Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Deus Mortis]

Sadly it is not looking all that great for Ukraine. As the massive support Ukraine needs now seems far away.
https://archive.ph/DVPDp
Europe Talks Tough on Military Spending, but Unity Is Fracturing
European leaders are struggling to find the money and the political will to replace the bulk of the U.S. contribution to Ukraine and to their own defense.

European leaders have gotten the message from Washington about doing more for their own defense and for Ukraine, too. They are talking tough when it comes to supporting Ukraine and about protecting their own borders, and they are standing up to a demanding and even hostile Trump administration.

But there is an inevitable gap between talk and action, and unity is fracturing already, especially when it comes to spending and borrowing money in a period of low growth and high debt.

The Dutch and others are not fans of raising collective debt for defense. Keeping Hungary on board is ever more difficult.
And when the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a plan for billions more for the military, called “ReArm Europe,” two of the bloc’s largest countries, Italy and Spain, thought that was all a bit aggressive. So now the plan has been rebranded as “Readiness 2030.”

That’s a year after Donald J. Trump is no longer expected to be president. But it is also a realistic understanding that Europe’s new commitment to self-reliance will take time, billions of euros, political deftness and cooperation with the United States.

chief foreign and security official for the European Union, has been a forceful advocate for supporting Ukraine as a first line of European defense against an aggressive, militarized Russia.

But it has been a rocky start for Ms. Kallas. Her effort to get the E.U. to provide up to 40 billion euros (more than $43 billion) to Ukraine through a small, fixed percentage levy on each country’s national income has gone nowhere.

Her backup proposal, for an added €5 billion as a first step toward providing Ukraine two million artillery shells this year, was also rejected by Italy, Slovakia and even France, an E.U. official said, speaking anonymously in accordance with diplomatic practice. The countries insisted that contributions to Ukraine remain voluntary, bilateral and not required by Brussels.

And her recent response to Mr. Trump’s effort to push Ukraine into a cease-fire without security assurances rubbed many the wrong way, both in Europe and Washington, as dangerously premature. “The free world needs a new leader,” she wrote on X. “It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”
But in fact the Europeans are working hard to respond to Mr. Trump in a convincing fashion. Ms. von der Leyen sold her rearmament or readiness plan with a headline figure of €800 billion. But only €150 billion of that is real money, available as long-term loans for countries that wish to use it for the military. The rest simply represents a notional figure — a four-year permission from the bloc for countries to borrow even more for military purposes out of their own national budgets.

For a country like Germany, which has low debt, that is likely to work, especially now that the next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, got Parliament to agree to loosen its own debt rules to allow for huge spending on the military, civilian infrastructure and climate.

But for countries like Italy and Spain, which can feel far away from Russia and have their own fiscal problems, that may not be an easy choice. France, despite President Emmanuel Macron’s strong words about European “strategic autonomy” and his desire to lead the Continent, is itself deeply indebted, and piling on more debt is politically and economically hazardous.

France, too, is insisting on a high percentage of European content and manufacture for any weapons bought with the new loans, and is so far working to keep American, British and Canadian companies from participating. And other issues are intruding; an E.U. effort to draft a defense agreement with Britain is being held up by Paris over squabbles about fisheries.

But Europe will spend considerably more on defense, as it has known it must, said Ian Lesser, director of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund. “The advent of the Trump administration has given history a shove,” he said. “We’re not in a linear environment, with a linear spending trajectory.”
On NATO, too, major European countries are beginning to talk seriously about how to replace the vital American role in the alliance — both in terms of sophisticated arms and political and military leadership. But there is little desire to accelerate any rupture with Washington, since any such transition is likely to take five or even 10 years.

Now, 23 of 27 E.U. states are also NATO members, including about 95 percent of E.U. citizens, and NATO has its own requirements for new military spending. European states are discussing what they can propose to Mr. Trump at the next NATO summit in June, in The Hague, that will ensure American cooperation in any transition.

But while Trump officials have privately reassured Europeans that the U.S. president supports NATO, will retain the American nuclear umbrella over Europe and remains committed to collective defense, Mr. Trump’s views are famously changeable, and he persists in viewing NATO as a club where members pay for American protection.

