What’s Trump going to do about Ukraine?
Many people expect him to abandon the country, throw it to the Putin wolf. I’ve never thought that would happen. But I do think that, in characteristic fashion, he’ll change our relationship to Ukraine in accordance with his own priorities and what he sees as America’s interests.
When the war between Russia and Ukraine began with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it was shocking and deeply disturbing. Initially I thought Russia would win handily, but that turned out to not be true and Ukraine mounted a fierce resistance. It always seemed as though it might be a futile resistance for the simple reason that Putin seemed determined to play out the old Russian way of war: throw a lot of people into it and sustain high casualties, and outlast the enemy because of Russia’s huge population.
At this point, the war has gone on for three years with much loss of life on both sides. To what end? Ukraine remains standing, and Russia has control of some extra territory that was Ukraine’s. But the war has seemingly been more or less stalemated for a long time, and meanwhile we supply a great deal of aid to Ukraine, particularly military aid.
Trump has long said he plans to negotiate an end the war. This is in line with his general dislike of war – a dislike I think we all share – and especially of US involvement in foreign wars. But my sense is that he also has a general desire for fairness to Ukraine; although the country will lose something, it shouldn’t lose its essential nationhood and most of its territory should remain intact. Nevertheless, America’s interests, which include a stable Europe, are not to endlessly fuel an interminable war between Russia and Ukraine that at this point is mostly only good for causing more death and destruction.
When I imagined what that agreement might look like, I have long thought it would involve not only some land loss by Ukraine, but no NATO membership and yet some sort of guarantee of protection. Trump might arrange some sort of deal where we help Ukraine in yet-to-be-decided ways while getting something back.
Today Trump announced he’d talked to Putin and that the negotiations are set to begin:
Trump added that the negotiating process “will begin by calling President Zelenskyy [sic], of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now,” before revealing that the American delegation to any peace talks would be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff.
In a Facebook statement, Zelensky confirmed that he and Trump had “a meaningful conversation” about “opportunities to achieve peace [and] discussed our readiness to work together at the team level, and Ukraine’s technological capabilities—including drones and other advanced industries.”
“We also spoke about my discussion with [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent and the preparation of a new document on security, economic cooperation, and resource partnership. President Trump shared details of his conversation with Putin,” Ukraine’s president added.
“No one wants peace more than Ukraine,” Zelensky concluded. “Together with the U.S. [sic], we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done.”
For Trump’s part, the American president said the conversation with the Ukrainian had gone “very well.”
It is impossible to know what’s really going on behind the scenes or what Zelensky really thinks. But my hunch is that once he realized Trump was going to be the next president, he started shifting to a practical way to look at things. I doubt he wants the country to keep bleeding, and I think he sees there can be something – quite a bit, actually – in this for Ukraine, if he plays his cards right.
As best I can determine, we are still giving Ukraine military aid at the moment. Whatever nonmilitary aid Ukraine was getting through USAID has been suspended for 90 days along with other USAID payments in general, although it isn’t completely clear that humanitarian aid has completely stopped.
Also, see this, which I see as a way to put pressure on Europeans to pay their share, in typical Trumpian fashion. The article is from today:
America will no longer front the lion’s share of aid to Ukraine, the Trump administration said today in a devastating blow to Kyiv that will pile pressure on Europe to fill the void.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Washington will ‘no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship’ with its allies, adding that ‘Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine’.
He stressed that the United States was no longer ‘primarily focused’ on Europe, and said that the old continent would have to fund most of Ukraine’s defense itself in a turn away from a 75-year role as the ‘primary guarantor of security in Europe’.
The article also says there won’t be US troops in Ukraine. Is this any sort of surprise? I never thought there would be. And that Ukraine would have to cede some territory. Did anyone think there would be a peace deal without at least some territory ceded? If so, I think that person was dreaming. The details – which we don’t know yet – are what matters.
Here is one possibility, from an article that was published yesterday:
Ukraine has offered to strike a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump for continued American military aid in exchange for developing Ukraine’s mineral industry, which could provide a valuable source of the rare earth elements that are essential for many kinds of technology.
Trump said that he wanted such a deal earlier this month, and it was initially proposed last fall by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.
“We really have this big potential in the territory which we control,” Andrii Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. “We are interested to work, to develop, with our partners, first of all, with the United States.” …
Ukraine’s rare earth elements are largely untapped because of the war and because of state policies regulating the mineral industry. The country also lacks good information to guide the development of rare earth mining.
Geological data is thin because mineral reserves are scattered across Ukraine, and existing studies are considered largely inadequate. The industry’s true potential is clouded by insufficient research, according to businessmen and analysts.
In general, the outlook for Ukrainian natural resources is promising.
That could easily be part of the deal, benefiting both Ukraine and the US.
As an aside, I’m finding it extremely difficult to discern how many people have actually died on both sides over the course of this conflict (since Feb 2022). I’m looking for “deaths”, not “casualties”. Casualites include both people who have died as well as people who have been significanlty wounded but are still alive. Of course one of the problems is that neither side’s official numbers can really be trusted very much for both political and morale reasons as well as it being difficult to know due to fog of war, especially in the case of civilians.
Nonanpod:
Agreed that there’s no way to know. But the general consensus is that it’s a lot of people. And if a war is stalemated, why should anyone keep dying?
I was all for the USA supporting Ukraine defending itself from a hostile invader, especially early on when it appeared as if it might have been possible for Ukraine to actually drive Russia out with just a bit of support from us. But as the war dragged on over the years and we continued to funnel more and more money and resources into the conflict with little to no results, I gradually became more skeptical. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point I began to feel like the conflict was becoming an endless money pit for us with nothing to show for it but more and more death and misery. Meanwhile domestically we were having our own problems which the previous administration exacerbated or ignored all while sending mountains of cash into the Ukraine money pit.
It’s truly tragic that a Putin was able to hold out long enough by virtue of numbers and some support from several rogue states. I’m not happy about any of it and wish things turned out differently, but continuing this any longer under some notion of it being winnable or the fallacy of sunk costs or whatever is just pointless and I no longer believe in our best interests.
President Trump has said “millions of soldiers have died” & “millions of people have died” & “millions have died” in Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine. One point to watch in a breaking story, but one that seems to be an exaggeration or inflated number.
TCS Wagons have been circled on the Open Thread so am moving over here. 😉
Am holding back final judgement on this move by Trump, but it looks disastrous at this early point…
Hegseth states plainly that a return to pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic” and NATO countries need to increase defense spending to 5% so they can assume more of their own strategic defense of Europe.
Russia is increasing its military spending in 2025 to 6.3% of GDP. Most European countries are struggling to spend much above 2% (with the exception of a few eastern European countries) and all have said 5% is unrealistic and have rejected that idea.
In my estimation, Trump’s gambit of trading natural resources to settle debts incurred by Ukraine is mostly creating a rational for the US to remain involved in Ukraine– involved in a way that would seem plausible to the Russians and create an amount of leverage for Ukraine.
Ukraine has no bargaining chips to end the war and short of trading future resources nothing to continue the war if they are forced to pay the bill.
Ukraine has a manpower shortage on the front lines– evidenced by the fact they are moving 50,000 soldiers from other branches of their military to the infantry. The Ukraine government refuses to lower the draft age below 25, which would allow them to access an additional 500,000 men.
Ukraine is rightfully worried that using up this age group would lead to a dismal future for the country when the war does end. Once the war is over though, many of those men may leave the country anyway for better economic opportunities in other parts of the EU. Right now it is illegal for them to leave the country.
If Ukraine is going to survive as a sovereign country, their best hope is to settle under conditions that will be a bitter pill now than face a collapse with a dwindling GDP, a government deficit that will lead to hyper-inflation and the continued exodus of Ukrainian citizens.
The real sticking point to the negotiations may be Russia’s demands that any settlement include all of the oblasts Russia annexed in 2022. They now control most of Luhansk and Donetsk, but not as much of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The Dnipro River provides a natural security barrier but also divides these two oblasts. If Ukraine does give up the territory west of the Dnipro, it would provide Russia an relatively easy path to Odessa and Ukraine’s only remaining seaport.
Return to Ukraine’s 2014 borders ‘unrealistic’, says US defence secretary | BBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7XRdLPI4dw
@Brian E:Russia is increasing its military spending in 2025 to 6.3% of GDP. Most European countries are struggling to spend much above 2%
2% of the EU’s GDP is much more than 6.3% of Russia’s.
2024 figures:
EU: $28.0 T (PPP), 2% of $28.0T = $560 B
Russia: $6.0 T (PPP) 6.3% of $6.0 T = $378 B
The EU’s military has been outspending Russia’s for a few years now.
“They should not have allowed a Jew to be their president and sacrifice them to Putin for nothing. Never follow a Jew to war. If a Jew is president, refuse to be part of the military.” – Jack Smack
The internet is awash in stupid things, but this has to win the prize for the stupidest comment of the day.
Brian E:
I got rid of the troll and his comment, the one you’re referring to.
Niketas, yes Russia’s economy is smaller than the EU’s, but it’s labor costs are cheaper and much of the military hardware being used in the Ukraine-Russia War can and is being produced in greater quantities and cheaper than in Europe.
One of the new weapon’s systems that has altered the way the war is waged is the use of fpv drones– and Russia has developed a fiberoptic controlled drone that is impervious to electronic countermeasures.
I believe Ukraine is/has now developed their own version. Cheap and very deadly.
Russia still has an advantage in low tech weapons– artillery, controllable dumb bombs and drones.
The real challenge for Europe is to develop a robust arms industry at a scale that could sustain an attritional war. One of the unknowns is whether the western philosophy of war fighting could be sustained in a warzone like Ukraine. The sheer volume of SAM’s could make it very costly for NATO to establish air superiority.
Neo, I can’t delete my comment. If you want that idiot’s comment deleted you’ll have to delete mine as well.
Part of the likely long-term result is what Putin thinks of the deal, whatever it is.
Consider; Either he knew how crumbly his military did, or he did not. In the former case, he figured he could win anyway. In the latter case, even though he came up through the FSB-internal security–he didn’t know and there was/is some kind of deep state keeping things from him.
Either he knew how the Ukes would resist or he did not. In the former case, he went ahead anyway. In the latter case…he got something out of it anyway.
Either he knew what the west would do or he did not. In the first case, he was mistaken and/or misinformed. If he did know and went ahead anyway…he got something out of it anyway.
His casualties are so horrendous that the west wants to stop the war so as to reduce the other side’s casualties. . Not seen that before.
V. Hanson, in The Russian Way of War points out that their strategy is to keep piling it on until they have cripples driving tricycles (I exaggerate) until the enemy runs out of bullets or, as a recent report had it, Uke machine gunners had to be relieved on account of the emotional toll due to the mass death they were dealing out.
So. Once the deal is settled, Putin thinks he won, or he doesn’t. Nothing we say, all of us superior to a combination of Kissinger and Napoleon in such matters, has any bearing on what he thinks.
There have been suggestions he has a Thing about the glories of communist Russia, or Imperial Russia. No idea. But if he does, no phone call from one of us is going to dissuade him.
So, combine his losses calculated in the Russian way as described by Hanson, versus what he gets in the deal. Does he think–not what we think or think he should think–he won?
We will have nothing to say about it. But, on the chance he thought he’d won, NATO should be even more prepared for another attempt. No matter what we think he should think.
Russia still has an advantage in low tech weapons– artillery, controllable dumb bombs and drones.
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They’ve been at a standstill for three years in a war they started with a country which has less than 10% of their productive base.
Art Deco
Yes – plus the much smaller Ukraine has been holding off the much larger Russian ‘Rapists‘ army with the help of drones as a main weapon. Doubtful that Russia is better at drone warfare than Ukraine at this point…
@Brian E:Russia’s economy is smaller than the EU’s, but it’s labor costs are cheaper…much of the military hardware being used in the Ukraine-Russia War can and is being produced in greater quantities and cheaper than in Europe.
I’m sorry this is nothing but handwaving. I might as well counter by saying that Europe’s military hardware is better and more effective and its labor force is more productive. This is “can the Hulk beat Superman” territory…
You’ve brought nothing quantitative that could reasonably offset a 2-1 spending disadvantage.
Not going to lie, Hesgeth’s statement as far as it applies to Ukraine is something I found awful. I broadly agreed with the points regarding the EU and NATO, but Ukraine I feel was let off. The idealist fanatical Neocon in me chafed at the rejection of the legitimate 2014 borders but on a practical side I knew that getting them was basically out of the realm of compromise peace like these negotiations are supposed to be, and at least the 2022 borders are the implied. But that plus the rejection of Ukrainian NATO membership and there being no mechanism for allied peacekeepers to have Article 5 Protection is frustrating beyond believe. If the point is to do a tough bargain than Ukraine may not be able to get both its legitimate borders and NATO membership but aiming for one and making that the basis of a compromise would be the preferable case (or at a minimum halfway on both parts, 2022 Borders and some mechanism to have the Allies dumpster the Kremlin if it tries again).
I can hope this is some kind of 4D Chess move of bait, but in the absence of strong knowledge I have to take the shit sandwich.
RE: Jack Smushhead the Jew Hater, the fighting started well before “The Jew” was elected and while I have plenty to criticize Zelenskyy on and am skeptical of some of the glow ups he has gotten, he generally seems to have handled the war decently. Kursk alone I think undercuts the idea the troops were “sacrificed to Putin for Nothing”. But it is an awful and ugly war.
Both Art Deco and Niketas C. raise a conundrum surrounding the narrative of whether or not Russia represents an existential threat Russia to Europe.
With 10% of the productive base, Ukraine has fought Russia to a stalemate and only given up 20% of its territory in the war.
Even at 2% spending to GDP, the EU spends 40% more on their military than Russia.
Given those facts, how can Russia be an existential threat to Europe?
Defense Secretary Hegseth made it clear to our European allies, 1. NATO is off the table for Ukraine; 2. Europe has to assume the lead role providing security to Europe and Ukraine; 3. Europe has to raise it’s military spending above the 2% level.
If Russia is an existential threat to Europe, wouldn’t all those things be in Europe’s interest?
@Brian E:Given those facts, how can Russia be an existential threat to Europe?
I’ve raised this more than once, and it’s only recently that Europe has begun to ACT like they see Russia as a threat.
Russia has 1/5th of the GDP of Europe, half the population of Europe, lower technological level than Europe, and it’s aging faster and has a lower birth rate than Europe AND they ground up a bunch of their military-aged men in Ukraine.
None of that matters in a nuclear exchange of course; the risk of nuclear war is the ONLY existential threat that’s in play here. And so whatever is done about Ukraine needs to look like saving as much of Ukraine as can be saved consistent with the smallest risk of nuclear war.
By saying this I will now be smeared as pro-Russian and a Putin lover, because I describe his country as “Mexico with nukes” but whatever, it’s the internet.
@Richaed Aubrey
On the whole I agree. Well said.
I’d add in “Putin or whoever takes his place thinks of-“ the best intelligence I heard was that Putin was in quite good physical health due to the VIP defector, but he is not a spring chicken and so he is probably not going to be alive for “the long-term”. That coupled with the probably purposefully opaque nature of succession means that there are going to be big question marks. I am fairly sure we can guess a general flavor of the people likely to replace him, but the exact degree or bent will matter a
I’d say the latter. Putin is incredibly corrupt in his own right and nowhere near as smart or knowledgeable as he wants people to believe – let alone that he thinks he is – but there’s no way even he would have believed the Russian troops committed to the attack would be adequate in the numbers and especially conditions they were in when confronted by and the number and quality of the enemy they faced, especially given how rigidly statistic and “scientific” Soviet and post Soviet Russian planning is and how even more rigid it was in 2022. Which probably goes a long way to explaining the staggering overconfidence and relatively poor preparations of the attacks, as well as the purges of 2022-3. To be fair part of that was likely due to the Kremlin having people in Kyiv and the rest of the Ukrainian chain of command and perhaps expecting some great coup to break the spine of the Ukrainian loyalists and essentially result in a breakdown of opposition (or at least organized, serious opposition) in Kyiv. Fortunately that did not happen. It also might explain why the Southern front of the invasion to lash out of Crimea performed so much better than most of its peers, in addition to things like Ukrainian complacency and overstretch as well as naval support, the proximity to the water and major naval and aerial forces likely “flattened” the distance between the troops massing to attack and their superiors, meaning that corruption and folly could be more easily identified and checked.
I think in many ways the failures of 2022 it was the result of arrogance, overconfidence, and corruption piling up level by level, that can really distort things as each given level piles on more nonsense to get rewards or avoid punishment, which for a paranoiac living in a relative bubble could seem convincing due to isolation from reality.
And because of that and a few other things Putin and many others fell victim to “Of Course” Cancer.
