery near Vladivostok.
Well that will help oil prices… Are the insider traders in Washington paying attention?
Here’s the problem. Trump will ask Ukraine to give up land. If he can convince them because let’s face it, Europe will not step up the funding or the material support for Ukraine, then the territory currently occupied by Russia will be incorporated into their governess. The problem that creates, just like Vietnam where we basically negotiated with the VC and left the south out of the negotiations, for them to keep their seized property up north and not continue into South Vietnam, the Russians will not stop either. The VC lied, obviously. Bottom line, never trust a communist who has already spoke of reunification and their intentions and expect them not to follow through. I don’t know how many more times we’re going to be suckered into this as the West. And this is especially true considering we’re not interested in winning any wars
Putin will agree because ownership is nine tense of the law, and he will wait until Trump is out of office to proceed lurching into Europe.
North Korea and China will also continue their endeavors of reunification. They may not do it under Trump but don’t doubt ever, they will pursue it through local or global conflict.
Putin’s going to invade Europe? Who fed you that line of bullshit?
Why would he want to? Europe is broke and full of illegal immigrants and islamic terrorists and sex offenders!
Make Ukraine a neutral state (eg Switzerland) that can benefit Russia and the EU, without being a threat, plus give up some territory that is Russian-speaking, and the conflict ends.
And keep the g’damned warmongers like Lindsey and Nuland out of it.
The world has had enough of the 1950s hate-Russia campaign. Russia needs to be part of Europe again. This puts China in the cold, and stops aggression elsewhere.
“Trump will ask Ukraine to give up land.”
Trump will “insist” Ukraine give up land.
It’s one starting point and it will hold.
Anyone who trusts Putin is dumb. He has expansionist visions for the Russian empire and it won’t end in Ukraine. This is exactly why the US should have let Ukraine fully defend itself and fire weapons into Russia from day one. The only way this ends is when Putin dies.
Give it a rest, you moron.
More accurately, anyone who trusted Obama-Biden is dumb–shockingly incompentent leadershio for 8 years..
You are more of the same mindless Hate-Russian-Forever faction that dominates State. It needs to go, and soon.
Bring Russia into the EU, and everyone wins, except China.
The land is already given up anyway.
It’s not a negotiation position to demand land you don’t control with a population that hates you.
The land they will “give up” is full of ethnic Russians the Ukrainian government tried to ethnically cleanse, so the idea they would want to live under that regime is ridiculous.
They exercised self-determination (a Russian concept) and left. Keeping them under a terrorist Ukrainian government is non-viable.
WW3 JOE? No his minions giving the world a little gift. This nonsense needs to stop. Yes Trump….please stop this now. It makes no sense and hurts so many.
“At this stage in the game, there are valid arguments that Russia should nuke Kyiv and show the entire world what nuclear war will be. Only then will perhaps the people rise up and demand the West backs down. Otherwise, we are looking at war into 2027.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/biden-authorizes-start-ing-world-war-iii-before-trump-takes-office/?
[ROTFLOL]. Armstrong is an idiot.
Catastrophic release of nitrous oxide nearby?
doubt that mate
I thought you would be sequestered in a safe space in a fetal position after cameltoe’s loss. The drugs are kicking in i see.
True. Not just an idiot…
IMHO Armstrong is wrong. The best interests of both Russia and Ukraine are to resolve this asap, and create a non-threatening relationship, ideally mutually beneficial economically. They have the raw materials to make Europe a powerhouse. A side benefit is neutering China.
There isn’t even a anti-war division of the Dem party anymore. I think even Bernie & AOC are all in on continuing to fund this Ukraine War. A war could have been negotiated 2.5 yrs ago and saved hundreds of thousands of lives & destruction of a nation.
It’s a sin
Sure. If Ukraine would only give up, kotow to Putin’s demands and agree to become a Russian state again, everything would be solved! [lol]
Got a better idea?
Have you actually listened to Putin and heard him say this?
I don’t speak Russian. But this is what has been reported.
Sooner or later you’ll realize the western media lies whenever it serves the interests of their masters
AOC said we would all be dead from climate change by this time.
The Ukraine war will stop. Most of his cabinet wants it to end. Israel is screwed. It will stop not because of Trump but because they screwed themselves. They don’t have an answer for the Houthis disrupting shipping and the shelling on Israel has not stopped. It’s a daily affair not covered in the media. It has wrecked their economy. People are leaving for good.
Why are mixing up Russia/Ukraine with Israel? Are you stoned or what?
The US has to make some serious choices. Right now it does not have the sailors to man its ships. Russia, Israel/Middle East, Taiwan…. It is a matter of time before the Houthis get an aircraft carrier with a hypersonic rocket. Then, the US has a $10 trillion war on its hands.
The smart thing to do is exit both conflicts, or reduce to one.
The party of hate. Death. War. Censorship. What else. Democrats on the wrong side of everything these days.
You forgot castrating children.
What a surprise? NOT!