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Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

bbc.com

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Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#931

Post by tim333 »

janalsncm wrote: post #696

I’m split on this. Part of me is very sad because Ukraine has gotten such a raw deal, not just recently but historically. They’ve always been trampled on as a fairly poor place. And it’s a bit classless to spit on Zelensky as he’s holding out his hat for donations, as he must. But I also believe Ukraine is increasingly a distraction from more pressing concerns, both domestically and abroad. Frankly, there will probab…

I don't think it's a distraction so much as rather important to detering China. If Putin can invade Ukraine and get away with it China will assume it can do the same for Taiwan and other territory it wants. If the west stops Putin, China will think twice.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#932

Post by Trias11 »

appel wrote: post #492

Deeply embarrassing and disturbing. What a sad spectacle to see the President and Vice President of the United States so beholden to a foreign dictator that they would debase themselves in this way. Unpresidential doesn’t even begin to describe it. My heart breaks for Ukraine. The outcome of the November 5, 2024, election will prove to be a tragic mistake.

Which outcome would not be a mistake?

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#933

Post by casenmgreen »

akmarinov wrote: post #344

So at this point obviously the US pulls all support from Ukraine - weapons, intelligence, the works. Any negotiations US-Russia will be useless as the US won’t represent anyone with a stake in the war. They don’t have people, territory, anything at stake, they don’t get refugees and generally aren’t directly affected in any way. What are the chances that they just leave Ukraine, Europe and Russia alone from now on an…

This is the outcome.

Well, we might see a vestigial "peace treaty" set up between D and V, with both saying "we'd have peace now except for Z not wanting it, he's the problem".

USA is out of the game. Only question now is if it goes neutral (EU can still buy munitions/weapons) or actually becomes actively hostile, to whatever extent.

EU now needs to step up. This means 7% defence spending, to re-arm and to support UA.

HU/SK will block everything in EU, every step of the way, as both are Putin's.

EU is actually fundamentally unable to respond because it cannot really deal with HU/SK. NATO also. No mechanism to eject members. Enough voting mechanisms require unanimous vote.

EU States need to start organizing things between themselves, sans HU/SK/USA.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#934

Post by tim333 »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #573

Maybe dumb question, but I asked ChatGPT search and didn't get a straight answer, so: Why is Russia at war with Ukraine? ChatGPT tells me it's because of "western alignment". Trump told reporters 1m people died. Seems a bit excessive to me for political ideas.. I'd have an easier time believing it's a resource conflict or some oil field being liberated or wtv.

It's complicated because you hear so many different stories and versions as to why. My take is they regard Ukraine as basically Russian land and put up with Ukraine being independent when they had a pro Russian government but got annoyed when the Ukrainians, with American help, overthrew that and went western democracy.

But it's also part of a long pattern - over the last 500 years Russia has expanded at an average rate of 50 square miles per day by invading other people's countries and the like - it what they've always done. I'm not sure if that isn't a bit out of date these days - the whole imperial invasion thing. I mean I'm a Brit and we used to do it and had the world's largest empire but it's all a bit passe now. (50sq mile link https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/r...)

By the way re the history, Ukraine, governed from Kyiv is basically the same as Kievan Rus, also similar land governed from Kyiv and existed long before Moscow or Russia were invented. Muscovy, the bunch out of Moscow, were a warlike lot and stole the Rus bit of the name and much of the land. So when you here Putin going on about it not being a real country and just a bit of spare land belonging to Russia, it's not quite true.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#935

Post by DeepSeaTortoise »

Animats wrote: post #387

On the minerals front, the US doesn't need anything from Ukraine. Most of the minerals mentioned, except titanium, are un-mined deposits. Or things the US has plenty of already, such as oil, natural gas, coal, and iron. Here's a rundown: - Rare earths: I've mentioned the MP Minerals, Mountain Pass, CA mine before. The US doesn't have enough rare earth refining capability, and China won't export the technology. So US…

The "minerals deal" isn't one but in name, no idea why it's being sold as such.

It's really just a Ukrainian sovereign reconstruction fund, with the option for the US to buy its way in. Also the fund is financed through Ukraine's natural resource extraction.

The crux being:

No one else can buy into the fund. So if Ukraine is rebuilt and then disappears from the map, the US pretty much owns the fund, together with whoever is recognized as Ukraine's exile government, and with it a huge portion of Ukraine's industries.

So even if Russia were to take over Ukraine, all the money making stuff is still co-managed by the fund.

And since Ukraine is the exclusive financial benefactor of the fund, whoever takes over Ukraine ends up facing an exile government with an utterly ridiculous budget.

And if they wanted to just expropriate the fund, they'd have to expropriate the US gov, too. Good luck with that.

.

The fund is a REALLY good idea, but the way it's sold to the public and Ukraine refusing to agree to it is ... odd at best.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#937

Post by user3939382 »

nickmp wrote: post #529

Extraordinary. I hope the Americans reading this please watch the full exchange with the perspective of history. I saw a hero, Zelenskyy, one of the great leaders of our time, and two shockingly awful bullies. Vance especially.

Yeah he showed great leadership when he banned books, religion, language, journalists that opposed him, canceled elections, lost 20% of his country and generations of young men fighting a war he had 0 chance of winning when he had a peace deal initialed early on. Just a fantastic leader.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#938

Post by tim333 »

questinthrow wrote: post #922

The elephant in the room is that America doesnt want Russia to lose. Russia is basically America's dog, used to scare European countries in spending either 2% or soon maybe 5% of their GDP to america in order to be "protected". It's a racket and both the USA and Russia are colluding.

I think it makes more sense that Biden at any rate didn't want Russia to lose in case it collapsed into nuclear armed anarchy.

Re: Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

#939

Post by user3939382 »

overview wrote: post #733

We’re only weeks since Trump taking office. Watching the full video, I think to me it seems there’s a mismatch in the response from HN and the reality of what happened there and is happening with the war. Ultimately, people are dying everyday in this war. I wonder if it’s in the best interest of those still alive to continue fighting and dying, or settling with territory being lost. If there really is no end in sight…

The only permitted take is that Ukraine should fight until the rest of their men are gone along with the remainder of their territory.
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