Like, I can and will call Putin a lot of things but downright book stupid low IQ is not one of them. So on some level he probably knew many of the problems but did not know the specifics. He probably understood that the Russian military was in reality not quite as world beating as it is portrayed in the propaganda, the T-14 Armata is at best underwhelming and vaporware that maaaaay be competitive with peer Abrams but with a fraction of the numbers and worse crew, that the VVS is not quite as well trained or experienced in large scale strike packages or flight time as its peers, that people steal from the till and lie to him to make themselves look better, etc. so he pays himself on the back thinking he is very savvy and world weary without understanding the wider problems or just how prolific and Serious they were.
So Colonel General Oligarkov of some goon squad intel organization delivers a report to the Tsar reporting that he has recruited an important network of about 2,000 mid to high placed people in the Ukrainian Somesuch National Guard HQ, a mixture of corrupt opportunists and enlightened Little Russians embracing their true identity, and that with some support – perhaps an aerial landing of a VDV company – they can organize the handover of the local area and throw open the road to the Greater Russian force marching on Kyiv. Putin sizes things up based on what he thinks he knows; of course, not all Ukrainians know they are Little Russians or are corrupt enough to pretend they are for pay, of course Oligarkov is a corrupt desk creature with a penchant for wearing too many medals and doing too little work. Of course such a man and his ilk have stolen some of the resources of the state for their personal gratification, and of course such people will lie to toot their own horn.
So Putin concludes the “2,000 mid to high level network” is probably 200 people maxing out at a Colonel, mostly consisting of reservist enlisted, and decides to increase the VDV assigned to 2 or 3 companies and then tasks the mechanized battalion assigned m to secure the area to move up their schedule by an hour before calling it a day and thinking he is the very embodiment of worldly wisdom.
But he does not realize that rather than 2,000, or 200, or 20 double agents in this unit Oligarkov recruited zero because he just embezzled all the resources assigned and is now considering how to run for, while the mechanized battalion tasked is down its share of reliable transports and fuel for similar but less severe reasons and the VDV have had inadequate realistic training. So rather than failing by degrees everything fails a once. And there have been some attempts to stop that and prevent it from happening again.
I actually can sympathize with the problem after reading the DOGE exposes of USAID. It’s one thing to intellectually know that much of the US government as wasteful, corrupt, and politically biased. But seeing the exact magnitude of exact cases is more jarring and lays you out.
I have, though I am skeptical it is the case here. But Desert Storm and the imho foolish unilateral ceasefire came to mind.
But that plus the rejection of Ukrainian NATO membership and there being no mechanism for allied peacekeepers to have Article 5 Protection is frustrating beyond believe.
Wasn’t that Putin’s stated reason for invading? The way I see it is that Putin can declare victory if the war ends, it is sugar.
Russia will be a long time recovering, Ukraine will get more help. Last number I saw for Russian war spending was 40% of GDP, and the battlefield evidence is that they are running out of armored vehicles. Their recent offensives also seem to be running out of steam without managing to change the strategic situation. This might not be a bad time to settle.
I have no idea what Trump envisions, what we are seeing now is the fog of Trumpian negotiation 🙂
he best intelligence I heard was that Putin was in quite good physical health due to the VIP defector,
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He has a tremor disorder.
Given those facts, how can Russia be an existential threat to Europe?
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Who asserted they were?
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They aspire to be an existential threat to a menu of neighboring countries. Give them a reason to reconsider.
Turtler: yes, Finnish machine gunners at the Battle of Taipale in December 1939 had to be taken off the line for the same reason. Can’t find the citation now, but I bet you can find it.
The gist of Hegseth’s remarks was that the European countries–especially the large, rich European countries–are primarily responsible for security in Europe. Not unreasonable in my view. You could even say it’s about thirty years overdue.
Given those facts, how can Russia be an existential threat to Europe?- Me
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“Who asserted they were?” – Art Deco
Asked GROK. Here’s a list.
Yes, I noticed you did no research and quoted no one directly in context.
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You have a great emotional investment in Russia winning the war it started and are quite verbose on the subject. No clue why.
“existential threat” implies winning something of some kind.
That’s not the issue. Russia starting a terrible war they lose is more likely. That’s not an existential threat except to the soldiers and their Next of Kin.
NATO needs to be so obviously strong that even a hit for a couple of hundred square klicks of, say, Finland, would be impossible and with horrifying consequences.
Then, maybe, Russia will not move.
Putin has not fallen out of any windows that we know of. This tells me the inner circle is in line with his moves and their costs. So, even if someone replaces him, it will probably come through the inner circle.
I believe it was Paraguay which lost something like 90% of its men of military age–defined broadly–in the War of The Triple Alliance. They recovered, demographically, relatively rapidly. Depends on the culture and so forth.
Soviet Russia is said to have taken steps to replace the population after WW II, in part by bonuses for women who had a lot of kids.
What opportunities, other than romantic, would Ukraine offer young men to immigrate? Figuring the romantic comes with the territory.
So America accedes to the genocide of Ukraine. We had a choice between war and dishonor. We chose dishonor. We will have war. World war.
From some research on Russia’s historical modus operandi of External Expansion—in relation to its reinvasion of Ukraine on 2/24/2022:
Fact – Russia has a long history of being an existential threat to Europe—and to anyone around it. Looking at a world map should help make it even clearer…so to speak of size.
Research was condensed in this post: Colonel-General Ivashov (RUS Retd) *WARNED* Putin – ‘On the Eve of War?’
Some great comments in this thread…some are on military spending. Will use another one of my limited links on Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 12, 2025:
President Trump also apparently ignores:
We’re talking an Axis of Evil involving Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran working together to defeat Ukraine and Israel, and President Trumps seems to ignore at least the Russian & North Korean elements of that Axis. Weird negotiating tactic—if that is in fact what it is.
How many American’s has Russia helped to kill since the start of the Korean war? We’re suddenly choosing them over Ukraine?!
Guess it doesn’t really matter if President Trump is being led around by the nose by Putin, or caving to Putin, or paying Zelenskyy back for not giving him Biden’s head – if this is the best negotiating opening that Trump can come up with then the:
Take it or leave it is Putin’s counter to such a ridiculous opening…
@Chuck
Not really no. Indeed the “War to prevent Evul NATO Expansion” canard did not feature very prominently in either Kremlin external or internal justifications for the “Special Military Operation” starting out, and for a couple good reasons. Firstly because it not only wouldn’t justify it legally but would in effect be declaring Russia’s government in violation of its commitments to – among other things – the Helsinki Final Accord, the Budapest Memorandum (which back in the day had some fringe but fairly serious and prominent discussions if it involved military commitment), and the Astana Accords. Secondly: because Ukraine was not about to join NATO (though NATO had come to want it) and indeed wasn’t even on track to join it or the EU. The original crisis started over a conflict regarding an EU Association Trade Deal that spiraled into another political conflict between the “Blues” and “Oranges” and then between the Presidential Cabinet and the Rada (with a lot of rioters and protestors). And as far as I can tell Putin escalated the invasion in 2022 primarily because he saw an opportune weakness from Biden and decided to try and capitalize on it.
Thirdly, while I don’t have a huge amount of positive to say about recent Swedish and Finnish government leadership I DO Have to say they performed a service by applying to NATO for membership and daring Putin to do anything about it, which led to Putin caving. Which should be a mortal wound to the “Stop NATO expansion” thing, at least as the primary explanation (and yes, I agree that Sweden and Finland are not as integral to Russian interests as Ukraine is, but I think that still points to the fundamental folly on a legal and ethical level of the NATO Expansion excuse/rationalization, and the “why is Ukraine so much more important to Russia?” gets to it).
If we actually study the Kremlin’s original demands it went far beyond “Ukraine no join NATO” canard. Well, after they stopped pretending to not be responsible for the wars in the first place and “Who us? Those little green men in Crimea and Donbas are totally all locals that somehow got RF exclusive EWF Equipment. But we are willing to act as neutral arbitrators between you and them.”
The points Putin and co keep hammering home time and again are “Denazificaiton”, “Demilitarization”, and “Neutrality.” Along with recognizing Russian territorial claims such as Crimea and the “Land Bridge.”
Rather, the “Stop Ukraine joining NATO” thing is less the “Stated reason for invading” than “one of the many reasons he stated in shotgun fashion, primarily to isolationist foreign audiences and lobbies, after it became clear that a lightning campaign to decapitate the Ukrainian government in 2022 would not work.” It’s more a product of Putin trying to play divide and conquer by hoping people haven’t noticed his actual demands and track record (to say nothing of what his lieutenants have been saying for mostly internal consumption which is where we get things like “Novorossiya from Donetsk to Transnistria” and “Denazify Poland”) even as he’s taken pains to avoid explicitly repudiating his original demands.
I like sugar and I don’t like that. In particular because under the terms he proposes or even what Hesgeth is talking about the war would at best be “over” like the Korean War or the Georgian Sectarian Wars are over. Namely, not even properly order and liable to be restarted at any time and for any reason the Kremlin deems convenient. While greatly damaging Western – and particularly American – prestige and credibility. Which is why I keep making reference to Georgia 2008 in comparison.
Now, as much as I viscerally disdain that possibility it might be a necessary evil if that’s what we have to do in order to buy enough time to do things like say drain the swamp at home, shore up our treaty allies and the home front, and confront the PRC. After all, I voted for Trump in spite of my misgivings on this. America First, after all. But that doesn’t mean I am not going to pretend it is not an EVIL, necessary as it may arguably be.
And frankly I’m not even sure trying to speedrun a “deal” or a peace on Ukraine on these terms would be best for us when dealing with the present problems, now that the Biden Junta is away and we don’t have to worry quite as much about the powers that be using the excuse of a war with Russia to declare martial law and end the flickering Republic. A lot of the pressing assholes we’re worrying about elsewhere like the PRC and Iran are tied in to the Kremlin’s war effort here, as the DPRK mercs present with Beijing’s blessing show. Moreover while I have scant faith in either Ukraine or US governments to be devoid of corruption, but I’d rather have shit be misappropriated financing the Ukrainian defense than Afghan Transgender.
Agreed, and I doubt that they will be able to recover fully or anywhere close to it inside of two generations.
Probably, but I wish I were more confident.
Firstly because I remember how badly Moldova and especially Georgia got thrown under the bus in the perennial quest to appease Lucyikova with the football in the dream of a Washington-Moscow alliance with current management. These countries aren’t happy but they got the message, which is why in the current unrest in Georgia you have a government that is dominated by at least those dedicated to appeasing the Kremlin while opponents protest.
Secondly because of the isolationist and to some degree appeasement or pro-Kremlin backlash against aid to Ukraine both in the US and elsewhere, some of it justified (opposition to the risk of war and the staggering corruption involved), others not (anybody hear from Herr Schroeder recently?).
Agreed, which is ironically one reason I am generally willing to accept more of a grinding ugly war into the indefinite future as a possible “good”, since in general that played poorly with Russia (as shown by the gradual Ukrainian advances through 2015-2021 and the loss of Assad’s Syria). Of course it can’t be our main priority and it isn’t like a day of peace would allow the Kremlin to recover from all those damages,
Broadly agreed, though that could change.
My objection is not so much to the time to settle so much as the terms that Putin has been trying to foist, which would likely be bad.
Agreed there, and that does give me hope. That and how he has not been adverse to standing up to the Kremlin before, even violently, and to providing lethal aid to Ukraine. But in the absence of firm evidence I had to analyze the face of the fog on its merits, and I find it greatly flawed.
What I worry about is the next Dem administration, and there will be one, will let Putin or his successor take the rest of Ukraine, and some other bits.
“you did no research and quoted no one directly in context”“You have a great emotional investment in Russia winning the war it started and are quite verbose on the subject. No clue why.” – Art Deco
I have no emotional investment in Russia winning. But I do have compassion for Ukraine. At some point the referee has to step in and stop the fight. And I have written why I comment about Ukraine several times.
Waiting for the Russian economy to collapse will more likely end in a collapse of Ukraine. Engaging in wishful thinking won’t increase Ukraine’s chances of winning.
I have no emotional investment in Russia winning. But I do have compassion for Ukraine.
==
Let go of my leg.
It seems to me that Trump and Zelensky have been coordinating these last few months to reframe matters so that Trump/Zelensky are offering reasonable plans and feelers towards peace and its Putin who is rejecting, so in other words its Putin keeping the war going.
Trump’s talk of, and Zelensky’s ready agreement to, the US accessing $500 bill worth of rare minerals is likely part of this reframing to attach value to continued aid to Ukraine.
Russia these last few months has been throwing everything at multiple fronts and taking horrendous losses. Through the fog of propaganda it seems Russian momentum is slowing with modest counter attacks by Ukraine having some success here and there.
The Russian economy is experiencing inflation at accelerating rates – more than double the worst it got over here. Sanctions have been getting only tighter.
While the Ukrainian economy is severely hobbled their military supplies from Europe and the US continue. Ukraine is hard pressed especially regarding manpower, but still could tap into the 18 to 25 manpower pool.
Trump lifted most target restrictions on the Ukrainians and serious damage is being reported daily at Russian energy refineries cutting into Russian revenues.
So, it seems to me that the worst thing for Putin and Russia would be if Trump and Zelensky continue to talk peace while allowing this status quo to continue. This status quo is bleeding Russia badly. No one outside of Russia can tell when the breaking point will be reached.
If a breaking point is reached then it will likely mean the end of Putin, and it is very possible that a new regime would retreat entirely from Ukraine in exchange for peace and a lifting of sanctions. All blame would fall on Putin.
Thus continuing the status quo bleeding makes sense and might lead to a desirable outcome – restoration of 2014 borders and NATO membership for Ukraine and a weakened Russia unable and unwilling to pursue Putin’s revanchist plans to reassemble the Soviet Empire.
Russia’s GDP = $2 trillion or 1.2% of global GDP.
China’s GDP = $17 trillion or 9.6% of global; GDP
Iran’s GDP = $.5 trillion or .3% of global GDP.
North Korea =????? But it’s not much.
NATO’s combined GDP = $53 trillion or 30.1% of global GDP.
China, Russia, and Iran represent about 1/3 the economic power of the NATO nations.
It’s a stupid gamble by the Russians and Chinese to take on NATO. They cannot project power very far beyond their borders. Only mass destruction of both countries can be expected if they take on NATO.
Yes, they can do some damage to the NATO countries, but nothing in comparison to what will befall them.
War as the one being fought in Ukraine are unwinnable unless one side or the other runs out of men and material. Infantry and armor no longer matter. Standoff high-tech weapons have changed everything.
ECM is eons ahead of where it was just 30 years ago. Iran is defenseless against missile attacks. Russia and China are better, but not enough to beat NATO weapons.
North Korea has no money and little technology. They can send some men to die. That’s about it.
The Axis of Evil may have big ambitions but they need to do a lot more to actually be able to challenge NAT O.
However, their present belligerence is a gift to NATO, as it will wake them up now that Trump is in office. Biden and his advisers were asleep at the switch. Wasting money, handcuffing our natural resources, and let ting China eat our lunch economically. I’m not worried about the Axis of Evil as long as we have realists at the helm.
Brian E.: Does that collection of statements indicate that all those European leaders think Russia has become an “existential threat”? Or that “existential threat” has become a vapid buzzphrase?
”What I worry about is the next Dem administration, and there will be one, will let Putin or his successor take the rest of Ukraine, and some other bits.”
Wait!! A “Republican” administration sells out Ukraine and gives a quarter of their country to Russia, and you’re worrying about the next Democratic administration? Take off the blinders to what’s happening right in front of your eyes!
”At some point the referee has to step in and stop the fight.”
A cease-fire doesn’t stop the war! It just gives Russia the opportunity to rebuild and modernize their military for their next attempt.
Does no-one play chess any more? Can’t anyone see even one or two moves ahead?
Hubert: “The gist of Hegseth’s remarks was that the European countries–especially the large, rich European countries–are primarily responsible for security in Europe. Not unreasonable in my view. You could even say it’s about thirty years overdue.”
Trump has been beating that drum even longer. I have seen an interview of him by Larry King from the 1980s where he complains about Europe (and others but *not* Israel) not paying their fair share for Western defense. It seems outrageous in context, the Cold War was still going on.
But like so many Trump “outrages” it made me think. At the end of WWII Europe was rubble and the US had over half the world’s GDP. It only made sense for us to take on the burden of “defending the Free World”. Yet even by the ’60s Europe had rebounded economically while we were getting bogged down in Viet Nam. Maybe we should have had a long-term plan in place to transfer this burden proportionally to our allies.
When the mighty Russian army runs out of North Koreans or has to start taking young men from Moscow or St. Petersburg to die in Ukraine or Kursk the war will end.
1,000,000 casualties comming up this spring, mothers of Russia may notice. How to kill an empire. Putinism, the existential threat, to Russia.
J.J. has some statistics and other facts listed quite usefully above.
My point is two-fold. Could have said something like that before the Russians invaded and…still the Russians invaded.
