Ukraine may lose the support of the US but this support amounts to less than 30% of the total being provided.
Ukraine itself is increasing it’s capacity to produce munitions locally and their support from the EU continues to increase, this press conference can only accelerate that process.
Meanwhile russia tetters on the edge of financial collapse, critical resources are being diverted to the terrorist occupation of Ukraine while the russian people make due without gas, electricity, water and their civil infrastructure continues to degrade. They are actually using donkey now (I swear I am noit making this up) to move munitions to the front as Ukraine has destroyed so much of they transportation and their ability to produce feul for it.
And I suspect that as T**** sees his popularity numbers continue to plummet, the only thing other than the stock market that motivates him, he will change his mind (what there is of it) once again.
Not good news for Ukraine but hardly the end for them.
News of Ukraine’s imminent collapse has been ongoing since the initial russian terrorist incursion into Ukraine, starting with the media breathlessly reporting that Ukraine would fall in 3 days and in the main these reports are Kremlin talking points uncritically regurgitated by western media.
Rob Grigjanissays
Trump calling himself “the toughest human being you’ve ever seen” is the joke of the day (a title he owns pretty much every day). In Zelenskyy’s position, he would have shit his pants and capitulated to Putin on day one. “vile” is a horrible understatement for this piece of human garbage and his enablers.
Rob Grigjanissays
PS among his enablers I include those supposed leftists who discouraged people from voting for Harris because she wasn’t sufficiently anti-Israel. As though Trump would be better. I wouldn’t piss on any of these people if they were on fire.
steve oberskisays
@3 Rob Grigjanis
I hold a similar view for those Canadians who would vote for our T**** light Poilievre.
Rob Grigjanissays
steve oberski @4: Agreed, and I include those Ontarians who voted for Doug Ford.
Jeansays
What is dangerous is that Trump is actively working against Ukraine and for Putin. TASS was actually in the white house today (before being expelled) and Trump posted about not wanting Ukraine (that was considered an ally before) to have an advantage in “peace” negotiations in addition to all the bullying and humiliating done during the press conference by both Vance and Trump. That cannot be a coincidence.
So Trump is either trying to sabotage any hope of a future for Ukraine sovereignty on his own accord to please his mentor Putin or Putin is actually pulling the strings behind the scene.
nomenexrectosays
I am getting to the point where human lives don’t matter much anymore. Any choice means millions will die anyway… just going by numbers feels wrong. We have billions to spare… but I don’t think we can afford Russi for much longer…
I will support wiping out Russia and paying the price.
Probably it will mean my own life, and those of everyone I care about.. but I would not want to have them suffer being under Russia.
Ridanasays
“Why aren’t you kissing our ring and thanking us for throwing you to the wolves?” God damn these arrogant pus boils. And of course they don’t know the difference between dictating and predicting.
JMsays
Disgusting and the way it went down there is a chance it was planned. The situation is entirely unclear for anybody outside high level diplomatic circles and even a lot of those are probably unclear. There is also a good chance it was entirely accidental and happened because Zelensky wasn’t being sufficiently grateful to Trump.
No matter which way it goes it is likely to depend on Europe stepping up but it isn’t clear if the US is going to pull out or in fact what happens.
Until we see what direction Trump heads after this there is no way to know. I’m sure Russia is happy with today’s events right now but if Europe sees this as making feet on the ground unavoidable Russia won’t be happy.
birgerjohanssonsays
Where is an asteroid when you need them?.
-I agree with Steve Oberski, the EU leaders have been shocked into facing the reality of the new Trump era and are changing gears to support Ukraine even more strongly.
.
A promising detail: The Ukrainans have learned how to jam GLONASS (Soviet/Russian GPS) signals, meaning the ‘winged’ glide bombs Russian aircraft drop outside SAM/AA reach can no longer find their targets. This is a big reason Russia has failed to push out Ukrainans near Kharkiv, perpetuating a huge humiliation for Putin. On the tactical scale, Ukrainans have even started to attack Russian positions to cut off supply routes to Russian salients. This would not be happening if Ukraine was on its last legs.
