Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

There is no "deal" that can be done that can be trusted, as far as Trump and Putin are concerned. Trump has spent a lifetime in business shafting anyone he can in every way possible. You can only trust him to try to shaft you. Putin signs agreements and uses them to buy time, as soon as it suits him he claims the other side has broken the deal in some way and invades/attacks/whatever all over again.

What's worse, it's not just Trump and Putin as lying, evil bastards to be dealt with separately - it seems obvious to me that there is collusion between them. Having TASS in the oval office for the ambush on Zelenskyy, Trump repeating Putin's propaganda, pulling the cybersecurity resources tackling Russian hackers, and much more - we MUST assume that Trump and Putin have an arrangement of sorts to put the squeeze on Europe. Trump is digging Putin out of a hole, and he's only getting started.

I don't know if it will ever get so far as the USA actually attacking EU countries directly (heaven forbid), but just by cooperating with Russia, removing sanctions, opening trade with Russia, and being obstructive with anything NATO related, Trump can make life very difficult for us. And I would not be looking to China for any help either, they will happily let us go under, do a deal with Trump on Taiwan, or just take it anyway, and then look to see what other bits of the world they can grab while everyone else is busy.

We have Fico and Orban inside the EU but behaving as Kremlin agents, difficult decisions are needed to protect ourselves from treachery from the likes of them too.

If we want to prepare for worst case scenarios, we need to start now, and anyone talking about waiting for a deal to emerge, or waiting for a peace deal to be done, is just playing into Putin's hands.

That's my take on it, anyway…

Everything requires Putin's agreement.

It's his war, he can stop it at any moment. Or not.

Europe is dealing with the reality of the war (Ukraine must be increasingly supported) and the reality of any potential peace (at a minimum it must provide Ukraine with the security that Putin won't just use the time to rearm and re-attack)

Trump on the telly again tonight - usual verbal diarrhoea. Can’t help thinking his hogging of the headlines is also about taking the spotlight off GAZA where Israel is once more blocking Aid and destroying Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
Trump knows the media and knows it cannot multi task - he wants fairness and no people dying -

except in Gaza.

Ukraine,s only hope is they ,ll get help from Europe missiles tanks or planes and there might be some peace negotiations done by some European coalition with Ukraine present .Trump is completely pro Putin he always wants access to minerals that are necessary for tech companies and other corporations.He despises Europe as weak and obsessed with regulation of tech company's .trump is going to benefit greatly by his pro crypto currency stance which is not line with eu policy's.

I think there,ll have to be peace negotiations as Ukraine has not got the resources or manpower to continue the war for years .Russia is able to evade sanctions to some degree by various methods .

Putin will not agree to any ceasefire as long as his meat waves are slowly gaining him ground, however painfully slow they are trudging along….

Trump is therefore being hostile towards Zelenskyy & Europe as it’s simply a side show to distract/delay the actual talks that will inevitably have to take place.

Once Putin has exhausted all his resources and has nothing left to throw at Ukraine, he’ll then be ready to ‘talk’, and at that point Trump will completely change his tune and install himself as the peacemaker/dealmaker extraordinaire who’ll suddenly be less hostile to everyone involved to give the impression he’s finally ready to come round to conventional wisdom/common sense…

In reality though it’ll be just buying Putin time to restock whatever he can, and when the talks inevitably break down (Russia refusing to budge on wanting everything), it’ll be back to fighting as is, but Trump will have reason to pull all U.S. support because ‘Ukraine don’t want peace’ (they might pull some support prior to all of the above to try and allow Russian progress rates to increase before the ‘draw the lines point’ that talks might deliver… a lifting of sanctions will also help Russia gain more territory before talks happen..)

Either way Trump will do whatever Putin needs him to do.

if that's what's coming time to introduce conscription and go on a total war footing. A war on two fronts.

Some good news it seems

You didn't answer the question - in what terms would you describe the role of the US in these events? You can't realisticaly say it had no role, given what Nuland and McCain have contributed to the public record. Disinterested observer?

I think you don't understand how quickly things happened in the south of Ukraine after Russia invaded.

Russia invaded on the 24th of February. On the 28th of February, Mariupol was surrounded. A day or two later, all major towns and roads leading to Mariupol had fallen. At that point Mariupol was 80km from the Ukrainian frontline.

No indication?

It was being reported as you wrote this piece of nonsense.

"So-called options papers are often drafted by officials working on sanctions, but the White House’s specific request for one in recent days underscores Trump and his advisers’ willingness to ease Russian sanctions as part of a potential deal with Moscow."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/trump-sanctions-russia

The war is not really about minerals.

It's about imperialism for Putin. He started with Crimea (which he was obsessed with reabsorbing into Russia), started the proxy war in Donbas so that joining NATO would be difficult for Ukraine - when that wasn't making much headway, he launched the full invasion thinking he would have the whole country in days.

Minerals/resources aren't nothing, but they aren't the chief reason why he invaded.

The war drags on because Putin is still grinding and making inches per day. He doesn't care how many die, etc he just knows that once he can hold territory then it's Russian forever, protected by his nukes.

He has never once offered a ceasefire, stopped bombing, offered a single overture - any "peace" effort so far has been totally an act. It works, people fall for it. There is the possibility he may exchange the war for a tempting deal and new found partnership with Trump - but so far he hasn't done anything in that regard and the Trump administration seem to be making all the concessions in that regard, not to mention becoming Kremlin mouthpieces without much prompt.

As predicted if Trump doesn't get something with Putin - no matter what Putin does, Trump will blame Ukraine/Europe. As evidenced by that happening already.

First of all the Mineral Agreement should have been signed in Kyiv, not US. It's a Ukrainian deal, sign it in Ukraine if the loud noises can be tolerated by JD Vance, a man who brags about being a veteran. but never saw any combative actions whatsoever , he was a correspondent, a military journalist a public affairs specialist , ie all talk, and no action, a telephone tough guy. Reality neither him or Trump have the balls to go to Kyiv to sign that deal.

I'm pretty sure we have or had 2000 javelins at the start of the war that were meant for destruction due to getting near their use by date. Cathal Berry was calling for the government to donate them to Ukraine via Britain wink wink.

Next bit of the masterplan is on place. 100bn investment of Taiwan Semiconductor to manufacture chips in Arizona.

The rare earths will come from Ukraine and be shared with Russia. Taiwan will be abandoned to China. Russia, China and US will live in harmony, ruled by dictators and their oligarchy.

Everyone who wants freedom will pay for it in their insignificance.

What a sad situation for the world.

Donated by the French or flown by the French?