Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

I think movement on the front lines in Ukraine has been minuscule for some time now and any one who takes these as an indicator that russia is winning does not understand the scale of the country that putin has tried to invade or has some ulterior motive like profiting from exploiting resources in the war torn countries involved if a putin victory of sorts was declared.

Ukraine may have avoided hitting some infrastructure targets in russia when the USA was supplying them with weapons that helped them, but Trump has cut off aid, and they have upped the production of their own weapons that will in time break putin's fossil fuel dependent economy. I think the Ukrainians continue to play lip service to Trump so cutting them off completely from USA sourced weapons and intel would be political suicide for Trump and the republican party, but he no longer has the leverage to make them accept anything that would just suit his business interests and friendship with putin.

Values dont save millions of lives , enforceable peace agreements do !

Like demonstrated the Minsk agreement….

Edit: and the Budapest Memorandum.

Key countries in Europe should hold referendums on whether to help defend Ukraine directly, as in troops, no restriction on weapons etc

in the long run I hope you are right on your assessment of the Ukraine Russia war.

Lovely. I look forward to hearing about the impact this attack will have made in the morning.

Germany, France, and Britain still don't quite seem to have woken up yet.

Putin is not ending this war in a stalemate. Given his age and given what it's cost so far, he's in far too deep now. He has publicly laid down a marker for an end state (Ukraine to surrender the five occupied regions). In reality, I think he would prefer to take all the territory to the Moldovan border in order to annex Transnistria, which is unlikely now.

I think he knows that if he ends this war, without forcing Ukraine to sign an agreement to cede the 5 occupied regions, or the vast majority of them at very least, his regime will not survive. Either he gets something he can genuinely sell as a victory (Ukraine to cede the 5 regions), or his legacy is toast. That is why he's willing to throw everything at this fight. This war is going to be his final defining moment in Russian history.

Putin now back to saying Zelensky is illegitimate and he wont negotiate with him, saying his mandate had expired because of no elections. Putin knows perfectly well there can be no elections while fighting is ongoing so this is just a ruse.

The UK postponed elections in WW2 for this reason. The US didnt but the fighting was thousands of miles away separated by two oceans

Yesterday in his press conference with friendly journalists in Bishkek, , Kyrgyzstan, he also gave himself a get out clause from negotiation with any newly elected leader by speaking of "manipulations" that might occur in an election.

One of the Ukrainian suspects in blowing up the Nordstream pipeline has been extradited by Italy to Germany.

Poland so far refusing to extradite another one.

The Pipeline should not have been constructed. It weakened deterrence against Russian aggression by allowing Russia to directly pump gas to Germany rather than going through ex Soviet or Warsaw Pact countries. Schroeder approved the pipeline and was then given a seat on the board of Nordstream soon after leaving office.

Theres an ongoing scandal in the state of Mecklenberg-West Pomerania where the state government set up a foundation that was supposed to be for environmental protection, but was actually a mechanism for getting around US sanctions on Nordstream. Ex-Stasi agent Matthias Warnig was reportedly involved. Despite the scandal, the head of the state government became president of the German Upper House during the Scholz government.

Putin has not once met Zelensky in the last 4 years. He is not interested in talks, except as a delaying tactic to take more territory, or to get the US to impose a deal on Ukraine.

Also on corruption in Ukraine, Russia is 154 on Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index. Putin has a spoils system to reward his cronies and himself. According to Mikhail Khordokovsky Putin told oligarchs to give him 50% of their wealth to avoid ending up like him.

In World War 2, there were corruption scandals in the UK about war profiteering during rationing. Some made headlines, and the Nazis tried to exploit it to present the allied cause as corrupt and morally degenerate. This has parallels with what Putin is doing.

Of course the killing won't stop what happened in the areas already occupied there is a news blackout Ukrainians are either tortured, killed unless they escape or become a russian compliant subject

Most will have to seek sanitary in the west while fighting aged will be force into military service.

No NATO EU it will be a third world work house run by putin fav oligarchs

US poll on the war:

More Americans disapprove than approve of Trumps handling of the talks. Overall its 46% disapproval.

• Democrats: 75% disapprove (62% strongly)
• Independents: 47% disapprove vs 30% approve
• Republicans: 70% approve, but 22% disapprove
• 53% think a Ukraine-Russia peace deal in 2025 is unlikely
• Only 7% think it is very likely

75% of Democrats say the US has an obligation to defend Ukraine. The Atlantic article is behind a paywall but the numbers for Republicans and Independents who feel this way is 58% and 40% though Im not sure which is which.

Let's be honest here, they could and would give up some territory for a security guarantee. They are literally sitting there in the position of "we will give you what you want, even though you attacked us illegally, we just want to be sure it's over and you won't attack us again". I don't see how they could be pushed beyond that position. A step back from this would be "you can rape our first born for the rest of time"

To follow up from the above:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/11/28/8009381/

Just in case you were curious to know what kind of people Trump wants to reward.

Desperate to make concessions even before a ceasefire has been agreed. Again. Trump has sat on sanctions, pulled aid to Ukraine and TACO'ed on the Tomahawks. Russia proves the more the US does for them the more they will look for. We may laugh and call Europe weak but the US administration is simply submissive with regards Russia.