Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realize, and the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse.
The EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, Ukraine drone production is through the roof. Europe needs Ukraine and its army as a bulwark against Russia.
Ukraine’s situation is worse than many people realize. Ukraine is losing the war right now with roughly equal support in monetary terms from both US and EU! They have huge manpower problems because of losses and apparent political inability to mobilize enough men. Even if EU suddenly doubled its aid to compensate (which I think is _very_ unlikely), there are gaps in weapons production in Europe, e.g. for SAMs.
Manpower was always going to be their hardest-to-overcome problem in a protracted war. The relative population sizes when the war started meant they needed an extremely positive kill/death ratio (if you will) just to stay at parity.
Being on the defense and retreating gives exactly that parity. Soviet doctrine even has a number for that which is somewhat close to the ratio of Ukrainian to russian populations.
Yes, they have serious advantages from being on the defense, and a lot of other things working in their favor. I just mean that it was clear from the beginning that that was the thing that couldn't really be adjusted by aid (short of direct involvement of other militaries) and where the numbers were extremely not in their favor, so it'd be the thing to watch out for, as far as what might eventually force them to cede territory for peace or even to outright lose, even if foreign aid remained steady.
We have powerful weapons now. Manpower is not the (most) limiting factor. If the Ukraine had 10 times its current long range drone production, the Russians would start whining about peace deals.
Yes, and from the videos all over the Internet, a lot of what those weapons do is kill people. If just blowing up machines won the war, Ukraine would have declared victory in the first year.
There are lots of potential limiting factors, population's just one where Ukraine started at a big disadvantage and that can't really be made up for by foreign aid, unlike munitions or food or what have you (short of other countries outright sending troops). Weapons can be sent, but if they run short of people to use the weapons, to the point that they can't maneuver, can't credibly threaten counter-offensives, eventually can't cover the entire front... then things start to fall apart.
Like once they survived and repulsed the initial attempt at blitzkrieg, and things settled in to a stable-ish front, population is the particular figure that would tend to give you a knot in your stomach, looking at the on-paper situation from their perspective, and the prospect of a long war.
Oh, sure, mess up their logistics network enough and they'll have trouble keeping their front resupplied. I don't see evidence that it's happening yet, but sure, saturate important targets with enough bombs and it will eventually, hopefully Ukraine finds a way to do just that. I'm sure it's at least helping, even what they've managed to do so far. It might be a big part of why Russia's having trouble putting together major offensives.
I'm not disputing that there are ways to win a war other than killing all the other dudes, I'm just pointing out that if Ukraine got backed into a corner, the smart money very early on was it'd happen either because "allies all pack their bags and go home" or "they run short of manpower".
How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem, given that they need to rely on North Korea for people, have to send injured soldiers back to the front line, and suffer multiple more deaths and injuries compared to Ukraine?
It's bad, but not as dire. Russian losses are very likely higher, but if I have to guess - multiples of 2 and above are just propaganda mixed with wishful thinking. They still didn't need to resort to further rounds of mobilization since 2022 or large scale usage of conscripts. And I don't understand what "North Korea" argument even is - Ukrainians would love to rely on someone else! But no one is willing to help in this department.
I mean, are Zelensky or Syrskyi willing to share truthful information with you in private? If so - good for you, otherwise I'm not sure what "first hand" reports you can use. I'm relying mostly on data about obituaries collected on both sides as proxy for true figures.
If you use Russian recruitment and army size numbers, you get much more realistic figures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja6-espHVSE. Russia is up to ~700k to 800k casualties Russia has lost ~3-4x more people than Ukraine so far.
I think that's probably a good estimate for the Russian side, while 200k casualties total for Ukraine is a joke. Aren't even their official figures for wounded in the 400k range?
Ukraine didn't release casualty figures for a long time (though to be fair, Russia government doesn't exactly post daily casualty figures either, the Russian casualty figure is divined by infering what we can from Russian media), the Western press released a figure for the Ukrainian forces, which is probably quite low, and the figure hasn't increased in almost a year.
It's sort of like how Western press has been claiming for over a year that 20,000 people have perished in Gaza, and the figure never goes up.
This is the most recorded war in history and I know someone(History Legends)offering a good amount if you can show him videos of these Russian meat wave attacks .
sometimes yes, sometimes no. In both US iraq wars, the US had way fewer casualties than Iraq. Invading is harder than defending, but a country won't invade unless they think they are likely to succeed with acceptable losses.
first hand reports from friends who are fighting the war every day.
I'm sure the very lacking obituaries that Russia is actively fighting to suppress will give you a better picture.
