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?

I am not surprised at Trump dictators admire dictators they will both know how to dance around each another, one is certainly more intelligent and the other just thinks he is and

And the feeling towards Russia and being suspicions of Russia in the US isn't prevalent like it once was

I think people mistakenly think that the world dislikes Trump and are concerned about the Ukraine and the threat of Russia to Europe

Average American doesn't care much and Ukraine is nothing to many people

Ukraine shall end up being divided things will settle for a while then likely to start again

This is only tangentially relative, but the figures I heard the other day about how many Russian soldiers they are losing every day in the conflict blew my mind. 1200* people a day on average - That's utterly mind blowi ng to me!

*estimates vary wildly, but all are grim

The experts on the radio show I was listening to last week (discussing this) seemed to be of the opinion that Russia can afford to keep losing men at this rate because of how vast it is. National service, compulsory call ups etc are feeding the war machine nicely. Ukraine, sadly, cannot continue to sustain their losses, even though they are much lower, because they can't replace the fighting soldiers at the rate they are dying.

He probably wants to offer him a Cabinet position.

Kind of. Russia never declared war. They announced an escalation of hostilities. There isn't a requirement to declare war though. There's a convention to announce intention and reason, which they did. They sailed close to the wind though - the timing meant it was already a done deal, the justification was spurious and obscured a lot of the motivation.

And interestingly many immigrants voted for Trump

The predictions were incorrect

Regretful Trump voters can quite frankly fuck off. People are free to fuck up their own lives but I draw the line at actively trying to harm others, and this is what they voted for.

It had nothing to do with the price of eggs and everything to do with many people believing Trump only meant to harm other people. But they’re going to find out they are also other people.

He and the people around him were very clear what their plans were, but having a half Indian, half black woman President was the worse choice apparently.

They can all enjoy working with no rights in Tesla or Amazon factory until they’re worn out. Give it 2 years and people in red states will be trying to get across the border into Mexico illegally.

Regretful Trump voters can quite frankly fuck off.

I don't think they are this, more likely non voters protesting.

I think you are forgetting how difficult it is to remove a sitting president have you forgotten about Biden he literally had to be dragged out

Its not like the UK system where party democracy really does work when there is a PM in power that that party has turned against

That's a really interesting point actually. Russia has always relied on a strategy of attrition - just keep on throwing young brutalised conscripts at the enemy in sufficient numbers that the enemy can't keep up. In WWII for example there were reports from the Nazi forces that their attempts to advance were compromised by the mounds of Russian dead. USSR losses in that war were catastrophic for entire regions.

A country as big as Russia can do this for a long time but it has led to actual demographic alteration - as well as the fact Russian birthrates are plummeting, the population and in particular men are pretty unhealthy with a low lifespan. After several generations of losing lots of men to conflict there is a big imbalance now. Not enough to stop them entirely but it is a salutary reminder of the wide reaching consequences for the nation itself.

Brexit was the first step towards this. Divide and conquer. Steve Bannon and others have been behind this and Trump is the thick goon who will be the face of it all.

Yes, they thought he wouldn't hurt them. He spouted his Populist policies and they voted without thinking them through. Like the UK and Brexit. Also I don't think they realised how hastily, nastily and ill-thought out Trump's proposals would be. I doubt anyone thought he'd endanger national security. Or that government contracts with them would be nulled with immediate effect..

@HRTQueen they could impeach him.

Impeachment seems like the obvious option but I'm not sure how feasible that is currently.

That's your take on this?

Well maybe Britain needs to step up and innovate and make some stuff worth watching and/or buying? Your choices as a consumer are on you.

And your grammar's not amazing, by the way. Which I wouldn't ordinarily comment on, but since you felt the need to shit on American's usage...

Americans aren't a lump sum entity, by the way. Just as people in the UK are not. 🙄

Out of interest, how is Fox News (for example) portraying this sudden allegiance with Russia? I am fascinated by the psychological hoops they must be having to jump through to sell it to their cold war fan base.

He's mad if he thinks Putin is going to stop at Ukraine, or even just a bit of Ukraine. Of course he isn't.

I wonder which of the US territory Trump would be prepared to give up if Putin wanted it?

He's an absolute moron and the fact that he's 'negotiating' with Putin is terrifying for the whole world.

It's being sold as necessary for cheaper gas and saving the tax payer on the war. They're loving it on Twitter - anything can be spun in the new world order.

Ah OK, I was wondering how it was being spun. Thanks.

Funny how it never happens that way with gun ownership.

The ONLY reason that Ukraine has been able to fight as long as they have is because the US has been supporting them with billions of dollars of arms and satellite surveillance. No other nation on the planet has the resources and technology to do it.

Ukraine is running out of soldiers, something that Russia doesn't have to worry about. If the was goes on much longer Russia WILL overrun Ukraine and it will all have been for nothing.

Europe talked tough but did nothing to support Ukraine.

Trump isn't siding with Russia, he's just ripping the plaster off. We can't complain about the US pulling its support for Ukraine. If we don't like it, we can step up ourselves. But no, nobody wants to do that. It's fine as long as it's someone elses problem.

Why would they impeach him

The Republicans have the house and the senate. Impeaching a president makes the US look weak. It has never been successful

Right now Trump is looking anything but weak, last thing needed is actually an unsettled America even if that does mean Trump is President because if he was impeached it would cause a lot of upheaval in the country though I am sure his new best friend would happily see this happen

Putin is is a concern for Europeans

others around the world not so much

Powerful people make a lot from gun ownership and Americans love their constitution so it will be interesting to see how they react when Trump tries to change it.

They are accusing Europe, Biden and Zelensky of starting the war and have started to depict Zelensky as being anti-democratic. I'm sure they showed the footage of Trump where he dishonestly claimed VZ was scoring 4% in polls.

Ukraine is now the aggressor and the enemy. As are we.😵‍💫

@Chiseltip £12.8bn from UK, a fraction of the size of US (which has sent £31.7bn) and EU has sent Ukraine £145bn.

Ukrainian government was attempting to be pro-Russian, not Ukraine. This was the reason Maidan happened... Ukraine always wanted to be independent, and were generally neutral to Russia as long as Russia did not interfere.

The US however has provided head and shoulders above everyone in terms of military support, equipment, access to satellites and ISR.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/

Europe and Nato as a whole are reliant on American ISR.

Yes, OK. That's understandable.

But that poster said 'Europe did nothing to support Ukraine'. That's not true and it's offensive.

My country donated 570mln EUR from the Government, there were multiple fundraisers from private individuals (businesses, etc), we donated as much military equipment as we had, our men have been fighting in Ukraine from the start (I have family members who are there now), we took in refugees (my parents took in a Ukrainian family to live in one of their properties free of charge, bills paid), there are multiple organisations and individuals who are doing charity/help runs into Ukraine, bringing medicines, warm clothing, food items, etc.

Yes, I know, sounds like peanuts and doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. But we are a country with a population of 2.5 mln. Yes, the whole country is 2.5mln, not one city. We honestly did what we possibly could. Multiple other European countries also did too, obviously. So it's insulting to get 'you did nothing' in return.