During the Cold War, the US ran frequent REFORGER exercises. That’s Return of Forces To Germany. Massive numbers of US troops were rapidly shipped to Germany and mated with pre-positioned heavy equipment. Point was to be able to do such and thing and make the case to the Sovs that we could do such a thing and they weren’t just facing the guys we had there already.
Strikes me that such an exercise could be redone, but only with European troops. How fast could NATO assemble the strength of, say, two armored divisions made up of battalions and brigades from NATO members according to their size in Poland, say? Not bad this year, better planning for next year.
Then, separate so as not to look as if we’re planning war, how fast can NATO stage deep-strike aircraft to Finnish airfields? After which the crews have a reindeer barbecue and return home?
This sort of thing might be a better deterrent than comparing per-cap GDP.
Linked to a post @ February 12, 2025 at 10:58 pm in a comment – that post has following link and others. From Colonel-General Ivashov (RUS Retd), chairman of the All-Russian Officers Assembly, Feb. 1, 2022:
‘On the Eve of War?’ – Appeal of the All-Russian Officers Assembly to the President and Citizens of the Russian Federation
Apparently many in Russia didn’t feel that NATO or Ukraine were threats. Why is/has President Trump been pushing that Ukraine will never be a NATO member!?!?!
NATO not considered a threat – at that time – by the All-Russian Officers Assembly. Doesn’t President Trump have anyone telling him this information?
A little more that I’m leaving out…
Is President Trump planning on helping Putin & Russia from their own mistake of reinvading Ukraine?!
I’ve been listening to Judge Napolitano and his many guests on Judging Freedom, (available on youtube) since this war started.
I don’t agree with many things said by the variety of experts in various fields on these subjects, but they do present many differing opinions.
The prehistory of this war, and our part in it, is enlightening.
The Duran podcast is also very informative.
The majority opinion from the beginning was that Ukraine had no real chance of winning. This is a red line for Moscow. NATO has been encroaching on Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union, despite the promises and agreements made.
Prof. John Mearshiemer’s interview with the Judge on the history of the conflict really opened my eyes.
The majority opinion from the beginning was that Ukraine had no real chance of winning. This is a red line for Moscow. NATO has been encroaching on Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union, despite the promises and agreements made. Prof. John Mearshiemer’s interview with the Judge on the history of the conflict really opened my eyes.
==
Buy my bridge.
Mearshiemer? Piled Higher and Deeper.
@tallowpot
I can at a minimum speak that the Duran are dishonest idiots who are prepared to lie like rugs and gaslight in order to push their narrative. One of my oldest comments on this blog was lighting them up (albeit by proxy, regarding a person named “I am Spartacus” shilling for them) where they claimed that British bleeding heart liberals reacted to Ottoman mass murders in THE Balkans in general and Bulgaria in particular by banging on Whitehall’s offices raging about these crimes by what was one of Britain’s key Allies at the time, but that when the Russian government decided to do something about it by invading they did an about face and threatened Russia with war, hence supposedly showing the insincerity or at least inconsistency in Western bleeding hearts and irrational fear of Russia.
Unfortunately for whatever psychopathic liar and idiot wrote that, some of us have studied the Ottoman wars of the 1870s that culminated in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-8, including myself. Indeed, I have wargamed it a fair bit and studied it even more. And what is notable is that while Western bleeding heart outrage then and now has been guilty of plenty of inconsistency and hypocrisy, this was generally not one of those times. The Machiavellian Disraeli was dismayed by the public outrage by both his Gladstonian (classical) Liberal enemies and his own Tory Base, noting that disgust at Ottoman atrocities would make it impossible to support the Turks from a Russian attack like the West had in the so called Crimean War of 1853 (which really started in a very similar place to 1877, on the Danube), since he felt (correctly) the Tsar would use it as an excuse to try and conquer Constantinople and create pro-Russian puppet states throughout the Balkans. He nevertheless managed to arrange a council of foreign ministers to sit down and try to hammer out a compromise to end the killing on all sides only to have the Ottoman Government (under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the guy who actually started the Armenian Genocide) reject this on the grounds that it was an affront to the Sultan-Caliph’s power (true but not necessarily a bad thing IMHO) and a violation of the Crimean War peace settlement (also broadly true but ignoring how the settlement had not been made with this situation in line and how the other great powers either would not or could not enforce it). In doing so the Ottomans basically threw away their life line and the Russians invaded.
And the remarkable thing is that Western and even British public opinion remained neutral or even modestly sympathetic to the Russian war effort and that of its Allie’s straight through 1877 until towards the end of the war in 1878. But that was because by then the Ottoman field armies in the Balkans had been crushed, the local rebels had seized control, the Ottomans had lost a great many of their major forts, and now the Tsar had an army fighting on the border of Constantinople itself while the massacres were now mostly being done by the Russian military and its local Allies against Muslims, ethnic Turks, and so on rather than the other way around. So faced with both a geopolitical threat of Russian control of the straits and a new humanitarian horror in the form of ethnic cleansing that devastated much of the region for the other side, the British public opinion shifted and allowed the government to send a royal navy fleet to Constantinople to tell the advancing Russians that they had had their fun and done what they had been meant to do but that they would either hammer out a peace or face war with Britain. The Russians wisely took their wins and headed for the peace conference, which is a whole nother can of worms.
(Also to give what credit I will to Aleksandr II – who while not awful by the standards of autocrats was nowhere near as magnanimous as popular memory indicates – he does seem to have been sincerely motivated by true and false reports of the horrors inflicted on his co-religionists, his view as being protector of the Eastern Orthodox, and by the Russian public outrage over these things rather than just using them as a stalking horse to seize power. In any case far more motivated than Putin is, as shown by his tacit acceptance of vastly more discriminatory and exclusionary policies against the Russian language and ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, because Kazakhstan is or at least was a client of his).
This gives you some idea of the kind of shortfalls in how “informative” the Duran is. And why I frankly view them as little better than intellectual paedophiles exploiting the ignorance of others.
Judge Napolitano I am less familiar with but I believe he is probably less wantonly malicious and dishonest than the Duran, but he does have a number of “experts” that are. Like the odious, overrated, and comically wrong Douglas MacGregor, who I and Neo have addressed many times before.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/04/19/on-ukraine-being-wrong-over-and-over-doesnt-seem-to-stop-colonel-macgregor/
https://thenewneo.com/2023/01/26/open-thread-1-26-23/#comment-2663576
Well of course. When you either are (or in Judge Napolitano’s case, are overly reliant upon) psychopathic liars in the tank for the Kremlin and who are either outright paid by Moscow to push a line (hello MacGregor) or just do it for the shits and giggles (what I’d guess most of the Duran is doing it for) it isn’t surprising that you will get a conclusion that mostly concludes with the Kremlin’s propaganda line.
No, it really isn’t, or at least it is not supposed to be. In particular Russia and a host of other countries guarantees to respect Ukraine’s legal 1991 borders, support it if it was attacked, and assert its right to join any alliance or foreign organization it chose or not at all in things like the Budapest Memorandum, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Astana Declaration. Now you might be able to argue that the Kremlin did not sign those things sincerely or really mean it (and I think that is fairly clear) but it does show how the “red line” is of far more recent provenance and emphasis than is typically claimed and also how the Kremlin’s terms violate many of its prior claims and pledges, which I think underlines the question of why the hell any other party should trust the Kremlin to keep its pledges this time or to be sincere when it is deliminating its claims.
It is at this point that I bitterly ask the Kremlin to point on the doll where the big bad NATO hurt them and ask the actual mechanisms behind said “encroachment:”
Because what this clown show generally ignores is that said “encroachment” happened because of the voluntary surge of former Commie countries – often with lengthy histories of fearful relations with Russian polities and then the Soviet Union – stampeding to join NATO to the often bewilderment and even anger of the Big Dogs in Old NATO like Germany who believed NATO would be wrapping up soon and was no longer necessary and who were looking forward to good relations between a reformed Moscow and the West. And while this was the era of things like HW Bush’s infamous “Chicken Kiev/Kyiv” speech, that line might sound familiar.
However ultimately it turns out the former Red nations that joined NATO were correct. Nations that joined NATO are by and large at peace and their major problems like illegals are not due to conventional military invasion. Whereas nations that either couldn’t start the process or who decided for neutrality like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova were subject to brutal military conflicts, ethnic cleansing, cultural oppression, and political gridlock largely masterminded by the Kremlin.
This is also why for all my issues with them the up yours to the Kremlin by having Finland and Sweden apply for and get NATO membership helped deflate these claims.
Actually no, generally in line with the promises and agreements made. And I am guessing they did not link you to all of those or when they were supposedly made.
And in particular that they said fuck all about how those interfaced with (or more typically were overridden by) things like the Astana Declaration or Helsinki Final Act.
In general the “agreements” and “promises” tended to be much less than either, with the limitations of any given government or pol to bind their successors or other countries being acknowledged (as I pointed out was mentioned at the time by Clapper’s discussions with Gorbachev and Yazov). They are certainly in sharp contrast to the Helsinki Final Act.
Mearsheimer’s also a psychopathic liar, genocidal Jew hater, and all around dishonest idiot. Moreover he often lies about things that are fairly obvious to disprove and aren’t very relevant to his case but which are meant to appease his sponsors. A good example of this is the idea that Crimea was assigned from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR as a chance of history.
I don’t have much good to say about Soviet leadership and decision making, but they did not do many things based on “chances of history”, and by this point in time (just after Beria’s downfall and before Khrushchev could isolate and neutralize the orthodox Stalinists like Kaganovich and Molotov and the Army) there was no one man decision making policy by Khrushchev. The issue was laboriously talked over at the highest levels of Soviet power for months and carefully considered, mostly on soullessly pragmatic reasons that gave no real fucks about the people or nations involved but from how the Russian SSR’s mismanagement of the region had left it vulnerable and undeveloped to the Axis invasion in 1941 and utterly hobbled its recover for years after, helping to cripple the Soviet Union’s southern hand and in particular standing during the Turkish Straits crisis.
Moreover they recognized how closely intertwined Crimea as it existed was with Ukrainian resources and infrastructure, as the Russian government found out prior to 2022 when the Ukrainians unsurprisingly decided they were not going to supply water or energy to the government that illegally attacked their troops and violated their sovereign rights.
And I could go over more regarding their shit or exact claims. Suffice it to say they are not always wrong but they mostly are, and invariably in ways meant to whitewash or downplay the Kremlin’s actions.
“Brian E.: Does that collection of statements indicate that all those European leaders think Russia has become an “existential threat”? Or that “existential threat” has become a vapid buzzphrase?” – FOAF
Unlike some here, I don’t purport to have psychic powers about people’s motivations.
At any time, European’s can start acting like they really mean what they say.
Case in point. Here is a statement dated Feb. 12, 2025 from Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, the European External Action Service and the European Commission:
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/baerbock-weimar-2700212
If you are to believe them, this time they really, really mean it. Looking into my crystal ball, I would say they really, really don’t mean it. What they mean is they are ready to talk about the US continuing to fund the war and their security.
The Trump administration has made it clear that Europe should take responsibility for their own security– including Ukraine.
The EU has a similar sized economy to the US. They can take over providing for the defense of Ukraine, while building a robust military infrastructure that can insure their security against any future Russian aggression.
Willy OAM has been covering the war for some time and raises some valid points about the effect the US position may have on morale. He fought for Ukraine early in the war.
He spends the first half of his podcast talking about these issues.
Hidden Crisis: U.S. Begins Negotiations | Is Trump Abandoning Ukraine and NATO? | Ukraine Map Update
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJEn13-ztU8
One thing that I’ve noticed is that suddenly everyone is talking about settling the war, for or against, it is now a topic of discussion. That is new, it is called “thinking past the sale”, it is a persuasion tactic and Trump has used it.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that supporters of Ukraine are arguing that Europe needs to arrange for their own defense. Does Trump want that? I think so.
As for Duran, I’ve paid no attention to them, it was sufficient to see who was taking them seriously.
Willy OAM has been covering the war for some time and raises some valid points about the effect the US position may have on morale.
==
Your last recommendation was Mearsheimer.
Brian E:
I assume that by “end like this” you mean that Ukraine will have to give up some territory. It’s not clear exactly what, or in exchange for exactly what. But my question for you is this: did you think that Ukraine wasn’t going to have to give up some territory? And if so, how would that be happening? Through decisively winning the war against Russia, something that hasn’t happened in 3 years? By NATO attacking Russia or sending troops into Ukraine? Didn’t happen and wouldn’t happen. I haven’t read everything you’ve written here on the subject, so maybe you’ve already answered those questions. But as someone who supports Ukraine rather than Russia myself, I can’t answer that first question with a “yes.” For at least a year and perhaps more I have thought the war’s inevitable end would be the giving up of some territory by Ukraine, either by interminable fighting or by negotiation.
Art Deco, the quote is from the transcript of Willy’s podcast. Do you disagree with what he said?
Do you disagree with what he said?
==
Why would I do either?
Ref neo’s recent comment:
Snippets from some various link results of a Google “Kissinger said ukraine would have to give crimea” search.
Ukraine giving up land has become obvious at this point. ‘Thangs may have been different had Biden given better missiles ‘n OKed their use on distant military target—all the way to Russia’s east coast.
America has had weak military leaders since GW Bush…including President Trump.
“I assume that by “end like this” you mean that Ukraine will have to give up some territory.” – Neo
You’ll have to refresh my memory as to which comment I said “end like this.”
But it has been clear to me that Ukraine did not have the capability to regain territory it lost since 2022 when Ukraine’s 2023 summer counteroffensive stalled and failed to reach it’s objectives.
So yes, the only way there is going to be a settlement is with Ukraine ceding territory to Russia. My concern is Russia has said any settlement must include the entirety of the four oblasts Russia annexed– Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk plus Crimea. If that happens, it will reduce the security of Odessa, as it will give Russia the part of Kherson west of the Dnipro River. Many Russians consider Odessa part of Russia.
So hopefully the Trump negotiators hold firm that the new border will be the Dnipro River and then veer off to connect to the Donetsk and Luhansk borders.
Brian E:
Yes, I agree that if a settlement doesn’t have some decent guarantee of Ukraine’s future security, that would be very bad.
So hopefully the Trump negotiators hold firm that the new border will be the Dnipro River and then veer off to connect to the Donetsk and Luhansk borders.
==
The Dnipro River runs right down the middle of the country. To the east of it are the entirety of six of the country’s provinces, portions of four others, and the Crimea to boot.
art deco, I should have made it clear that the border should be the Dnipro River through Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts to Dnipropetrosvk oblast then follow the border of Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk.
This would make a defensible border and leave a small portion of Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts as part of Ukraine.
Some time back, Neo posted three different takes on, iirc, “Swan Lake”. Each had a couple of moments of dance she thought would illustrate an issue. Each had an Evil Wizard. Two had the generic evil wizard and the Russian version had a huge manikin with exaggerated Mongolian features. If you want to reach into Russian DNA, refer to the fear of Mongol invasions.
Russia has been invaded over centuries.
It has no borders. There are lines on maps, but no mountains, swamps, deserts, or huge, uninhabited forests.
In addition, the avenues of invasion are frequently inhabited by farmers whose farms with their woodpiles, grain stocks, domesticated animals, provide logistical support for invading armies. Napoleon said a village can support a battalion for a week, a division for a day. Nothing is left behind.
Consider Keegan’s note that a field bakery of seventeenth-century armies and several centuries later was far less efficient than the solid ones in towns at home. They required an equal weight of firewood to the weight of flour. So if you show up for you platoon’s bread ration–two pounds per man per day–and you have thirty guys, you’ll get your sixty pounds of bread if you can swap it for sixty pounds of firewood.
First source is the farmers’ wood piles. Then their furniture, then their homes/huts.
So five thousand troops….?
Trees have already been cut down…clear fields, build homes, try to stay warm…by the farmers.
Horror for the Russians over centuries.
I submit that attacking one’s neighbors can be sold to Russians by Putin, or anybody else in his position, as a justified to the Russian people two percent more, ten percent more, fifty percent more, than it could to us, more than we could possibly imagine.
Point is that encroaching on Russia is not allowing it to control its neighbors, after the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Its neighbors’ geography provides avenues of approach.
We might understand this, but it doesn’t justify, especially to the victims, whatever the Russians are doing about it.
@Richard Aubrey
Broadly agreed, but I fear this risks overstating it.