Some (justified) parochial pride: The Swedish APC CV90 and counter-artillery self-propelled howitzer Archer are doing great.
I am especially interested in how the Russian artillery is declining, if they need North Korean (bad quality) ammo they must be desperate. And the artillery is the core of the Russian army.
Deepak Shettysays
@Steve Oberski @1
Ukraine may lose the support of the US but this support amounts to less than 30% of the total being provided.
But without US sanctions , Russia’s financial situation improves and Ukraine cant really continue for long . And so even if Europe steps up (and I dont know , looks like everywhere the amount of Right wing political forces are on the rise) it may not compensate for if US lets up on Russia.
Looks to have been the plan to confront and provoke Zelensky though.
crivitzsays
Watched this on The Majority Report on YouTube earlier while they were discussing recent events with Digby. They played the video of this meeting soon after it aired live. Basically their take, which I find reasonable, is that Vance was brought in to the meeting specifically to sort of be the “bad cop” to Zelenskyy, followed by Trump piling on with the insulting behavior. It was also thought that this was the intent all along, that they didn’t want to sign the minerals deal in the first place and wanted a “good for TV” moment to humiliate Zelenskyy and make Trump look “strong” to the MAGA base.
jenorafeuersays
@JM:
Oh, it was almost certainly preplanned. Via Lawyers, Guns & Money:
Trump’s Truth Social post a few minutes after he his meeting with Zelensky is definitive proof that the whole Oval Office shouting match was a pre-planned stunt on Trump’s and Vance’s part…
One of the other posts there today talks about at least one reason why Trump is doing Putin’s bidding here: Putin is nice to Trump and commiserates with him about being attacked by ‘enemies’, and plays to Trump’s insecurities by buttering him up.
Mano Singhamsays
One thing to watch for is what happens with Starlink. This is the satellite system that Musk’s SpaceX company operates and is supposed to be essential for Ukrainian forces on the field to communicate with each other.
Musk had threatened once before in 2024 to limit access to it but backed off on that threat. Trump may threaten Zelensky that he can have Musk cut off their access to the system.
This is the danger that is posed by having private companies control important communication technologies.
I will support wiping out Russia and paying the price.
We don’t have to wipe out Russia, or even invade them. All we need to do is send enough troops, tanks and planes to blow the Russians out of Ukraine (yes, including Crimea) in a conclusive hammer-blow attack. Biden and NATO should have done this in 2022-2023, and if he had, the war would be over and Biden (or whichever Democrat runs in his place) would have easily been reelected last year.
Deepak Shettysays
@Raging Bee
All we need to do is send enough troops, tanks and planes to blow the Russians out of Ukraine (yes, including Crimea) in a conclusive hammer-blow attack.
In this fantasy -- What do you believe happens next ? Does Captain America show up and lift Thor’s hammer and then pound Thanos Putin ?. I do hear that all world threatening events can be resolved mano-a-mano .
or seriously how does Russia/Putin react ? China ? other Putin supporting countries ?
Silentbobsays
@ 3 Rob Grigjanis
Incredible how many like you equate “anti-genocide” with “insufficiently pro-Israel”. If you genuinely equate pro-Israel with pro-genocide I’d suggest you have a serious antisemitism problem. Personally, I’d save my piss for those who are not anti-genocide.
(For clarity, I’m not a US citizen, but if I was, would have voted Harris.)
Silentbobsays
@^
I meant “insufficiently anti-Israel” or course. Too many negatives.
Silentbobsays
Grigjanis’s idea of “insufficiently anti-Israel”:
The US has provided unconditional military and diplomatic support for Israel since the outbreak of the war on Gaza – a policy that Harris has promised to maintain.
…
The US provides Israel at least $3.8bn in military aid annually, and the Biden administration has authorised $14bn in further assistance to its ally to help fund the ongoing war.