In his first term, he often mused about leaving NATO while saying the United States will defend only countries that pay enough for defense. This month, he repeated that warning. He has demanded that NATO members pay up to 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense, significantly more than the United States, which spends about 3.4 percent of G.D.P. on its global military.

NATO officials want to set a new spending goal at the summit in June, but one closer to 3.5 percent of G.D.P., up from 2 percent now.
Reinforcing concerns in Europe that the United States may no longer be a reliable partner was the extraordinary discussion among top Trump administration officials of the American strike on Yemen, revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, who was inadvertently added to the group chat on the messaging app Signal.
The discussion was replete with comments like this one from Vice President JD Vance: “I just hate bailing out the Europeans again.” And there were boastful messages about finding a way to get Europe to pay for the operation — but nothing about China, which benefits hugely from the trade passing through the straits near Yemen, including much of its oil imports and its exports to Europe.

Mr. Trump’s sudden suggestion last week that a future American fighter plane might be sold to allies in a downgraded version has also reinforced these concerns.
Prompted by Mr. Trump’s stated intention to leave Ukraine’s defense to Europe, Britain and France are working on a proposal for a European “reassurance force” to be on the ground in Ukraine once a peace settlement is reached between Kyiv and Moscow, if one ever is. But so far, no other E.U. country has publicly volunteered to serve in such a force, which is largely undefined and unfinanced, and which Russia has consistently rejected.

Mr. Macron is to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Wednesday night. Then on Thursday, he is scheduled to be host at another meeting of this “coalition of the willing,” guest list unclear. But Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, called the idea “simplistic” and “a posture and a pose.”
Efforts at creating a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine continued, with the announcement on Tuesday that the two countries had agreed to stop attacks on ships in the Black Sea. But even that agreement was subject to a Russian demand that Western countries drop restrictions on Russian agricultural exports.

Ms. von der Leyen talks of making Ukraine “a steel porcupine,” too difficult for Russia to swallow in the future, an echo of an early plan for Ukrainian defense drafted by a former NATO secretary general, Anders Rasmussen.
But even a steel porcupine is not a security guarantee, and it implies an endless commitment to supporting Ukraine.
Prime Minister Bart De Wever of Belgium summed up the European problem nicely last week. He praised Mr. Macron for drumming up a “coalition of the willing” to boost military aid for Ukraine as U.S. support dwindles. But he said he had pleaded for a bit more structure in the group.
“We are willing — but willing to do what, exactly?” he asked.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ps-2025-03-26/
Europe’s talks on Ukraine security shift from sending troops

PARIS/BRUSSELS, March 26 (Reuters) - European efforts to create security arrangements for Ukraine are shifting from sending troops to other alternatives as they face political and logistical constraints, and the prospect of Russia and the United States opposing their plans, officials said.
France, which has been working closely with Britain to come up with options, will host 30 leaders and delegations from around 30 countries on Thursday, part of what has become a "coalition of the willing" to try and flesh out some ideas.

But while London and Paris have been working for weeks on a plan to send thousands of troops to Ukraine to help safeguard a future ceasefire, diplomats say there is growing acceptance that sending such a force is not the likeliest outcome.
"They are taking a step back from ground troops and trying to re-dimension what they were doing to something that could be more sensible," said one European diplomat.
Said another: "When Ukraine was in a better position, the idea of sending troops appealed. But now, with the situation on the ground and the U.S administration as it is, it's not very sexy."

While France agreed to another 2bil and Germany to 3bil, Germany's long term spending is not going to be enough for Ukraine.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ys-2025-03-19/

For the years 2026 to 2029, Kukies plans to authorise commitments of 8.252 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine, bringing the total to more than 11 billion euros.

Total military spending up to the end of 2024 has been 139 bil.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-us-r.../33337524.html

[Wilian]

Europe dropping the ball is on the par of the course.

[Logwyn]

Europe dropping the ball is on the par of the course.

You have countries right on the doorstep of Russia needing defense and then countries like Portugal that are so far away they couldn't care less.

[Edge-]

So, how's the war going for Russia?

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-reg...egnant-2050128

Oryol oblast in central Russia has made an amendment to an existing government program and will allow schoolgirls to receive payment for becoming pregnant in an effort to boost the country's birth rate, according to a decree signed by Andrei Klychkov, the governor of the region, on March 20.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Health for comment via email outside of business hours.

