It was all a trap.
They just invited him over so they can try to bully him and attack his character with bullshit arguments in front of everyone so they can have that “tough guy” image for their moronic supporters. How fucking pathetic.
No one will want to go over to the US to negotiate anything now.
America is squarely in an age of decline now. Our allies will start moving on without us. We’ll start being left out of all sorts of deals/agreements. Our global power will decline. The future is going to another country. Probably China.
All because dumbfuck conservatives care more about owning the libs than voting responsibly.
“Decline” is an understatement. Trump is turning the US into a pariah rogue state, and he’s doing it fast.
I may have a bit of a rose-colored view of the US, or at least its potential to have its conscience pricked by the notion that tomorrow can be freer than today, but if we don’t care about that anymore, then whatever it was that made America a more palatable hegemon than the USSR or China is gone. The USA is just another transactional actor, and not even a particularly reliable one. At this point, Trump has literally threatened more individual souls with annexation than China has.
That doesn’t stop any toddler from saying they are disrespected at home… Are you saying he wants the numerous tariffs negotiations to fail?!?
I tend to agree with you 100%, yet the stock market hasn’t reacted. 🤷♂️
Man, I want this war over and the US out of it.
But watching our POTUS and VP behave that way on international TV. Even if you support their politics, it’s hard for me to understand how all of us are not embarrassed.
I also like that Zelensky didn’t just swallow the insults and spoke his piece, because the media is (of course) focusing solely on the preferred Trump narrative.
i need something to bring my blood pressure down. i am flushed with anger. make your own mirror of this if you download yt-dlp run from command line
yt-dlp https://youtu.be/uqOOOR7Kr-s
“this is gonna be great television, i’ll tell you that” - Donald Trump, 025/28/2, he tried to bully Ukrainian president Zelenskyy on live tv
edit should be noted the minerals in ukraine are presumed, theoretical, just what little i know, but this “deal” would allow more U.S. corruption and private interests to head over and start raping the land, looking for a jackpot.
Look how you’ve mangled that date
look you gotta say the date biggest to smallest. that way it’s impervious to nationalist math confusion.
if i did it wrong then we’ll just rewrite the rules in my favor
Trump can’t embarrass me more…
Trump: hold my beer.rm
Does anyone else have the feeling that Ukraine is safer with no deal?
Yes. USA already knows what its going to do. A hypothetical trade agreement isn’t going to change the decision, so Ukraine should make exactly zero concessions in pursuit of influencing a decision which has already been made.
Exactly, Trump already decided he was going to surrender. Zelensky knew he wasn’t going to get anything, but it was worth a shot I guess
They’re safer if they develop nuclear weapons on their own.
Libya and Ukraine convey the same warning to non NATO states. Have nukes or perish.
All to play for . Join EU. Agree no NATO Putin fucks off.
America frozen.
Not sure how the US would react. Probably war.
Yeah, and the EU should immediately step up, and triplicate support for Ukraine.
Triple*
We (Europe) already did most of the heavy lifting for Ukraine. The US mostly gave old stockpiles of weapons that they would’ve needed to destroy anyway. We are the ones actually paying cash to keep them afloat.
The problem is, in the post-WW2 order, our defense and our defense industry was made dependent on the USA by design. And even up until last November, Europe didn’t want to challenge this arrangement and just went full steam ahead with this arrangement, ordering US made weapons. I think Europe was in denial that Biden could lose or that NATO could ever end.
Only France, and to a limited extent, Sweden and Turkey, have independent defense industries.
In the future, we will have it again. And Ukraine will actually be a key player.
But in the short term, there is no magical button to press that can produce the arms.
Undoing decades of integration isn’t going to be easy.
I mostly agree, but I think the list needs Germany’s excellent Leopard (2) tanks, the modern APC variants and all their industry.
Europe also has a lot of good marine yards that can make Navy vessels and submarines.
And it can drum up drone production in a rapid tempo where needed.
What’s more, European Steel and metallurgy are out of the door of higher grade than the US, Russia and Chinese productions. This is a boon to produce heavy armor quickly.