Deepak @16: First, no, we don’t need the Cap to bring about a collapse of Russian invasion forces. And I seriously doubt any other nation would have a problem with NATO repelling the kind of aggression it was specifically organized to repel.
And second, if you’re worried about Putin going nuclear, yes, that’s a real possibility — but if we simply let him do what he wants because we’re afraid he’ll go nuclear, then half-assed half-measures won’t prevent that from happening, they’ll only postpone it, and guarantee it will be worse the next time, both because the stakes will be higher for Russia, and because Russia will know how they can keep us on the back foot.
Also, we do have plausible responses to Russian use of nukes, and they don’t all involve nuking them back. Russia knows this, so there’s a good possibility that they can be deterred from nuking anyone. (All that, or course, presumes competent US leadership, so maybe it’s best to let Canada, UK and Germany blow the Russians out of Ukraine instead.)
PS: Just want to add that any serious move by one or more NATO nations to force the Russians out of Ukraine will involve a mobilization of ground troops that the Russians will see coming. So if they see such a mobilization, and their intel guys assure them it’s real and capable and not a bluff, then Russian leaders will have both time and incentive to work toward a deal. So a serious move to drive Russian forces out of Ukraine wouldn’t necessarily have to lead to all-out war.
Holmssays
Wow, I never realised how much of a pustule VP guy was til that clip.
Zelensky’s mistake was in thinking reason and fact matter to US leadership. This is an administration led by a fragile man who can only tolerate fawning, obsequious, embarrassing praise. I wonder if it was ever possible for Zelensky to meet this challenge -- does he have it in him to publicly crawl and beg? and if he did that, would he have the respect of his own people? If that had resulted in US hardware -- and better still, troops -- on Ukraine soil, perhaps; but it appears Trump was noever looking for that outcome and only wanted to be the broker of a deal.
And given Putin’s proven history of ignoring such deals, this outcome would be useless. Worse than useless, as it would Assist conservatives in their pretence at being a useful administration.
___
#16 Deepak
It may be a fantasy, but the outcome of that would be pretty clear: Russia would lose.
___
#17
At the moment, Israel’s policy is genocidal towards Gazans, therefore supporting Israel is support of genocide. And then in #19 you demonstrate that Harris is strongly pro-Israel, phrased as if this undermines Grigjanis’ point that she is pro-Israel. So… you agree that she is strongly pro-Israel I guess…? Hard to know your point with that one.
Nice of you to explicitly equate Israel with Jewry.
EigenSprocketUKsays
Very reminiscent of watching two schoolyard bullies lining each other up to make sure the small kid pays up, or is humiliated, or both. Seeing Vance line up Trump to deploy the attack line which Trump hadn’t immediately seized* completely reinforced my impression.
* Evidence, as though any more evidence were needed, that Trump‘a cognitive abilities are even more sorely depleted than had become obvious in the last decade.
All that’s left is a humiliation-seeking amygdala.
sonofrojblakesays
One thing that struck me here: Trump clearly couldn’t be trusted to bully Zelenskyy on his own. They needed another bully in the room with something closer to a fully functioning brain. If they’d put Trump in that room by himself with Zelenskyy, there’s a real danger Zelenskyy would have run rings round him verbally in his second language, so they HAD to have Vance there too as a wingman.
Typical 21st century Americans -- fucking cowards.
billseymoursays
I don’t seem to be able to get to sleep tonight. 8-(
One thought that keeps crawling around in my mind is: could the EU, or smaller group of European nations, sign the deal with the security guarantees?
I understand that European nations might not be able to fully fund the security guarantees and that not all EU nations would agree with it, but they’d get a windfall out of the rare earth business which might help, and it would be fun to watch Trump totally lose his cool over it.
I should probably be more awake before putting ideas like this out in public.