Russia has been invaded over centuries, that is absolutely true. But it has been invading for even more centuries. The first written sources we get for what would become Russia are a bunch of runestones raised throughout Scandinavia from the 700s onward that – when transcribed and translated – glorify about “Viking”/raiding and invasion expeditions to the East with various bits of trade. The first confirmed source we have are when a fleet of “Rus” show up in Eastern Rome and start raiding the Anatolian and Ionian Coasts the 830s before they launch a major attack on Constantinople in 860. This would be a bit like if the North Sentinelse showed up with an invasion force comparable to the amphibious forces for Pelileu outside of New York City. From Russia itself the semi-mythical semi-historical sources (doubtless written well after the fact with an eye to explaining the politics of the matter and legitimizing the ruling authority but probably gelling with what we know) was that the peoples on the Northeastern Baltic and White Seas were so violent and quarrelsome they beseeched a probably-Norse warlord “Rurik” to rule over them and put a stop to the violence. And that may well be what happened (since it gels with some other cases like some Italian cities appointing a foreigner as “Podesta” and mirrors abandonment of some sites in the region in favor of the now-ancient site of “Nov-Gorod”, “New-City”).
So from the start “Russians” have been quite warlike, which admittedly shouldn’t be too surprising given we are a warlike species and this was a warlike time. “Russians” referred to the mixed Norse/Baltic warrior and merchant adventurers that set themselves up on the rivers and ruled as warlords and aristocrats over the locals (often quite brutally, as the stories of Olga of Kyiv’s late husband show) before it referred to anybody else. It also presaged a very aggressive strategic culture partially dominated by geography but also by other things.
That doesn’t mean every Russian is a savage “orc” (a term I dislike, and which is deeply ironic), and like just about every other ethnicity and nation Russians have been invaders and invaded, saints and sinners, angels and anti-Christs, and even in the early days they fell into conflicts with nomadic steppe peoples like the Cuman-Kipchaks (with the Mongols being presaged when the near-hereditary enemies showed in in Kyiv not to invade but to warn of an even worse force that had kicked their asses and sent them seeking help). But I reiterate this in part to try and prevent over-correction.
Russia is indeed a nation of peaceful, even simple peasants in the countryside. But it is also a nation of violent, expansion minded leaders. And of course just like you had a few (albeit generally very few) peaceful minded leaders you also had a bunch of peasants that put in the crop and then gathered an axe or spear to go out raiding.
This if anything made it more of a highway for invasions outward for most of its history than one inwards, especially given how the origins of it were originally rivers (Hence “Rowers”/”Rus”). And why it took so long for anybody else to turn the tables on them (the Eastern Romans with defensive military victories and executions mingled with some bribery, and the Mongols with the mixture of advanced mounted warfare and siege engines).
Not really. There are quite a few swamps around (the Pripyet Marshes are iconic but only one of them and infamously the ground around St. Petersburg and much of the surrounding area like Novgorod are *INFAMOUSLY* Marshy pits bad enough they helped multiple times in history (such as some Novgorodian victories over the Mongols and to a much lesser extent Muscovites while helping to convince the Mongols to cut short their ops there, whcih is one reason why Novgorod lasted far longer than most other cities of comparable vintage).
And there are and particularly were a bunch of trees around (albeit mostly outside of the “Wild Fields” to the North and East and the Baltic Coast, which shares broadly similar climatological types to Russia and was often the territory or at least tributaries of Russian or Proto-Russian polities). It’s just that there’s a lot fewer of them now due to the gigantic amounts of logging since then, and in particular due to the region’s longer reliance on charcoal burning than elsewhere.
One problem we have is simply that Russia has always been quite large (if often divided as hell), and we’re often looking at the wrong maps (since again it mostly originated on the coasts and rivers before pushing outwards). But even considering that there are quite a few forests, marshes, and so on that helped separate different parts of Russia from one another and then from outsiders.
Broadly agreed, though these tended to be much less regular back in the day.
And Napoleon famously overestimated how much there was in Russia, especially along the major routes to Moscow, hence the debacle of his march.
Honestly this is particularly unconvincing to me, especially for this region. Basically every military in the region except for the Johnny Come Lately Swedes and Danes was at least quasi-nomadic, with campaigns either being sent by hoof or by boat, and usually centered around a core of horse archers or cavalry on the one hand, or heavy infantry. It’s worth noting that particularly once the machine got going armies on both sides (and especially that of the centralizing state, whether Yaroslavl’ the Wise from Novgorod or Ivanovich Moscow – could construct mobile wooden camps or even cities to fight from). These were vital for things like the raids on Constantinople, the fall of old Kiev/Kyiv, and the Russian reconquest of Kazan. The possibly-mythical story of Bolewslaw the Brave invading Russia and conquering Kiev/Kyiv in the early 1000s centered around Polish cavalry.
Unless you have trees around, which many places did, in which case you would weigh between those and going for them.
It’s also worth noting that Keegan is largely talking about military logistics of semi-settled late Renaissance/Reformation War armies based on heavy and Shooting Cavalry, Artillery Trains, and Pike and Shot Infantry fighting in the wider Thirty Years War, after that region of Europe had undergone *INTENSIVE* Deforestation in a way that simply wouldn’t be common in Russia or Ukraine (to the extent they had trees there, which got less common in the South but still features quite a bit) due to lower population densities and greater reliance on the rivers.
Trying to apply this metric to campaigns in the kind of transitional regions that make up the core of Old Russia is a *bad idea* and generally leads to *bad results* as de la Gardie found out. And is a case where what you describe was largely the truth. But it rarely was.
(In some ways it was worse due to the Steppe forces and most Rus powers being incredibly willing to commit scorched earth tactics or razing the territories and holdings of themselves or their enemies, but that was usually less to do with struggling soldiers seeking food or heat – at least initially – so much as making a point, crushing domestic enemies and frustrating invaders. The latter of whom might eventually reach the point described but were usually drawn by horses or boats).
Around the 1700s. Which was probably not coincidentally around the time of major river contractions (making light draft boats largely impractical, along with the tech) and when military technology and organization gave the settled states a pretty decisive advantage over all but the best nomadic or mixed nomadic armies and the petty Khanates of the South and East got destroyed or reduced to subjugation, meaning that you were much less likely to have your entire village/town burnt down by raiders (and it’s worth noting that until incredibly late that “town” could have been *Moscow*) and it became safer to build intensively. (This is the era where “Potemkin Village” comes from, and that’s a slur on the admittedly rather nasty Potemkin’s name since his villages were very real).
But telegraphing the landscape we see now or even in the 1700s back to time immemorial is a bad idea in part due to how very different things are and were.
Agreed, and also for neighbors (for instance, after Alexandr Nevaskoy’s famous “Battle on the Ice” Battle of Lake Piepus over Latin Christian crusaders led by the Teutonic Order, he is recorded to have treated the Westerners well but gathered up their Baltic tribal levies and had them gruesomely and torturously executed in public for “treason to Novgorod the Great” due to how they were “supposed” to be Tributaries). And in many ways it’s worse because you were less likely to be burned down by your local Pike and Shot or Mounted Bow company like further West but by riverrine raiders trying to make a profit and eliminate competition, or horsebound armies that saw cities and towns as both a hinderance to their operations in the area (even if they themselves came from cities or towns like most Russian armies became around the 1400s) and a valuable place for possible resupply or slave raiding (which was particularly awful with Crimea hosting several of history’s largest slave markets due to Post-Mongol raidings).
Now why do I go to such a great pain at making this point?
Well firstly to emphasize that war in this area was REALLY Not even the superficially genteel activity with a dark underbelly it was elsewhere but existential and violent for just about everyone.
Secondly to point out that the genesis of Russia featured the country’s founders as interlopers in the area, probably descendants of the Norse and their “Vikingr” used to highly mobile warfare and exacting, predatory, and arbitrary tribute even before the Mongols (who often get blamed for this and not entirely without due cause) get blamed for this).
Thirdly that the terrain was not nearly as hostile to borders as it may look now, it’s just been so transformed by success (albeit generally a couple centuries after many other usual points of comparison).
And Fourthly that Russia’s neighbors had at least as much a reason for horror and generally more.
And Fifthly that the origins of Russia made militant strongman rule quite normal, albeit usually SUPPOSED to be tempered by the also-Scandinavian senses of legality and the Roman inheritance of religion. And Russia still has all of these but the Mongols did a lot to devastate it and reset the clock while reinforcing lawless (sometimes literally lawless; the Great Khagan had no earthly authority he was bound to respect – even if doing so might be practical or wise – and even the much balleyhoed Yassa Laws of Chinggis Khan were *STATE SECRETS* Precisely so that the Khagan could selectively enforce them or even lie about them as He saw fit).
There is definitely an element of truth to what you say, many even. But I feel it is necessary to add these as kind of a corrective or balance in part to explain why things are what they are.
I think that’s likely true to some point, but it’s worth noting that it is being sold at least as common as a violent national reunification of the kind Yaroslavl the Wise did and has happened many other times in Rus/Russian history. That the idea that this is an existential war is apparently not strong enough for Putin to be comfortable with general mobilization and a formal declaration of war saying he can send Conscripts to internationally recognized Ukrainian territory (and given some of the protests and arsons of recruiting offices I think I understand part of the reason why).
And I don’t think one has to bend too much to see the likes of Wagner or the Russian Imperial Movement as a very dark, twisted version of the kind of warbands of the Druzhina/Hird, semi-private heavily personality based warrior bands bound by personal ties and the desire for loot used by the Princelings or Grand Prince to exact his will.
Granted, I don’t think that is the ENTIRE story of course and I am sure my take can be overplayed as well. But I do think it has at least as many elements of truth to it.
Agreed, but I think this goes back far before the Mongols.
Agreed, but I also think it is important to understand the other side of the coin. And it’s telling that Russia is fighting another parallel – if less bloody – couple of wars in Chechnya and especially a mostly-peaceful guerilla and civil occupation of Belarus. I imagine somewhere Ivan IV Grozny is clucking his tongue and thinking of how he made Novgorod Great No Longer for rebellion or “rebellion” against his authority.
@Nonapod
Understandable indeed, and it is a pita. Made worse by the question of where we start counting (2022? 2014? Etc) and by number doctoring. In particular the Kremlin has been caught burning some of its own dead in mobile crematoria and misreporting its casualties, largely as a means of defrauding by avoiding paying death benefits as well as for morale purposes. I imagine Ukrainian cases are less egregious but still might happen. And in any case the fog of war is a pain.
Understandable indeed. I am more hawkish and supportive of Ukraine than you are -in that of all the ways to burn money by the left I view it as probably one of the less offensive – and I do think tying down and humiliating the Russian military and a political class that has so clearly decided to side with our mortal enemies when given the chance is beneficial in its own right. But the domestic backlash is what I always feared, and I made it clear that if it was necessary to save Western and especially American freedom I would hand all of Ukraine over to the tender mercies of whatever monster is in the Kremlin.
I wouldn’t like it but I would do it.
I don’t think that is such a necessity now and do think some more fighting would ultimately be better for us and the Ukrainians as well as being RELATIVELY cost effective for results for the American taxpayer, but I can’t fault that.
Which is a fair point that I respectfully disagree with. I do think the war is far more winnable from “our POV” than it is for the Kremlin and its friends, and especially given the collapse of most of Baathist Syria. I also believe it is important to help shore up American credibility after Afghanistan and leftist misrule. But I could be wrong, and in any case even those things have to take second place to America’s domestic freedom and places. I just don’t view them as being so mutually exclusive or opposed.
@Art Deco
I haven’t heard of that, and in any case while I knew it was rumored I had not heard that confirmed. But then I am not up to date with everything.
@Dan
Those kinds of possibilities did come to mind and are what I deeply hope. I don’t really doubt Trump’s intelligence or that he is willing to fight the Russian government and Putin. But unfortunately I don’t have too much ironclad proof of what he’d do or how sincere a given statement is (though Hesgeth being forced to retract a good portion of it is somewhat promising). However, I have to take the claims seriously on their face, at least to a point.
Turtler.
Russia’s invasions of others do not subtract from the cultural fear of invasions from others. The former hit and hurt somebody else, which is different from getting run over yourself. It’s not even-up.
Napoleon was referring to the Spanish campaigns.
The Germans were having their problems, since the further you go, the more resources you need to move the stuff further. And the longer it takes.
It wasn’t until fully mechanized armies that pasturing your horses–cavalry, artillery, officers’ and staff, in the locals’ standing crops stopped. And most German WW II transport was trains to the rail head and then horse drawn.
One advantage of potatoes was that it was extremely difficult to use them out of the fields for fodder. Horses won’t dig for them and having the troops do it is not productive.
But, with all the comforts of twentieth century logistics, the Russian civilians in occupied territory had a very hard time. I was only speaking of supplies….
That civilians in territory conquered by the Red Army after they got going had a very hard time is also true but does not “subtract” from the Russian fear, cultural or genetic or whatever, of being invaded, with the follow-on ability to sell an invasion of neighbors more easily than in other circumstances or countries. The buyers may be asking for their money back, eventually, as is possible now. But Putin still hasn’t fallen out of any windows.
Marlborough had a pretty small map, compared to idiots going further east, and, as Churchill said, he’d tested his subordinates and was confident he could keep his troops fed and supplied.
While all countries are the same size–always fit their pages in the atlas–that’s deceiving. Berlin to Paris is just over half as far as El Paso to New Orleans. Take about eleven hours driving. Different when the Infantry is doing twenty miles a day, heel and toe. Which has been standard for centuries. And so you have to feed the guys for a month before they get there, presuming they don’t have to stop to fight along the way.
Was said that, in the Plains wars, the US Infantry would catch up with the cavalry in five days, and then pull ahead. Neat as a horse and rider look, that’s not why horses were built. Wears on them.
Anyway, whatever the details, our experience with not being invaded does not prepare us to grasp the Russian experience and its cultural effects.
But, as I say, for the Russians, preparing to repel a Russian invasion looks, in some semi-rational sense, like a threat.
I don’t understand why everyone seems eager to toss aside the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. WTH that I missed?
“… for the Russians, preparing to repel a Russian invasion looks, in some semi-rational sense, like a threat….”
Indeed, which is why paranoiacs—individuals OR countries—are impossible to deal with (or, if yer lucky, almost impossible).
Pit one centuries-honed paranoiac against another (to be sure, the Russians had more time to hone their paranoid skills than the Germans) and what you get—in strategic terms, at least—is the Eastern front during WWII.
Ain’t pretty.
”I don’t understand why everyone seems eager to toss aside the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. WTH that I missed?”
The Trumpers have backed Russia in this war since the 2022 invasion. When Trump won the Republican nomination for president last year, that was written into the Republican platform. They called it “preventing World War III” by acceding to Russia’s demands in Ukraine.
When Trump assumed the presidency it became official U. S. policy.
Anne on February 14, 2025 at 12:26 am
Not many people – besides Trump, his Admin, and radical TCS MAGA supporters did understand that disastrous opening offer by Trump to Putin at the very beginning of negotiations. Comparisons of “Neville Chamberlain” appeasing Hitler were made to Trump appeasing Putin.
Anyway, President Trump is now Backtracking – and giving Ukraine NATO membership and “US security guarantees” is back on the table…
Anne on February 14, 2025 at 12:26 am
Not many people – besides Trump, his Admin, and radical TCS MAGA supporters did understand that disastrous opening offer by Trump to Putin at the very beginning of negotiations. Comparisons of “Neville Chamberlain” appeasing Hitler were made to Trump appeasing Putin.
Anyway, President Trump is now Backtracking – and giving Ukraine NATO membership and “US security guarantees” is back on the table…
The Trumpers have backed Russia in this war since the 2022 invasion.
==
There are palaeo / alt-right types who’ve been all for Russia, but that’s of a piece with their general perversity. I’m not seeing that among common-and-garden Trump partisans.
Omri Ceren (video at link):
https://x.com/omriceren/status/1890370211091554414
@Anne:I don’t understand why everyone seems eager to toss aside the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. WTH that I missed?
Because NATO can’t credibly protect every country. If the US, France, Germany, Canada, Britain, even Sweden and Denmark aren’t willing to send their boys to die in Ukraine or aren’t willing to take a nuke for Ukraine (or Moldova or Armenia or any other country we propose to bring in to NATO), then NATO is just as fake as the UN and won’t deter aggression any more than the UN does or the League of Nations did.
How many pro-intervention commenters here have declared it’s ridiculous that American troops would be in Ukraine or that America would get nuked over Ukraine? By saying this, they are saying that they don’t really believe in NATO either, except maybe as a “get out of war free” card that you can stick on Good Countries to magically protect them from Bad Countries.
But American protection implies a credible possibility of Americans dead in or because of Ukraine (or Moldova, or Armenia, or whoever). And NATO protection implies that the Swedes and the French and all the other fat happy Western countries that spend as little as they can get away with on their military are also going to be willing to take that nuke or send their boys to die there.
Tl; dr if we’re not willing to take a nuke for them then they shouldn’t be in NATO. Maybe more Canadians or French or Swedes are willing than I think.
Will Niketats take a nuke over Canada, Nome, or North Dakota for that matter? If not …..
@ Karmi > “President Trump is now Backtracking”
Your Google search, not surprisingly, lists only sources from the thoroughly discredited Regime Media aka USAID Wire Services.
Maybe some better reporting, rather than propaganda, will be up later today.
