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.

Having just listened to a really intense WW2 podcast about Hitler’s life I have been watching this unfold with a real sense of foreboding. My god it is reminiscent of what went before and the outcome was basically world war.

Trump just wants to say he's ended the war as he claimed he would. How it's ended is irrelevant to him. Giving away large swathes of Ukraine isn't important to him just claiming to end the war is his main point.

It's not the same as colonisers because trump doesn't want it, just wants to claim he's ended the war.

Peace keeping tslks too early, the war hasn't ended yet.

can someone explain why Russia doesn’t agree that Ukraine should be part of NATO ?

@SunnyDayInFeb - tbh there is a bigger issue which is that while Russia is a basket case country, we do not talk about how they operate and their motivations.

We should. Putin does not care about his people. He cares only for himself and a few other oligarchs who would like more control over assets and companies in Eastern Europe. These are currently under sanctions.

Russia does have influence because of these economic links that they would like to revive.

The conversation has done a total 360 from Biden where there was talk of sanctioned assets being seized to fund Ukraine. Yes there are critical minerals but also money flow.

The EU should be thinking carefully on Russian economic links. Does it want them or not?

Of course it is, he forgot to check others agreed with him in his haste

So did Sunak and Davey tbf. Badenoch on the other hand was too busy stirring up hatred to find time to comment, apart from hedging her bets.

Ed Davey

Keir Starmer should bring back Parliament to debate his plans to support Ukraine.

We have just days for the UK to lead in Europe and save Ukraine from a shoddy deal cooked up by Trump and Putin.

Not sure if Badenoch and Farage have made statements

I think we might be guilty of looking at this with too domestic a lens. Germany's public rejection is actually very significant. As frankly a more constructive approach would have been silence, no?

Scholz is thinking about his election. But Germany structurally has a lot of links to Russia. It is dependent on it for power.

If you look at the German extreme right, you might say they are Russia friendly? So this what I mean when I say the EU will be crippled by pro Russia democrats. They do not even have to be actual governments.

Because they wanted a neutral stretch of land between NATO backed countries. Instead of it being neutral they have now of course invaded it with the intention of making it Russian.

Badenoch wittered on about the UK needing to be "on the right side", but she seems cluekess on what that actually is. Probably waiting for Trump's directions.

how many times have the public presumed what they think the us or russia etc should do but then its something different, you may not agree but does not mean im wrong, otherwise why are people commenting on the thread, unless they suddenly are all experts and think they know x , bottom line we are all just using educated guessing

Germany is not the only one to reject it, just the most vocal with Scholz making a statement

Only France and Sweden in support

It was an error by Starmer, you want unity not EU leaders having to say a move was inappropriate

Because they wanted to control Ukraine and ensure it only had a pro Putin government that did what they wanted.

This type of control has to be backed up by military threats.

A country that joined Nato (don't think this is entirely true anymore) would feel free to pursue its own independent path without fear.

Genuine question cupcakes, do you use ChatGPT to help you write, perhaps due to your dyslexia? I know some people do.

Grammerly, because the amout of times some posters focus on peoples grammer and spelling and use the i wont engage if you cannot spell x properly etc so i try to make it readable for all

Well I just think that there is no guarantee for Ukraine. Starmer may make the offer public for a variety of reasons, but it is not enough.

I actually think he did the right thing in saying it publicly. The reality is that Ukraine does need a security guarantee and peacekeeper backing.

A deal without those things is to give Ukraine to Putin. At the next election they have.

From memory Putin believes NATO is a threat to Russia and it has been recruiting too many countries near to his borders.

The problem is that NATO countries can position a military presence in them and Ukraine would help create an encircling of arms around much of Russia.

Ukraine is a red line for Putin, not helped by Biden assisting in the 2014 revolution - obviously Ukraine Russian history is long and deep and way beyond my appreciation , but if modern day Ukraine joins NATO then the shit could really hit the fan, especially if NATO is largely a bunch of countries that can't agree or organise themselves.

Former UK-US ambassador & National Security Advisor, Sir Kim Darroch:

"Starmer was a prominent figure at yesterday's emergency meeting. That gives him a certain credibility to get through the White House door and to be listened to. He's become quickly rather a pivotal figure for Europe in this."

Russia opposes Ukraine joining NATO because it sees the alliance’s expansion as a direct threat to its security. NATO was originally formed to counter Soviet influence, and Russia views its enlargement toward its borders as encroachment. Ukraine’s membership would mean NATO forces and military infrastructure could be stationed right next to Russia, which Moscow sees as unacceptable. Additionally, Russia considers Ukraine historically and culturally tied to its sphere of influence and wants to keep it neutral rather than aligned with the West.

What I find abominable is that trump is demanding Ukraine give over tonnes of rare earth minerals each year amongst other things for a guarantee on security. Just as bad as the Russians! That is not what allies do! Complete blackmail of a friend when they are down on their luck

but then without the us etc russia would now have them ?

What I struggled to understand from the very day this kicked off is why Ukraine/ EU / USA did not expect that eventually there would be a reaction from Russia to the explicit courting of Ukraine to break with Russia.

Did they truly believe Putin would stand by and do nothing. I felt back then that Zelensky was very foolish and had little appreciation of the type of man that Putin was, but how could a Ukrainian underestimate Putin? It's still a mystery to me.

The question for me is whether the West truly grasped how far Putin was willing to go to reassert control over Ukraine.

But cupcakes this latest response is straight from a chat gpt prompt.

I would personally far rather read the output of a person's own thoughts. I don't care about spelling or grammar I started this thread to engage with other humans.

Apart from anything else I am worried about what exactly these models have been trained on. If we start using these models as a replacement for critical thought then it will be so easy for us to be spoon fed disinformation.

With the entire globe reeling from covid and on the cusp of trying to start a recovery putin invaded and has affected us all.

so if i had a half baked idea which would be russia would win, then how does that help the thread, ?

instead ive been trying to use goggle and co poilt via bing, then recombine with my own thoughts and then use grammerly to fix spelling and grammer

this way i can still contribute to the discussions and at least have a semi idea of whats what