Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Shadowferal]

Hmm...damn, Republican Senator Goes Viral With Blazing Takedown Of Those Who Want to Negotiate Peace With Putin

Trump ally Sen. Mike Rounds...he...sounds good.

[Rustedsaint]

At this point I don't think any of trumps supporters would care if there was video of prostitutes peeing on trump. I don't think trump would care either.

I mean at this point he could literally strangle a child with own hands and get away with. That’s how far those people are gone, even up here in Canada he has supporters, hell my own boss/coworkers think he cares for America and will be good cause he’ll run the government like a business.

[Corvus]

Apparently Ukraine launched 8 missiles at russia today.
Yes.
Ukraine at russia.

They fired ATACMs for 2 days in a row. On the first day, 3 hit an S-400 battery in Kursk, destroying the radar and 2 launchers. It was apparently down for repair at the time, and they not only got the vehicles, but a number of technicians working on them, plus the CO and chief of staff of the battery.

The second day was also targeting s-300/400 batteries. russia claimed to have shot down 7 of the 8 missiles but video shows more than 1 impact hitting the area of the batteries. No real damage assessment yet, but they took out some more valuable GBAD assets.

[Logwyn]

I mean at this point he could literally strangle a child with own hands and get away with. That’s how far those people are gone, even up here in Canada he has supporters, hell my own boss/coworkers think he cares for America and will be good cause he’ll run the government like a business.

Like the six that had to declare bankrupcy?

[Azadina]

I think we should go for the simpler explanation, he has a past with Putin he admires and wishes to emulate him not to mention it's not like it's difficult to manipulate the man.

I don't know... I mean, it doesn't really track for extremely narcissistic wannabe tin pot dictator like Trump to be fanboying another dictator so unconditionally. If anything, he should be wanting the other dictators bow to him.

[Iphie]

I mean at this point he could literally strangle a child with own hands and get away with. That’s how far those people are gone, even up here in Canada he has supporters, hell my own boss/coworkers think he cares for America and will be good cause he’ll run the government like a business.

Yeah, because that worked out so well last time...

Seems trumpie is going to put tariffs on imports from Canada as well, but I digress.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...da-2024-11-25/

[Draco-Onis]

I don't know... I mean, it doesn't really track for extremely narcissistic wannabe tin pot dictator like Trump to be fanboying another dictator so unconditionally. If anything, he should be wanting the other dictators bow to him.

Even the most narcissistic people have their heroes, it's not like he's been a statesmen all his life compared to Putin he is a puppy. There's also their past relationships to take into account.

[Corvus]

The ballistic missile that russia fired at Dnipro the other day appears to have been equipped with a training warhead.. It's designed to carry nukes, so not having conventional explosive warheads available for it makes sense. Especially considering it isn't that accurate.

Meanwhile, the UK has reportedly shipped a new batch of Storm Shadows to Ukraine, which are accurate.

And the ruble continues its slid. It briefly hit 0.93 cents before ticking back up to about 0.95 again. Two weeks ago it was at 1.05 cents, so it has lost almost 10% value. And it isn't just against the USD either, but the rupee and the yuan, which makes all those expensive foreign parts they need even more expensive. Expectation is that the russian central bank will be raising interest rates again in December then January all the way to 25%. Mortgages are already are around 30% at a minimum.

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Ruble is now down to 0.91 cents. It's having a bad day.

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Geeze, I think the ruble tripped and fell out a window. Now at 0.89 cents. Down over 6% already today.

[alach]

So trump has appointed his special envoy to Ukraine, an ex-general, who has his plan all worked out. I would like to go over a couple bits here.
Firstly, he blames the Biden admistration for basically all of the invasion, which, as someone currently living in Europe, is hogwash. Putin was going to invade whoever was in charge of the White House at the time - it has been his goal for decades. Im sure a closed door meeting with trump in Helsinki sure didnt hurt though. That aside, if there is blame to pass around I would put that at the feet of the Europeans. They should have been more ready. They should shoulder at least 50% of this. They are now.
Second.

It says future US aid - likely given as a loan - will be conditioned on Ukraine negotiating with Russia, and the US will arm Ukraine to the extent it can defend itself and stop any further Russian advances before and after any peace deal.

Which leads to...

Arming Ukraine to the extent it can stop present and future Russian advances will also be tough. The plan notes the United States manufactures 14,000 155 artillery rounds a month, which Ukraine can use up in just 48 hours. Paradoxically, Kellogg wants the US to arm Ukraine more, yet also accepts they really can’t.

So that part right there is a fallacy. More bullshit from the incoming administration.
Next we have,

A demilitarized zone would likely need to be policed, possibly putting NATO troops, or soldiers from other non-aligned nations, in between the two sides. That will be hard to maintain and staff, to say the least. It would be enormous, spanning hundreds of miles of border, and a massive financial investment.