It should be pretty obvious now that Vladimir Putin had promised Donald Trump and J D Vance some sort of reward (perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize; which would initially have been awarded jointly to Trump and Vance but obviously, since there are no posthumous Nobels, it would ultimately bear only Vance’s name. Putin would, of course, not have brothen a word to Trump about having to share the honour; and finding out probably would finish him off) if and only if they could persuade Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender. You can practically see the moment in that clip where Vance saw his medal disappearing into thin air. Then he turned on VZ, and Trump blindly joined in. Zelensky showed amazing restraint in not punching either of them in the face.
It is now time for NATO to be dissolved and the EU to form a Common Defence Policy which will not involve the USA in any capacity — except, perhaps, as a nation against which the EU might have to defend itself one day.
Deepak Shettysays
@Raging Bee
NATO repelling the kind of aggression it was specifically organized to repel.
NATO was designed to repel attacks on non members? or perhaps you mean global threats? if so they have been asleep , and not just about Russia (And Im not enough of an optimist to think today will be the day when the world open theirs eyes and changes their ways)
we’re afraid he’ll go nuclear, then half-assed half-measures won’t prevent that from happening
No you dont even need to go that far. Imagine that there is an up and coming world power , who needs their biggest threat to dominance engaged in fruitless battles , and now news comes of the US amassing troops to begin a ground operation in Ukraine. What would it do ?
Also You are imagining, like George Bush Jr , that you will go and smash up Russia , the Ukranian people (perhaps even the Russians?) will prostrate themselves to the champions of democracy and open up their heartsoil wells Mineral fields. War is not only fought by one side. I do agree that this may have been stopped if people had taken a stronger stance initially -- I think though it would have to have been Europe who committed to troops and said if its world war 3 , so be it. The US , after just a disastrous pullout from Afghanistan was always unlikely to send troops to yet another war in far off places. Now ? You just have to hope that the entire US government gets afflicted by Ebola or something (Thanks, Elon!) and gets replaced by someone with a functional brain
@Holms @22
Russia would lose.
By my count , the Russian people have already lost , long term- As it stands , Russia may still gain some land in Ukraine though.
And yes they may lose a full pitched battle too with the US or Europe too- but the question really is who else loses and how much time does it take for the side to acknowledge that.
Hans Tholstrupsays
I was shocked when I first saw the TV coverage of that disastrous blow-up, in front of the press. What a fiasco!
It occurred to me at first that maybe Zelensky’s English usage could have worsened things (?)
But later it was clear that one thing caused it -- when Zelensky said he needed ‘security guarantees’ before any ceasefire.
In other words, he wanted the US to promise to step in itself with force to help Ukraine if peace did not pan out.
There is no way in hell that the new administration will risk US lives in ANY foreign country unless such action directly supports US interests. Mr Zelensky simply did not comprehend that ‘America first’ is the official position now. Talk in those terms if you want to get through to Trump/Vance.
And I don’t think the Europeans understand this yet, either…
By my count , the Russian people have already lost , long term- As it stands , Russia may still gain some land in Ukraine though.
So no, they haven’t lost. They’ve just gained themselves an ally in #KKKrasnov, who’s all but explicitly invited Russia to keep on fighting, ‘cuz now their puppet/asset will be cheering them on from the White House. This is how Russia wins and rebuilds their empire: by incessantly harassing and grinding down their neighbors until they give up something…then harassing and grinding them down until they give up even more. As long as everyone else offers nothing but half-assed half-measures, they can keep on grinding away forever.
Time is on Russia’s side, not NATO’s or Ukraine’s. For Russia, not losing is winning. Doling out support to whoever Russia is attacking or threatening just to “keep them in the game” for another year, or two, or three, is just plain inhumane and plays into Russia’s hands. Our experience with Russia since they took Crimea should prove this to anyone who knows how to use their eyes. Half-assed half-measures HAVE NOT WORKED. The only way to stop Russian aggression and restore anything like a stable peace, is by Ukraine handing Russian invaders an absolutely conclusive defeat, with other countries’ direct support if necessary.
Mr Zelensky simply did not comprehend that ‘America first’ is the official position now. Talk in those terms if you want to get through to Trump/Vance.
