I never thought I'd see the US aligning with Russia

[VolcanoJapan]

The US appear under Trump to be aligning with Putin and Russia more and more.

What was until recently referred to as our greatest allie is moving close to Russia in many ways, carving up Ukraine for Russia, trade deals with Russia.

It's bizarre.

Aibu to think it's bizarre or was this always coming when trump was elected?

If Trump did what was expected of him and came in heavy handed against Putin that would be far more dangerous to us and the World.

NATO expanding is a huge threat to Putin and Trump recognises that. Trump doesn't want a nuclear fall out any more than we do. He has USAs interests at heart and that doesn't include a nuclear war.

If Trump does manage to end the war between Ukraine and Russia that will be an incredible result. Currently it's all just pointless loss of lives.

@100A and how do you deal with someone so dangerous?

Donald J Trump has never in the whole course of his life had any interest at heart other than Donald J Trump.

The USA is just his supply of power and adoration.

There's an extent to which "L'etat, c'est moi" means he values the USA – but there's no harm he wouldn't inflict on the country if he felt it somehow glorified him.

Perhaps Trump could suggest to Putin that he withdraw his invading troops from Ukraine and stop killing Ukrainians? And stop his troops being killed?

Perhaps, but Trump’s gone way further than that…. He’s blamed Ukraine for starting the war (absurdly given it’s Russia that is the one invading) and said Zelensky is a dictator. It’s as though he’s reading a script provided directly by the Kremlin!

So you've swallowed the Russian propaganda then?

The loss of life is appalling, yes, but defending your country from a foreigner invaded is hardly "pointless".

Imagine if people had this mentality back in the 1930s?

It honestly blows my mind that people are so forgetful of history that they think ending the war by allowing Russian to claim any Ukrainian land they like is in any way acceptable. Or that Trump cosying up to Putin is in any way a good thing for Europe. Give your heads a wobble.

Jonathan Pie says it best:

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/962868195816786/?app=fbl

My favourite part is where he calls Farage (who is ‘supporting’ Trump) “a shit stain on humanity” 🤣 a moment of laughter in a scary situation.

The Russians will leave us alone... oh no wait

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/04/incendiary-device-plot-targeting-uk-may-have-been-dry-run-for-us-canada-russia-dhl

Russia is not going to leave Europe alone. It aims to destabilize it.

Yep they whooped up the whole Brexit thing to get us separated from Europe. Now we’re basically separated from the US too so…

Russia poisons people in this country and terrorizes its towns. Remember Salisbury?

Fuck Russia. They hate us. Anyone cuddling up to them on here is suspect

It's so obvious. Now that would be real evidence of trump as a strong man.

And nobody can answer why he doesn't do that.

Buh. Nuclear weapons.

It's bullshit. If trump really wanted to be the big I am, he'd get the kremlin dwarf to fuck off back to his swamp

It's strange - Russia specialises in using paid agitators in the most odd places- we look after several artist fan sites ( music) not modern trendy ones but artists mainly from 70s and 80s -several have posted negatively about Trump - all of a sudden masses of posts from people who never post/comment all supporting Putin and Trump and all with blank kind of profiles/ avatar pictures etc - it's like Brexit all over again- it's designed to make you feel that it is 'you' who is being unreasonable by not seeing that they have every right to go round pitching their sights on wherever they fancy for the assets . I'm sure mumsnet has a fair bit of this going on too - people who only comment if it involves politics on what is primarily a very wide subject based female dominated forum I'm always a bit wary of - and its nearly always those with views way to the right. I appreciate we can all see things differently but it's the lack of interaction with any other aspect of the site unless it's far right politics that makes me wary.

@picturethispatsy never fails for me to be pitch perfect

I "follow" marks and Spencer on facebook and the usual comments have been around trouser lengths and whether they still stock chicken and broccoli pies

But the last couple of days the comments have quadrupled on every post all saying how brilliant it is that they advertise on GBnews and how they will now shop there as a result.

It cannot be organic. It's fascinating

@GoldfinchFeather how would you approach it?

Do you mean continuing fighting, to what end?

Can you give a realistic outcome

Well I certainly don't thinking squaring up to putin is a good idea at all.
But I do think the comments about military strength are for putin.