They're trying to avoid extensive drafts in their power-base cities for fear of unrest. Plus that's their reserve if they need to supply a second front for any reason.
> How would you categorize Russia's manpower problem
As strained, but not as bad as Ukraine's.
Russia's population is over 140 million. That's 100 million more than Ukraine's pre-war population. Russia's territory isn't meaningfully compromised, their cities aren't in ruin, their industry is mostly intact. They haven't sustained something like 15-25% population loss from people fleeing the way Ukraine has.
North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first
That's why earlier stages of this war involved ex-convict Wagnerite units, mercenaries from the third world, local militias raised from the "people's republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk, and conscription when necessary from poorer ethnic minority regions far away from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
> North Koreans aren't in Russia because Russia is out of guys. Putin just wants to avoid wider scale conscription/mobilization if he can help it and will take other options first
This is correct and shockingly obvious given the initial invasion used mercenaries. It's a straightforward exchange with an ally that benefits Russia the most and is great PR for NK, internally and locally.
At this point in time would anyone bet against US troops going in and "peacekeeping" for Putin against Ukraine? It seems pretty clear that the US is aligned against the West now.
Almost everything pouring out of his mouth today is replaying what is in Russian state media sadly.
The US is not "aligned against the West". The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.
You'd think that the left would be ecstatic about that considering how much it's criticized US involvement in other countries conflicts, but here we are - it's the left that is trashing the US for not wanting to get involved.
> The US is simply breaking from the ideology it's had since WW2 that it's in the US' best interest to get involved in every international conflict in the world.
The publicized ideology, is not always the reality. The US has always been involved with every international conflict. The CIA was the formalization of the interest.
I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.
But certainly in the UK it was a party of "the left" that invaded Iraq with the US. It was a party of "the left" that invaded Afghanistan with the US. And it was a party of "the left" that is now bolstering the military after a decade of decline by a party of "the right".
"The left" were fighting fascism across Europe in the last century, from the International Brigade in Spain to the Soviets against Hitler.
The actual problem The West has now is that the guarantor of military power has gone. Trump and Vance were literally shouting propaganda from Russian state media to Zelensky (look up starting WW3, or VIP tours) and making false equivalency between being invaded and defending your country.
Trump has carried out the biggest rug-pull in history and aligned the USA with Russia. Against The West.
> I mean that ideology is, practically speaking, what "the West" is.
This makes no sense. The current ideology is only 70 years old. The "West" has existed for centuries before that.
Maybe you're young and you think there are no options but the current path, but I can assure you there is.
The truth is that the US (or Europe) is not willing to go head to head with Russia. They have neither the public support or the willingness to take the economic hit.
So if they aren't willing to defeat Russia, what is the only possible outcome? A negotiated peace.
So rather than grinding up another few hundred thousand human lives in the war and end up in the same place a few years from now, why not just finish it now?
Because appeasing aggressors never works? I mean, we literally took the appeasement route when he annexed Crimea. A few years later and here we are. Guess what happens when we appease him now?
The term The West applies to those countries born out of European heritage which _assumed_ semi-direct lineage from the Graeco-Roman empires of Antiquity (notably the Late Antique split in the early church across Eastern/Western lines). Like all political terms it's in constant flux, but yes, today it largely means the superset of NATO + Five Eyes countries.
Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west - you only have to see the reaction of world leaders to see that - outside of Orban, the only people congratulating Trump were Putin and Lavrov. Who could singlehandedly stop the war - right now - by pulling their troops out of a sovereign, democratic state.
Not sure what my age has to do with anything but I was bought up during the Cold War if that helps.
Who said anything about appeasing? Fighting for the best peace deal you can is not "appeasing".
NATO is never going to escalate with Russia to the point Ukraine gets all it's territory back - and Putin knows that. NATO isn't stupid - Ukraine isn't worth expanding the war beyond Ukraine into Eastern Europe. They have neither the financial resources nor the support back home. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives, but not their own grip on power.
So if we know how this all ends - Ukraine giving up territory in exchange for peace, then why not pursue that instead of throwing another million lives and hundred billion dollars into the chipper and getting the same deal in 3 years instead?
> Vance's Munich speech and the Whitehoust confrontation yesterday confirms that the USA has turned its back on the west
No, it means the US is turning it's back on the neoliberal geopolitical position that grinding down competing powers through proxy wars is always worth it in the end. George Kennan died long ago, and it's time to let his geopolitical strategy die too.