Oh please — do you really think #KKKrasnov even cares about America’s interests? All he cares about — all he even understands — is his own short-term power, profit, and constant attention from everyone. And he already decided, LONG AGO, that Zelenskyy was an enemy that he had to loudly pretend to “defeat” in a phony televised “negotiation.” So no, there was absolute nothing Zelenskyy could have done differently that would have got him a better deal. (And even if he got a deal, this is Trump we’re talking about — he never deals in good faith anyway.)
file thirteensays
And now Chump makes this a pretext to move to the next stage of his plan: “pause” US military aid to Ukraine. Russia good, Europe bad dontcha know?
I have to disagree with your assessment.
Ukraine may lose the support of the US but this support amounts to less than 30% of the total being provided.
Ukraine itself is increasing it’s capacity to produce munitions locally and their support from the EU continues to increase, this press conference can only accelerate that process.
Meanwhile russia tetters on the edge of financial collapse, critical resources are being diverted to the terrorist occupation of Ukraine while the russian people make due without gas, electricity, water and their civil infrastructure continues to degrade. They are actually using donkey now (I swear I am noit making this up) to move munitions to the front as Ukraine has destroyed so much of they transportation and their ability to produce feul for it.
And I suspect that as T**** sees his popularity numbers continue to plummet, the only thing other than the stock market that motivates him, he will change his mind (what there is of it) once again.
Not good news for Ukraine but hardly the end for them.
News of Ukraine’s imminent collapse has been ongoing since the initial russian terrorist incursion into Ukraine, starting with the media breathlessly reporting that Ukraine would fall in 3 days and in the main these reports are Kremlin talking points uncritically regurgitated by western media.
Trump calling himself “the toughest human being you’ve ever seen” is the joke of the day (a title he owns pretty much every day). In Zelenskyy’s position, he would have shit his pants and capitulated to Putin on day one. “vile” is a horrible understatement for this piece of human garbage and his enablers.
PS among his enablers I include those supposed leftists who discouraged people from voting for Harris because she wasn’t sufficiently anti-Israel. As though Trump would be better. I wouldn’t piss on any of these people if they were on fire.
@3 Rob Grigjanis
I hold a similar view for those Canadians who would vote for our T**** light Poilievre.
steve oberski @4: Agreed, and I include those Ontarians who voted for Doug Ford.
What is dangerous is that Trump is actively working against Ukraine and for Putin. TASS was actually in the white house today (before being expelled) and Trump posted about not wanting Ukraine (that was considered an ally before) to have an advantage in “peace” negotiations in addition to all the bullying and humiliating done during the press conference by both Vance and Trump. That cannot be a coincidence.
So Trump is either trying to sabotage any hope of a future for Ukraine sovereignty on his own accord to please his mentor Putin or Putin is actually pulling the strings behind the scene.
I am getting to the point where human lives don’t matter much anymore. Any choice means millions will die anyway… just going by numbers feels wrong. We have billions to spare… but I don’t think we can afford Russi for much longer…
I will support wiping out Russia and paying the price.
Probably it will mean my own life, and those of everyone I care about.. but I would not want to have them suffer being under Russia.
“Why aren’t you kissing our ring and thanking us for throwing you to the wolves?” God damn these arrogant pus boils. And of course they don’t know the difference between dictating and predicting.
Disgusting and the way it went down there is a chance it was planned. The situation is entirely unclear for anybody outside high level diplomatic circles and even a lot of those are probably unclear. There is also a good chance it was entirely accidental and happened because Zelensky wasn’t being sufficiently grateful to Trump.
No matter which way it goes it is likely to depend on Europe stepping up but it isn’t clear if the US is going to pull out or in fact what happens.
Until we see what direction Trump heads after this there is no way to know. I’m sure Russia is happy with today’s events right now but if Europe sees this as making feet on the ground unavoidable Russia won’t be happy.
Where is an asteroid when you need them?.