So when push comes to shove Europe can no doubt ramp up a unified military industry rapidly, no need for it to take a decade, and keep finances in house. Another factor that works against the Trump economy if he thoughtlessly pulls the plug on NATO
I do agree, but it does take 3-5 years, unless the EU is willing to turn into a wartime economy. But the political will for that is just not there.
If there will be a serious large-scale attack directly against EU as a whole, the politic will will appear.
Putin is going to make a hard move into the baltics during Trump’s first 2 years, including NATO countries. And Europe won’t be able to do shit about it. They need defenses now and European leadership needs to fast track it.
you talk as if Europe doesn’t have agency, or a military.
they do. they have gaps in their capability that have been created by the departure of US. and they no longer have the overwhelming advantage against Russia, but the thing is Russia will still get absolutely smoked.
the only thing that has changed, is it will be a far bloodier fight. Europe and America are both casualty averse. the prospect of things like Bucha Mariupol and Irpin happening in their cities, the population isnt ready for that.
(And to be clear, what happened in those towns and cities were a crime against humanity, after what Russia did there the Ukrainians understood very well this is a genocidal total war, its kill or be killed, and I dont think Europe has understood thats what its going to be.)
Maybe,just maybe, look up your world politics again.
- All baltic nations(except Russia) are NATO members
- All baltic nations (except Russia) are EU members and therefore covered by the Lisbon accords as well - which are much more far reaching than what NATO accords cover,btw.
So while the Baltics are in a shitty situation it’s not like Russia could attack a “non NATO” Baltic nation - as your “including” make it seem.
And currently there are 40.000 Soldiers of the ARF either deployed in the Baltics or ready to deployed within short notice - while the EU battlegroup is also available and gaining speed. The former is - for the first time - not sustained by US troops mainly,the later one of course never was. And as the ARF is a very British corps the UK has made it very clear that the ARF also operates under the British nuclear deterrence - so did France with both battlegroups.
Will that be enough to deter Putin? Who knows. Is it nothing? Definitely not - at the moment it would be, even without US support, enough to cause either the Ukrainian front or the “new front” (wherever that would be) to collapse fast.
Your narrative is either influenced by Russian misinformation or you are Russian misinformation - it is known that Russia tries to “it’s not worth it to even fight” narrative heavily into Europe and it has done so in Ukraine before.
Making a dumbass geography mistake proves I’m American, not Russian 😅
Anyway, I don’t think 40,000 is enough if the USA is aligned or even allied with Russia. Which you know, seems entirely possible given current events.
40.000 is what is currently part of the reaction force - not the total force strength.
Active service/Reserve forces of the nations with direct borders to either Belarus or Russia:
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Norway: 33.000/60.000
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Finnland: 18.000/ 180.000-280.000 (And we all know how this turned out the last time)/18.000
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Lithuania: 23.000/104.000
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Estonia: 7.700/80.000(but almost half in rapid response readiness)
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Latvia: 17.000/38.000
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Poland: 216.000/670.000
That does not include the countries that are currently heavily investing in the Baltics. Germany plans to have 4.000 soldiers stationed there permanently with 30.000 active personal rotating in and out. Canada has also a brigade stationed there, the UK does the same and hosts the command in the UK.
If you count the other Baltic sea nations that mostly have a very high interest in keeping the Russiand at bay you also have Sweden (24.000+22.000 Homeguard/32.000), Denmark (16.000/12.000+51.000 HomeGuard) and Germany (180.000/930.000) you have even higher numbers.
These are roughly twice as many soldiers as Putin currently can access at the moment - and he is heavily based on conscripts and semi general mobilization which is not part of the equations for most countries here, neither are other key players (e.g. UK 135.000/32.000), France (270.000/63.000), Spain(133.000/264.000), Italy (165.000/35.000), Romania (81.000/55.000) and the smaller but often highly motivated nations, e.g. the Czech Republic (34.000/4000). Even though there are some countries who’s motivation may be shaky (Italy, to some extend Germany and some smaller players like Hungary) Europe very likely would be united against a common cause in a situation like that. The most interesting point would be how Erdogan in Türkiye would respond - he has one of the largest armies on this side of the pond (481.000/380.000) and there are quite a lot of people who believe that Erdogan would actually stick with “European NATO” in this case simply he would be too afraid that Putin could either reconsider his “future” border (post Georgia invasion which is far more likely) with Türkiye or simply because he would be afraid of his old military guard.