So who exactly is going to step up and put soliders on the border between Ukraine and russia. Please tell me, I would love to know. Because Boris thinks it is a good idea.

In an interview with The Telegraph's Ukraine: The Latest podcast on Nov. 28, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that any possible ceasefire should involve a European peacekeeping mission including British forces to defend the front line.

"I don’t think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians," Johnson said. "But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you’re going to want to have multinational European peace-keeping forces monitoring the border, helping the Ukrainians

But I don't see them actually doing it. If they did, it would have extremely easy for an "incident" to take place, then triggering article 5.
And finally, and most importantly, we have this gem of a quote.

It is fetchingly simple and swift in its approach. But it lacks an accommodation of what Moscow will demand and has used the diplomatic process for in the past: To cynically pursue military advances. The freezing of the frontlines will precipitate a very violent few months ahead as Moscow seeks to take as much ground as it can. The Kremlin has in the past ignored ceasefires and pursued its territorial objectives - often blankly denying that it is.

Moscow is untrustworthy, utterly and completely. You can't make deals with them.
And for any of this to work, you have to have both sides agree. Sure there is basically some leverage being used to force a ceasefire, like lifting sanctions on russia, but russia has spent 10 years with sanctions, they don't care anymore. In fact I would argue it works better for putin at home as it paints russia as a victim. It wont work for Ukraine either, as thanks to whatever reasons you want, the US has proven to be a somewhat unrealiable arms partner, and Ukraine has learned to deal with that. As we speak weapons factories across Europe are ramping up. Ukraine has spent several years making deals with other partners and countries for weapons factories. I doubt very much the threat of withholding aid would motivate them to stop defending their country from an invading terrorist army.
My point being, the hardest part of this deal, I would say the impossibility of it, is getting anyone to actually agree.
More lies by an admistration that got voted in on lies and will continue to run on lies.

Side note, though not unrelated. Just lost a friend to the MAGA, thought trump was an idiot in 2016 and now hes fully on board with the policies. I keep asking what policies? Never get an answer. If its ones like these, the red hats are going to have a nasty wake up call, and it probably won't be that long from now.

[Iphie]

Side note, though not unrelated. Just lost a friend to the MAGA, thought trump was an idiot in 2016 and now hes fully on board with the policies. I keep asking what policies? Never get an answer. If its ones like these, the red hats are going to have a nasty wake up call, and it probably won't be that long from now.

Related to this: I hear Thanksgiving was a fun and really brought people together. /s

[Gaidax]

Peace, break, armistice, ceasefire, assembly in recess, one can call it whatever one wants. A break means a break for Russia too, and they benefit more from said break than Ukraine does which is why they're pushing for it. A break means even more complacency from the West until Russia is ready for another go at it, and likely does finish the job in a couple weeks/months this time. It means less economic pressure on Russia. They'd stop the bleeding by applying poisoned bandages to it.

Of course if Trump just cuts off aid because he heard it would be a good idea on Fox & Friends then yeah, they're SOL and will need to cave in. We'll see where that goes when he does become prez.

Trump will do what he was voted in to do.

So yes, he will gradually cut off Ukraine or put huge conditions on aid for Ukraine - the people have voted him in to do that and he's onboard, you may not like it - but it's a fact, average American wants those billions to be put into their country first and not some money black hole somewhere they can't even find it on the map.

And Zelensky is keenly aware of it, that is why yesterday he finally said what was on everyone's mind, that he's ready to give up territory to end the war. Which is like duuuh, I was saying that just that will happen in the end, because I do not subscribe to delusions here.

Now he's not an idiot, he would want more than just some 1994 style paper and some pennies for it and he'd probably get part of it. Not NATO membership, obviously, but maybe some sort of peacekeepers on the border, defensive arms and a big reconstruction fund pledge.

Russia can't be trusted? Does not terribly matter, as I said, any peace here will just be temporary, everyone is aware of it. But for now it will stop the bleed for Ukraine.

[alach]

Trump, like a portion of his voters, are misinformed. Once he's in office seeing the pros to supporting Ukraine out weigh the cons I think he will waffle. A fraction of the military budget and emptying old stores to promote the new war industry won't sound to bad.
Sure he sold it to his voters, on a lie. How much did mexico pat for that wall?

[PhaelixWW]

Trump will do what he was voted in to do.

You show just how out of touch you are when you state that Trump's being voted in realistically had anything to do with Russia's war against Ukraine.

At least anything more than the election interference continuously perpetrated by Russia on his behalf, that is.

[Gaidax]

You show just how out of touch you are when you state that Trump's being voted in realistically had anything to do with Russia's war against Ukraine.