It's a position that only existed since WW2, and one that has gotten the US involved in dozens of wars since then, often at a greater cost than the benefit in the end (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq).
How is it not appeasing when "finding the best peace deal" equals "letting an agressor state keep a chip of neighboring state", even more so when this repeats every few years?
Read again what Putin's stated aims are. Hoping for a peace deal with a totalitarian, expansive state does not work. It didn't work when it was "just Crimea", it won't work when it's "just some towns they took by force".
It's utterly naive, given all his history, to think Putin will just acquiesce.
Even if your geopolitical assumptions are correct, Trump and Vance's behaviour yesterday - humiliating a war leader in front of the worlds media, using the rhetoric and tropes of the invaders he is facing was unbelievably disgusting.
Also, please don't forget what Putin's stated aims are - reconquest of Russian border back to pre 1930 limits (maybe you understand why Polish defence spending is at 5% GDP) and the breakup of the EU. These are his aims - he doesn't just want that little bit of Ukraine he has - parts of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia all are at stake.
Ukraine is _stalling_ the war right now. Russia is able to capture more moonscaped villages by forcing expendable (their words, not mine) manpower to assault Ukrainian positions.
Ukraine is slowly retreating, but at the rate that will require Russia _years_ to gain a meaningful amount of territory.
The military experts I listen to all more or less agree that the focus on territory is just wrong. It's a war of attrition unsustainable in the long run for both sides, the question is who runs out of resources first (or if there is some sort of ceasefire before that). Germany famously lost such a war a century ago without losing any territory!
For China, a balkanized nuclear Russia may be a greater threat than supplying them manpower (due to surplus men and civil unrest) and materiel. I would not expect Russia to run into the WW1 germany problem.
There's no evidence of a substantial number of Chinese nationals serving in the Russian military, rather then just a few notable examples. The largest foreign troop commitment by state-sanction was the North Koreans, which were about ~10,000 strong and have since been withdrawn (after heavy losses).
Yes, and the point I'm making is that (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions and (2) China can increase deployment if needed by either economic or prisoner release coercion.
This is a meatgrinder conflict. If China can reduce its dissident or potentially rebellious population while avoiding a collapse of Russia mirroring WW1 Germany, they may very well (and I would argue are likely) do so.
That doesn't follow: Ukraine has the international legion (probably about 3,500 people in country last I checked) and a number of Russian groups fighting on behalf of Ukraine.
The only thing Chinese nationals fighting for Russia tells us is that China is not expressly limiting freedom of movement to do so...but there has also been at least 1 American who tried to join Russia to fight Ukraine (and was tortured to death by the Russians on suspicion of being a spy for his trouble).
First, 3,500 is a drop in the bucket. Second, just because China hasn't yet mobilized doesn't mean they won't if they feel a line is crossed like they did in Korea.
With a country like China, everything is on the table
> (1) Chinese nationals have served, indicating that Beijing at least tacitly approves mercenary actions
I wouldn't assume a small number of Chinese nationals volunteering to fight for Russia means China approves of their actions. Several Australians ended up fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, that doesn't mean the Australian government approves of Australians fighting for ISIS, it just means it failed in those cases to stop them – it didn't realise they planned to do that before they left the country, or they didn't decide to do it until after they were already living overseas.
And one difference, is obviously Australia and ISIS are sworn enemies, so when Australians volunteered to fight for ISIS, the Australian government could openly condemn their action. Whereas, China and Russia are allies, so even if China disapproves of its citizens volunteering to fight for Russia, it can't condemn them publicly because it would harm the alliance.
China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds (see this account: https://x.com/whyyoutouzhele/ you will need to go back awhile) and recruiting is heavily concentrated among former PLA.
Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
> China isn't sending a "small number"; casualties alone have supposedly reached into the hundreds
I think the word "supposedly" is important here – I don't think we have any hard data on how many Chinese volunteers there are serving with Russia.
And I'd question how big a military contribution these Chinese volunteers are making. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in this war, even a thousand Chinese volunteers would be less than 1%.
> Make no mistake: if China wanted to shut this down it could.
Even if the Chinese government is willing to "turn a blind eye" to this going on at a low volume, that doesn't mean they'd let it grow to a significantly higher volume.
It also isn't clear whether this is a deliberate initiative from the very top, or something that has grown organically bottom-up and the people at the top have decided to let it be for now rather than crack down on it.
Which military experts? If you listen to actually knowledgeable people like Kofman it's been known forever that 2024 would be (and as we now are seeing from Russia being pushed back) Russia's peak. Russia is out of equipment and is starting to get similar problems with manpower. In the meantime Europe's investments are starting to pay off and allow Ukraine to pull ahead in 2025.