Would that guarantee victory against a joint Putin-Trump full on attack against Europe? No. Not at all. All sides would loose. Terribly.
In total soldier numbers Europe does actually surpass both the current Russian and all US armed forces combined (narrowly). Of course the US have a huge material advantage,but this is partially based on logistics from Europe (and often stored here). All this facilities would be lost then and Russia would be unable to easily supply similar logistical capacities - they simply don’t have them and transport via eastern polar routes(as the western routes are within Norwegian and Finnish reach) or the eastern ports of Russia is bothersome.
While the US navy is mighty,it would be operating very far from home - further away than it has operated from any allied base ever and in very very hostile waters. (Actually the British navy is the last modern navy to have operated that far away from an allied base during a combat mission) So the US would be limited to high flying stealth bombers (don’t do that much damage and can absolutely be detected by modern western radar), stuff they drag all the way through Russia, whatever they can ferry through the pond which would be infested by various submarines that, while mainly non nuclear, are still a major treat to their navy (ask the Swedes).It would certainly not be enough for a D-Day like operation.
So the other option is: Well… intercontinental ballistic missiles. While I am absolutely sure that the fascist orange wouldn’t hesitate a minute to use this option if someone tells him it makes his golf course worth more as all of Scotland’s course are now burned to crisps it would also mean that Putin and Trump himself would be fucked. Because the very next minute he presses the button someone else will press a button - either in London or Paris. France is already offering to place nuclear capabilities in eastern and central Europe for this very reason. In the end Washington would be nuked the same way Moscow, London, Paris and Berlin would be. And while the Orange acts irrational his buddy Putler does not - the mediocre KGB officer understands what happens to him if his puppet in Washington overreacts.
The NATO wargamed expectation for the Baltic’s is that Russia invades very quickly ( faster than the planned ukraine 3 day operation as they’re smaller), overthrowing the government before NATO can react in the expectation that NATO would struggle to invade a deafeated nation, and so fragmenting the alliance.
If this sounds insanely risky, well Putin never did it. But as a plan it’s not too bad. I think you know better than me the state of Europe’s readiness to counter this, they are extremely aware of the possibility.
The other point is that for Ukraine support this isn’t just a generic issue with size of military in the abstract, Europe as a whole does not have enough factories producing specifically artillery shells to support the artillery dominated land war in Ukraine. Ramping those up would take time, so even if Europe tries to help the forms it can take will differ to the USA and force different (worse? I can’t judge) choices on the ground.
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Indeed, especially during the first Cold War, the US Military Industrial Complex was everywhere. Germany and Japan were forced to buy out dated shit from the Americans. The magical button, tell the US military to shutdown all their European military installations and leave. What would the US MIC do then? I highly doubt they want to lose business.
You just made all of the points that I was thinking about.
Any deal with Trump is no deal at all. He’s the kind of guy that, if you give an inch, starts waving his hands around about how you stole 16 inches from him, and how you must be thrown in a hole somewhere.
Granting him anything is telling him that you are weak and ripe to be exploited.
Just like with any dictator deals are worthless. Putin broke the ceasefire and Trump is breaking trade deals.
They can sign a 50 year deal and stop payment 10 years from now, hopefully thing change for better then.
This guy does (he was there too, sitting next to vance, btw)
I’m certain Dr Birx can recommend him a therapist who specializes in sold souls…
A man who, by the way, was fully supported by every single democratic senator.
He was supposed to be the “adult” in the room. They all fear Trump… For some reason, I don’t get it.
trump is a good punishment for power-hungry politician types, too bad that it is at everyone else’s expense.
I’d suspect they’re safer with a deal… but they absolutely shouldn’t honor that deal.
They’re safer with a deal with guarantees, but Trump doesn’t want to give any, only take the profit. Otherwise it’s a choice between soldiers dying and soldiers dying with profit sharing.
Ukraine should just build nukes, test one of them and then say to Russia “Get out, or the next one is landing on Moscow”.
