Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Trump is a terrible negotiator, he keeps thinking international affairs are like NY real estate, brow beat anyone needing help, squeeze them til they bleed.

It can't be said enough times times, Trump's ambush of Ukraine is doing for the USA what elons roman salute has done for Tesla sales in Europe.

Trump thinks nothing has changed, he still thinks he's got all the cards whereas the new "coalition of the willing" will become the new NATO for Europe.

All of those points beg this question: Why didn't the Ukrainian authorities order the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol before it was surrounded? If they had done that then, a bit like the Omagh bombing, a high level of civilian fatalities in Mariupol would have been prevented.

People were evacuating and trying to evacuate for weeks. The Russians were bombing them including known evacuation corridors. An evacuation corridor would be set up and next thing they were deliberately focusing attacks on it. The surrounding areas were also encircled pretty quickly. Keep in mind Russian air power was much more prevalent then and the whole country was under attack making certain evacuations and movements across the country very difficult.

It's far from a joke. The point is about the failure to prevent the killing of large numbers of civilians.

Given scale of death & destruction in Mariupol it comes across as offensive, and it doesn't make sense at all, so why bring it up? That was why I thought it was a joke. It is hard to prevent an invading army that manages to surround a city from killing large numbers of people in it, if they want to do that. Unlike the Omagh bombers (a couple of terrorists with a car bomb), the Russian military had a large airforce, tanks, artillery pieces, cruise and ballistic missiles etc. at their disposal.

One thing that startled me was when Trump started complaining about the Biden 'laptop from hell'. He was almost in tears as he defended Putin and decried all the unfair treatment Putin had to put up with because of it. Honestly, he sounded like someone whose boyfriend has been unfairly thrashed in a bar brawl. He really sounded like someone defending his lover.

Agreed. UK troops would only get involved if there's a peace deal, and Putin gets to decide whether there's a peace deal. There is really very little prospect of any peace at the moment.

Effectively, Putin gets to choose whether he would like NATO troops in Ukraine as part of a peace deal or press ahead and take more Ukrainian land from a much weakened Ukraine that gets no more support from the US. I think I know which one he'll pick.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123228342#Comment_123228342

Having British troops and planes providing a military security guarantee in Ukraine after a peace agreement would be complete defeat for Putin. The is literally the thing he went to war to fight against. 

If Putin genuinely has no intention of having another crack at Ukraine I don't see the specifics of the security guarantee make that much difference. Once it becomes clear Putin is committed to peace I'd imagine the Europeans would take steps to ensure security measures are less provocative…They would likely give him private assurances on this as part of peace negotiations: "If you're keeping you're nose clean we'll be scaling this all back pretty quickly."

Presumably this is on the back of a negotiated agreement.

What those on the far right can't get their heads around (whether by accident or more likely design) is that the plan Europe is coming up is to give Ukraine security guarantees so as to ensure there will not be a future war. This is specifically designed to secure peace, not declare war which I suppose would make up to some extent for not admitting Ukraine into NATO.

Anyway the point is my reading of this is that British and French (and whoever else) forces would not go to Ukraine until an agreement is reached, and Starmer himself said yesterday that of course this agreement would have to include Russia.

What I'm wondering is whether Article V would apply if in the future Russia attacked British and French forces in Ukraine? This is obviously why Starmer and Macron want a US backstop to prevent Russia from doing this. Maybe there'll be a fudge along the lines of Article V only being triggered if homeland UK or France is attacked.

Would Putin ever agree to this? Well presumably this is where Trump comes in. He may still be useful in this crisis, but I have my doubts about his motives. But actions speak louder than words, and in fairness as we speak the Ukrainians still have permission to use American weapons including the ATCMs (at least I haven't heard anything to the contrary) so let's see what happens.

More Putin from Donald. He will not "put up" with Zelensky much longer! What does he mean? Kill him? Support Putin militarily? Stop all military assistance?

If I was Zelensky I wouldn't trust any US devices that could reveal my location.

https://bsky.app/profile/maks23.bsky.social/post/3ljifpkdwjs23

The orange stain has been posting again!

Putin actually does this as way of buying time.

Either way how many people would act calmly to an utter contemptible moron like corporal vance spewing utter lies, never mind trump.

Ghandi would have ended up doing his nut with those clowns.

People talk about Trump wanting Europe to spend more on defense, contribute more to NATO when really what he wants is Europeans to buy more American tanks, aircraft, etc all the while thanking him for the privilege and licking his fat ass.

I think Macron has said it, Europe needs to ramp up defense industry and now.

Of course France does have a defense industry and the likes Airbus Defense and Dassault will be rubbing their hands in glee, but other countries like UK have BAE Systems, Italy has Beretta, Finmeccanica which includes likes of Augusta Westland and Aermacchi, Austria has Steyr, Germany have likes of H&K, KMW, MAN, Sweden has Saab, Hagglunds, Bofors.

So it is possible to remove reliance on US for lots of things.

Big thing that should be done is immediately is to go into massive drone production.

Ukraine has proven you don't need attack helicopters, warthogs or anything else to deal with armoured columns given the right conditions.

Time for Europe to ditch American kit and buy local. That will screw America more than any speech, any photo ops.

Also immediately release the billions of Russian frozen assets held in Belgium to use for Ukraine.

And it is time that Irish copped on, we have to form a proper military to offer some protection for ourselves and as part of a greater European initiative.

The shyteology about neutrality is pedaled by all the main political parties that ever been in power precisely because it excuses them for treating what military we have like shyte.

It is pedaled by others like shiners and leftists because it is in their DNA to always hate anything that could be seen as being pro Western.

There is a new world order and we either help protect Europe as we know it, for all it's wants, warts and blemishes or we roll over and be a vassal state at the mercy of clowns in the US who are puppets for the guy in Russia.

Europe are not going to put up with our bullcr** any longer.

Crimea in 2014 was the Rhineland of 1936. A stop could have been put to it right then, but no, no one had the balls.

After invasion Ukraine was crying out for military equipment, but Europe dithered and now look where we are.

History repeats itself, again and again.

You cannot reason with some people and eventually it gets nasty.

As it is there are no doubt bleak economic times ahead because the clown in white house together with his minions don't appear to know how modern world trade operates.

It would be ok if he just destroyed his own country, along with the gobshytes that voted for him and the gobshytes that did nothing for years to field someone half decent to beat him, but he will also destroy, even if only economically, half the world before he is finished.

Problem now is the little corporal hillbilly next in line is probably a more dangerous fooker.

This narrative that Zelenski should resign is dangerous and clearly driven by US/Russia. I note Sky news keeps mentioning it today. The man is a legitimately elected leader and that’s a matter for the Ukrainian people and them alone.
Even if they managed an election during a war he’d probably win by a large margin but we all know what would happen then (rigged blah blah blah).

Absolute hypocrisy from Trump and Vance, spouting lies and accusing Zelensky of disrespect when they have repeatedly referred to Canada as the 51st state and its prime Minister as Governor Trudeau!

Trump is either in serious personal financial trouble and annoyed that he didn't get his 500 billion mineral deal across the line or that he has failed his puppet master Putin.