Putin is a difficult enemy to gage, he's kgb.
I see Trump dancing around him, tickling his ear, joking, laughing, confusing him, seemingly siding with him against Zelensky.
I'm wondering what putin really thinks of Trump.
If I was putin I'd much rather be dealing with Biden??

@Crikeyalmighty I seem to spend most of my life on politics and Ukraine threads at the moment. There's so much bollocks being posted, there isn't enough time for fun things.

A lot of people are very forgetful about history.

Vance's recent remarks about troops in Europe and that the "American taxpayer" will be upset if Germany doesn't allow extremists who want to go back to 1933 free speech are so irresponsible.

Also forgetting that the troops stationed in Europe came to be there after WW II as a deterrent against Russia! And when Germany was occupied after 1945, there was so much censorship because the western forces were worried about a revival and wanted to only have democratic voices heard. British, French and US influence was what shaped these laws as a security measure, now they want to reverse them, it's like I woke up in Alice in Wonderland.

Couple of people need to go and read some history books, even wikipedia would be a good start to get a better grasp on things.

I have decided that until this madness ends, I will not buy American brands as much as possible. A few necessary things will probably stay, and actually it's difficult to extract oneself from everything, but whereever the price is similar and it's neither here nor there, I will look for alternatives.

No more Coca Cola, Amazon streaming or Netflix.

A few posts ago I said that connected economies are a good thing, and they still are, but I don't want to give the billionaires who sponsored this election any more money than absolutely necessary. Any purchases of services and items from the US will be restricted to the absolute minimum.

You can look up who funded Trump's campaign, and I'd rather target people who don't know what to do with their money than small business owners. Probably the biggest exception will be indie artists and writers who mostly don't have anything to do with this and I'll focus on larger brands.

I think it will still be important to also support the opposition in the US, those who oppose this "the country is mine to do what I want with it" style of politics.

@icelolly12

The war is bad; but the problem is the future. We need to put measures in place to avoid a repetition after Russia refreshed its equipment and people. That's why the jaunty US approach of "oh stop bullying Russia, you bad Ukrainians" is only a short term solution. Europe still needs to find a longtime plan.

@wholettheturnipsburn as a big fan of M&S I now will go on there and state the opposite- but you are correct, this weird activity is I think being fed by algorithms that pick up each time certain words are mentioned and I think much of it is not genuine

@Llttledrummergirl I do know what you mean -I'm bloody incensed personally.

Yes, continue fighting until Russia withdraws. And provide the ongoing support Ukraine requires to achieve this aim - which, as all credible experts have spoken about, wouldn't be very much longer anyway. Russian forces are massively depleted, and it would be impossible for them to keep fighting indefinitely.

To what end? To protect themselves against an invading force! Or do we simply allow dictators to invade who they want to now, because preventing them from doing so is too difficult or expensive?

What Trump is effectively betraying the Ukrainian people who have fought so bravely, and allowing Russia to claim victory that they would never have had any hope of if it wasn't for the utter stupidity of millions of Americans. Most of whom couldn't even point to Ukraine on an effing map.

It's sickening.

@wholettheturnipsburn just posted- I see what you mean - a very satisfying post too which I won't look at responses to- lol!! Anyone who wants to look at the sheer ludicrousness of this - take a look at very recent M&S Facebook threads - why do you go on a page just to talk about their advertising policy?

Yes, continue fighting until Russia withdraws. And provide the ongoing support Ukraine requires to achieve this aim - which, as all credible experts have spoken about, wouldn't be very much longer anyway.

Putin will not withdraw and admit defeat.
The fact he was happy to sacrifice Russia's interests in Syria to maintain the current operational tempo and stalemate.

The FLOT/FLET hasn't had any significant change in a long time. And nowhere near enough change for one side to claim an advantage and turn the tide.
It's essentially a stalemate territory wise.

Hence prior to Trump, the conflict was starting to morph into a proxy war between Western countries and Russia with the use of missiles to target installations within Russia.
That in itself increases the risk of further escalation (one which we as the UK don't have much defense for... our lack of AD... let alone a proper IADS should be noted).