Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

The people of Ukraine voted for Yanukovych, who promised neutrality between NATO and Russia. But he was expelled by a violent putsch and replaced by a NATO-sponsored guy, even though everybody knew this was serious provocation.

Trump said throughout the recent campaign that he would end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but now he's found a way to keep it going.

The people always want peace, and the politicians always find a way to make war.

It's almost like you're unaware of Russian interference.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth...-election/

https://cyberlaw.ccdcoe.org/wiki/Ukraini...nce_(2014)

https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/inci...ommission/

[The Architect Of Fate]

The people of Ukraine voted for Yanukovych.

Russia rigged that election so their puppet would win 

who promised neutrality between NATO and Russia.

Promised but never intended to deliver

 But he was expelled by a violent putsch and replaced by a NATO-sponsored guy, even though everybody knew this was serious provocation.

Was expelled by the Ukrainian people for being a corrupt Putin puppet and was replaced by an actual elected leader  and no kicking out a foreign asset on your soil is not a provocation let alone one that justifies a violent invasion 

Trump said throughout the recent campaign that he would end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but now he's found a way to keep it going.

Yup 

The people always want peace, and the politicians always find a way to make war.

Ukrainians only want peace on their terms not Russia's

[Leonardo17]

Belaqua:
 

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I didn’t read Tolstoi’s book just yet (there many such beautiful books in my library that I’m not even sure if I will ever read even when I’m retired )

Still: Even if you were right about everything, I’m feeling sorry for Russians above anything else. Did he really need to send 200,000+ young men to die in Ukraine? Is there any type of ideology-based reasoning behind this act? Did Russians really deserve all of this?
If communism is dead and gone why is he acting like a Joseph Stalin 2.0?

- To me the man is an enigma all by itself. My theory is that he himself is nothing but a puppet or tool of the Russian Mafia + Oligarchy.
 
Quote:

“It's sad, because in most of the world if you ask which country is illegally violating borders, taking land by violence, and oppressing the natives of the occupied areas, people will of course answer "Israel." With the logistical, financial, and material assistance of the United States.
In Brooklyn this week they had an event where they were selling off stolen parts of the West Bank.”

 
- Yes the West has its double standards. Before the 1990’s Palestinian resistance was backed by Moscow and it was a left-wing, communist type of resistance. But look carefully: Do you see a strong / independent Arab Nation in Palestine right now? (Or do you see a true / sovereign Arab nation-state other than Egypt in the whole region?).
 
Personally I cannot make sense of the Palestinian issue as a whole. But still I want everyone to simply ignore Donald Trump’s comments and even some of his actions on this issue.
 
No one can live without international law. There has to be some rules and everyone needs to respect these rules. We can’t just keep acting as if we are still in the pre WWI world. We cannot fight for resources for instance (That’s what Wagner + Russia + China is doing in Africa and everybody is seeing it).
 
Also on Israel: I don’t know if I would want to live in Israel if I was a Jew. The whole thing is really messed up. But there has to be a solution to that. And that solution has to be a solution that respects international law.
 
Again: We won’t have a world as we know it without international law. Right now everyone (including Macron) is laying out strategies on how to best carry out the next four years with a completely reckless and irresponsible man at the white house.
But you are right on what you said: Yes Israel is a sovereign nations that has the right to exist but no, they cannot just ignore all rules of international law like they have been doing since the state was first established. And the West is clearly looking away and not seeing these breaches of international law. But that’s just the way Europeans are. You know in the 1990’s it was the US that intervened and stopped Serbian atrocities and genocide in the old Yugoslavia. Europeans were simply watching and condemning and talking.
 
So yes: You are absolutely right on this one.
 

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On NATO Spending:
 

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   Everyone agrees that Europe should do more for its own defense. But I still don’t like this “more guns” paradigm of our time. The spirit of the era between 1991 and 2014 (First Russian invasion of Ukraine) was a better one. During the Cold-War there was two conflicting ideologies on how the world was supposed to work. Now we are back to huge oligarchs and capitalists competing for the resources of this world and adding more fortune to their fortune with increasingly erratic political figures basically working for these minority egomaniacs.
 
    Even China is voicing its concerns on that. There has to be rules that work for everyone (that are being respected by everyone) and fewer guns.
 
    My position on that is: What’s wrong with the US providing military security to Europe (at least for a decade or so more) until Europeans can slowly adapt to the new reality and try to build some sort of unified armed force of their own?
 