AesopFan – are you denying that President Trump and his Admin are “Backtracking” from their original opening offers in the Russia/Ukraine negotiations?
President Trump and his Admin are “Backtracking”
Backtracking is the wrong word. Trumpian negotiation is more like watching a magic show — if you watch the hands you will miss the trick.
On yesterday’s UK Telegraph
there was a stark contrast regarding the US position on Ukraine and Russia (Trump’s phone call with Putin, Hegseth’s speech to Euoropean military). Francis Dearnedly played the role of Chicken Little (he has TDS) while Dominic Nichols (defense specialist, former military officer) had a far more steady and non-panic stricken assessment.
Interesting times. Dearnedly hasn’t figured out how to deal with DJT’s statements vs actions.
Karmi:
I don’t think you understand Trump’s basic way of negotiating. You don’t have to like him or agree with him or like what he does, but “backtracking” – switching it up, keeping them guessing, starting out with a position that favors party A and then putting forth something that favors party B, all the while probably having something at least slightly different in mind for your own ultimate goal – is an intrinsic part of the art of the deal.
neo:
Yeah, striving to earn a comparison to “Neville Chamberlain” is one heck of a way to negotiate…
Karmi, at any time Europeans can take over funding of Ukraine and continue the war.
Instead of meaningless statements, open up the checkbook.
Talk is cheap! An aphorism that is never truer than when Europeans are involved.
@Brian E
And now for what might be the main event (part listing in anticipation).
But first thing first:
I work a bit with AI (I previously mentioned helping to work with a Lovecraftian themed AI driven Roleplay Game) and while I rarely work with GROK directly and am not the AI Whisperer, I do work with things like it under an acknowledged computer science and security expert with an AI Specialization. And they underlined to *NEVER* Trust LLMs like GROK without proof or confirmation, because they can and will spazz out and generate absolute bullshit.
They might be a useful reference or starting place kind of like Wikipedia, but they aren’t to be trusted. Wikipedia I feel is a useful example because it can show how things can be “poisoned” simply by claims being very common or pushed by politically interested people or groups (like I complained about the Sino-French War trying to claim there was a “limited Chinese victory on land” which was absolute horseshit). And of course we’ve all seen their demonization of Trump.
Now picture that but now even without malicious actors there can and is the chance of the site or frontend itself randomly adding absolute gibberish such as that Adolf Hitler was killed by a fictional character or that the Moon is made of Gouda Cheese. That gives you some idea of the problem.
So I’ll be ignoring this list for that reason due to it not being confirmable without outside sources, due to it “needs context” for things like time frames and threats from the Kremlin, and how everyone alive today has known a time when the regime ruling from Moscow was an existential threat to Europe if only due to its WMDs.
I agree with the latter. I disagree with the former though I acknowledge it would be costly and difficult as hell, though I would guess likely not as much as living with this as the new Cyprus or Georgia or Moldova.
Officially, leaving aside the problems with the finances and how reliable Kremlin numbers are. It’s also worth noting that this is causing massive inflation in country especially by Russian standards, and it’s also pinching the manpower pool due to perversely raising wages so high that it is eroding the Purchasing Power Parity advantage and making that the military using the weapons has to compete with the factories building them for prime manpower. Moreso due to the bitterness over how many troops were put forth and the uneven recruitment and the low turnouts for new Contractniki, which is a major reason the Kremlin has turned to foreign mercs.
Which is unfortunate and I do think shows a fundamental lack of seriousness in Europe, though hopefully some countries like Poland will think twice.
I can hope that and in particular the difference between hearing that and then the sound of what said later was odd. That said, I don’t really see the need to create a new rationale for the US to remain involved since we still have the Budapest Memorandum and the debts involved, as well as the US treaties involving aggressive war.
Not directly. Though they certainly have a few paths (however unlikely they may seem) to try and walk to victory, and they also have some cards to influence it. The Kremlin is very dependent on Ukrainian and Belarusian infrastructure to transport a lot of its resources, so a Ukraine that if pushed to the edge could do a lot of damage on the way to the treaty signing, even if it was with a white flag. Ditto how the war itself has been tolerably popular in Russia, further recruitment for it very much is not and a conventional knock out or even a peace treaty recognizing that does not necessarily end the fighting (as the insurgencies show).
I think that’s less decisive than it sounds, since it is true for most economies in the world, for better or mostly worse. The Ukrainians are suffering that far worse than say the US or even Russia or Iran for fairly obvious reasons (the war on their turf and the manpower damage) but sub-Keynesian economics have left us in disturbingly similar boats in the long term. Moreover, the Ukrainians have significant “future resources” to trade, as the food supply and other strategic resources show.
Agreed, though that seems to be the problem everyone is dealing. Fairly typical if ugly mid to late war attrition problems. The Russians have had somewhat better luck mitigating it with the recruitment of foreign auxiliaries (though those have suffered high casualties too), but the hesitance to call up more people – especially from Moscow and Saint Petersburg – or to formally declare war have also done a lot to limit those resources. So you are seeing ugly manpower shortages on both sides.
Indeed, and I can kind of see why for various reasons.
Honestly I doubt that’s the main reason. After all, the rocket and artillery attacks blowing up a 19 year old does not really care if they are in uniform or not. I feel a bigger issue would be a mixture of morale and the probability that the Ukrainians do not really have the equipment to equip them yet. And in any case both countries were looking at fairly dismal futures even had the war not started due to demographics. But this makes it worse.
I think that’s fairly likely, unfortunately, though a ceasefire will likely see more return than leave in the absence of a change of leadership or domestic repression, gambling that they can do better trying to rebuild their country with the lot of “opportunity vacancies” than at the direct mercy of taxpayers and pols in Germany and Poland.
This would be more convincing to me *IF* we hadn’t seen exactly what happened to Georgia and Moldova, and could trust Putin (let alone whoever the hell will replace him) to keep to the terms. But I think the fact that events have gotten to this point are absolutely eloquent indictments of how far that has gotten either us or them. This is particularly made worse by the amount of ethnic cleansing and adoptions (forced or otherwise) which also mean that there are sizable stakes for the literal future of Ukraine, further accentuated by the rantings of various trusted Kremlin mouthpieces or at least Kremlin adjacent interest groups (I won’t claim the Russian Imperial Movement or Dugin represent the unalloyed views of those that hold power in Moscow now, as some have claimed – especially about Dugin – but I WILL say they A: Probably represent some of the views of said powerbrokers, B: Do represent the unalloyed views of other factions, C: Could come to power in a successful crisis scenario, and D: Are people and factions the Kremlin has to account for and address).
Honestly I think that while that’s a gigantic problem – ditto the demand of evacuating Kursk – I think the far bigger problem and fundamental sticking point is that there is absolutely no reason for anybody to trust the Kremlin to stick to the agreement. A bitter pill can be swallowed with convincing, threats, or duress as indeed we saw with the Minsk agreements and the 2008 ceasefire, but if you think the other side might whack you aside the side to try and make you choke on the bitter pill midway down, why would you want to do something you already don’t want to do?
Putin has fundamentally never revised the “Demilitarization, De”Nazification”, Neutrality” terms, and he has slapped on a bunch of territorial claims on top of that without having the track record of backing it up. This is made worse by the parade of propagandists (often speaking in languages mutually intelligible to Ukrainian audiences) talking about removing the “Khohols” and destroying the idea of Ukraine as a concept with the at best passive acceptance of the Russian government.
This is also why I keep coming back to comparing this to the Japanese invasions of China and elsewhere on mainland Asia in the 1930s before Pearl Harbor, and the parade of truces made and broken. After a certain point the defender has to conclude that it really isn’t going to be in a stronger position to fight and that the chances of a beneficial and lasting peace are minimal (remember, the “Time to Arm Up” narrative by Mutti Merkel and Obama was – while not TOTALLY false – mostly post hoc excuses after the fact for what was appeasement in the name of trade). That if they are going down they might as well fight it out and hope that in doing so they can hold out for changing political winds or even help create them.
This I think is particularly true if NATO or some other mutual protection mechanism is not in play, since there is absolutely no guarantee that if and when things start up again the defenders will be in a better position.
To paraphrase a certain movie about Churchill, “You cannot reason with a Bear when your HEAD is in its mouth!”
Well, the Ukrainians may not quite have their head in the Bear’s mouth piece yet but they have felt the bite marks and seen the bear keep coming back to take swipes at them.
It would also risk allowing the Russians a very useful and relatively easy position for a future sudden naval and/or aerial escalade onto Odessa, and given memories of what happened at the Crimean Isthmus I can understand why they would oppose that.
Which even if I thought that were true was a disastrously reckless thing to say aloud, especially if not part as some kind of wider strategy.
That’s starting to wane. The Russian economic doyens (largely acting under protest from the Kremlin) have been ramping up subsidies and paychecks in general and especially for war industry and strategic industries. Which is a very useful sugar pill to help motivate public morale and productivity and to offset the waning problems, but is weakening the Purchasing Power advantages and causing the people making the weapons to compete for able bodied people with the people tasked with getting new troops to use them.
That and Purchasing Power advantages are reliant on getting stuff to purchase, which is still generally something Russia can do but which it is finding more difficult with the sanction works.
Firstly: The Ukrainians already developed and have fielded a bunch of them.
Secondly: While important fiberoptic cables are not “unjammable.” You have to get creative with them since the signal vector is different but we’ve already seen both sides find some ways to do it.
Agreed regarding the first two, the last is a lot more questionable.
Which is easier said than done, especially on this. The Russians really haven’t developed one, they just have a much larger Soviet inheritance to work through and a mixture of redirected orders and attempts to adrenaline rush the supplies helps.
I mean the problem isn’t so much the warzone so much as the logistics and means on hand. There are no uber weapons but a Carrier Group sitting in the Black Sea striking Crimea would turn this in to a very different war indeed. But Ukraine does not have that and nobody would be willing to give them that.
Air Superiority is just aerial dominance over the other dude’s Air Forces, which would probably happen on Day One in a West v. VVS Matchup over Ukraine. The VVS has been forced to limit its ops to rear areas for the most part in part due to those same SAMs (in some case the very same type or even vehicles) on the Ukrainian side.
The problem would be Air *Supremacy*, or obtaining enough of an edge to basically do whatever you want in the air in the conflict zone, which is what would actually entail dealing with all the AI. And that is where things get costly and/or tricky/time consuming. I’d guess most the latter due to how precious Western airframes are (and airframes in general).
I think the answer is quite simple. Russia will remain an existential threat to damn near anybody it wishes so long as its WMD stockpiles and Triad capacities remain even slightly intact. It would not matter if the most fantastic fantasies of NAFO involving literal illiterate Orcs, Tachankas, or the like were real, so long as enough of the WMD works and there are people willing and able to turn them on, we are looking at devastation.
Obviously this is an extreme condition the Kremlin has not employed in its history and is not likely to unless utterly put to a wall or subverted by people even worse than they are, but I think that alone speaks a lot.
Moreover, even besides the WMD stockpile there is the fact that its conventional military – while greatly bloodied and generally of lesser quality and ability than before – is still rather formidable in size and scope for any given European nation even when operating on a quasi-war footing.
And then of course there is the soft power and subversion game. This has gotten overblown a hell of a lot with teh bullshit “RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA” Collusion nonsense but it is still potent, and it involves less the Kremlin outright couping people deep in the West or rigging elections (Which as I’ve mentioned it generally does not have the ability to do) but by playing the old game of divide and conquer, saying how the Tsar truly wishes peace but needs x, that he can provide cheap fuels and more independence from the US, etc. Germany I think is the most obvious case where this has played out and it is a debacle, but it has also happened further afield (including with the left like in Spain, but you tend not to hear that much among people inclined to scree about “Trumpers”). Ditto influence ops like allowing useful idiots or outright pawns like Tucker, MacGregor, and so on.
And that’s very risky and potentially devastating. It’ll be significantly harder with all of Scandinavia in NATO but not impossible. Especially if objectives for the near future are focused on the “near abroad” and cutting and then breaking deals.
And that’s before we talk about Comrade Vova’s own Comrades like the PRC, DPRK, Iranians, and Pakistanis.
“Only.”
It’s also worth noting that this happened against the backdrop of massive Western aid, a Russia that only ever went on a partial war footing and refused to declare war (with partial mobilization but not beyond that) and so on.
I doubt resources or progress would be gajillions of times faster in the event of Russia going to full mobilization and/or declaring war based on what we see in Kursk (where when fighting for core Russian territory a lot of the gloves come off due to legal restrictions of fighting an undeclared war on foreign territory being inapplicable), and it might even trigger a Russian revolution under current circumstances, but it probably WOULD see faster and more effective progress than what we see here.
Agreed, and it is why I wish there was more unity there.
Nukes, WMD, divide and conquer, allies, conventional invasion (if unlikely by itself), subversion, the Muslim Card.
They are in Europe’s interest for those dedicated to fully resisting the Kremlin. But for those that believe they can or should accomodate the “new order” or who can at least be bribed, convinced, or duped or just intimated about being left in the dark and cold again like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. As little to nonexistent credibility as the Kremlin has for keeping deals beyond what its whims deem beneficial, that still might be worth taking a gamble with if one is already inclined, or if one does not see any other option. And even the untrustworthy can keep deals, at least for a time, if they are so inclined (as Georgia and Moldova can grudgingly attest, at least for now, even if they deal with multiple threats to “Alter the Deal”).
Fair enough, and I will take you at your word. I have compassion too. Issue I see is how to best show it.
There are worse analogies but this is down there. A referee has to be not merely respected by all involved sides but has to be able to compel obedience to their rulings by them. That is blatantly not the case here. War is usually not a sporting event, and especially one like this. Perhaps a deal can be made (whether or not it should be is another thing entirely, but I believe it can be) but that would make it difficult, and it would be dependent on there being a deal that both sides could agree to, As well as that deal being enforceable if either side or elements in them want to do a takesy-backsie.
That is not really in evidence here, and this first round of things from Trump at least has the open appearance of a failure to achieve that, whatever secret strategies or goals it had. As such I do not have much hope for it, especially given how a great many in the Kremlin and adjacent groups wish to utterly undo the existence of Ukraine and its separate identity.
Honestly I’m skeptical of that. For all the rhetoric of Banderaists people tend to ignore that the actual “Bandera Organization” managed to keep on fighting against all comers when utterly surrounded by hostile forces in the areas around Galicia, and kneecapped by its own murderous tendencies and sectarian divides (like the Melnyk-Bandera conflicts).
Honestly some degree of wishful thinking does, even if it usually is not anywhere near decisive in and of itself. Though that touches in to the Willy OAM thing and how the reverse problem is currently the issue with Ukraine.
A Fair few of them are, but not nearly enough.
I mean, US funding and European funding are not mutually exclusive (as we have seen to some degree there) though a great many of the EU Countries have been late and under budget for that. And only time will tell if it is enough.
Which is admirable but comes to problems when we already assumed at least partial responsibility for their security, including Ukraine, and how complete disconnect from it would not just be damaging to our prestige and credibility but also undermine their security and ours.
More like a bunch of economies that are nowhere near as integrated as the US’s economies that in aggregate (officially) add up to somewhere there, but which in practice probably not.
They can, but that raises the question of what the time tables for that would be (both in terms of ideal “They really mean it and act optimally” versus alternatives “They mean it but fuck up at times”, “they are wishy-washy with divisions”, etc).
I think he has devastatingly cogent points, and that is one reason why I opposed the Trump team acting like this. But the bigger issue I think wraps around to the fundamental issues. “Sign and get this done quickly” is contingent upon there being something Ukraine can sign – even if prepared to accept the worst – and have the Kremlin accept, as well as its own factions and those in Russia. Which I view as iffy at best. Again with the reason with a bear when your head is in its mouth thing, and why the Kremlin has negative trust ratings when it comes to keeping to truces it sees value in breaking.
Moreover I think this overlooks that for all the morale issues of this limbo, the Ukrainians and Russians have been in hellish limbos before like in the aftermath of the Minsks. I also think this overlooks the political ramifications of what would happen with those left on the Kremlin’s side of the lines. Does anybody think the likes of Right Sector or Tymoshenko would be welcome in Russian occupied territory that has theoretically become Russian Fed main land? Or in a Ukraine that has returned to being a Kremlin client state or at a minimum a Georgia style “Finlandized” state? There’s a bunch of reasons why Saakashvilli had to ultimately leave his native land and take up Ukrainian citizenship and I think it is fairly safe to say they were at best secondarily connected to whatever actual crimes or sussy conduct he is credibly accused of, let alone actually did.
There would be a lot of “Ukrainian Saakashvillis” fleeing like the original Bohemians from the Habsburg fist, and even more Ukrainian loyalists and those tired of warlord rule like that in the Donbaschukuos fleeing like the French loyal Alsatians after German conquest, fleeing either to Ukraine proper or even further afield.
And if that’s bad imagine what would be the case for the likes of the “Free Russia Legion” people or so on.
