Russia has invaded Ukraine

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Behaving exactly as instructed by his handler.

Europe, including the UK, needs to start moving away from being so dependant on the US. Portugal seems to have started this by reconsidering their F35 procurement.

Not so easy for us in regards to the F35, we aren’t just customers, we’re Tier 1 partners with the US in the whole project.

---------- Post added at 18:02 ---------- Previous post was at 18:00 ----------

Originally Posted by pip08456

So far Ukraine are the only ones who have to make concessions even though when negotiations started it was said both would have to make consessions.

I await the first concession Russia will have to make for the Trump team. Not holding my breath though.

What concession do think he has to make?

His concession will be to stop fighting, and that’s all it needs to be.

[jfman]

Yes a lot of people don’t seem to have grasped how negotiations work for the losing side in desperate need for a way out of a war it can neither resource by manpower or firepower.

Originally Posted by Pierre

Why would you think Russia would relinquish the territory it has gained?

In return for a de facto recognition of whatever it is granted in the deal (Ukraine will never formally cede anything but it wouldn’t have to - N and S Korea are still technically at war, for example).

The fighting can’t simply stop at the current line of control if, for example, topology and existing infrastructure makes that position indefensible, or unmanageable. Obviously Putin is not going to want to cede anything of significance but he can’t snap his fingers and make Ukraine stop fighting, and frankly neither can Trump. With each passing day, European countries are waking up to the shifting strategic realities and are a day closer to plugging enough of the US’s resource gap to keep Ukraine fighting.

Ukraine simply isn’t going to sign a treaty that gives Russia everything it wants. It believes, with great justification, that it is in an existential fight for survival and won’t stop without good reason. “Sign here” is not a good reason.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by jfman

Yes a lot of people don’t seem to have grasped how negotiations work for the losing side in desperate need for a way out of a war it can neither resource by manpower or firepower.

If anyone knows how to drive a soft bargain on behalf of Ukraine, it's Trump.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...r-latest-news/

Russia bombed Ukraine energy infrastructure just hours after Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he would halt attacks on the grid.

Putin’s forces conducted an airstrike on the energy infrastructure of Slovyansk, a city of 100,000 people in the Donetsk region, according to local reports, leaving part of the city without electricity.

After what the Kremlin called a “frank” phone call with Mr Trump, the two leaders agreed that formal negotiations on a 30-day truce would begin “immediately” in the Middle East.

Putin ordered the Russian military to halt attacks on energy plants in Ukraine without delay, the Kremlin said after the 90-minute phone call ended. Soon after the call, air raid sirens wailed and explosions rang out in Ukraine.

An ‘accident’, or ‘unsanctioned’ or ‘fake’ … take your pick.

You know Putin’s lying because his lips are moving.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Chris

An ‘accident’, or ‘unsanctioned’ or ‘fake’ … take your pick.

You know Putin’s lying because his lips are moving.

Something he has in common with Trump

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

An ‘accident’, or ‘unsanctioned’ or ‘fake’ … take your pick.

You know Putin’s lying because his lips are moving.

Just take the Israeli approach. As long as you target something else nearby the collateral damage doesn’t matter.

The United Kingdom can’t even credibly call attacks on energy infrastructure, if they were to take place, as a war crime. Merely a risk of one.

Putin has no intention of stopping. He’s out on a limb, having declared the annnexation of 4 entire oblasts of Ukraine into mother Russia, which includes vast swathes of land he does not control and has no prospect of controlling in the near future. He needs the war to go on and he needs Ukraine to be starved of resources. Putin will continue to play Trump like a fiddle while he attempts to achieve that end.

The one thing he can’t control is the growing awareness within Europe of the need for a credible security architecture without American involvement. Agent Krasnov let Putin down with that little pantomime with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office because, coming right after Macron and Starmer did their damndest to get Trump onside, it left Europe with no credible way to believe that things might not be as bad as they’d been told. They are worse, and even Germany is adjusting its debt rules to allow itself to buy more arms.

The danger for Putin is that this willingness to rearm and to contemplate a non-Nato security plan against Russia might be generating a coalition of the willing, in which states that are willing to - UK, France, Germany, the Baltics, Poland - are more than powerful enough to press ahead outside of organising bodies like the EU or Nato which Russia has effectively compromised by gaining influence within certain member states (Hungary principally, though he’s working on Romania).

