Exchange them for Ukrainian POWs held by Russia or hold them captive until the war is over.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
- Start date
Use them to repair the damages these POWs inflicted.
After Afghanistan, Iraq and the post covid economy, I can't see anything like the Marshall plan not to mention the america first sentiment amongst many Americans. Just can't see neither the EU or US trying finance a rebuild of Ukraine.
The Marshall plan was a stimulus but didn't rebuild Europe.
Interesting. Suspect the next move will be to retake Kherson city, then eliminate the Mariupol land bridge to Crimea.
Yeah but I'm sure it helped
EU accepted Ukraine as candidate to join. EU countries support each other, so it's likely there will be some sort of funding.
It all seems to be happening a bit too quick and a bit too easy. Doesn’t feel right
it’s a bit like the German collapse in ‘45 but that Was after 6 years and fighting the rest of Europe
I’m sure they’re getting advice and intel from the US, UK etc but still, could they be walking into a trap?
it’s a bit like the German collapse in ‘45 but that Was after 6 years and fighting the rest of Europe
I’m sure they’re getting advice and intel from the US, UK etc but still, could they be walking into a trap?
I consider the EU candidacy mainly to be symbolic at the moment. And EU countries only support each other as much as the taxpayer is willing to. I'm not trying to be negative for the sake of it, just trying to be realist.
I think they're being advised well and are competent in general. But yeah the trick is to not take back more territory than they can realistically defend. No point overcommitting. I'm sure it's tempting to keep advancing though as it appears as if the Russians are panicking at the moment what with leaving all their stuff behind.
Yes I get that, and I agree that's a real risk. Nonetheless I think especially as we are experiencing an economical crisis there might be interest in rebuilding Ukraine by European companies funded by European governments to kickstart their own economies again. But of course that's not guaranteed.
According to wikipedia the Marshall plan had a total volume of 115 billion in 2021 dollars (for all of western europe, the UK being the largest recipient, but all in all pretty evenly spent over half a continent). If this source is correct a similiar amount has already been sent to Ukraine (with the US being the leading nation by a huge margin) to defeat Russia. I don't see any reason to think that the help will end abruptly when Russia is defeated.
Current situation is basically this
ECA loans mainly at favourable rates with long tenures from European countries
Some significant world bank aid available as well
There are some governance issue to be worked through as well as routes to market for the required civilian contractor engagement at a prime and local level
What you have to remember is that East Ukraine and Crimea have massive amounts of natural gas and oil. If Ukraine takes them back then all of Europe will be very keen to set up pipelines as replacements for the Russian ones. It maybe that this is war over the control of resources as much as it is an ideological one. In which case loads of money will go into Ukraine to start freeing up natural resources.
Volnovakha, 50km north of Mariupol is a interesting city worth keeping an eye on. The only railway connecting Russian occupied territory in southern Ukraine with Donbas goes through the city. If Ukaraine would regain control over it, all Russian troops in Southern Ukraine would have to be supplied through Crimea.
Its not a bad insight at all, things just tend to turn out far more complicated than most people can imagine. You would have all this together with the green parties and enviromentalists being zealous about reaching net zero. Hopefully the realists would see what the oppourtunity that you see.
Seems to be a lot of chatter about nearby Vuhledar being the next target, which would presumably indicate plans along the line you’ve drawn.
I think the problem would be a lack of trust. Meaning trust that the money will be well spent. Ukraine had a very corrupt regime before the war and in the aftermath of the war(if Ukraine win), i'm not sure there is the level of trust to open the purse strings to help rebuild Ukraine, but perhaps that's me being negative.
Some reports for loud explosions in several Russian cities? Rostov and several others which I dont know how to spell in English
They might have indeed been outnumbered in some factor but Russian officer explaining failure by being in insurmountable odds is nothing new really.
It's the only card they can play. War is always about demonizing your opponent. Even if it has no basis in reality. Like all these Nazi's choosing Zelensky, a jew, to be their leader.
In Russia being a Nazi isn't really associated with being antisemitic, so this doesn't matter. It's mostly seen as racist anti-slavic/anti-Russian, which absolutely makes sense looking at how the Nazis acted in the East.
It's a Western perception that the Nazis were only antisemites.
It's not associated with antisemitism because the Soviet Union leadership specifically made the decision to cover it with a more general hate for Slavs. The Nazis were definitely anti-Slav, and had some awful plans in that respect, but obviously there's no doubt that they had a special hatred for the Jews.
I don't really see how it's a western perception at all that they were only antisemites.
I mean it doesn’t make sense because their whole anti-Russian thing was based on the Soviet Union being a Jewish plot. They acted in the East from a purely antisemitic point of view, it’s just that they had little regard for anyone else. The largest Jewish congregations were in the East within the Liebensraum.
Appreciate that the term “Nazi” in Russia has evolved to mean anyone anti-Russian but that’s from a purely nationalistic sense and because of the fact that antisemitism is extremely rife in Russia. Therefore the need arises to disassociate your greatest ever enemy with a policy that many in power ultimately agree with/don’t have an issue with (e.g. Wagner Group).
Yeah, it’s definitely not.
Maybe I didn't phrase it the right way... the point is that the occupied peoples in the West were generally viewed as more or less equal, as long as they weren't Jewish, homosexual, communist or part part other political, sexual or ethnic minorities.
In the East the Nazis treated everyone as a lesser human, some more than others, but still everyone. It's much easier there to not make the Nazi actions about minorities, but about everyone, and therefore it's easy there to simply associate Nazi = anti-Russian. In that sense the word survived and is used for todays Ukraine.
Which is still crazy on the part of the Russians, since the Nazis hated Slavs, and the Ukrainians are… Slavs.
Oh yeah I see, that's fair.
" War expert" 
And yet there were in fact Ukrainians who wanted to collaborate with Nazis to get rid of the Soviets after the Holodomor (the group around Stepan Bandera). While he was killed by the Nazis, he still is viewed as a Nazi himself both in Russia as well as in the German perception. So there absolutely were Ukrainian Nazis in WW2 that were the enemy of the Russians and they simply act like the Ukrainians still follow that way.
That's not even totally unjustified as several Ukrainian politicians and diplomats actually see Bandera as a kind of heroic figure, for example Andriy Melnyk, who was until a few weeks ago ambassador in Germany. Putin calling for denazification of a country that sends someone accused of being a Nazi as ambassador for Germany definitely was great for Putin's propaganda.
I know, which adds to the craziness of that whole situation.
He's definitely been very opportunistic with his use of the term and the width of the brush he paints with.
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Well given the Ukrainian's treatment by the Russian Soviet's it is natural they hoped they could ally themselves with another military they were hopefull would be more sympathetic to their cause. Ultimately they had no idea the Nazi's would be even worse.