That still doesn't mean he isn't a russian asset. His criticism of Nato started after visit to Russia and (highly dubious speculation incoming) whatever Soviets did to recruit him, that leverage might have been handed down to Putin.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Guys, he isn't a Russian asset. Can we please stop with that line, it's just conspiratorial 1+1 = 5 stuff and it makes us all look like idiots.
HUMINT sourcing doesn't work that way.
Occams razor here is he went to Russia, listened to their point of view/got a bit brainwashed and hasn't changed his mind a lot since then.
HUMINT sourcing doesn't work that way.
Occams razor here is he went to Russia, listened to their point of view/got a bit brainwashed and hasn't changed his mind a lot since then.
Obviously you can never practically prove a negative of that, but it's pointless to assume a grand conspiracy of being a decade-long asset, when him being a corruptible manchild, extremely susceptible to quid pro quos and flattery explains everything.
Unrelated to this, but it's coming up now. Elections in Ukraine, you mentioned you are expecting a circus. If I remember correctly, you are not a fan of Zelensky. You don't think he will win or would win in fair elections?
Not to mention: it's possible to be anti NATO without being pro Putin.
Trump's statement is just wild. How can he say this shit about Zelensky and not realise that he's described Putin?
How can anyone read Trump's statement and say "Damn right!"
How can anyone read Trump's statement and say "Damn right!"
For more on Trump's history with Russia (and Russians), see below sources.
In 2018 he literally did a u-turn on tariffs after a 1v1 meeting with charismatic black hole that is Juncker
There have been more similar reports on other issues, but that's the one I think is the most reliable where seating him down like a toddler legitimately affected US foreign policy.
It's not that I'm not a fan of Zelensky, it's more I'm disappointed in him. He basically ran on a platform of radical fight against corruption, which was the biggest selling point - an outsider coming in with a genuine humble background who has spent his career as a comedian talking about said problems who pledged to solve these problems.
It's just the same shit different colour of brown so far.
It's a shitshow because Ukrainian politics is very like US politics in this sense. The candidates are all a bunch of corrupt mammoths who have been in politics for so long and gone whichever the wind carried the piss - to a point where peoeple like Tymoshenko has been in power for 25 years in various positions, investigated for corruption a billion times, jailed by her other corrupt rivals and is still around doing the same shit.
The one likely to challenge Zelensky, Zaluzhny is a military commander who is very populist and actually hasn't got a single inclination as to how internal Ukrainian politics work.
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In 2018 he literally did a u-turn on tariffs after a 1v1 meeting with charismatic black hole that is Juncker
There have been more similar reports on other issues, but that's the one I think is the most reliable where seating him down like a toddler legitimately affected US foreign policy.
If Claude Juncker can convince you to change your mind on something, you must be the most impressionable person alive.
This just about sums up the state of Ukrainian politics.
Russia a small but highly diverse population that is scattered at the 4 corners of a continent of a nation. In few words its unmanageable. Catherine the Great lamented how any policies she made rarely went out of St Petersburg let alone reached the 4 corners of its empire. So how they keep things together? Well its geography holds the answer. When things start going badly the people are rallied to war and lands are invaded. If the war goes well then the Czar in question get praised. If not well, ask the good old Czar Nicholas II
That's a big problem for us which is made worse by the US. The US will never tank Russia. That became pretty obvious when Churchill came knocking at the President's door with Operation Unthinkable and it explains why the US helped Ukraine with pocket change. The reason to that is very simple. For the US, Russia is a regional and a declining power, its demographic are woeful, its got a small GDP and it relies heavily on a Soviet military arsenal that is depleting. However if Russia falls then a big chunk of that would end in the hands of China. That's something the US doesn't want because unlike Russia, China is a threat. In the eyes of the US, Russia must survive and it must thrive just enough for it to be able to resist China. If it means sacrificing Ukraine, the Baltics, Georgia or even Poland so be it. For Europe things are a tad different though.
We need to get our shit in order for three main reasons
A- The US policy on Russia and on China will never go away and will survive long past Trump.