Yeah, “just build nukes”. If it was that simple, every one would have them. And even then its probably the worst choice they could make at the moment…
More like the best choice. If you don’t want to be invaded, you need nukes. Any country that had nukes and gets rid of them is just asking to be invaded. Libya got rid of their nukes, got invaded, collapsed. Ukraine got rid of their nukes, got invaded, got abandoned by the US. Canada got rid of their nukes, Trump is talking about annexing the country. I guarantee Trump would be a lot more polite to the Canadians if they had something they could point right at Mar A Lago and go “Invade us at your fucking peril”.
Canada and Libya never had nuclear weapons.
Libya tried to develop nuclear weapons but never had them. Also they weren’t invaded, there was an uprising that toppled Qaddafi.
Canada was involved with the Manhattan Project, and could have had nukes, but decided against it.
That is the kind of escalation nobody will survive.
So Ukraine builds a nuke. Maybe a few nukes, even. How many more nukes do you think Russia has? How many active anti-nuke systems do you think Russia has? Do you truly believe Ukraine having nukes will somehow deter Russia, or wouldn’t think that Russia would consider that an excuse to do even more damage?
It doesn’t matter how many nukes Russia has, or how many anti-nuke systems they have. Ukraine only needs to get lucky once. That fear will make Russia back off. It works for North Korea, it can work for Ukraine. The US is unreliable at best and a bunch of lying traitorous scum at worst, so there’s no point in relying on them for anything. The ONLY way a country can protect itself from invasion these days is to have a “I’m taking the entire world with me” button.
That’s not how it works. MAD requires an existential threat to a country. Not simply the ability to maybe take out one city. You have to have the capability to completely destroy a country for MAD to take effect.
You also need second strike capability otherwise that one nuke is a target. Russia figures out where Ukraine’s nuclear weapons are location, they do a first strike. There’s a reason why most nuclear powers have submarines capable of nuclear strikes. Hard to take them out with a first strike.
This article has some of the grossest stuff I’ve ever heard.
Trump and Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for three years of American support, telling him he was in no position to tell the US how it should feel about it.
Those years of support were certainly due to no thanks to you. You hated every bit of help that was given to them, and now you want them to thank you for it??? I believe the US could go in and do to the Russian occupied territory what the Russians thought they could do to Ukraine and roll them over almost immediately. But instead, this admin is ready to leave them for dead unless they give up their only key to financing their rebuild without foreign “help.” This is not seeking cooperation of an ally, it is extorsion.
Trump accuses Zelensky of “gambling with World War Three”. He points his finger at the Ukrainian leader.
“What you are doing is disrespectful to the country - this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have,” Trump says.
Zelensky calmly interjects: “I’m with all respect for your country”.
Vice-President Vance interrupts: “Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire meeting?”
Zelensky replies: “A lot of times”.
Vance again says: “No, in this entire meeting, have you said ‘thank you’?”
“You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the USA and the president who is trying to save your country.”
Zelensky shakes his head and looks away, and says the US will also eventually feel the consequences of the war.
Trump appears visibly frustrated, interjecting: "Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel.
“We’re going to feel very good and very strong.”
Sorry Don, I’m not feeling the alliance here. Never seen him once talk about Putin this way. I do think he’s working on an alliance in this war, only it’s not from Ukraine.
Trump accuses Zelensky of “gambling with World War Three”.
Which means that Trump is also gambling with it. Of course you’d need competent media to point out their hypocrisy.
As Zelensky implied, everyone is going to have a price to pay for the result of this, however it ends. Ukrainian ,Russian, and North Korean citizens are just the first to feel it. I don’t want any of them to die, but since everyone spent the last 11 years tiptoeing around this issue, now there is a huge sunk cost for those nations, when the rest of the world should have stepped up sooner. After all the death and destruction, why would Ukraine now not only give up to Russia, but now the US also trying to steal their resources? Trump promises to take from Ukraine but will not commit to Ukraine’s safety. They’ve already learned what a deal with Putin means, and they’ve had 4 years of seeing what Trump deals look like, and what he’s doing to Americans right now.