[jfman]

There’s no way that coalition of the willing doesn’t flounder as far right governments replace incumbents intent on decimating their own economies for unknown ends in far flung lands. If they last longer than Trump that’ll just be the favourability of the electoral calendar.

I’d not rule out Starmer, who has proven time and again he doesn’t even stand for the principles upon which he stood for leadership of the Labour Party, never mind the manifesto upon which he was elected, being the lap dog to Trump once his posturing is confirmed as an electoral liability.

He’s perhaps the one person Ukraine might be able to rely upon less than the Americans in the long run.

Originally Posted by jfman

There’s no way that coalition of the willing doesn’t flounder as far right governments replace incumbents intent on decimating their own economies for unknown ends in far flung lands. If they last longer than Trump that’ll just be the favourability of the electoral calendar.

I’d not rule out Starmer, who has proven time and again he doesn’t even stand for the principles upon which he stood for leadership of the Labour Party, never mind the manifesto upon which he was elected, being the lap dog to Trump once his posturing is confirmed as an electoral liability.

He’s perhaps the one person Ukraine might be able to rely upon less than the Americans in the long run.

Well, I’m no fan of Starmer but even on an uncharitable reading of him it is hard to see how he can drop the ball on this one. An epoch is shifting and the European governments Starmer instinctively wants to align with - and which his party prefers to align with - are pulling in a very different direction than the USA. We have a circle that can’t be squared, and I agree with you that sooner or later he is going to have to make a choice, because the ambition to be a bridge between Europe and the US might have been plausible 2 months ago but it really isn’t now. If it’s a question of who he weakly follows, I can’t see him going with Trump over Macron and Merz, especially not after Trump has been so usefully odious as to make distancing from him a simple matter of politeness.

[jfman]

I think you underestimate the extent Brexit will induce negative sentiment towards anything that even remotely looks like a European army. People voted for Britain to forge its own path in the world and explore trade deals elsewhere. Trump dangles that carrot and Starmer knocks it back for his European buddies and the Conservatives and Reform will be all over him.

We have NATO for our security and despite a lot of scaremongering there is no indication, anywhere, that NATO wouldn’t come to the aid of a member state when (and perhaps more importantly if) required.

Originally Posted by jfman

I think you underestimate the extent Brexit will induce negative sentiment towards anything that even remotely looks like a European army. People voted for Britain to forge its own path in the world and explore trade deals elsewhere. Trump dangles that carrot and Starmer knocks it back for his European buddies and the Conservatives and Reform will be all over him.

We have NATO for our security and despite a lot of scaremongering there is no indication, anywhere, that NATO wouldn’t come to the aid of a member state when (and perhaps more importantly if) required.

<cough cough>

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...ift-rcna195089

President Donald Trump is considering a major change to the U.S.’ participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to three current and former senior U.S. officials and one congressional official.

Trump has discussed with aides the possibility of calibrating America’s NATO engagement in a way that favors members of the alliance that spend a set percentage of their gross domestic product on defense, the officials said.

As part of the potential policy shift, the U.S. might not defend a fellow NATO member that is attacked if the country doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold, the officials said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-...em-2025-03-07/

WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump cast doubt on Thursday on his willingness to defend Washington's NATO allies, saying he would not do so if they are not paying enough for their own defense.

"It's common sense, right," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. No, I'm not going to defend them."

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by jfman

I think you underestimate the extent Brexit will induce negative sentiment towards anything that even remotely looks like a European army. People voted for Britain to forge its own path in the world and explore trade deals elsewhere. Trump dangles that carrot and Starmer knocks it back for his European buddies and the Conservatives and Reform will be all over him.

We have NATO for our security and despite a lot of scaremongering there is no indication, anywhere, that NATO wouldn’t come to the aid of a member state when (and perhaps more importantly if) required.

i have serious doubts that the USA under trump would get involved unless it is attacked.

lets not forget they were a tad late for 2 world wars

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

<cough cough>

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...ift-rcna195089

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-...em-2025-03-07/

It’s straightforward extortion, but not clear that America would follow through with it.