-I agree with Steve Oberski, the EU leaders have been shocked into facing the reality of the new Trump era and are changing gears to support Ukraine even more strongly.
.
A promising detail: The Ukrainans have learned how to jam GLONASS (Soviet/Russian GPS) signals, meaning the ‘winged’ glide bombs Russian aircraft drop outside SAM/AA reach can no longer find their targets. This is a big reason Russia has failed to push out Ukrainans near Kharkiv, perpetuating a huge humiliation for Putin. On the tactical scale, Ukrainans have even started to attack Russian positions to cut off supply routes to Russian salients. This would not be happening if Ukraine was on its last legs.
Some (justified) parochial pride: The Swedish APC CV90 and counter-artillery self-propelled howitzer Archer are doing great.
I am especially interested in how the Russian artillery is declining, if they need North Korean (bad quality) ammo they must be desperate. And the artillery is the core of the Russian army.
@Steve Oberski @1
But without US sanctions , Russia’s financial situation improves and Ukraine cant really continue for long . And so even if Europe steps up (and I dont know , looks like everywhere the amount of Right wing political forces are on the rise) it may not compensate for if US lets up on Russia.
Looks to have been the plan to confront and provoke Zelensky though.
Watched this on The Majority Report on YouTube earlier while they were discussing recent events with Digby. They played the video of this meeting soon after it aired live. Basically their take, which I find reasonable, is that Vance was brought in to the meeting specifically to sort of be the “bad cop” to Zelenskyy, followed by Trump piling on with the insulting behavior. It was also thought that this was the intent all along, that they didn’t want to sign the minerals deal in the first place and wanted a “good for TV” moment to humiliate Zelenskyy and make Trump look “strong” to the MAGA base.
@JM:
Oh, it was almost certainly preplanned. Via Lawyers, Guns & Money:
Kayfabe for Hitler
One of the other posts there today talks about at least one reason why Trump is doing Putin’s bidding here: Putin is nice to Trump and commiserates with him about being attacked by ‘enemies’, and plays to Trump’s insecurities by buttering him up.
One thing to watch for is what happens with Starlink. This is the satellite system that Musk’s SpaceX company operates and is supposed to be essential for Ukrainian forces on the field to communicate with each other.
Musk had threatened once before in 2024 to limit access to it but backed off on that threat. Trump may threaten Zelensky that he can have Musk cut off their access to the system.
This is the danger that is posed by having private companies control important communication technologies.
I will support wiping out Russia and paying the price.
We don’t have to wipe out Russia, or even invade them. All we need to do is send enough troops, tanks and planes to blow the Russians out of Ukraine (yes, including Crimea) in a conclusive hammer-blow attack. Biden and NATO should have done this in 2022-2023, and if he had, the war would be over and Biden (or whichever Democrat runs in his place) would have easily been reelected last year.
@Raging Bee
In this fantasy -- What do you believe happens next ? Does Captain America show up and lift Thor’s hammer and then pound
ThanosPutin ?. I do hear that all world threatening events can be resolved mano-a-mano .or seriously how does Russia/Putin react ? China ? other Putin supporting countries ?
@ 3 Rob Grigjanis
Incredible how many like you equate “anti-genocide” with “insufficiently pro-Israel”. If you genuinely equate pro-Israel with pro-genocide I’d suggest you have a serious antisemitism problem. Personally, I’d save my piss for those who are not anti-genocide.
(For clarity, I’m not a US citizen, but if I was, would have voted Harris.)
@^
I meant “insufficiently anti-Israel” or course. Too many negatives.
Grigjanis’s idea of “insufficiently anti-Israel”:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/9/biden-and-netanyahu-hold-productive-call-amid-middle-east-violence
Deepak @16: First, no, we don’t need the Cap to bring about a collapse of Russian invasion forces. And I seriously doubt any other nation would have a problem with NATO repelling the kind of aggression it was specifically organized to repel.