In short, I think that even if the central Ukrainian government agreed to such terms you’d likely still see a protracted amount of fighting, even if it breaks into partisan and/or warlord fests as those not inclined to eat this particular manure sandwich or who believe there isn’t much that awaits them beyond the flat of the late Prigozhin’s sledgehammer if they surrender fight on, and in some ways probably causing even more devastation in a shorter period of time than the current largely positional fighting mixed with strikes/sabotage (even if the prolonged war might cause more damage in aggregate).
I’d say that is relative. The 2023 offensive was underwhelming and costly but not truly catastrophic, and it did see territory taken (albeit not as much) and helped cement Ukrainian control on territory over the Dnieper. And just because Ukraine does not have the capabilities to say fully liberate the Donbas or Crimea now does not mean it can never obtain them, at least theoretically, as the reforms and rearmament of the Croatian and Bosniak armies in Yugoslavia show.
The big issue, of course, is that won’t come easy or particularly cheap and in the context of Ukraine’s war ravaged territory others would have to foot the bill and time.
Under present circumstances, and that is assuming the Kremlin is open to making and keeping a settlement, which I think is very much in doubt.
Agreed, and that I also think is a problem. The Kremlin can to a large degree try to “Alter the Deal” without some kind of tripwire or safeguard, and there is little reason for the Ukrainians to not try to stick in.
Hopefully, or they change tack for a more robust support. If nothing else extracting more resources from the Donbas would be useful under the deal.
Agreed, and funding is one thing the Euros are more equipped to do than most. The issue is the exact magnitude and the war material.
A lot of them have, though not as much.
Brian E
?!? What does that have to do with President Trump screwing up the negotiations with Putin by ‘pretending‘ to be the reincarnation Neville Chamberlain?!
America, Europe, and others are not going to stand for Trump giving the Ukraine to Putin. Look at the news…Trump has done a quick flip-flop (since some here don’t like the reported term “Backtracking”‘).
I’m all for Europe paying more, though if the last figures I saw were correct then they have paid as much or a tad more than us. Ukraine has provided enough info so far to give cause for both the Americans & Europeans to quadruple the yearly aid to Ukraine.
America, Europe & NATO could have a much more powerful deterrent to Russia with Ukraine as a member…
@Karmi
Frankly this wouldn’t be Chamberlain. Chamberlain at least did it to try and pre-empt a war from going beyond small scale deniable terrorist attacks rather than one that has already gone full scale, and he also did it to try and bide more time to prepare. It’d be closer to Baldwin. And while there are times and places for stalling tactics I don’t see this as being too helpful.
As awful as the proposed “deal” is it wouldn’t be giving Ukraine to Putin, since he’d still have to conquer vast amounts of it by force or subvert the government.
Also, I wish “are not going to stand for-” was true or credible. But I remember Georgia. The EU helped spearhead the disgusting whitewash of South Ossetian terrorism and Kremlin aggression (in effect largely blaming Georgia for the war) which helped cement the West’ abandonment of Georgia after the war in the early Obama years and helped give it the appeasing government it has now. Ditto Moldova. This is particularly blatant and bad IMHO but not as out of tune with many other Western “proposals” as we’d like to think, especially given the Minsks.
And without the US to firm things up I do think Brian E is not wrong about EU commitments. Especially given what we saw in the Middle East and the ability of the Russian dictatorship to play divide and conquer.
I’d like to think differently but the possibility that the Kremlin’s machinations to prepare the way for future problems (like the conquest of the rest of Ukraine) is still possible.
Largely agreed, costly as it would be, since if we’re going to deal with a certain amount of our money being bonfired directly and by inflation any way this is probably one of the better ways to spend it.
Agreed indeed.
Karmi:
Neville Chamberlain? No. That happened before any attacks and before any war. The more proper analogy to Chamberlain would be Biden, who basically gave Putin a green light.
Trump is more like Congress who pulled the plug on support of the South Vietnamese after a long bitter conflict – although IMHO if aid had continued, the South might have held off. But that’s the proper analogy, if there is one – although IMHO Trump is very different from the people who negotiated the Vietnam “peace” deal. Plus, you seem to pay attention to every little thing that is said by the Trump team when at this point it’s just part of the back-and-forth of Trumpian dealmaking.
I certainly think it’s possible it could go badly. But I also think it’s possible it could go relatively well.
neo:
Neville Chamberlain? *YES*!!! I didn’t come up with the comparison – it was just an instantaneous response by the World to Trump’s ridiculous opening offer to Putin in the negotiations.
It will most likely be a big part of his Legacy – maybe just a mid part if he can recover…
UPDATE: so instantaneous that Putin didn’t even have time to accept! 😉
”I’m not seeing that among common-and-garden Trump partisans.”
I’m not talking about the people who came around to Trump after he won the nomination because “He’s better than Hillary” or “He’s better than Harris.” I’m talking about the people who had an orgasm when he came down that escalator back in 2015. Among such people I’ve met, both in real life and online, support for Russia solidified in March or April of 2022 and has grown ever more fervent — fanatical in many cases — since.
The phenomenon is widespread, and the conviction is deeply held.
Karmi, you need to check your figures about how much military aid European countries have provided to Ukraine.
For example the Nov. 19 Declaration included this:
$20 billion of the $50 billion is the obligation of the US. And they sold this loan using the interest collateral of the $300 billion Russian assets frozen by the west to make the principal and interest payments. If this stands, has the EU or US for that matter really made a loan to Ukraine or are they just co-signers to the loan?
Germany announced last year they were cutting in half their aid to Ukraine in 2025 (from 8 billion euros to 4 billion). They may change this if Europe does start funding the military portion. Much of Europe’s aid has been to refugee resettlement costs. (How much of that actually goes to themselves. It may be nothing– but this is Europe.)
The phenomenon is widespread, and the conviction is deeply held.
==
No, the phenomenon is in your imagination.
The Russophiles on the “right” are quite something indeed. A knee jerk of love for a strongman in the Kremlin? Disgust with the Democrat/leftist Russiagate hoax peddled for 8 years against President Trump? Disgust about the FJB junta and pre-junta FJB corruption (and enabling of Russian aggression); if FJB is “against” Russia we must be against Ukraine? Or just plain isolationism?
But BTW, glad to see Turtler is back after a too long an absence!
Time to shovel the snow.
The Russophiles on the “right” are quite something indeed.
==
You’ll recall that the editor of Chronicles (Thos. Fleming) turned his magazine into a press agency for violent Serb revanchists. A very peculiar thing to do for a publication whose editorial line had been that nothing going on outside the United States was of interest to anyone inside the United States. Over the next several years, the audited circulation of the publication fell by 70%. Now have a gander at a related crew of people who post at the Unz Review. The political odyssey of Ron Unz has been most peculiar. The content of Unz was ten years ago peculiar. Now it’s lunatic and its more conventional posters (Mr. Sailer and Mr. Derbyshire) are posting at Substack and winding down their activity there.
Karmi:
“The world”? You mean the people who write newspapers, or consider themselves the intelligentsia? You haven’t a clue what “the world” thinks, or what Trump’s legacy will be. Nor do they, nor do I. But I can guarantee that part of his legacy will be about what actually ends up happening in Ukraine, not what his opening moves were.
Turtler, way to much to respond to, but I will say I’ve found GROK 2 (the free one on X) to be pretty reliable. At least as reliable as Google search.
I didn’t recognize all the names on the list it provided, but I’m fairly confident I could find statements of existential threat. After all when dealing with questions of fact, GROK is just compiling lists from internet sources. When the information is questionable GROK adds caveats.
Is it better than GhatGTP or others? No idea. I’ve only used GROK a few times because it’s free and easy to access. I had some questions about the medicine I’m taking and found the information provided by GROK to be reliable and helpful.
I usually use the internet smell test for any information search. “Is it plausible?” Works for me.
Couple of reasons why it’s time to end the war and why I think Ukraine can’t sustain the war (and are likely to collapse before Russia).
Rather than lower the draft age to 18 (which Zaluznyi wanted to do in 2023/24) they are moving 50,000 soldiers from other services to the infantry to allow for rotations and to reinforce troop levels. Lowering the draft age would have given Ukraine access to an additional 500,000 soldiers.
Right now Ukraine is offering up to $24,000 signing bonuses, interest free mortgages and free college to enlistees, which has caused some controversy with the troops that have been fighting for multiple years and got nothing for it other than the feeling they were defending their country.
Most people will recognize Ukraine has a manpower shortage on the frontlines. They have been able to maintain a dwindling infantry since it does take fewer soldiers to defend a position than to attack. But it is having an effect.
Russia gained 530 sq km of territory in 2023.
Russia gained 4,000 sq km of territory in 2024.
They have gained 400 sq km in Jan. 2025, which would put them on target for 4-5000 sq km in 2025.
Yes that’s pretty meager, but it’s the type of war Russia wages. And they are battling for final control of several key hubs that would give them the high ground going forward and could make gains faster.
I don’t argue that the war is a stalemate (it’s not but not worth the argument). But it does indicate that the Ukraine’s manpower shortage is real.
Ukraine’s GDP in 2024 is $190 billion– but 57% of that is government spending. The per capita GDP is $5,000 or so. Once the war is settled and the border is opened there is a risk of increased emigration. Ukrainian nationalism may be at play and many of the Ukrainians that fled when the war started may return.
But the numbers aren’t good.
Ukraine is going to need significant economic aid– which is why Trump’s positive response to the idea of being repaid for aid to Ukraine by Ukrainian natural resources may partly be cover to allow the US to remain supportive and involved in Ukraine (though not in a military role).
Neo:
Please stop telling me what I know or meant or believe or mean or etc. 🙂
BTW, I meant those not cloaked in blinders and their TCS Cloaks, when I said the World. Yes, newspapers throughout the World saw and felt the instantaneous impulse, but were clearly not the first.
There is no excuse for what President Trump did…that’s all I have to say about that, and have moved to new posts by you.
Karmi:
You write “Please stop telling me what I know or meant or believe or mean or etc.”
First of all, neither I nor anyone else can respond to comments without referring to what the person has said, and reacting in terms of their interpretation of what is said.
Secondly, please stop telling me what to do or not do.
Thirdly, I actually merely asked you a question. This is what I wrote:
You certainly are able to answer that question and explain what you meant.
I continued:
My point – if you actually read what I wrote – is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone has a clue how this will end up. That isn’t about what you, personally, think or don’t think. It’s about how any conclusion about what “the world” will ultimately think is premature at this point.
“TCS,” whatever.
Whatever Putin gets out of the deal, it will be a victory in the sense of Hanson’s “Russia’s Way of War”.
His reason not to try it again is…lengthy discussions on Neo. That’ll show him.
Richard Aubrey: a Pyrrhic victory. If the deal is what we think it’s going to be (and that remains to be seen), Putin will have gained approximately 20% of Ukraine’s pre-war territory at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Russian dead and wounded, a degraded and depleted Russian military, a crippled economy, an even worse demographic situation (and it was already very bad before the war), the collateral loss of an important client state in the Middle East, the prospect of a mutually beneficial trade relationship between Ukraine and a resurgent United States, and a bigger (Finland and Sweden), stronger (more defense spending by the Europeans), and more vigilant NATO. He has also exposed Russia’s weakness to his “allies”, especially China.
We have pointed to parallels between the war in Ukraine and the Soviet-Finnish wars of 1939-1940 (the Winter War) and 1941-1944 (the Continuation War). The Soviet Union gained some of Finland’s pre-war territory (the Karelian Isthmus) but got badly bloodied in the process and never showed any desire to repeat the experience. Some nuts aren’t worth cracking, even in the Russian Way of War. My guess–and it is just a guess–is that that’s what we’ll see with Ukraine.
So there is a home invasion and the invader finds a woman and rapes and abuses her. Then the ‘authority’ arrives and says he will make a deal which will make both parties unhappy but there will be peace. The deal? Well, the invader gets to keep the house and his crimes will be wiped of the slate but alas for him he will have to let the woman go. The woman is free (and what’s the slut complaining about).
There was a German chancellor in WW1 who said something that treaties are nothing but a piece of paper. It got quit the negative reaction. Well, Ukraine for example had a 2004 treaty with ruSSia about the frontiers. Putler just tore that up in 2014 and further in 2022/09 (which means that any new treaty with ruSSia isn’t worth the paper it is written on). I would think that a full restoration of Ukraine’s pre-2014 frontiers would be a sine quo non before there was even talk ‘peace deals’, but no now it seems that the USA is of the same mind as Putler and company regarding treaties and international law and just common human decency.
Much is made of the ‘will of the people’ in Crimea (*) but nothing of it in the occupied/annexed oblasts, nothing of the will of the ‘will of the people’ of the occupied oblasts yet in every one there is (or was until 2014) an Ukrainian majority with only local ruSSian majorities mainly in Donetsk and Luhansk. Another thing the Putler appeasers have no problem with.
Ukraine is fighting for its existence but can’t ‘defeat’ ruSSia. Well, it was Ukraine and international support which was opposing ruSSia though, alas and to the “world’s” shame, Ukraine alone doing the fighting. Ukraine didn’t need to completely reconquer its territory, ruSSia should be forced to give it up in the end (the Germans still occupied Denmark when surrendering. I believe they are gone by now (/s)). Well, until a backstabber proposing a ‘peace deal’ implies surrendering territory (and you but to look at the map to what a strategic disaster surrendering those 4 annexed oblasts means). Rewarding the murderer for making the effort so to speak.
Trump has something to say about the evil of Hamas. I do agree with him. But ruSSia invaded Ukraine with no justification at all, caused the death of tens of thousands Ukrainians, lied all the time, uses his own troops and ‘loaned’ one as cattle, committed war crimes & committed ethnic cleansing and that means nothing to Trump and company? The hypocrisy is sickening. You must really think Ukrainians are but Untermenschen.
If Trump and company criticises the Europeans that they haven’t done enough I agree with them as an European. For instance,I see no reason whatsoever that European countries couldn’t intervene directly within Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders from the beginning. Imagine if the Ukrainians had had air support in their 2023 offensive. But if Trump makes that ‘deal’ with Putler and works with Putler as if nothing criminal happened or was unacceptable (in fact, becomes a kind of partner with North Korea via Putler) then as far as I’m concerned he is worse then Hamas since a traitor is always worse the more so if agree with much he is doing because he defiles it.
Ps. About me. I’m Flemish and have been following your blog from 2004/05 on until somewhere in 2022. I even commented from time to time. I stopped following just because of how people I previously admired were making an 9/1939 level of evil acceptable ( I kept reading Streiff of Red State but even he has gone mainly silent on Ukraine since the elections). I never could have dreamed before 2022 that it would be a sustainable minority of republicans who would act like Putler’s quislings and now Trump himself. You once posted an article about a WW2 photograph of a bunch of women having a day out, women working in the administration of a extermination camp. As far as I’m concerned america can now photoshop itself into that picture. I never was anti-American. I now am.
(*) According to the 2001 census ‘russians’ were a 58.5% majority. Now its overwhelmingly russian only. Genocide pays.
*spit*
Much is made of the ‘will of the people’ in Crimea (*) but nothing of it in the occupied/annexed oblasts, nothing of the will of the ‘will of the people’ of the occupied oblasts yet in every one there is (or was until 2014) an Ukrainian majority with only local ruSSian majorities mainly in Donetsk and Luhansk. – PhilD
Here is a paper about attitudes in the Donbas post Maidan that goes into detail about a variety of issues, but to answer your question that was asked “separate from Ukraine/Join Russia”– 29% supported, 14% uncertain, 52% opposed.
But that doesn’t mean attitudes were favorable towards Ukraine. When asked “join the Eurasian Customs Union”– 68% were in favor, 10% were uncertain, 10% opposed. A similar percentage “oppose radical nationalists/Right Sector is a threat”.
I think you can read the paper at the link.
Author is Elise Giuliano. The work was supported by a Tymkiw Ukrainian Studies Faculty Research Grant and Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Who supported separatism in Donbas? Ethnicity and popular opinion at the start of the Ukraine crisis
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1447769
PhilD @ February 15, 2025 at 10:58 am
I have made the same analogy here. Great comment, with some exceptions. Came to this blog around June (?) of 2024, and it seems that most here agree that America should continue to help Ukraine.
Most excellent point. As I recall, Ukraine has never asked for other nations to provide Troops/boots on the ground, and had only wished that someone would’ve provided air support. Air Support should’ve definitely been sent to help soon after the 2022 reinvasion by Russia, IMHO.
Another most excellent point. Trump has apparently been forced by American & European opinion to backtrack on his original opening offer of handing Ukraine over to Russia.
Ditto on sdferr’s *spit*.
Most American’s back helping Ukraine—otherwise President Trump wouldn’t have backtracked (flip-flopped for those who don’t like backtracked) from his opening offer in the negotiations to ‘Second Buddy’ Putin.
