Ukraine
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Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday, saying any deal on Ukraine's future that is arranged without European involvement will be a non-starter.
“It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans, you need the Ukrainians,” Kallas told journalists on the sidelines of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting on Thursday.
“Why are we giving them [Russia] everything they want even before the negotiations have started? It's appeasement. It has never worked,” she added.
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Here is how to make it stop ...
Germany, France, the UK, and Poland need to transfer $100B of top-of-the-line equipment to Ukraine. They also need to double the size of their militaries, which will, of course, eat into civilian employment producing goods and services. They need to invest hundreds of billions into new factories to produce more of their own armaments. And they need to sign reciprocal agreements with Ukraine to put boots on the ground.
And we all know they will do none of this. Europe at present is a talk shop of moral outrage signifying nothing.
I really think that the combined militaries of Poland, Finland, Sweden, and the Baltics could defeat what remains of Russia's current military and do it in short order. Despite this advantage, they will not even offer the gear to replace lost US supplies. The combined GDP of the EU is an order of magnitude larger than Russia's. But Russia's political will is an order of magnitude larger than the EU's. There is no Churchill in the current EU who can induce people to reorient their thinking toward defense and foreign policy. Perhaps this is the downside of the longstanding US security blanket we threw over them, but frankly, they are soft. Totally soft. I still remember the Dutch military abandoning 5K Bosnians to butchery because, hey, we might have to risk combat with the Serbs. Soft. Soft. Putin knows the European Union is incapable of stopping him.
Russia will bluster and cajole its way to a tactical and strategic victory over Ukraine because of the crass withdrawal of the US (Trump in Putin's pocket), and the moral cowardice of the European Union.
If only the Bundeswehr could regain the fighting vigor (without the ideological baggage) of the Wehrmacht.
Crazy economist who likes to write about higher education.
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Strongly worded letter to follow.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a “rookie mistake” when he said a return to Ukraine’s pre-war borders was “unrealistic,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said Friday.
Hegseth on Thursday pulled back some of the comments he made about Ukraine a day earlier, where he said that NATO membership for Kyiv was off the table and that the country could not return to its internationally recognized borders.
“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line."
"I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool," Wicker said, referring to the pro-Putin broadcaster.
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Europe will be consulted – but ultimately excluded – from the planned peace talks between Russia, the US and Ukraine, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine has revealed.
Asked if Europe would be present at the planned talks, Keith Kellogg said he was from “the school of realism, and that is not going to happen”.
“It may be like chalk on the blackboard, it may grate a little bit, but I am telling you something that is really quite honest,” he said on Saturday.
“And to my European friends, I would say: get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up [defence] spending.”
Kellogg’s remarks will cause consternation among some European leaders who do not trust Trump and believe their country’s security is inextricably interwoven with the fate of Ukraine. The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had invited European leaders to Paris on Monday to discuss the situation.
Zelenskyy told Europe to avoid being abandoned at the negotiation table by Trump. “Let’s be honest – now we can’t rule out the possibility that America might say ‘no’ to Europe on issues that threaten it. Many leaders have talked about a Europe that needs its own military – an army of Europe. I believe that the time has come. The armed forces of Europe must be created.
“A few days ago, President Trump told me about his conversation with Putin. Not once did he mention that America needs Europe at that table. That says a lot. The old days are over – when America supported Europe just because it always had. Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement. And the same rule should apply to all of Europe. No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe.”
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@Piano-Dad said in Ukraine:
And we all know they will do none of this. Europe at present is a talk shop of moral outrage signifying nothing.
Saw a couple of op-eds today along those lines...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/14/donald-trump-ukraine-peace-plan-europe-britain
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Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea was a watershed moment in modern European history. The Kremlin’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought the world to the brink of World War III. With negotiations over a possible peace deal now reportedly set to begin in earnest, we are approaching a critical juncture that will shape the future of international relations for decades to come.
The author:
Ihor Smeshko is a Ukrainian politician and former head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence and Security Service.
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And another view:
The Only Viable Peace for Ukraine
Neutrality in exchange for occupied territory—with an ironclad Western defense guarantee if Russia attacks again—is the way forward.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/14/ukraine-russia-trump-putin-peace-neutrality-territory-zelensky/
The author:
Vasyl Filipchuk is a senior advisor at the International Centre for Policy Studies and served as a Ukrainian diplomat from 1997 to 2012.
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I don't think I've written this, someone was on about the Trump-Putin thing, NATO having to get it's act together because only the US, UK, and Greece(!) had made correct 'subscription' amounts.
However whatever the outcome the war, it has been disastrous for Russia:
Lost 200,000 young men plus wounded?
Brain drain exit of a million?
Foreign investments and assets frozen for the wealthy?
Further economic sanctions?
NATO actually strengthened by new countries joining out of fear of invasion?
Putin a pariah to much of the world?
Gazprom, once Russia's most profitable company lost 7billion in 2023. 2024?It has gained a miniscule amount of land, 0.04% of the whole of Russia added?
Possible mineral gains long term? -
True. Though on the flip side, the Ukrainians are probably focused on the own death and destruction in their country.
Monty Python comes to mind.
Link to videoIt's all so senseless, and because of the actions of one man.
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Keir Starmer has said he is prepared to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if there is a deal to end the war with Russia – acknowledging it could put UK forces “in harm’s way” if Vladimir Putin launches another attack.
It is understood to be the first time the prime minister has explicitly stated he is considering deploying British peacekeepers to Ukraine. The comments came just before emergency talks with European leaders in Paris on Monday.
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Trump asking Ukraine for minerals is typical. He's given less military aid than Europe and if you count humanitarian and financial then half as much.
Meanwhile there's the real worry that he negotiates something which has the same result as his Afghanistan deal. Biden inherited it and it collapsed.
Ukraine has been given just enough weapons not to lose.
Putin must be rubbing his hands together in glee at this sudden possibility to keep face, and Crimea, Donbas etc.We should be supplying and arming Ukraine with the aim of winning, regaining territory and taking easy Russian land; basically doing everything we can except providing our professional front line fighters.
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I'm about ready to lose it. What planet is he from? Can Elon send him to Mars?
President Donald Trump mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a poor negotiator and “grossly incompetent” Tuesday, as tensions continued to rise over the administration’s direct talks with Russia about ending the war it launched nearly three years ago.
Asserting that the initial round of talks had gone “very well,” Trump bristled at Zelenskyy’s frustration over being excluded and at the Ukrainian president’s decision not to fly to Riyadh for additional talks with the U.S. delegation this week.
“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited,’” Trump said when asked about criticism from Ukraine, seeming to direct his response to Zelenskyy. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/trump-blames-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-020517
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Historical allusions are always fraught. It's 2025, not 1938. On the other hand, negotiating the dismemberment of another country without that country at the table is a rather bad practice.
Something about a piece of paper that bears his name and mine ...
Link to video -
Ukrainians are not amused. And they're rallying behind Zelinskyy.
And Europe responds.
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Interview with Radosław Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland. Occurred during the Munich Conference.
Link to videoAnne Applebaum interview on Fresh Air. Conversations in her household must be pretty interesting. She's married to Sikorski...