And second, if you’re worried about Putin going nuclear, yes, that’s a real possibility — but if we simply let him do what he wants because we’re afraid he’ll go nuclear, then half-assed half-measures won’t prevent that from happening, they’ll only postpone it, and guarantee it will be worse the next time, both because the stakes will be higher for Russia, and because Russia will know how they can keep us on the back foot.
Also, we do have plausible responses to Russian use of nukes, and they don’t all involve nuking them back. Russia knows this, so there’s a good possibility that they can be deterred from nuking anyone. (All that, or course, presumes competent US leadership, so maybe it’s best to let Canada, UK and Germany blow the Russians out of Ukraine instead.)
PS: Just want to add that any serious move by one or more NATO nations to force the Russians out of Ukraine will involve a mobilization of ground troops that the Russians will see coming. So if they see such a mobilization, and their intel guys assure them it’s real and capable and not a bluff, then Russian leaders will have both time and incentive to work toward a deal. So a serious move to drive Russian forces out of Ukraine wouldn’t necessarily have to lead to all-out war.
Wow, I never realised how much of a pustule VP guy was til that clip.
Zelensky’s mistake was in thinking reason and fact matter to US leadership. This is an administration led by a fragile man who can only tolerate fawning, obsequious, embarrassing praise. I wonder if it was ever possible for Zelensky to meet this challenge -- does he have it in him to publicly crawl and beg? and if he did that, would he have the respect of his own people? If that had resulted in US hardware -- and better still, troops -- on Ukraine soil, perhaps; but it appears Trump was noever looking for that outcome and only wanted to be the broker of a deal.
And given Putin’s proven history of ignoring such deals, this outcome would be useless. Worse than useless, as it would Assist conservatives in their pretence at being a useful administration.
___
#16 Deepak
It may be a fantasy, but the outcome of that would be pretty clear: Russia would lose.
___
#17
At the moment, Israel’s policy is genocidal towards Gazans, therefore supporting Israel is support of genocide. And then in #19 you demonstrate that Harris is strongly pro-Israel, phrased as if this undermines Grigjanis’ point that she is pro-Israel. So… you agree that she is strongly pro-Israel I guess…? Hard to know your point with that one.
Nice of you to explicitly equate Israel with Jewry.
Very reminiscent of watching two schoolyard bullies lining each other up to make sure the small kid pays up, or is humiliated, or both. Seeing Vance line up Trump to deploy the attack line which Trump hadn’t immediately seized* completely reinforced my impression.
* Evidence, as though any more evidence were needed, that Trump‘a cognitive abilities are even more sorely depleted than had become obvious in the last decade.
All that’s left is a humiliation-seeking amygdala.
One thing that struck me here: Trump clearly couldn’t be trusted to bully Zelenskyy on his own. They needed another bully in the room with something closer to a fully functioning brain. If they’d put Trump in that room by himself with Zelenskyy, there’s a real danger Zelenskyy would have run rings round him verbally in his second language, so they HAD to have Vance there too as a wingman.
Typical 21st century Americans -- fucking cowards.
I don’t seem to be able to get to sleep tonight. 8-(
One thought that keeps crawling around in my mind is: could the EU, or smaller group of European nations, sign the deal with the security guarantees?
I understand that European nations might not be able to fully fund the security guarantees and that not all EU nations would agree with it, but they’d get a windfall out of the rare earth business which might help, and it would be fun to watch Trump totally lose his cool over it.
I should probably be more awake before putting ideas like this out in public.
It should be pretty obvious now that Vladimir Putin had promised Donald Trump and J D Vance some sort of reward (perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize; which would initially have been awarded jointly to Trump and Vance but obviously, since there are no posthumous Nobels, it would ultimately bear only Vance’s name. Putin would, of course, not have brothen a word to Trump about having to share the honour; and finding out probably would finish him off) if and only if they could persuade Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender. You can practically see the moment in that clip where Vance saw his medal disappearing into thin air. Then he turned on VZ, and Trump blindly joined in. Zelensky showed amazing restraint in not punching either of them in the face.
