To be disgusted at the talks between Russia and the US

[SunnyDayInFeb]

So Russia and the US are meeting in Saudia Arabia to carve up Ukraine.

And Ukraine, whose people have been fighting and dying since their country was invaded, haven't even been invited to the table.

It's like we are back in the 19th century with the European colonial powers drawing lines on a map to divide Africa between them.

@TheNoonBell - Victor Orban is Putin's lickspittle and he would like others in the Ukraine, Poland, Romania and others countries of "influence".

If he is being excluded then all to the good. The EU cannot exclude him but other organisations can. He can chum up with Belarus and then go with his hand to the EU as he usually does.

You educate yourself on the savagery of the Russian war machine and how they operate. I reckon you know and approve of it already

Article 10 of the NATO charter requires the consent of ALL NATO members in order to add a new member. The US will not consent.

It's got a whiff of Putin appeasement to pretend people are missing it

Yes I get you and others are willing to fight. Or for others to for you? Probably easier to go for it on a screen

Less so when the reality is people's dcs

Im sure starmer will not be doing this without engaging the whole of europe. Equally there are other western nations such as canada, australia. Putin needs to be hammered hard, especially whilst his resources are low. Poland and the other forner eastern european countries i doubt are hand-wringing. Take back crimea whilst were at it. Dont give the fucker a chance to rebuild.

On Gaza, Trump backtracked on the subject of Gazans returning to their homeland. Call me cynical but he's not going to invest billions into developing a land (if that ever materialises) unless he sees return on investment. Let's face it, that 'economic miracle' isn't going to profit the Gazans. If Trump was so big on international development he wouldn't have brutally shuttered the very agency that was set up for that very purpose.

No, I don't think you get it.

Russia is a threat to Europe, not the US. Prolonging the war in Ukraine isn't helping us, and it's costing us money we don't have.

Trump is trying to get 3 party talks going with Russia and China to reduce tensions and defense expenditures.

I'm sorry but I don't think there's much of a risk of that happening. Yes, his base will celebrate him as a hero - but they do that anyway regardless of what he says or does! The rest of the US and people in Europe can see that Trump is just giving Putin what he wants. That's not ending the war, it's capitulating and betraying their allies.

Who wants to bet Trump will be invited by Putin to the Russian celebrations in May commemorating the end of WWII (it is a huge thing in Russia, even more so this year as it'll be the 80th anniversary)? And that he will go?

@bemoresloth you are keen, if not it's 'Putin appeasement' accusation

How depressing. I take it you don't have boys in that age range

At last an extremely interesting thread with all different facets of this awful situation looked at.
I've really missed this in the past few weeks.

I think Ukraine membership of Nato is a red herring.

Why is Ukraine desperate to be a part of nato? Because it offers massive security and protection against aggressors.

If the war is stopped soon, Ukraine can be shored up and offered protection just not under a nato banner.
It will behove Europe to enact this swiftly if the war is stopped.

Re trump appeaseing putin and giving into putin I don't see it why did putin invade Ukraine? Because he wants Ukraine.

Will putin get Ukraine? Absolutely not so the majority of the country can feel secure in that it's still Ukraine and not part of Russia
That's not putin winning is it?

Unfortunately I think this situation has left the eu looking naked.
It has little political or military clout.
It's ironic that we are providing that clout.

Are you talking about conscription?

If so, why?

It sounds very plausible. If already planned, what would be the desired outcome from it, I wonder, what's the next thing after that?

Why is he posing wanting to be involved in discussions about the future of his own country?

I find this language and vilification of Zelensky and the Ukrainians very disturbing.

It is a colonial mindset. Lasting peace does not come from ignoring the people whose future is at stake.

Trump is a colonialist. It is about taking over other countries and their resources. In Ukraines case he does not want to run the country, simply extract their rare minerals for free so he can make billions and billions of pounds. He said he wants 50% of their rare minerals as part of the peace deal.

I don't doubt at all that zelensky will be part of the negotiations, he's spoken to trump many times.
He's understandably extremely angry and emotional and putin is a cold hard calculating bastard.
I don't think that's a good recipe for success. The USA knows what zelensky wants and will obviously not give into Russia.
Putin will be loving zelensky exclusion but that doesn't mean Ukraine will miss out.
They will lay the ground work and see how serious Russia is wanting peace.
Putin has felt that they are at war with the USA anyway.

It would be completely different if the US had sat down with Ukraine and thrashed out a plan and gone off to use their diplomatic muscle and super power status to negotiate with Putin on their behalf.

That is not what is happening.

People seem almost gleeful that Ukraine is getting what it deserves. Their only crime seems to be that they are not the biggest, nastiest bully in the room.

I can understand an argument from pragmatism, though I might not agree. But why the desire to demonise the Ukrainians? Is it because people have to justify their betrayal by pretending they have done something to deserve it?

Then, Ukraine can be included.

He will want to develop techonologies to refine these, for the making of chips in the USA. He wants no dependencies or to extend any security guarantees to other countries.

Once he has minerals, on shore manufacturing and refinement capability how long do you think Taiwan will have its security guarantees?

Not long.

Rich, powerful country is going to spend billions rebuilding Ukraine, so rare earth minerals are the least they can do to pay us back. They have nothing else to compensate us with, and the American people are in absolutely no mood to put out any more $ without compensation. Our wallet is closed.

Why do you think Trump won when he's an orange buffoon? Because he taps into the zeitgeist of current-day America. We're over paying for everybody's everything, and Trump is our weapon to accomplish that.

Well I've seen the horrendous videos of Russian minorities being held in a burning building by Ukrainian forces some 10 years ago.

The fact of the matter is Russia is perfectly at liberty to refuse the idea of NATO weapons on their doorstep... its no different to the USA objecting to Russian nukes in Cuba.
The war is funded mostly by America- stopcyhe funding and the war stops. Simples.

Tbh Trump is just open about the motivation behind US and European support. It was already the case that critical minerals is the reason the war is waged at all. Russia wants them too. So too did Europe.

It's just that this was not the open reason for all the support.

Though America does do quite well financially. Didnt we only just finish paying them back after WW11 in 2015? Britain was on its own for 1 year against the nazis. Though food was sent to the UK by america and promptly decinated by the nazis.. Though we were then assisted by the US once we were pretty much on our knees, and it is unlikely we would have outlasted the nazis by that point.

One of putins reasons for the war was he didnt want ukraine to beco.e a part of NATO. At that point i could sort of understand that, even if i didnt agree with it. Then he invaded anyway......

Clearly not one who can be trusted at all.

Well, people's DCs who have chosen to join the military.

We aren't talking conscription.