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brickstser69
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He doesn't need to, when Trump's allies in the Christian nationalists and tech nonces will happily take a bonesaw to the federal government in the name of either creating Vanilla ISIS (the former) or their "network state" fiefdoms (the latter).
Oh +100 to this. Mueller found plenty of dirt on Trump, but it never ended up in front of a judge and jury (or Congress for that matter.) Trump is mobbed up big time with RuZZia.
He was bought years ago. Once you understand Putin owns Trump everything he does makes sense. Tries to weaken NATO, blames NATO for the Ukraine war, attacks allies but never criticizes Putin , undermines democracy in America and attacks the likes of the CIA, FBI. Puts a pro russian schill in charge of national security, a FOX News alco in charge of defence and an ex heroin addict, anti-vaxxer in charge of health.
Rheinmetal CEO (whom Russia tried to assassinate recently) was on Bloomberg saying they can produce a lot more but the orders are not coming in from European countries
Another knock on effect of Trump's divisiveness is that by pushing Europe towards supplying its own defense needs will in turn will reduce orders for US made weapons, which in turn makes US production more expensive due to a reduction in the economy of scale.
a good chance russia has bought trump
Ukraine has been weaning itself off Chinese drones and now has the domestic capacity to manufacture 4 million a year.
Honestly Europe is likely going to ramp up enough in defence that it will come at the detriment to the US in the longer run. Vatnik Russia is a real and dangerous threat which can only be kowtowed by a fist to their collective face and a warning to fúck off and stay behind their own borders. The increase in shells and such is such that Ukraine will likely be able to defend itself into the future. Meanwhile the Russians are left with inferior aging soviet artillery with less range, little to no armor which will result in phyrric victories at best and costly defeats at worst for them and a nation that is becoming the de facto leader in drone warfare. Ukrainians will be saught after all across Europe for their experience in developing the tech for defence.
Trump is an idiot and a fool if he thinks he's going to be able to bully Ukraine into an unjust or unfavourable armistice because I'd bet money on the rest of Europe putting that Orange Bollocks back in his box very quickly. He's not a successful buisnessman only a successful con man and he wont get anything but treated as the fool he is if he tries pushing terms that are completely disconnected from reality.
Trump isn't even the one to worry about, although he's no fan of the EU, it's true. People like Steve Bannon have been quite open about their efforts to split the EU apart. The idea is to turn Europe into a collection of states more or less at odds with each other and therefore unable to assert collective power on the world stage and bonded in economic vassalage to either the USA or Russia, depending on their geographical position on the continent and historical ties.
If Europe plays hardball with Trump on Ukraine, I think Trump will use the acrimony as a pretext to withdraw from NATO entirely and then we're in truly uncharted waters. Theoretically, Putin would then be free to ramp up the nuclear sabre rattling against the EU with little comeback. Now I'm not saying that Putin would follow through, but he would certainly hold up this high card to remind Europe that tough talk can only go so far.
Great point. The Germans whining now as they still withold Taurus missiles is insane. These would provide Ukraine with some Juicy targets. Makes a mockery after Ukraine has pretty much already hit every refinery in Western Russia with drones.
His primary interest seems to be money though. The Telegraph have obtained a copy of the economic 'deal' he submitted to the Ukrainians and it was effectively a mafia style takeover of the country.
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/estonia-wants-answers-from-us-on-himars-production-could-turn-to-other-options-in-months/
Estonia Already looking elsewhere, as are Norway. If I were running Estonia I'd be setting up a 155mm shell factory tomorrow to supply their own requirements and that of Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland and Finland. No point asking the yanks where their shells are when Putin is gathering on their border.
I think it's clear what Trump's domestic agenda is. He wants to apply his design on international affairs and wants to split European cohesion as much as Putin does.
Clare who?
….Clare less
Why can’t RTE call her up on her lies??
Europe is producing enough 155mm shells to damage Russia irreparably. They also have reserves of Caesar and archers that could be sent.