It is now time for NATO to be dissolved and the EU to form a Common Defence Policy which will not involve the USA in any capacity — except, perhaps, as a nation against which the EU might have to defend itself one day.
@Raging Bee
NATO was designed to repel attacks on non members? or perhaps you mean global threats? if so they have been asleep , and not just about Russia (And Im not enough of an optimist to think today will be the day when the world open theirs eyes and changes their ways)
No you dont even need to go that far. Imagine that there is an up and coming world power , who needs their biggest threat to dominance engaged in fruitless battles , and now news comes of the US amassing troops to begin a ground operation in Ukraine. What would it do ?
Also You are imagining, like George Bush Jr , that you will go and smash up Russia , the Ukranian people (perhaps even the Russians?) will prostrate themselves to the champions of democracy and open up their
heartsoil wellsMineral fields. War is not only fought by one side. I do agree that this may have been stopped if people had taken a stronger stance initially -- I think though it would have to have been Europe who committed to troops and said if its world war 3 , so be it. The US , after just a disastrous pullout from Afghanistan was always unlikely to send troops to yet another war in far off places. Now ? You just have to hope that the entire US government gets afflicted by Ebola or something (Thanks, Elon!) and gets replaced by someone with a functional brain@Holms @22
By my count , the Russian people have already lost , long term- As it stands , Russia may still gain some land in Ukraine though.
And yes they may lose a full pitched battle too with the US or Europe too- but the question really is who else loses and how much time does it take for the side to acknowledge that.
I was shocked when I first saw the TV coverage of that disastrous blow-up, in front of the press. What a fiasco!
It occurred to me at first that maybe Zelensky’s English usage could have worsened things (?)
But later it was clear that one thing caused it -- when Zelensky said he needed ‘security guarantees’ before any ceasefire.
In other words, he wanted the US to promise to step in itself with force to help Ukraine if peace did not pan out.
There is no way in hell that the new administration will risk US lives in ANY foreign country unless such action directly supports US interests. Mr Zelensky simply did not comprehend that ‘America first’ is the official position now. Talk in those terms if you want to get through to Trump/Vance.
And I don’t think the Europeans understand this yet, either…
By my count , the Russian people have already lost , long term- As it stands , Russia may still gain some land in Ukraine though.
So no, they haven’t lost. They’ve just gained themselves an ally in #KKKrasnov, who’s all but explicitly invited Russia to keep on fighting, ‘cuz now their puppet/asset will be cheering them on from the White House. This is how Russia wins and rebuilds their empire: by incessantly harassing and grinding down their neighbors until they give up something…then harassing and grinding them down until they give up even more. As long as everyone else offers nothing but half-assed half-measures, they can keep on grinding away forever.
Time is on Russia’s side, not NATO’s or Ukraine’s. For Russia, not losing is winning. Doling out support to whoever Russia is attacking or threatening just to “keep them in the game” for another year, or two, or three, is just plain inhumane and plays into Russia’s hands. Our experience with Russia since they took Crimea should prove this to anyone who knows how to use their eyes. Half-assed half-measures HAVE NOT WORKED. The only way to stop Russian aggression and restore anything like a stable peace, is by Ukraine handing Russian invaders an absolutely conclusive defeat, with other countries’ direct support if necessary.
Mr Zelensky simply did not comprehend that ‘America first’ is the official position now. Talk in those terms if you want to get through to Trump/Vance.
Oh please — do you really think #KKKrasnov even cares about America’s interests? All he cares about — all he even understands — is his own short-term power, profit, and constant attention from everyone. And he already decided, LONG AGO, that Zelenskyy was an enemy that he had to loudly pretend to “defeat” in a phony televised “negotiation.” So no, there was absolute nothing Zelenskyy could have done differently that would have got him a better deal. (And even if he got a deal, this is Trump we’re talking about — he never deals in good faith anyway.)
And now Chump makes this a pretext to move to the next stage of his plan: “pause” US military aid to Ukraine. Russia good, Europe bad dontcha know?