Even with some news agencies being kicked out in the first 40 days of the presidency, there are still good pointed questions being asked. They aren’t always the ones making it to the front page of anyone’s feeds, which I think is terrible, but I don’t feel most everyday people in the US know or care what is going on with all they are facing. We’re on political posting space, so we often forget we are way more heavily invested in knowing world events compared to most people, just as near everyone uses computers, but only a few of us know how to build on or program one. We’re not prepared in school to follow these events, and our society does not put emphasis on learning them. Broadcast news and for profit media will give what people care about at large, if it’s valuable news or rubbish. There are still outlets that deliver the boring plain facts to those like us here though, and I think we need more solidarity for that. Not all media has fallen in line behind Trump or the billionaires, and many are still doing all they can to report on these important issues. If they weren’t providing the facts, Trump wouldn’t be banning people from press events, Bezos wouldn’t be forcing out editors, and Musk and Zuck wouldn’t need to spend so much money pushing propaganda. We need to embrace tighter than ever what we do have, even if it is imperfect, or soon we will not have that either.
Hoooly crap he’s basically just flat out demanding “KISS THE RING.”
And they’re dressing down an embattled wartime leader of a sovereign nation like they’re friggin’ Jeff the GameStop Manager telling a teenager “You should feel privileged that we even gave you a job.”
The sheer big baby entitlement, wow. Our country is a global embarrassment right now…
That’s very much how I read it. “Be grateful you got what you got, and if you don’t kiss my ass and give me a big payment, I’m leaving you and your people to rot. I’m fine either way.”
Every day I think it’s going to be hard to make me be more ashamed of my country, but they do it with such ease.
Zelensky took it like a champ though, and I got to watch much of the video after my original comment, and while Vance was trashing him for not saying thank you nicely enough, when he mentioned the brave people of Ukraine, that was when Zelensky said thank you again as he was being talked over.
As a point of clarity. Trump demanded a ridiculous share of minerals from Ukraine. Zelensky wanted to negotiate that. Trump essentially told him there was no negotiation. They could give up half of their future mineral wealth or they could kick rocks.
give them to EU or china instead.
I’m amazed Zelensky doesn’t stand up and slap the both of them across their faces holyyyyyyy
I posted this on another article a day or two ago… still feeling the same way:
I feel like he’s in a better position than people give him credit for. Europe is behind him, and Trump wants to have his cake (besties with Putin) and eat it (NATO). If he rejects Trump’s bullying in the negotiations, it forces Trump to decide. If he sides with Putin, that’s pretty much it for NATO, US-Euro relations. Possibly the UN, as well. The US loses A LOT in the way of economic, intelligence, and strategic cooperation all to become a VERY weakened dictatorship’s new best friend. I’m mean, of course that’s what Trump will do because “4d chess,” and “art of the deal,” and whatever.
It all kind of depends on Europe. They kind of want the best of both worlds too (back Ukraine and not lose the US as an ally). Which is more important to them? Germany’s new chancellor offered a hopeful signal after winning the election, and I have a feeling Macron and Starmer won’t ditch Ukraine, but we’ll see if that sentiment holds when shit gets real.
Exciting times .
What makes you think NATO is something he wants? If anything, he could be plotting a 30x bigger surprise than the invasion of Ukraine if the americans betray Europe on the battlefield by removing all the NATO command structures by surprise in the event of new russian escalation.
He’s made noise about NATO, but… he makes a lot of noise. He also, to a small extent had a point at one time about nations committing the agreed upon percentages of their budgets to defense. Regardless, today’s actions paint a pretty clear picture for Europe and the rest of the world.
But he doesn’t even understand how that works, he thought it was protection money. “Ya gotta pay your bills”
The whole thing felt like an embodiment of this meme:
Fuck Trump and Vance
Imagine being Zelensky and having to fly some some rando country to beg for help from a Nazi asshole to end the invasion from another Nazi asshole. And if you were to die, one of the two assholes would win?
Zelensky, if you need my help personally, just ask. I have a wheelbarrow so we can carry your balls. Trump would love it if his genitalia could weigh down a party balloon.
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I also would have slapped those 2. Fuck it.