B- This is our backyard and unless we don't defend it then no one will
C- The moment China decide to pounce on Taiwan we need to be as far away from the US as humanely possible. We simply can't be dragged into that war.
The tragedy of it all is that we already have the means to do it. The EU spends over 350B in military which dwarfs what Russia spends. When one considering that its more cost effective to defend rather then attack then a slight increase to that should be enough to keep us all safe. Unfortunately we're too busy bickering with one another then to get our shit in order. To give you an idea the US has 30 major military systems. Europe has an eye watering 178. That's because Germany wants its Leopards, the UK loves their Challengers, France adore their Leclercs, Poland would rather buy Black Panthers from South Korea then to put money into a rival European country economy so on and so forth. We can't even decide to stick to 1-2 type of everything (tanks, planes etc) which would reduce costs and maintenance substantially let alone choose a leader to lead us
And that's not all. For example in Libya there's a whole war going on between Russian backed rebels and Turkish backed rebels. Whoever wins will control the immigration route with the potential of sending hundreds of thousands of migrants every year. Can you imagine if either those nations have control on that? Yet Europe does nothing about it because it simply can't. It really time for Europe to get their shit in order.
If Zaluzhny wins, I don't expect he would be more inclined towards Russia. So why are Russian and Trump insisting on elections.
"Negotiating tactics" apparently
More likely they just think they can discredit Zelensky (and Ukraine) by this and if negotiations fail they'll point out how Ukraine wasn't going along and stuff like that. I don't think Russia genuinely expects Ukraine to adhere to this demand.
Also just like to point out that whilst Zelenskyy dictatorship claims are a bit much, Zelensky did purge a lot of his political rival parties with the war as a subtext for getting rid of them.
I think this is incorrect. Just because two parties have self interests that can align doesn't mean one party is controlling the other at all. I don't think Trump is under influence or kompromat or what not. I think its just more simple, that the people behind Trump this time (Musk, Thiel, Adelson, etc) want things like white nationalism, socially regressive authoritarian policy, etc that simply align with what Putin wants. The people influenced by Curtis Yarvin, who thinks American democracy has failed and we should have essentially a corporate monarchy, that's not influenced by Putin, it just simply lines up with Putin's interests at the moment.
I don't think Trump is a russian agent, Just a selfserving greedy prick. But this sentence doesn't help the claim is not a russian agent, to be hones
Europe will never get their shit together in that way. Nobody is willing to give up autonomy and why would they? Historically, European nations have been each other's biggest enemies for centuries. Not Russia, not China, and not USA.
Who's to guarantee circumstances will not flip again in future to get France and Britain against each other again? Or France and Britain against Germany?
European identity can only flourish if it can somehow replace national identities of each of European nations, and it is simply impossible. These things can't be forced on anybody.
You have Catalunya for example, they are Spain for centuries and they could be for thousands of years, but they will never give up on their Catalan identity and will try to eventually become independent nation again.
For the same reason other talking points during the war were insisted on. If big part of western media still stops to focus on that, why would they stop throwing them?
@AfonsoAlves If US were to pull all support (as in stop delivering weapons I guess?) how long would it take for Ukraine to feel the impact of that? Immidiately? A month later? Whats the potential margin other actors (European countries I guess) could fill?
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,”
Jesus fecking Christ.
Jesus fecking Christ.
Vance branded the European governments as the biggest danger to democracy, not Russia not China.
Accusing democratic parties of being undemocratic because they refuse to build coalitions with right wing parties such as the AfD.
What's undemocratic about it? Each party can decide for themselves whether to form a government with the AfD or not. That's exactly what's democracy is about.
Naturally, right wing wannabe autocrats like Trump don't understand this.
In one point Vance was right nevertheless. The biggest danger to the current world order indeed aren't China or Russia, but a clueless, narcissist sitting in the White House with dementia.
NK troops maybe thinking they're fighting South Koreans too?