Australian Bushmasters are far superior to Humvees. I'm sure they'd love a €100m contract. South Korea are itching to supply tanks and many other items such as 1800 self propelled Himars.
Storm Shadow and Taurus missiles to finish of Putins Refineries.
There's ways and means around pretty much everything. One big push and this thing will be over by the end of the year. Simultaneously putting one dictator and another budding one, back in their box and elevate the EU to the world leader it should be.
The Federal Government of Russia has introduced increased tarriffs and energy consumption limits on it's population. Some obviously not happy.
Putin says it's to combat climate change.
Clare Daly still collecting a few Roubles
Also, according to Syrskyi Russian shelling was down 40%. 2024 the ratio dropped to 5 Ru shells for every Ukr shell
The Czech initiative has produced 1.6 million shells, the Nordics are increasing production. Germany ramping up. I don't think it's matching Russia yet but it's rising quickly
In separate news - another nice package for Ukraine from Germany
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/germany-increases-planned-military-assistance-to-ukraine/
€350bn can come from Russia itself. Do what the US does and spend that money internally and you go close to making up the rest in jobs, economic stimulus and taxes. Real spend would be closer to €150bn
You paint an appalling vista.
Honestly the situation right now is a big unknown but it's no secret that Russia is running out of road, their economy is only being sustained by severe controls on their currency and their currency reserves are being reported as being down to 25% of their remaining reserves. Ukraine actually has a chance here because they're hammering the Vatniks backbone of their economy ie. their petroleum infrastrucure and fuel reserves with repeated drone strikes on these facilities.
The bulk of the Vatniks Soviet Legacy is gone, wrecked on the battlefield and blown to bits along with the orcs driving them. They're down to using donkeys, fúcking donkeys for crying out loud and **** loaf vans to charge on the battlefield and they're getting hammered hard. Even their Grechin NK friends got their shít wrecked badly with 2/3'd of them utterly snuffed out by Ukrainian Drone Defences. At the current rate it's possible that the Vatniks forces will be so degraded by the end of the year the Ukrainians could have a real chance of routing the bastards proper this time. Ukrainian Drone Defences are getting good enough that they're visibly grinding the orcs to a halt, they got enough drones these days to swarm the orcs meat waves and are starting to negate their only remaining low quality means of advancing.
Putin will try buttering up Trump with bullshit and try and convince him to "end the war" but the more likely response is that Trump might end up finding himself ridiculed if he tries to go a different tangent because the degenerate shít the orcs unleased over the last 2 years has ensured that Putin has poisoned relations with Ukraine and Europe for a generation, if Trump tries actively undermining European Sanctions even the responce could be swift and painful and the diplomatic blowback might scare the Americans enough to back off such idiocy. Thus it's likely things could end up like with NK, he'll cosy up to Putin then get bored and stop caring when he can't get anywhere.
Nobody who benefits from peace wants war, but peace also makes benefitting powers prone. Whatever mechanisms they put in place to prevent war seem to only account for the time in which they're created. They're not built to withstand shifts in the sands of geopolitics.
There is nothing more terrible than war. We should probably be a bit more forgiving of historical figures like Neville Chamberlain with respect to this. Much should be done to prevent it, but the ethos breaks down when you're confronted with someone who thinks they have more to gain through conflict than peace.
I forget who said it - a former British army man of some kind - that Britain's pre-WW2 defence spending was a pittance in comparison to what it ballooned to as they were forced to face the reality of what was happening on the continent. The same will probably have to happen now quite soon.
And the fact is that the way the USA is turning, it wouldn't surprise me if they start supplying Russia with weapons at some point in the not-too-distant future. They appear to be in the middle of a fairly inelegant political pivot towards that grim future as we speak.
It's hard not to be pessimistic at this point when you consider not only that but that two of the main European bulwarks of France and Germany are merely one election away from electing governments with notably pro-Russian sentiments themselves, and then who knows what the fk would happen? Ukraine being overran would seem like only a precursor.