At least anything more than the election interference continuously perpetrated by Russia on his behalf, that is.

See that's the issue with you - you read something and then you misinterpret it and you attack that misinterpretation.

Trump was voted in so he could implement his America-first policy. And one of the key promises of that is stopping tossing dozens and hundreds of billions of dollars into Ukraine.

You think average American is giving a fuck about Ukraine and Russia? No they don't, they want all that insane amount of money and effort to be put into their communities instead of some dick measuring contest somewhere half the globe away.

Trump was voted in to make America great again, not Ukraine great again or Europe great again.

[Surfd]

Trump was voted in so he could implement his America-first policy. And one of the key promises of that is stopping tossing dozens and hundreds of billions of dollars into Ukraine.

You think average American is giving a fuck about Ukraine and Russia? No they don't, they want all that insane amount of money and effort to be put into their communities instead of some dick measuring contest somewhere half the globe away.

And they're absolute fucking morons if they think there's a snowball's chance in hell of that EVER happening.

Like, seriously, that's literally the dumbest thing I have heard in weeks.

The amount of the defence budget that the USA is throwing at the Ukraine is literally chump change, and the vast majority of it isn't "money", it's sending old hardware that was going to be scrapped anyway to them so they can kill Russians with it at completely zero risk to American boots.

And anyone who thinks that that money would go to into their communities if it wasn't being allocated to Ukraine is absolutely fucking insane. That's DEFENCE BUDGET MONEY. The DoD and the military industrial complex would sooner carpetbomb the entirety of flyover country then it would allocate a dime to "communities" (whatever the fuck that means). I mean, seriously, there is ZERO chance that DoD money gets spent on anything other than DoD projects, period. If the US government was actually willing to spend Defence Budget cash on "community" issues, they could have solved Homelessness, Education and Health Care issues in the country decades ago, all for a small chunk of the DoD's spending budget. The simple fact that any of those things even exist at all is testament to the fact that there's zero chance the Ukraine resources would magically end up funding some community project somewhere.

Besides, supporting Ukraine IS putting money into local communities. Those missiles and shells and tanks and weapon systems don't just appear out of thin air. Munition production creates jobs.

Simple fact is, supporting Ukraine in fighting off Russian aggression is the single best current use of those resources the American Military could be making. It's just the Average American is too obsessed with handing the country to a fascist moron to even begin to comprehend that.

[alach]

You think average American is giving a fuck about Ukraine and Russia? No they don't, they want all that insane amount of money and effort to be put into their communities instead of some dick measuring contest somewhere half the globe away.

I can easily claim the same regarding Isreal. But I won't because I don't assume the majority of Americans are that callous and stupid.

[Gaidax]

I can easily claim the same regarding Isreal.

And you'd be right.

It's nothing to do with stupidity. Stupidity is assuming otherwise.

Each and everyone has a long list of priorities in life both on macro and micro level, it's not a big assumption to understand that for an average American or heck an average person who is not directly affected a question of what happens to Ukraine/Israel is far down the priority list behind something like "what would I have for dinner", "what will my next job be" or "how do I pay off mortgage, taxes and living expenses and still have enough left to save up for a rainy day".

Some people who are more privileged than others can afford to go "Would someone think about Ukraine", for most Americans that's a luxury out of reach given their day to day challenges in their own country.

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Also not sure why you try to bring "Israel" as some sort of gotcha.

What, you think if you say "Israel" that would somehow make me alter the reality of average American not really giving a damn about what is happening outside his car's reach radius.

People are people everywhere, their first priority is themselves and their family wellbeing. Not these idiotic imperialist ego wars half the globe away. And people certainly don't like their taxes going towards hell knows what, rather than actually making their lives better.

[KrayZ33]

And you'd be right.


What, you think if you say "Israel" that would somehow make me alter the reality of average American not really giving a damn about what is happening outside his car's reach radius.

People are people everywhere, their first priority is themselves and their family wellbeing. Not these idiotic imperialist ego wars half the globe away. And people certainly don't like their taxes going towards hell knows what, rather than actually making their lives better.

I'm pretty sure the majority doesn't even know what would make their lives better.
Because America prospers from it's influence in the world. It's money well spend and not wasted.
Keeping its rivals in check through bases and "proxy wars" is part of what allowed America to grow and establish favourable trading, preventing/controling conflict in certain region is helping their own economy to grow and to remain stable.

Like how leaving NATO would for example save very, very little and lose so much in return, but it remains a common talking point among these people.

[Shadowferal]

US military leadership isn't going to budge on Ukraine.
The decimation of Russian military and hardware is too good to pass up.

[PhaelixWW]

US military leadership isn't going to budge on Ukraine.
The decimation of Russian military and hardware is too good to pass up.

Most of Congress supports it, too, for various reasons.