Some potential for more escalation today. Ukraine has claimed it was their security services that were behind the killing of Kirillov. Can’t exactly see Russia letting this one go.
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Russia failing nicely.
No proxy support from Syria now.
Loss of bases.
Loss of face and prestige.
All very good.
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So, talks are now under way, without Ukraine sitting at the table.
How the hell is Steve Witkoff or Mike Waltz in any way qualified to be sitting at the table. It’s utterly embarrassing for the US.
The only silver lining here is Marco Rubio. He’s good. Although I may disagree with his positions on matters, at least he’s extremely experienced.
We shall see what happens. But I don’t really like the look of this from the outside.
I think most of western Europe shares this view.
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Congratulations to the Soviet Union for winning the cold war:
Trump is parroting a revisionist narrative that the Russians will be pleased to hear. This triggered me to revise some previous research on Russian-NATO relations.
The real position of Russia is more along the lines of NATO being the instigator over a period of decades, and Ukraine is a useful asset to them with their desire join NATO a convenience.
Easiest to digestive summary that I can find easily is:
They also like to ignore that anything NATO and Ukraine have done in the 8 years prior to the recent invasion follows their actions in 2014.
They point to verbal statements in 1990 at the time of Gorbachev, and suggest that new members east of the lines drawn at the time contravene them. But those were made before the fall of the USSR and the geographical and political landscapes changed very rapidly within a couple of years.
It could be considered valid, to a point, but they’ve blessed some of that expansion and also signed the NRFA. They’ve been pretty bipolar about this for over 30 years.
This is Putin’s agenda, attempting to exert some power and gain an asset…gone wrong. Trump appears to be making himself a lifeline to it going right.
I think Trump’s legacy is that he will be seen as the Neville Chamberlin of the 21st century.
Russia has invaded or used proxies to invade Georgia, Chechnya and Moldova. Annexed the Crimea in 2014 and invaded the Donbas. Putin (the Russian state) also ordered the murder of Russian dissidents on British and German soil.
The Expansion east of NATO after 2022 was as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin is dangerous and untrustworthy. Nothing good will come as a result of Trumps new found friendship with his new bestie Putin.
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It’s scary how many people seem to believe this too. In one of the more concerning examples, a former JARIC Sqn Ldr from the Cold War (and a bit later) days holds exactly this view.
Well, the next one will be conscription! On daytime TV.
I think that’s unfair on Chaimberlain, most modern historians have a very positive view of him, understanding that appeasement was a way of preparing for war.
What Trump is doing is more akin to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Ukraine playing the role of Poland in 1939.
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The time Chamberlin gained allowed the UK to rebuild the RAF and in particular the fighter squadrons and allow more time for the C3 to develop.
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Only took a Couple nations…
It did a lot, it allowed the Spitfire and Hurricane to be in Squadron service, it allowed the Dowding system to be completed and tested, it gave time for the BEF to be fully mechanised and it gave time for National Service to kick in and start training people ready to expand the army.
Now all of that is important, but what it did most of all was give the country time to be psychologically ready for war. The country wasn’t willing to go to war for Czechoslovakia, they were happy to believe Hitlers promises and being honest what he wanted at that time “unification of the German people” didn’t seem unreasonable to the man on the street. But once he broke the Munich agreement, everyone saw the truth that Chamberlain knew and from
That point on the public were behind rearmament and behind the government, so when it was Poland’ turn the public were ready,
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James Holland’s book The Battle of Britain is very good. Delap Sarker’s series of books is supposed to be excellent, just haven’t bought them yet.
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Ah it makes sense now….
Trump ‘very frustrated’ and Zelensky must strike minerals deal, says adviser
I can’t see what Ukraine has to gain from the deal. The US has already stopped shipping weapons and won’t defend Ukraine against Russia. The security of Ukraine must be ensured by Europe, not the US.
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Seeing Trump say this afternoon something to the effect of “Ukraine holds no cards in this”. As in, a deal needs to be made, they have no leverage.
It’s not about bloody leverage or “cards”. It’s about defending what’s right and fighting back against this Russian aggression. This deal isn’t just about peace. It’s not peace at any cost. It’s lasting peace and reclaiming Ukraine’s sovereignty.
How and what will be the costs?
ETA to this date we probably have on both sides near 1,000,000 dead military and civilian and 3.5,000,000+ injured with a war bogged down in a WW1 situation, now how to solve this?
We have to reframe our minds in what these “costs” actually mean. People see big headlines like “£500m of weapons being sent to Ukraine”, and they think that’s £500m in taxes gone down the drain. I like to point out that what it’s actually a £500m investment into the UK R&D/Defence/Manufacturing sectors.
The whole thing of spending more money on defence has many more advantages than just having more guns and tanks. If done properly, it means creating thousands of jobs across different sectors.
So in that sense, I don’t really care for the cost financially.
(Just seen you edit to add about the death toll cost)
My response to that is that if we had supplied better and more equipment earlier on, we potentially could have stopped it escalating into what it is now.
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We didn’t and don’t have the equipment stockpiles to do that, and the German government were positively obstructive to countries doing so. Plus, in the UK, our forces are a hollow shell of what it was 34 years ago when we went to Gulf War 1 and nowhere to what we were in 1995 when the Berlin Wall came down.
The money comes from the taxpayers, so taxes overt and covert would have to rise exponentially to pay for the weapons, infrastructure, and personnel. Are you in favour of conscription to use this increase in defence posture?