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.

Trump wants to disarm, cut Pentagon spending and isolate. Pax Americana is over.

The UK shouldn't be naive in all this. Pretending that our security structure or NATO is not affected by this is crazy. It is.

We have a pro Putin US. Who is next of our allies?

Russia are a nuclear power that is good friends with North Korea. It really won't be in the USA's interests to let Putin run riot.

But has Trump got the wit to see that?

It surprises you that we care about Ukraine's sovereignty? Would it also have surprised you that we cared about Belgian and Polish sovereignty? We (like the US and the Russians) had signed agreements in 1994 to provide security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in return for them giving up nuclear weapons.

When we sign treaties to protect other countries, we mean it. Just as we signed the 1839 Treaty of London promising to defend Belgium and did so when they were invaded in 1914. Just as we gave assurances to Poland in March 1939 and declared war on Germany when they attacked in September.

Now much like Roosevelt threw Poland under a bus in the Yalta conference, Trump is also carving up the world with a tyrant. Putin won't stop there, much like Hitler didn't stop at the Sudetenland.

@RingoJuice please do us a favour and stop calling us friends. Trump and you are not friendly, are you?

What will happen to the US military bases across Europe and (and in the European territories such as Diego Garcia)? Will they close or will the host countries take them over? So many questions!

I imagine Trump will offer to buy them at gunpoint given his current approach. You know, friendly

So much for free speech

White House national security adviser Mike Waltz says Ukraine needs to "tone down" its criticism of the US and sign a minerals deal being pushed by President Trump

The majority of aid from the states is a grant - in that it is provided with no future repayment by Ukraine, it is a gift, even though it may be spent in America the things and services that are generated is given largely for free to Ukraine.

The overwhelming majority of aid from other countries, mainly European, is provided as a loan - i.e. there is some sort of agreement that Ukraine will repay the debt incurred in the future, much like loans to USA and others in WW2.

I have no idea why this is and how it came about, but at face value it appears the USA are seriously more generous given the sums involved are in the billions; so why doesn't Europe give it's aid as a grant and why is it's 'aid' a loan to be repaid?

A gift with strings attached?

Otherwise why is Trump demanding that Ukraine supply the US with rare earth minerals as a form of payment for Washington's financial support and aid

The money EU member states are lending Ukraine will be repaid by interest from frozen Russian assets.

I don't know, perhaps he's looking at all the aid and thinking, hold on the Europeans are going to get some sort of repayment but I'm not and I'm paying more than they are?

Zelensky floated the idea of minerals as payment, not Trump by the way.

These agreements have to end at some point. They cannot go on forever. Like this:

Just as we signed the 1839 Treaty of London promising to defend Belgium and did so when they were invaded in 1914

destroyed an entire generation in your country. It would have been better to stay out of it. Would you have Europe go to war on a point of principle?

I would not tbh.

https://www.reuters.com/world/zelenskiy-says-lets-do-deal-offering-trump-mineral-partnership-seeking-security-2025-02-07/

But Zelenskiy emphasised that Kyiv was not proposing "giving away" its resources, but offering a mutually beneficial partnership to develop them jointly:

@RingoJuice - we get it, you are an isolationist. But the UK cannot afford to be. It's an easier idea to bear if you don't live next to a conflict. If you are an American then you won't have felt the effect of war directly for hundreds of years. But proximity to conflict and a long history of it focuses the mind.

Would you have Europe go to war on a point of principle?

Hopefully it won't come to this. De escalate where possible

We've maintained, fought and negotiated wars on principle. Or is this new US administration without scruple?

We couldn’t “stay out of it”. Parts of the UK are so close to the battlefields they could hear the gunfire. We’d have been invaded.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/18/europe-defense-ukraine-trump-vance-munich/

How Europe Can Defend Itself

Here are 10 steps European leaders can take now to bolster the continent’s defenses without U.S. help.

(By Garvan Walshe, a former national and international security policy advisor to the British Conservative Party and a co-founder of the group Unhack Democracy, which works in Hungary. )

JD Vance just tweeted this, I think it’s a good summary of the US position and I 1000% agree with it:

This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say.

For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn't have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory. This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, it was true last year, and it is true today.

And for three years, the concerns of people who were obviously right were ignored. What is Niall's actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?

Instead, he quotes from a book about George HW Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict. That's another currency of these people: reliance on irrelevant history.

President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts. And here are some facts:

Number one, while our Western European allies' security has benefitted greatly from the generosity of the United States, they pursue domestic policies (on migration and censorship) that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over-reliance.

Number two, Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower and weapons in Ukraine, and that advantage will persist regardless of further Western aid packages. Again, the aid is currently flowing.

Number three, the United States retains substantial leverage over both parties to the conflict.

Number four, ending the conflict requires talking to the people involved in starting it and maintaining it.

Number five, the conflict has placed - and continues to place - stress on tools of American statecraft, from military stockpiles to sanctions (and so much else). We believe the continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine, and bad for Europe. But most importantly, it is bad for the United States.

Given the above facts, we must pursue peace, and we must pursue it now. President Trump ran on this, he won on this, and he is right about this. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as "appeasement" every acknowledgment that America's interest must account for the realities of the conflict.

That interest - not moralisms or historical illiteracy - will guide President Trump's policy in the weeks to come.

And thank God for that.

https://x.com/jdvance/status/1892569791140946073?s=46&t=LHu5hEVEgoG4lIIfMesJGA

President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts.

Yeah, nah

Number one, while our Western European allies' security has benefitted greatly from the generosity of the United States, they pursue domestic policies (on migration and censorship) that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over-reliance.

The US are just motivated by generosity ?
Policies are crafted out of the goodness of their heart?
And recipients of such generosity other countries should align their policies on migration and censorship with those of the US?

, Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower
what are North Korean troops doing in the west then ?

first, the war wouldn't have started if President Trump was in office

They keep repeating that, but what grounds do they have for thinking it? Trump rolls over to whatever Putin wants. He wouldn't have done anything to stop Putin; in fact he probably would have made an invasion more likely!

Presumably you'd have been happy for the Kaiser or Hitler to control all of mainland Europe, no matter what the death toll, just as long as you can put your fingers in your ears and pretend that it's nothing for you to worry about. Funny how the US is quite happy to interfere in the affairs of other countries when it suits.

The US, UK and Russia all signed memorandums in Budapest. Obviously no one trusts Putin to keep his word (see also: Minsk). The UK has a reputation for trustworthiness to maintain. Will the US do the honourable thing? Or just get some cheap oil from Putin in return for capitulation?