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10423613
Too much to unpack here, but that will not happen ever again
It's not just the identity issue (although it sure as hell doesn't make anything easier). The brain-dead brand of individualism where people are fecking up their long term futures because "at least the other guy suffers more" are alive and well in pretty much every countries internal politics too.
Historically the French and the English had skinned one another for centuries. They were side by side in two World wars and will probably be side by side again if Russia invades. Historically Italy and Austria hated each other guts to the point that an Austrian military chief Conrad von Hötzendorf wanted to exploit the Earthquake of Messina to invade an Italy in ruins. They fought side by side in WW2. Historically Malta was tied to the hip to Italy for millennia with our elites still speaking Italian by the time Mussolini rose to power. The moment WW2 started we rallied with the British and the Italians thanked us by turning Malta in a target practice. Prior to that Italy was a fragmented nation filled with city states that hated one another + with factions that either sided with the church (Guelphs) or the emperor (Ghibellines). The situation was so dire that the factions fractured into mini factions and people like Dante Alighieri was exiled because his sub faction (white guelphs) lost out against the other sub faction (the black guelphs). Things change, situations change.
Military expenditure had reached a point that no small nation can afford to go solo. We had a similar shift with the rise of fire arms which in turn ended the power of powerful nobles and city states and paved the way to a centralized army. Alternatively we might let the US and Russia choose which parts they like and just take it. Bosnia will probably end up under the Russian sphere considering that Russia has a fetish for your neighbors
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Trump sees Russia as a super power? Then he is more delusional than I thought.
Russia's economic power doesn't even match Italy's economy.
So there's a perpetual nominal GDP vs PPP debate in economics but I find it hard to believe Italy could have done what Russia did for 3 years. Russia has so much natural resources and a decent amount of industrial capacity.
It's actually the political decisions that guarantee this. Obviously there's no 100% certainty, but by creating an unions, single common market and fostering integration you shape the future by making a war between France and Germany completely impossible for a thousand of reasons, from economical to social through the fact their militaries know each other in-and-out etc. There was no guarantee some American states wouldn't fight each other after the civil war - but their integration into the union made it look completely unlikely.
I don't think European identity can only flourish replacing national identities but anyway, to create a federal state you don't even need everyone within to feel the same national identity and Catalunya is in fact a good example - while not giving up on their identity they are still an integral part of Spain, share the foreign policy, send their men to Spanish army, pay their tax to Madrid etc. There's obviously a certain element of pragmatism and understanding we're all better off together or in fact we stand little chances alone - I don't ask for much greater European integration than this.
(and I don't think Catalans will try, never mind succeed in becoming independent in a foreseeable future)
Any country that has the the ability to wipe out the planet with the push of a button is a super power of sorts, there's only 3 countries that can do that
if you mean China as the third one, you seriously underestimate nuclear capabilities of France and the UK. Not that it really matters if you have hundred nukes or a thousand
But people can't have this both ways?
Russia is simaltaneously a shit power, with an economy smaller than multiple individual nations of a bloc which is generally on the opposite side.
At the same time, we can't support Ukraine ourselves, we can't defend ourselves and need America to underwrite our and Ukraines security?
Which is it?
Kremlin Message to Trump: There’s Money to Be Made in Russia
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/world/europe/trump-russia-ukraine-putin-trump.html
Our sovereignty will remain intact. What changes is a majority rule on most policies + we decide together which frigging military systems we should buy and we stick to. I doubt that the French will feel violated if they start using Leopard II tanks as their MBT while the Germans start using Rafales as fighter jets.
After the normalisation Russia is quite a bit higher than Italy, but even with it it's pathetic per capita. It works both ways though. Having more corrupt institutions and poorer population is quite good for doing what Russia has been doing.
Perhaps but those 2 countries are ruled by relatively sane people, the other 3 not so much
Top tier post. Totally agree.
I don't care what anyone thinks, the pee tape was real...
https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/donald-trump-pee-tape.html
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...igQtLyZSsQTA1L5jKE-0iR7cFoy1Ss4s6kSUxFs8xa857
The John Mearsheimer analysis is the correct one. Thank god Trump happens to be on the right side of this one. You just never know…