Well at least Yanukovitch didn’t come into Brian E’s response, citing a study from before the 2022 invasion. 2022 was after Vlad had used 8 years of Russian force to effectively control the Donbas. Boots and Little Green Men on the ground have their uses. Inconceivable.
Russia now attacks the Chernobyl 4 contamination control structure (Shahed drone attack) while a European summit about Ukraine/military security is underway. Talk about own goal Vlad.
Yeah, negotiation terrorist regimes comes to mind.
What do I know about Europe? I lived in England from 8-11 years old. America had to send Troops to save it – TWICE!?! England has be a great Ally. French are backstabbers. Germany is often worse than a backstabber since we saved it from being Russian. Poland is great! Happy to see those two new European countries join NATO recently—Finland and Sweden, I believe.
Yeah, Europe is sorta a pain, IMHO, even England at times.
Wonder how many Americans know or care where “Flemish” is? Had to look that one up, but thought it might be Finland connected. Nope, Flemish isn’t even a country—apparently. Had to ask ChatGPT about it:
Don’t know much about Belgium either – other than neo blog commenter—a new anti-American PhilD—apparently lives there. 😉
except the invasions happened under obama, and biden, if we go farther back czechoslovakia and afghan incursions happened under democrats, the Prague invasion was probably precursor of the Afghan and the Chechen interventions,
the former involved 500,000 troops including a sizable Warsaw pact element,
but that was a different era,
it will take time to rebuilt and root out the more noxious elements of the apparat, that has grown like a Kraken not only the military but the intelligence services,
the only thing more intractable then the middle east fracas is the ones in Central Asia and the Caucasus, we have a handle on that, we’re kind of busy with our own internal enemies, in academia in media, in the greater metropolis, the dark deeds of mssrs schwab, and milliband and the like allies of the greater brotherhood alliance, and marxist elements like the so called Antifa and BLM, I’m still kind of dumb founded how an actual terrorist
like Susan Rosenberg
managed to cause so much havoc, probably a footnote in the update of the menagerie that Rufo describes, with Bell and Davis and Marcuse,
whose tendrils are deep into the soil of the educational establishment, large swaths of corporate America, still and other aspects, the Reconquista the Al Hijra the Chinese 100 year plan, directed currently by Xi
you have to go back to 1956, with Hungary, to see where non intervention happened, at least in Europe or the Middle East, of course that was also the era of suez canal, which might have been a bullet we dodged, the brits the fFrench and the us were planning on using muslim brotherhood elements, backed by descendants of the al Banna clan, the Ramadans to topple Nasser, that wouldn’t have worked out very well, it would have been like the 2010 Arab spring, two generations early,
Nasser’s victory prefigured the MSA and other elements own ‘walk through the institutions’ which rotted into the street protests not only in the Country, but much of the so called Anglosphere, the other hydra head of Al Queda’s mission,
Karmi
To quote a US senator, Putin can say, “It worked, didn’t it?” The costs you laid out are part of the Russian Way of War. Goes with the territory.
I believe it was when things were going badly in Russia that Napoleon said, “The French women will give me another army shortly.”
That was before birth control, I suppose.
My point is that Europe needs to look so incredibly menacing that even a Russian with all of Russian history at his back might quail at attacking it. But, getting there looks like a threat to Russia so….
This situation is not going to be stable short of Putin and two dozen of his closest advisers being defenestrated by….I have no idea who might think differently.
What if China wants to tune its army to combat? Need some real-life maneuvers, right? Find out which officers can deal, that sort of thing?
Impossible!
My point is we need to do more than deter Russia in our view of what would deter a rational nation, using our view of rational. We need to be able, going along for years, to destroy a Russian move when it starts. That’s different. It means forces forward so that the Russian get nothing at all from the start to the finish, nothing about which to negotiate. Nothing we need to recapture–or negotiate over.
Richard Aubrey
Yeah, I gave the Russians a second chance after Gorbachev ‘n Reagan gave them a way out of their External Expansion MO history. No more tho…
Excellent point. Still, Putin has screwed up, and now Europe has a…a…a what, a one-thousandth chance? 😉
Yeah, I didn’t pay attention to Russia’s ‘Expansions‘ – barely even notice Crimea, and never paid any attention to their other maneuverings in Ukraine after that even. Russian people have made their bed by supporting Putin, and they can all die as far as I am concerned.
Yes, the Ukrainians have shown us how weak the Russian military was, thanks to Putin’s foolish reinvasion. Just that info alone is worth 10 times more than America, NATO, and the EU have given Ukraine over these almost three years, IMHO.
Russia shouldn’t be given Ukraine or even a hint of a second chance…not even a hint of one.
@Richard Audrey
Agreed, but vice versa as well. I feel a lot of people have heard about Russia being invaded or conquered and the horrible trauma that entailed, but not as much that the very term Russia originates from the naval traders, raiders, and invaders that came to rule over the land as a foreign (if assimilating) ruling class and their audacity. Both are part of the Russian story, and the Russian character.
We can also say the same about the inverse, and in any case these things tended to stick around in the government and military doctrine and ultimately the culture a lot. And while it may not “even-up” it certainly seems.
Ah, that makes sense. Though that fits somewhat more given how Spain tended to lack the kind of prosperous mid level villages/towns/cities in a similar way to how Eastern Europe does, and for similar reasons (warfare, raiding, and scorched Earth).
Agreed. And I’d honestly be willing to argue that pasturing in the locals’ has never entirely stopped. And even advanced Western militaries tend to billet or requisition local buildings.
To some degree, though having a bunch of engineers there helped.
I agree it does not subtract from the Russian fear per se, but it does put it in perspective. It also I think points to how well before it became common for outsiders to invade a crucial component of exerting authority and geopolitical strategy in the Rus was exacting tribute (whether from one’s own “core” people or tributaries like the Drevlians), which was used for both the aggrandizement of the ruler and his elite and the public. I think it also speaks to how prior to the conflicts with the Steppes there was relatively little risk of the other side “hitting back”; with Sviatoslav being able to contemplate adventures that seem to us as absurd (and honestly probably were) in large part because he could count on a decently order court.
Indeed, and the Bavarians still have remarks about his conduct with the harrying.
Agreed there, and also is one reason why the ability to go by water or by horses (or both) could help. The ability to go a hundred miles in a day was remarkable and terrifying, and it still is today, and it was one reason why logistics out East often looked very different than those out West and would for the most part well into the 1700s, with major effects.
Indeed, but that’s also why you generally have reserve horses to ride on while leaving the tired horses behind to recover.
Agreed, but understanding both helps.
Fair, but I think it is even more rational to conclude that this is less about preparing to rebel an invasion so much as to reassert hegemony and crush unruly people who “should” “rightfully” be tributaries. And while the “invade to prevent invasion/strategic depth” argument is more appealing and what we’d expect the regime to use, it’s worth noting the idea of Russian greatness and empire are also cited, especially domestically.
And I think this is particularly clear from the Kremlin, where whatever other baggage or doctrines they are doing, they picked this fight and act like they are VERY CONFIDENT that they will not be invaded in the intermediate future, and can count on this by things like not reacting much to the Scandinavian expansion of NATO (which admittedly in part is because they don’t have the resources to), diverting forces from as far afield as Kola and Kamchatka to fight in Ukraine due to the absence of trained manpower (which would leave those regions underdefended if the West were preparing to storm ashore).
Honestly I think it might depend. Especially if they cannot make good the losses involved, and they will take at least a couple decades to even have a chance for that.
His reason to not try it again is that he is running critically low on so much, most crucially manpower he can field (whether in the factories or in the field), and also hurting in resources and especially equipment. This gets concealed in part due to how the Russian military outnumbers and generally has more equipment than Ukraine and most other nations 1-1, but they know better than most that this will take quite a lot of time to patch up and occupy.
That doesn’t make it a good idea.
Again, losses mean something other to Hanson’s view of Russia. And three years will bring the high school grads into military age.
We might have a “perspective” of how the Russians see things. But that’s not necessarily how the Russians see things.
Reserve horses is a good idea. But feeding the ones you have, not to mention the ones hauling wagons, is enough of a problem if you can’t pasture them in somebody else’s standing grain. So that’s what you do. You do know what a “forage cap”? They were just stopping calling the casual baseball cap for the troops that in the Sixties. And a “forage pack”. It’s a light basket, quite deep, with shoulder straps. Can carry a good many types of provisions including fodder.
There’s no provision for paying for the stuff.
@PhilD
It’s sad when I actually agree with much of what you have to say and am angered in many of the places you do, and *THEN* you spoil much of it by asserting how you are now “anti-American” and fucking up. You want to speak of hypocrisy as a Fleming? Let’s. But you probably won’t like how this will boil down.
I’m sorry, but at the risk of saying this: would you kindly explain what you were doing were you around the times of January 2022, 2021, 2014, 2008, and 1992?
And what you were demanding your legal authorities and their allies were?
Because it’s amusing how you single out “Americans” for this when that is staggering hypocrisy in its own right, and while hypocrisy can be the alimony vice pays to virtue it’s worth remembering that the US rarely acted alone (and when it WAS, it was demonized for unilateralism).
I think my record here speaks for itself. I am among the strongest of the Ukraine hawks on this blog. I am supportive of Trump and his cabinet, even now, but I am not going to pretend he can do no wrong or that this is right. I have challenged and condemned Kremlin apologia and other talking points time and again, and elsewhere I even was trusted with moderatorship over a Steam hub literally titled “Slava Ukraini.” If you wish to claim that I have not done enough, that MAY be fair but I have done far more than most here.
And I would be willing to gamble I have done far more than you (I certainly could be wrong there, but still).
Which is why I ask you how many years of misrule, how many imprisoned American dissidents, and how many abrogations of the US Constitution were we supposed to accept on behalf of Ukraine? I have made my stance clear from the start. I even say grudgingly nice things about Bandera because – as awful as he was – he was by far the lesser evil of WWII. But I am an American patriot, and I will place America’s freedom first in much the same way I expect Ukrainians would theirs.
In any case, you don’t get to the point of accepting 9/1939 levels of evil if you do not accept 1938, 1937, 1936, and 1931 levels of evil without adequate counter. Which is exactly what has happened. Though frankly given the evil and sickness present in much of the world from the US, Europe, and elsewhere such as the mass rapes, murders, and others in places like Southport with the complicit horrors of the supposedly democratically elected and constitutional governments, even many of the evils that happened on those years pale even in spite of the prodigious efforts of people such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Jiang, and so forth.
And the EU and European members of NATO have at least as much fault in that as the US and Trump.
But don’t believe me!
Spare me the faux moralization. Your casual and grotesque abuse of the term Quisling robs it of the weight it has. Trump is no Quisling, and at worst he has been an appeaser (sadly one of SEVERAL *AND BY ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NO SANE OR HONEST MEASURE THE WORST*).
As for “never could have dreamed before 2022 that it would be a sustainable minority of republicans who would act like?” I had to deal with the fact that a small but self perpetuating number on both sides were deeply beholden to at a minimum appeasement of the likes of the Kremlin and even worse.
Note I say BOTH SIDES as well as others.
Because this is something you might have understood if you paid attention, and even this Soros Rag Front Group on Ukraine understood:
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/11/03/reuters-new-german-leftist-bsw-party-threatens-pro-ukraine-stance-in-eastern-state-coalitions/
https://euromaidanpress.com/2015/01/27/greek-left-wing-syriza-forms-a-coalition-with-the-pro-kremlin-far-right/
Among others.
https://x.com/almostjingo/status/1584646059245961217
I’ve known about the presence of these fuckers for YEARS. Indeed, going on two decades in many cases.
OH FUCK OFF. YOU AND YOUR COUNTRY ALMOST CERTAINLY ARE MORE WORTHY OF BEING POSTED INTO THAT PHOTO THAN EVEN TRUMP IS.
I do not say that lightly, but I do say it. Especially since the US Took pains to lessen ties to Russia, and indeed it was largely the Democrats like the previous Biden Admin that reached out to Kremlin sidepieces such as PSUV run Venezuela.
Anyway, what happened in – to cite just one example – 2008?
Well, the Kremlin took advantage of Georgia’s involvement in fighting in Iraq to provoke a war through proxy goons in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, attacking on such a level that the Georgians (under an admittedly mercurial and hot blooded and arrogant politician like Saakashvilli) would HAVE to respond with military force or lose all credibility at a time when he lacked the best an most modern of the already outmatched and outnumbered Georgian military. Which Putin responded with positioning troops there to quickly crush it.
In spite of efforts by that Cowboy Dubya Bush to bring Georgian troops home to Georgia posthaste and even sending American troops in to create a tripwire around Tbilisi, the Kremlin defeated, humiliated, and victimized Georgia in a few days, in effect spreading what happened and spreading ethnic cleansing further. Now, what did the Free World do? And in particular the European Union and governments that you are represented in such as Belgium and the Netherlands?
THIS ABSOLUTE SHIT.
https://www.ceiig.ch/Report.html
“Conveniently” ignored by the EU and its ilk – including by you – is that Tagliavini had grotesque and troubling conflicts of interest due to ties to the Russian Federation, and while they look positively banal compared to several others that we have covered here like MacGregor and the Duran Dicks, they were ultimately far more damning.
Also telling is that she would go on to help chair the “Trilateral Commission” in Ukraine and was one of the midwives behind the Minsk Farce forced upon Ukraine largely due to Western and especially European appeasement.
https://johnschindller.livejournal.com/13372.html
To make matters worse, the 2008 elections turfed in Obama, who blamed Bush for ruining relations with Putin and ran on an expressly pro-appeasement platform that emphasized closer coordination with the likes of Germany, France, and other major EU heavyweights. He won that election, as did most of the major parties involved. The infamous “Reset Button” with Clinton and Obama and Lavrov is more famous, but it was ultimately a trailing effect of what happened earlier.
In Georgia the message was received loud and clear: Do not expect any major European or NATO power to stick their necks out for you and be rewarded. Do not expect an impartial assessment and punishment for the aggressor. Do not expect your blood sacrifice in Afghanistan and Iraq to be rewarded (something I note also was shared by Ukrainians and Moldovans). Which is a major part as to why Saakashvili was turfed out of office in favor of an even more corrupt and authoritarian party expressly advocating appeasement.
And the message was also received in the Kremlin: Moscow had gotten away with murder again and gotten the EU to effectively condone it by vacillation. If there were any justice in the world the Tagliavini Report would be held in even more disdain than the Lytton Report, since while politicized and corrupted and under undue influence to moderate its tone and content to whitewash the aggressor, Lord Lytton and the others AT LEAST MANAGED TO CORRECLTY IDENTIFY THE AGGRESSOR, THE START OF THE WAR, AND WHY THE AGGRESSOR’S STATED CASUS BELLI DID NOT ADD UP.
Now, did you direct a fraction of the fire towards there?
So guess what happened almost exactly half a decade after? Putin- buoyed by victory in Georgia like he had been in Syria and the ongoing frozen peace in Moldova and by the Regionnaire electoral victory (even WITHOUT endemic fraud like what triggered the Orange Revolution) – figured he could drive a hard bargain and demand Yanukovych first cut off any talk of the EU Association Agreement, and then encouraged him to quash the ensuing protests. Which as we know spiraled out of control and led Putin to decide that when confronted with Western “Leadership” such as Obama and Frau Tagliavini, he could roll the dice and send state sponsored terrorists and even entire military units into Ukraine on the flimsiest of pretexts and either not get called on it.
He slightly miscalculated, but only slightly. The Ukrainian military was torn by division but faced with unprovoked attacks on it in barracks driving many previously pro-Russian members to fight, it fought hard. The “International Community” did indeed recognize that the barely disguised Russian military personnel and state sponsored terrorists engaging in fraudulent elections in Crimea were in fact Russian state assets and sanctioned them, but did NOT conclude the almost identical MOs in the Donbas were so.
And when faced with the prospect of the war pushing Europe and others to take a harder line, decided to try and force a “peace” that did not solve the matter at Minsk, with the laughable pretext that the Russian dictatorship was a neutral arbiter and the troops fighting in it (often with identifiable dog tags and names) were “merely” local separatists. And to add insult to injury, Obama and the Democrats helped cut off lethal aid to Ukraine to try and force Ukraine to abide by the terms (which Trump restored, which I imagine you will overlook). What might have been a military response to defend Ukraine in 2014 wasn’t as the “International Community” failed AGAIN.
And I could go on.
But to what credit I will give Obama, he was one of several Presidents that demanded like Trump did that Europe’s NATO members meet their 2% “recommended” military spending, and generally got very little respect for it. Likewise, Trump pointed out how irresponsible it was to become dependent on Russian gas just because it was convenient and because Herr Schroeder wanted to get his deals. He was mocked, much like you had a parade of demonization for the US in general regarding Iraq and Afghanistan (where I note in the former there was widespread refusal to acknowledge the depths of Saddam’s sponsorship of terrorism and violation of the Gulf War Ceasefire resolution and STILL Is in Europe and elsewhere, because fuck if we have Iraqi documents tying Saddam’s intelligence to one of OBL’s main money men and we have the Philippines having to Persona Non Grata a bunch of Saddam’s embassies due to their habit of hiding freaking ABU SAYYAF in them).