This issue arises a lot and it's origins are from Russian Propaganda. I'm going to give you an analogy - if Russian propaganda were to give analysis of the Six Nations rugby tournament, they would pick a random statistic, lets say tackles made, and point out that there are no Irish players in the top 10 for this stat, and Ireland's top tackler, Caolin Doris, has about half the tackles made as Michele Lamaro does. Therefore, Ireland are failing in this crucial area of the game, and it's only a matter of time before Ireland lose the six nations.
So let me ask you this, if (and it's a big if because Russia lies) Russia is outproducing the EU/NATO in artillery shells, what has it done for them on the battlefield? They have made very slow territorial gains, and they have suffered greater casualties that Ukraine despite having a 10:1 or more advantage in shells.
They fire more shells, but it isn't really helping them.
Then there are other factors. As pointed out Rheinmetall are not the only producer, and it's not clear if it includes Expal, the Russian stat is for all artillery types, not just the comparable 152mm. They also include refurbished shells and they also seem to be getting shells from North Korea. Russia is on a war footing, EU is not. Etc etc.
Bottom line, Russia may be outproducing Europe if you accept their lies and only look at one stat
I think you're giving too much credit to Trump, there! Trump doesn't know anything, other than where to get a bucket of KFC and a steady supply of diet Coke.
Here's the thing: While Putin is alive, only he can decide whether to stop the war. … Trump knows that. That is why what Trump does makes sense in a perverted, immoral sense. The war can stop if Putin gets all he wants.
Straight off, Trump can't give Putin all he wants, because Putin has so monumentally messed up he can now never get "all" that he wants. Worse still - for Putin - he's stuck in a Catch-22 situation where he desperately needs the war to continue so as to keep things relatively stable at home, but the longer it goes on, the more unstable things at home are likely to get.
One of the Russian paramilitary groups made the point some weeks ago that the very worst thing that can happen now is an end to the conflict. They argued that all the highly trained, experienced batalions have been destroyed, with little more than 20% of the on-paper numbers being real soldiers, and maybe not even that much. (This matches what we're seeing in so many areas of the frontline). So if the war is declared over, all those conscripts and cripples and drug-addicts will head home as fast as their crutches can carry them, and the mighty Russian military (Second Greatest Army in the World) will collapse into a heap of medal-laden generals with no troops, no tanks and no idea what to do. Nothing Trump can do will fix that.
At the same time, we've also seen Ukraine steadily degrading Russia's air defence capabilities. Ukraine may not have total control over the skies, but almost every night now they can send a swarm of drones and missiles to any target of their choice in any part of Western Russia. Those targets are, of course, refineries, oil and gas pumping stations, storage tanks and munitions depots. To borrow someone else's quip: Russia will run out of refineries before Ukraine runs out of land. And every one of those strikes is a test run for new Ukrainian weapons tech.
So Putin is going to dither about, desperately hoping for a solution that'll keep him from falling out a window; Zelenskyy has good reason to dig his heels in and wait for the best possible outcome; but Trump needs this conflict to come to a full stop within 100 days, because that's already 99 days longer than he promised and he just doesn't have the attention span to stick with it longer than that.
You get a lot of this spurious nonsense from these types. Trump himself loves it ''A big strong man with tears in his eyes came up to me and said….gobbeldygook, nonsense blah blah blah….''. Our own version was the man with two pints in his hands.
Mod note:
Good evening everyone
I deleted a few posts that were responding to poster question-time who has since been banned.
Everyone is so paranoid about what Trump is planning, as if he's trying to help Putin. Get real, Russia is already talking of not giving up an inch of land they invaded, do you really think the people of Ukraine will agree to that, no, Russia will have to feel some pain too.
It's come from a position where a good friend who has a Ukrainian spouse….
Oh jaysus here we go again…..Im constantly amazed how regularly you seem to refer a Ukrainian 'friend' or 'neighbour' or 'someone you met'.
[Edit: just seen they are taking a holiday]
Makes sense to me-