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Belaqua:
 
Pro-Russian Ukrainians have mostly fled to Russia. The remaining ones have lost some 50,000 men. Everyone has lost someone in this war. Even if they were to capitulate Russians would then be in another Chechenia-kind of situation with armed resistance and stuff like that.
 
The Expansion of NATO:

 
This Kremlin narrative is an empty one. NATO is a defensive alliance. It does not attack you unless you attack it first.
 
The Kremlin is openly saying “I have my zones of influence, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, The Baltic states are in it, that’s why I don’t want any NATO in these countries”.
 
I don’t know about the promise issue. But I know that Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1991 in exchange for security guaranties from Russia itself.  
 
Here not even Anti-US left wing parties approve of this narrative.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pro-Russian Ukrainians have mostly fled to Russia. The remaining ones have lost some 50,000 men. Everyone has lost someone in this war. Even if they were to capitulate Russians would then be in another Chechenia-kind of situation with armed resistance and stuff like that.

The separatists have been getting their revenge on the russians who, they believe, used them as meat in doomed assaults.  Right around this time last year there simply weren't enough of them left to keep assigning to assaults and the survivors found themselves in the position of assignee.  Now it's the the russians being used as meat by separatist command structures..according to those russians, as they whine on telegraph for Dear Leader to save them from the death he sent them to.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meanwhile, in russia. King Krasnov said he talked to Vlad and that Vlad was totally okay with peacekeepers in ukraine. Lets ask Sergei? Or, rather, Little Marco asked him for us!

-the deployment of troops ... [from] NATO countries, but under a foreign flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags ... is, of course, unacceptable to us.

ofc. Only russian flags should fly in ukraine.

[Leonardo17]

I have a feeling that Mr. Donald Trump is many things but he is not stupid at all:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-zelensk...41787.html
 
If the US signed (or is currently signing) a deal with Ukraine for US companies to “dig, dig, dig” because “The US needs these minerals” and “This will be good for both countries” this is something that I read as:
 
“Dear Vlad, please go on with your war as much as you like (keep sacrificing 1000 men for every square meter of Ukrainian territory). In the meantime I’m signing deals with Zelensky to boost both our economies (while even more sanction will be imposed on your already decimated economy).”

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UN diplomats are simply leaving the room when Sergei Lavrov is speaking at the UN Human Rights Council (Wednesday February 26th):  

[Nanny]

And the monster just sold out Ukraine and NATO.

[The Grand Nudger]

I have a feeling that Mr. Donald Trump is many things but he is not stupid at all:

....oooor, he really wanted to make a deal with his bff vlad, but vladdie the baddie pantsed him on the international stage, and zelensky is willing to do a photo op.

The actual deal being a nonbinding agreement between parties to at some point in the indefinite future come up with the concepts of a plan. The us will not see any benefits to it's economy from ukranian minerals not being extracted, and ukranian mines in russian hands also sitting idle. The mineral wealth of ukraine is significantly fictitous, based on soviet surveys from the 70's and 80's and without any inclusion of the cost to develop them. Anyone who signed a mineral deal with ukraine right now is a fucking sucker. Especially...especially...a fake one. Buying a bill of goods for a bill of goods.

Day 1102. Trump is the bidness president and vlad remains a master strategist.

[Leonardo17]

First part of my own pervious message:
 
   I really don’t know. I was watching the Trump + Vance vs. Zelensky meeting a minute ago. This happens right after the visit of Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer. Everyone was expecting a positive outcome. Yet none of that seems to have happened.
 
+ Zelensky is the leader of a country in war. So he cannot go “The Fox and the Raven” (a Fable from the French Poet La Fontaine – see bellow-) on D. Trump either.
 

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Master Crow perched on a tree,
Was holding a cheese in his beak.
Master Fox attracted by the smell
Said something like this:
“Well, Hello Mister Crow!
How pretty you are! How beautiful you seem to me!
I’m not lying, if your voice
Is like your plumage,
You are the phoenix of all the inhabitants of these woods.”
At these words, the Crow is overjoyed.
And in order to show off his beautiful voice,
He opens his beak wide, lets his prey fall
The Fox grabs it, and says: “My good man,
Learn that every flatterer
Lives at the expense of the one who listens to him.
This lesson, without doubt, is well worth a cheese.”
The Crow, ashamed and embarrassed,
Swore, but a little late, that he would not be taken again.
 

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So I simply don’t know 

[Angrboda]

I suspect Trump was expecting Zelensky to refuse the minerals deal, giving him a pretext for aligning with Russian demands. When that failed, he had to improvise a different pretext.