(And by the way this is and was one of my bigger grievances with Trump and the isolationist wings of the US and elsewhere in general. But one reason that happened is because of how politically impossible it became to make a public, concerted defense of things like Iraq and Afghanistan due to the media mess).
Actually that was Chancellor Bethmann-Hollwegg, and
A: He was specifically referring to the Treaty of London in 1839, not treaties as a whole. And when you compare the Treaty of London in 1839 with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 the parallels are even more striking.
https://scottmanning.com/content/treaty-of-london-1839/
https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/files/policymemos/files/2-23-22_ukraine-the_budapest_memo.pdf?m=1645824948
Suffice it to say the Kanzler gave far more credence to other treaties such as those between Germany and Austria-Hungary, and even more to unspoken (and probably illegal even for the time) agreements.
B: Sadly, Bethmann-Hollwegg turned out to be a MODERATE by the standards of WWI German Militarists. Which is a major reason why in spite of being one of the major political and diplomatic architects of the First World War, prime author of the September Programme, and guilty of numerous sins for his Kaiser he was ultimately turfed out; because he was deemed “too soft”, too pessimistic, and too conciliatory.
In a backdrop of the fact that Austria-Hungary had already declared a war of aggression (and ultimately extermination) on Serbia and Germany then declared wars of aggression on Russia and France before invading Luxembourg and Belgium. So it was a lot easier to condemn German arrogance and perfidy when you were already at war with Germany or (in the case of Britain) weeks at most away from joining the war anyway.
But I imagine had Wilhelm II and Prinz Philipp von Eulenberg and Bethmann-Hollwegg had the wisdom to position themselves as friends, not give comically unhinged and two faced interviews to foreign newspapers, and spent less money on a White Elephant Grand Battle Fleet and more on foreign attaches, lobbyists, and trade deals to cut deals in Moscow and London, and had the wisdom to try to conjure up an excuse to strike at Belgium or Serbia in calmer times, they might have had better reactions.
Or at a minimum wouldn’t have primarily been opposed by people who they had already declared war on. Ironically the ultimate failure of the Central Powers diplomatically and their stigmatization came not because of some vaunted International Community or altruistic adherence to treaties but because of their own horrible PR and public glorification of “frightfulness” and public anger in neutral countries of their threats and outright attacks.
And even then, scarcely a generation later, the son of Albert the Great resisted in his constitutional role as commander in chief but then refused to continue fighting on or evacuate and went on to live in a gilded cage as quasi-collaborator, while many of his inner circle like Henri de Man (who had fought in the trenches of WWI) outright went the whole way into shilling for the Nazis. And they were HARDLY the only ones.
This isn’t convenient for the “Good Defense of Belgium in WWI, Bad Trump for Ukraine” narrative. But then reality usually is.
Among many others, like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
Where I note that it was agreed by not merely the US and Russia but also Ukraine and the UK. And yet how many actually went for there>
Tell me something I *DIDN’T* know, and haven’t known since at least 2008.
Oh how quaint.
Five words:
2015. Minsk. Minsk. OSCE. Steinmeier.
Funny how you do not mention these things.
I have grave issues with Trump and how his staff have handled this. Which makes it even MORE GALLING when you realize that *This is FAR FROM THE WORST HANDLING OF THE ISSUE BY WESTERN LEADERS OR EVEN BY A US PRESIDENT.*
You may not LIKE to acknowledge that FACT because it is easier to blame the USA rather than look in the mirror (as I have tried to do both, hence my criticism of Trump and others). But that does not make it any less true. The US has spent almost my entire life openly at war following 9/11, as have many of its allies. For that it has been heartily condemned for reasons both just and unjust, while many elsewhere especially in Europe rode high on peace dividends and shunned talks of taking a hard line against criminality in the Kremlin.
I think Trump’s response in this case is wrong, but I can understand why. Not just because at home the US has faced a terrifying, anti-constitutional series of crimes justified by a great big lie of “Russia Collusion” that saw American Citizens illegally detained and kept in conditions worse than we kept the architects of 9/11, but also because of how the Dems would go from mocking any attempt to stand against the major totalitarians or terrorists to using them as a scare chord to justify usurpations at home.
And ultimately it is folly to invest in countries that will not invest in their own cause. Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics have. But that does not apply to a distressing amount of Europe and the Free World.
PS: You blather about the USA being “of the same mind” with Putin, but have you protested to demand measures against the regimes that ACTUALLY ARE OF THE SAME MIND AS PUTIN? That your home government STOP TRADING WITH CASTROTIE CUBA (AS IT ALMOST CERTAINLY IS)? That it refuse to do business with Venezuela?
I have not done that much in the grand scale of things. But I absolutely have done more than most, as paltry as that may be. How many of your fellow Flemish can say the same, or the political sewer in Brussels?
Agreed, though I’d also note that “Russian” does not necessarily mean loyalty to the invader. A great many “Russians” on those census info fight on Ukraine’s side (and indeed they were behind most of the defenders of places like Mariupol and still are in places like greater Avdiivka), to say nothing of the exiles and defectors and guerillas.
(Which is also why I see little value in using “RuSSian” as a blanket term for the entire nationality and ethnicity).
Which is where we get to one of the things that actually enrages me the most of what you wrote, my friend Phil.
I could swap out Ukraine for Georgia and send this back in time to 2008 or so and have literally no differences.
And Putin and his ilk should die in agony, and the dead claimed by the war should rise again and go back to live. And someone should resurrect Prigozhin so that he may be killed by sledgehammer as he murdered so many others.
But what SHOULD be is different from what IS or CAN be.
Flensburg called.
Again, I could shift this back to 2022 and post it unchanged, and back to 2015 and post it almost unchanged.
Agreed there.
It meant even less to Biden and Obama when they engaged in their “Reset”, and especially all of the scumsuckers behind Minsk I and II (hosted in the capital of Putin’s Soviet Relic ally in a “Union State”). Trump at least decided to reopen lethal aid after it was shut down as part of his attempt to rouse the EU and NATO to act.
And how much did that get him?
Yes, yes it is. And it is one of many grounds I chew on Trump for.
Then by logic so must every signatory of Minsk I and II, in a similar way to the “intermediaries” behind the “ceasefires” in Georgia and Moldova. Which really isn’t that much different from the truth I reckon.
On that much we agree there.
Unfortunately the issue wasn’t so much that European and other allied countries couldn’t intervene directly, but *DIDN’T*. For various reasons.
THEN BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION THE GREAT MAJORITY OF EUROPE’S LEADERS AND EVEN PEOPLE *ARE* OR AT LEAST *HAVE BEEN* SUCH “TRAITORS” AND WORSE THAN HAMAS, PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY AGREED TO OR EVEN HELPED FORCE THROUGH PRECISELY SUCH DEALS, AND USUALLY WITHOUT EVEN A FRACTION OF THE JUSTIFICATION WITH WHICH TRUMP HAS.
And again, I say this as someone who *OPPOSES* Trump on this.
But no, even this would not make Trump a “Traitor.” Which is doubtless why we have to hear echoes of the Russia Collusion or Putin Puppet narrative to try and claim it. Trump first and foremost owes allegiance to the United States of America and its Constitution. AS MUCH AS I WOULD PREFER OTHERWISE, that takes precedence over outright alliances, let alone Budapest.
And apparently your political class agrees, given how they have acted.
I don’t have to like that and neither do you. But it does show what it is.
Moreover, Trump at least has the justification that the PRC and demographic collapse are a greater threat, that the Russia Scare Card was used to help collapse American constitutionalism at home, and that a world war benefits just about nobody.
What’s the excuse of people – and I use that term lightly – like Mutti Merkel and Frau Tagliavini?
Not because it attacks Trump or the US or me, actually. Though I have plenty of reason to be angry. But because your strawman is ACTUALLY LESS GROTESQUE THAN WHAT WAS *ALLOWED* TO HAPPEN AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS BEFORE TRUMP ENTERED POLITICS.
Oh sweet PhilD, you naïve babe, *I CAN ONLY IMAGINE WHAT SOME COUNTRIES WOULD GIVE TO BE ABLE TO UPGRADE TO THAT!!!*
Because the norm for “deals” with the Kremlin has been even worse than that.
The invader and rapist gets his crimes ignored, gets possession of the house, gets the gratification of having “Struggle Snuggled” the victim, and has The Authority declare that *not only is the Victim not Free to Go, she must remain within a certain proximity to the victimizer and the house that was formerly owned by them, must not seek police protection, and must pay back the vicitmizer.*
Sounds fucked up, right? Well it is. Who would actually do that?
Well, uh… just ask Moldova and Georgia. As horrible as the violent ethnic cleansing and murders in Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia would be, as humiliating as being victim blamed and defeated alone by the neighborhood thug is, they can’t even get away. Precisely because NATO does not permit nations to begin to join with existing territorial disputes (which is understandable all things considered), and the EU looks askance too in spite of not being a military.
Meaning that Georgia and Moldova can’t get the help they need to win, can’t break even, and can’t even cut their losses and leave the game. Is there any question why the government in Georgia now is called “Georgian Dream” and one of their primary party platforms is appeasement of the Kremlin?
I will not say Trump and Hesgeth’s “proposal” for Ukraine is better, indeed I criticized it viciously here. But the sad, sick fact of the matter is?
IT’S A HELL OF A LOT CLOSER TO THE NORM WHEN DEALING WITH KREMLIN BULLYING THAN WE WOULD WANT TO ADMIT.
And usually without a fraction of the pressures or justifications.
Sadly the figures are still better than in elsewhere like South Ossetia and East Prigorodny. So expect this to get worse, much worse. I certainly do, and it’s one reason why I have been so scathing of Trump and co here. But I’ve also been scathing of the left and others here (even if I do not focus as much condemnation of them as I do on the Kremlin and its ilk)
My record has been quite clear and consistent for years and I can prove it. I condemn this proposal now for reasons similar to why I condemned Minsk and the 2008 Results. I am not perfect, far from it, indeed my willingness to accept such evil as a balance to trying to save my country’s homefront is a profound indictment of me. But I at least will not pretend that this is a chimera, that Trump is worse than Hamas and is a Quisling, and that this is somehow New.
PS: Funny you mention quislings, because Vidkun Quisling’s actual story is fascinating and horrifying, especially since he started out as a renowned humanitarian and man of science who faced the horrors of the Soviet Regime and post-WWI and early Bolshevik famine firsthand, working carefully with spies and diplomats under the gun to try and save lives, for which he was recognized by both a British medal and a lengthy file from the “Chekists.” He saw how the weakness of the Allies and other “International Community” members would not stomp out the Bolsheviks when they were weak and so returned to public laudation and internal brokenness, knowing that if the Bolsheviks got their way there would be another war they would start.
And as time went on – I am not sure when – he concluded that the only possible answer to the Bolshevik threat was to become a Fascist goon, and ultimately he became so twisted that by 1940 he concluded the best way to save his country of Norway from totalitarian socialist invasion was to abet the totalitarian National Socialists to overthrow his country in a coup, sending thousands of people to their deaths in his quest for grandiosity at the expense of his peoples’ constitution.
I do not write to whitewash Quisling or to apologize for him. If what he did can even be theoretically apologized for, he undeniably did not do so. He lacked even the half-sincere and incomplete remorse of scum like Hans Frank, arrogantly and inexcusably declaring to the last that he was Innocent. I dread to imagine what has become of his soul, such as it was.
However, I write to make a very clear point: Trump is far from the first Western Leader or American President to not do what was needed in the face of evil. He isn’t even the worst by a long shot. And how many marched in defense of – say – South Vietnam when it fell, unlovely and unloved government that it was and being tied to Americans anyway, under the argument that it was still better than the “romantic” revolutionary alternative?
I have called my politicians to voice my objections. I have written in depth here to oppose the Kremlin. I raise funds and argue while straitjacketed by life and health concerns. I have not done enough, not even close, but I have done more than most. How much have you done PhilD? How much do you figure your fellow Flemings have?
Turtler:
Always good to see you.
@Hubert
Agreed on the whole, though how vigilant NATO may be is reliant a fair bit on how divided it turns out to be.
This is giving them entirely too much credit. The Soviets were geared up for a world war that they largely intended to start, and Finland was on the chopping block. The experiences in the wars were hard and savage (especially for Leningrad), and it cost them a great deal, but they fully intended to go after Finland if they needed to and made plans to that effect. IT’s just that after 1944 they thought they would be able to seize control of the country more or less peacefully by using occupation troops, a puppet Finnish Communist secret police (the “Red” Vapo), and so on similar to what would happen in Hungary later on. It nearly worked, until it didn’t and by then Finland had to remain deferential to Soviet influence, hence censorship and Kekkonen running a quasi-democracy quasi-dictatorship in which he openly cited Soviet Interference as a positive thing and a reason to keep him in power.
Mercifully yes, issue is how they are evaluated.
I wish I were so sure. But Ukraine is so integral to Russian ultranationalist, Duginist “Eurasianist”, and Neo-Soviet ideologies that I really don’t see them entirely giving up on it even if they wanted to.
neo
Ditto – tho it’s better when my name isn’t at the top of one of his posts. 😉 Reading his most excellent input, instead of trying to “debate” it, is quite a learning experience for me.
I never kept up with the ‘January 2022, 2021, 2014, 2008, and 1992’ mentioned. Did get the ‘you don’t get to the point of accepting 9/1939 levels of evil if you do not accept 1938, 1937, 1936, and 1931 levels of evil without adequate counter.’
Noticed stuff like Euromaidan or the Maidan Uprising, but they quickly merged with other stuff like Orange Revolution and disappeared from thoughts. Georgia was barely a blip, but one that would keep popping back up in my thoughts—occasionally. Crimea ‘n others not even a blip. All basically written off and/or forgotten as standard Russian happenings.
Then came 2022. Russia gathering on Ukraine’s border with them. Talk about they will or will not invade. Then on 2/24/22 they actually invaded (reinvaded would be the term I later used) – long military convoys heading deep into Ukraine. Didn’t even know Kyiv was the capital of Ukraine. Figured it would soon be over for the Ukrainians, and started waiting for the Fat Lady to sing.
Then news of long military convoys being bogged down—perking my attention. Then news of these long military convoys having their military vehicles picked off. *HEY!* I thought—forget the Fat Lady because these ole’ Boys are gonna fight!?! Then their President, whom I had never heard of, gets quoted saying:
That was it for me…I was a strong supporter of Ukraine from those early times on. Can’t stand a bully.
Have also been paying steady attention to Moldova…not enough to understand what could be done, but wish more was being done…
Turtler:
Again, to echo neo, glad that you are back again.
Turtler: “This is giving them entirely too much credit.”
Eh, dunno. In my book the Finns fought the Soviet Army to a stalemate twice, in 1940 and 1944. If the Sovs could have taken Finland, they would have. They decided a re-match wasn’t worth it.
You may be right about Ukraine being different and the Russians not giving up on another go. As you suggested above, however, it will take them a while to re-build. And they’ll be facing an even harder nut.
One of the victims of the postwar communist-dominated Finnish secret police (Valpo) was legendary soldier Larry Thorne, born Lauri Allan Törni in Viipuri in 1919 (then part of Finnish Karelia, now part of Leningrad Oblast in Russia). Thorne served with the Finnish Army, the Waffen SS, the Wehrmacht, and the U.S. Army Special Forces. He was killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1965.
Thorne’s unit was so effective against the Soviets in the Continuation War that they put a bounty on his head. He was arrested by the Valpo after the war and tried for treason for having served with the Wehrmacht after the Moscow Armistice of September 1944. He escaped from Finland and made his way to the United States via South America, jumping ship and swimming to shore in Mobile Bay. He was eventually granted a residence permit by an act of Congress (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-67/pdf/STATUTE-67-PgA60.pdf) and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1954.
There were apparently a lot of Finns and Baltic emigres in the U.S. Army after WWII–sort of an American foreign legion. I worked with an Estonian American in Germany in the 1980s. His parents fled Estonia ahead of the Red Army in September 1944 and wound up in Sweden, where he was born. They emigrated to the States in the mid-1950s and settled in suburban New Jersey, right across the river from NYC. According to my former colleague, the Estonian emigre kids were big into Scouting. Many of them joined the U.S. Army and wound up in the Special Forces. My former colleague was sitting with a bunch of his buddies in a NYC bar when they were approached by some locals who recognized that they were speaking Estonian. “Hey, youse guys are Estonians!” How did they know? Army service.
Hubert
Special Forces was to organize resistance behind enemy lines, usually presumed to be in countries occupied by the enemy. So native speakers were welcome. Lots of Eastern European countries represented.