Oh, they're offering girls still in school money to have children.

Klychkov expanded an existing program being run in 40 regions that pledged to pay female university students at least 100,000 rubles ($1,200) for having children, starting this year.

And it's a very bad deal, financially.

[Sunseeker]

So, how's the war going for Russia?

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-reg...egnant-2050128



Oh, they're offering girls still in school money to have children.



And it's a very bad deal, financially.

Wow, 1200 bucks for a kid. Just...wow.

[Edge-]

Wow, 1200 bucks for a kid. Just...wow.

i think that's up? wasn't it like 750 previously? maybe the premium is for teenagers having children, now?

anyways, russia sure seems like they demographically fucked themselves and are panicking and trying to undo it with bad plans now

[Poopymonster]

i think that's up? wasn't it like 750 previously? maybe the premium is for teenagers having children, now?

anyways, russia sure seems like they demographically fucked themselves and are panicking and trying to undo it with bad plans now

Teens have a long broodmare life ahead of them.
Get em to have 1 kid and that fucks up their future.
People in that situation tend to breed like rabbits.
Of all the entertainments available, sex tends to be free.
Unless you market it.
If a kid happens? BONUS CASH!

[Sunseeker]

i think that's up? wasn't it like 750 previously? maybe the premium is for teenagers having children, now?

anyways, russia sure seems like they demographically fucked themselves and are panicking and trying to undo it with bad plans now

I mean, if its up great. Fundamentally I dont have a problem with countries saying "Hey, we want you to have babies." And then acknowledging the difficulty and cost of that and supporting that with cold hard cash. But be it 750 or 1200, I dont know how far a ruble gets you, but doesnt sound like nearly enough to me.

[Vampiregenesis]

More preparations for war: https://www.iefimerida.gr/kosmos/kom...eies-epibiosis - People should save up food for up to 72 hours.

Zaharova: France and UK are preparing a military intervention in Ukraine - https://www.efsyn.gr/kosmos/eyropi/4...-epembasi-stin

At this point, it's not crazy to say that something is coming. A cold war has already started. The question is if it will become a hot war.

[Kaleredar]

I mean, if its up great. Fundamentally I dont have a problem with countries saying "Hey, we want you to have babies." And then acknowledging the difficulty and cost of that and supporting that with cold hard cash. But be it 750 or 1200, I dont know how far a ruble gets you, but doesnt sound like nearly enough to me.

If places wanted to grow their population they should make it easier, more stable and more affordable to have children in general, instead of a one time “bonus.”

In Russia’s case, it would probably involve something like ensuring your child isn’t going to be marched off into some senseless war for no reason amidst a crumbling economy due to being a global pariah beneath a tin-pot dictator.

[Edge-]

A cold war has already started.

what do you think a cold war is?

[Belize]

what do you think a cold war is?

A war in the winter where the soldiers need coats, duh

[Edge-]

A war in the winter where the soldiers need coats, duh

but we're entering the spring, no? wouldn't we be leaving that cold war and entering a warming war into the summer hot war? before the fall cooling war returns and all.

[Lahis]

At this point, it's not crazy to say that something is coming. A cold war has already started. The question is if it will become a hot war.

Thw war has been hot since 2022.

[Twdft]

More preparations for war: https://www.iefimerida.gr/kosmos/kom...eies-epibiosis - People should save up food for up to 72 hours.

What's new about that? I'm pretty sure Germany recommends to store food for 3-10 days to prepare for natural disasters since decades ago.

[Endus]

Thw war has been hot since 2022.

Uhh, 2014. Let's not pretend the invasion of Crimea wasn't the start of this war.

[gondrin]

but we're entering the spring, no? wouldn't we be leaving that cold war and entering a warming war into the summer hot war? before the fall cooling war returns and all.

Don't tell Russia that. The last time they tried to fight in the Spring, they got stuck in the mud. Repeatedly.

[DarkAmbient]

So America's new offer is "give us all your energy and minerals until we got $100 billion, then we get half forever plus a veto over sales to other countries". Does America even want allies anymore? Besides Russia, of course.

[Specialka]

Shame the EU does not have what it takes to get a deal like that.

[PhaelixWW]

Shame the EU does not have what it takes to get a deal like that.

Neither does the US, to be fair.

And of course only an idiot would try, anyway.