Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Which will be equally as worthless as NATO, if not more so.

If you were Estonia would you trust a Le Pen government to come to your aid if Russia invaded?

Would you expect a Reform led UK to stand up to Russia?

An AfD government in Germany?

These people idolise Putin.

Poland would help, that is about it.

I think we are in the last few years of liberal democracy. There will be a lot of realigning over the next 10 years.

Indeed, but in my opinion the worry is that populists who gain power in Europe will pull out of this pact. Periphery nations okay, but when it's a core nation like Germany or France then there could be issues.

Putin's dream of course is a fractured Europe where every country just takes care of itself - so that he can pick off e.g. the Baltics with his 2.0 military.

So I believe any pact has to be strong and also modular. It has to have the ability to lose a member or two but still keep functioning. Ironically Trump is good in that regard, we are starting to wake up to some facts and realities. We have more than enough resources to easily contain Putin, plus we have Ukraine - it's just a question of putting them all together, and populist-proofing it

I am pretty sure you said it, but I admit I might be wrong. It would have been over a year ago. Must go and look when I have some time. You were posting up lectures + papers by Mearsheimer blaming Ukraine and the US for the entire situation (they poked the bear sums that up I think) + telling us all what a great scholar Mearsheimer was and we were all fools (unlike you) to disagree with his position of authority on the matter!

It doesn't matter if Ukraine or Ukrainians are "no angels", who is? And so what? It is fairly irrelevant to this situation.

Who do you think is an "angel" in this world? None of us are saints incl. Ireland, but Russia under Putin is more like Lucifer!

The fact is Ukraine was a peaceful democracy pretty much minding its own business and Russia attacked it. It's a clear old style "lebensraum" land grab + robbery on international scale, utterly revolting. Arming them is the just the right thing to do (in addition to non military aid).

Orbán is awful. He's no man of peace. Think he even regularly makes irredentist statements about other countries, similar to Putin. If Hungary was a lot more powerful, he had Putin's level of propaganda machine and control through fear over the country and a strong military, I am not convinced he wouldn't make moves on neighbours as well.

The fact is Ukraine was a peaceful democracy pretty much minding its own business and Russia attacked it.

Many people hold the view that the Maidan revolution was a US backed coup and there's vast evidence to support that argument and its undeniable that Nuland was involved. In the subsequent civil war 14,000 people died and Ukraine became known as the most corrupt nation in Europe. Crimea which was gifted to Ukraine was stolen back 60 years later during the Maiadan revolution. A long time could be spent discussing those events.

Ukraine has recently become less corrupt according to UK based transparency international but to say it was a peaceful democracy pretty much minding its own business and Russia attacked it is a massive stretch or at least appears that way to me.

I think in all these circumstances we need to look at ourselves too. Nobody is arguing Russia is a utopian country and I think it is important to recognise same about Ukraine. The stupid and unnecessary war that is resulting in horrific slaughter of Ukraine and Russian people should be stopped and a peace deal thrashed out imho.

Thanks

The OCSE report, if you aren't aware, references Putin's proxy invasion of East Ukraine. Russia attacking Ukraine.

Russia signed up for a "ceasefire" during that invasion, which it broke repeatedly on Ukrainian territory. It did so to provoke a response from Ukraine to validate a long planned full scale invasion that going ahead anyway.

As for the paywalled article from 7 years earlier. Obama didn't want to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia, because Putin would have possibly used that as a pretext to escalate his localized invasion to a full-scale invasion (which he did anyway)

At no point has Ukraine ever been a threat to nuclear-armed Russia. Moscow does however produce a lot of bad propaganda to validate their land-grab which you seem to continually fall for.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski yesterday said having Polish troops on the ground in Ukraine was "not a consideration, because Poland's duty to NATO is to protect the eastern flank, i.e. its own territory"

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-countries-will-not-create-one-united-army-says-polands-sikorski-2025-02-16/

PM Tusk also has this morning confirmed it is not under consideration for Poland. Maybe they have figured out or have been told the reality of how things really are.

Russia does not want Europe at the Ukraine talks, do I suppose their MAGA puppets will go along with that:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-lavrov-why-would-europe-be-ukraine-talks-if-they-want-war-carry-2025-02-17/

But Trump wants European troops to be prepared to act as a peacekeeping force. What sort of charlatans, clowns and totally untrustworthy people want Euope to commit troops to a big and hazardous operation, when they have been excluded from negotiations?

Firstly, I don't think the US administration is capable of coming up with a peace plan that Europe could agree to, let alone Ukraine. It's going to be; accept this capitulation to Putin's interests, because we are ceasing to help Ukraine in any way.

So I don't think there is going to be a peace keeping force situation, from Europe's perspective, theres going to be a binary choice between letting Putin have all of Ukraine and accommodate the largest wave of refugees the world has ever seen, or to get militarily involved and defeat Russia.

Who said anything about it only being the UK? Zelensky's estimate is 100 k troops needed for peace keeping. Every European member state with functional military would need to commit almost half their forces.

Said before if Europe wants to do it's best to support Ukraine + purchase American weapons down the line nothing is stopping them. The more beneficial this war is to Trump the stronger his hand will be negotiating with Putin.

On another note did anyone think Ukraine would be holding so much of Kursk come mid February? I'm starting to believe they could be there for a while. In total so far it's redirected a massive amount of Russian firepower from Ukraine.

There isn't going to be a peace keeping scenario. Europe either supports Ukraine militarily or it stands back and watches Russia eventually take the whole of Ukraine and accept 20+ million refugees.

The only positive of any peace talks between Trump and Putin is that the two of them in the same place makes an incredible target for anyone in favour of world peace.

I know security would be incredibly tight but all it takes is a 21st century Claus von Stauffenberg to be more successful and we could all sleep easier.

CFTrump and Putler are playing at their own post-WWII Yalta with this Saudi meeting sh1te. Pathetic, and shows just how clueless Trump and his lackeys are about international affairs. And Vance is just as bad and a heartbeat away.

Hopefully, as they say here, Ukraine tells them wrt to whatever proposal they belch out, to get up the yard with it.

Because if you take for example the Baltic states, 3 countries that Putin almost certainly has machinations for, Russia has already since 2022 taken more landmass in Ukraine than exists in Latvia for example. And utterly flattened most of the areas they've taken. Since it seems to be the only way they can make advances.

Yes if NATO got involved, even without direct US involvement Russia would probably be routed eventually. But the amount of damage they could do before that could undo any or all of the Baltic states as prosperous EU countries. It would be an absolute calamity that could take decades to recover from, if ever. And should be avoided at all costs.

And the best way to do that is hand them a definitive loss in Ukraine as a lesson.

Up until last week, Europe didn't want to talk to war criminal Putin.

Now they are asking for a place at the table.

We are really between a rock and a hard place here.

They are delusional. Excluding EU and Ukraine will make their decisions irrelevant.