The Ukraine war thread
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No deal. No meal. Come back when you're serious.
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/28/trump-zelensky-oval-office-meeting-details
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That’s probably too generous.
I’m afraid the plain truth is that Trump is obsequious to Putin simply because he wants to be.
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Ukrainian MP calling for Zelenskyy to be impeached.
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Anybody taking Zelensky seriously, is seriously considering him to be suicidal, not only for himself, but for his country.
These are probably many of the same people who think Russia would never do a nuclear war, because of self interest. Because as an axiom, a country's leader will not be suicidal.
I do respect that axiom, but if it holds true, then Zelensky was not serious today, except as a person who was taking serious steps towards stepping down as leader of his country.
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@Horace said in The Ukraine war thread:
I will continue to wait patiently for anybody to think about whether zelenksy's choices in the conversation were wise.
You’re right about the practical effect of it. However as Jon mentioned, this guy has spent fighting to stop an invasion, one that initially we thought Russia would win in 3 days, and the Ukrainians have held them off for 3 years, and I think Zelenskyy at this point is a DGAF mode…and any deal that even hints at annexing more Ukrainian land to Russia is a non starter.
I mean it’s simple, Russia invaded and anything short of kicking Russia out with sanctions is a horrible precedent to set.
Btw…Trump lie tracker alert. Around 10 minutes in there was the first joking scuffle… Trump said Europe “has not given very much money, very little” compared to the US to Ukraine, and Zelensky corrected him on this, and they both awkwardly joked about who is right, but look at the chart and tell me who was right.
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Vlad, who is at least as pro-Ukraine as anybody else, and at least as anti-Trump, weighs in. So refreshing to hear from someone who can manage to think around his emotions. Amidst the requisite lamentations about Trump and Vance, he calls Zelensky flat footed, caught off guard, petulant, and not up to the task of what should have been a navigable political situation.
Link to video -
I trust this will offend the two Trumpsucking cheerleaders here who need to be offended after this morning’s public mugging:
At Least Now We Know the Truth
David Frum, The Atlantic 28 February 2025
At least the Oval Office meeting held by President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was held in front of the cameras. False friendliness in public by Trump and Vance, followed by behind-the-scenes treachery, would have been much more dangerous to the Ukrainian cause.
Instead, Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.
Today’s meeting gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided. Trump and Vance displayed in the Oval Office a highly personal hatred. There was no effort here to make a case for American interests. Vance complained that Zelensky had traveled to Pennsylvania to thank U.S. ammunition workers, because, Vance charged, the appearance amounted to campaigning for the Democratic presidential ticket. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump angrily explained. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Both the president and vice president showed the U.S.-led alliance system something it needed urgently to know: The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.
Through the Cold War period, Americans were haunted by the fear that a person with clandestine loyalties to a hostile foreign power might somehow rise to high office. In the late 1940s, the Alger Hiss case convulsed the country. Hiss’s accusers charged—and it later proved true—that Hiss had betrayed U.S. secrets to Soviet spymasters in the 1930s, when Hiss served as a junior official in the Department of Agriculture. The secrets were not very important; they included designs for a new fire extinguisher for U.S. naval ships. But Hiss himself was a rising star. The possibility that a person with such secrets in his past might someday go on to head the Department of State or Central Intelligence Agency once tormented Americans.
But what if the loyalties were not clandestine, not secret? What if a leader just plain blurted out on national television that he despises our allies, rejects treaties, and regards a foreign adversary as a personal friend? What if he did it again and again? Human beings get used to anything. But this?
It’s not hard to imagine a president of Estonia or Moldova in that Oval Office chair, being berated by Trump and Vance. Or a president of Taiwan. Or, for that matter, the leaders of core U.S. partners such as Germany and Japan, which entrusted their nations’ security to the faith and patriotism of past American leaders, only to be confronted by the faithless men who hold the highest offices today.
We’re witnessing the self-sabotage of the United States. “America First” always meant America alone, a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic belief. America voted at the United Nations earlier this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all of its fellow democracies. Is this who Americans want to be? For this is what America is being turned into.
The Trump administration’s elimination of PEPFAR, the American program to combat HIV infection in Africa, symbolizes the path ahead. President George W. Bush created the program because it would do immense good at low cost, and thereby demonstrate to the world the moral basis of American power. His successors continued it, and Congresses of both parties funded it, because they saw that the program advanced both U.S. values and U.S. interests. Trump and Vance don’t want the United States to be that kind of country anymore.
American allies urgently need a Plan B for collective security in a world where the U.S. administration prefers Vladimir Putin to Zelensky.
The American people need to reckon with the mess Trump and Vance are making of this country’s once-good name—and the services they are performing for dictators and aggressors. There may not be a deep cause here. Trump likes and admires bad people because he is himself a bad person. When Vance executed his personal pivot from Never Trump to Always Trump, he needed a way to prove that he had truly crossed over to the dark side beyond any possibility of reversion or redemption; perhaps his support for Russia allowed him to do that. But however shallow their motives, the consequences are profound.
In his first term, Trump sometimes seemed a rogue actor within his own administration. The president expressed strange and disquieting opinions, but his Cabinet secretaries were mostly normal and responsible people. The oddball appointees on the White House staff were contained by the many more-or-less normal appointees. This time, Trump is building a national-security system to follow his lead. He has intimidated or persuaded his caucus in the House to accept—and his caucus in the Senate not to oppose—his pro-authoritarian agenda.
The good and great America that once inspired global admiration—that good and great America still lives. But it no longer commands a consensus above party. The pro-Trump party exposed its face to the world in the Oval Office today. Nobody who saw that face will ever forget the grotesque sight.
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@89th said in The Ukraine war thread:
You’re right about the practical effect of it. However as Jon mentioned, this guy has spent fighting to stop an invasion, one that initially we thought Russia would win in 3 days, and the Ukrainians have held them off for 3 years, and I think Zelenskyy at this point is a DGAF mode…and any deal that even hints at annexing more Ukrainian land to Russia is a non starter.
Armchair westerners watching with respect and awe as another country commits suicide over principles that are anything but armchair to them, is sort of gross. Vlad from the above video imagines that Ukrainian citizens should be furious with Zelensky over his behavior today.
Education is extremely important.
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Just watched the entire hour meeting. Overall it was cordial although a little odd when Trump would answer for Zelenskyy but I get it. It was absolutely JD Vance who all of a sudden dropped a chaos grenade at the end when Zelenskyy asked him directly what he means by using diplomacy when it has failed before and Putin has violated ceasefires time after time and then JD gets all puffy about Ukraine not having manpower and you should be thanking us…pretty embarrassing.
Not breaking news, but interesting to see the dynamic shift at the last 5 minutes, almost like JD and Trump were holding back anger or something.
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@xenon said in The Ukraine war thread:
I’m most disappointed that I won’t learn how minerals were supposed to turn into Russia halting its invasion.
One reporter asked the best question, she said many rare earth metals are on the east edge of Ukraine, so what happens if Russia invades where the US is getting Ukrainian minerals mined… (aka will the deal require Ukraine to resume control of their land in the East)
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This part was interesting. Trump tipped his hand. He’s basically saying that he himself is the security guarantee.