Ukraine is sending troops over 26 or so years old now. They will need to dip into their prime-aged young population eventually, the 18-to-26-year-olds. That will be a hard moral choice they apparently want to avoid, but perhaps necessary.
As a graybeard with teenage kids, this is terribly disheartening... I would rather be cannon fodder than my sons. After all, I have already reproduced and I have taught hundreds of youngsters all what I knew. I would gladly accept that my contribution to mankind is already done and gone, before seeing one of my children go to war. Is youth so important for soldiers? Wouldn't it be better to send forty and fifty year olds to the front? Anything before 18-26 youngs? It makes no sense. Are they so much more competent than any random middle-age?
Ukraine has churned all their greybeards and middle age folks, and 18+ are the only ones not conscripted yet. (Hence Trump's comment that Ukraine is having manpower issues and has no strong cards left for negotiations)
It hasn't any strong cards only because the west (which is now Europe - the US is almost at Russias side now) is trickling the weapons supply. Open the taps!
What's the point of more recruits when the existing ones don't get enough training and adequate equipment? Ukraine needs weapons far more than it needs manpower.
All these 18 year old cohort - they dont exist in Ukraine anymore, a lot of them escaped Ukraine while they were minors before reaching 18, because this issue of conscripting 18+ has been discussed for quite a while.
If you look at the reports from Ukraine high schools - its all girls class, no boys
There are pros and cons. I live in Canada now, and one major downside is that, because technically I would be an international student, I cannot afford a university. The tuition fee for international students is through the roof. But, ultimately, leaving Ukraine was a correct decision, because otherwise I would have ended up fighting Russia. In summary, it sucks but could have been worse.
You are correct. But, ironically, unlike in Ukraine, in Canada and probably in the US, entry-level jobs (also known as internships) are reserved for undergraduate students. You could call this is another downside of leaving Ukraine.
At least in the US, you can just make something complicated enough to show some skill and get a real job. That's what I did, anyway. I used to work in a factory.
Yeah, that's what I think too. I have been working on a project[0] to do just that, would you mind commenting if my project is something that can be considered complicated enough? In your experience, were you not blocked by the fact that companies are looking for "years of professional experience"?
Yeah no worries, I was wondering why the threads didn't show up and found the bot profile where it said it's actually the first weekday of the month, so it's all good.
There are almost no boys left in senior classes of Ukrainian schools. This was reported by the publication "Strana.ua" on the Telegram channel with reference to blogger Alena Yakhno.
As the blogger said, the 17-year-old son of her friend studies in Kiev , but all his classmates have left. "Only girls are left in the class. There will be no moral. It's just a fact," she wrote.
The publication recalled that upon reaching the age of 18, young people from Ukraine are no longer allowed to go abroad. In addition, the report notes, information about Ukrainian schoolchildren aged 16-17 leaving Ukraine en masse has appeared before.
Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada reported on hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who left the country before the start of the school year. According to MP Nina Yuzhina, about 300 thousand students, mostly high school students, left Ukraine in July and August. In addition, due to the departure of young people, 2,114 schools have been closed in Ukraine over the past four years.
You can count how many high school children there are in Ukraine. There is something like 4 millions now, so the loss of a couple hundred of students of both sexes does not make classes girls only.
People, families with kids, leave Ukraine, because living in a country during war is not nice, to say the least. The fear of mobilization is only one aspect of it.
I don't know if original claim is true or not in general, but lenta.ru in particular is a poor source of information, it's heavily skewed into Russian-government side.
The media operation Strana is mentioned as the source for the lenta.ru story.
Strana is sanctioned and banned by the Ukrainian government, though Ukraine government hands out a lot of media bans.
It's a bummer that just about every media outlet in Ukraine is either tightly linked to Russian propaganda, or on the other side its mostly super pro Ukrainian (formerly funded by USAID) outlets with ties to weird libertarian billionaires who want to turn Ukraine into free market paradise. Hardly any middle ground.
Just think about it logically, if you are a mother of 16 y.o kid, and USA says you must conscript 18+ y.o to receive any further aid - would you just sit and wait for your child to get drafted on his next birthday?
oh totally, I would leave immediately. I financially helped a family with teenage kids smuggle themselves out of Ukraine to a different country a few months into the recent invasion.
And that will cost Russia a great deal. This has turned into a war that heavily favors defenders. Both sides are dug in, with a wide no-mans-land between the front lines, where anyone who enters is likely to get killed by a drone.
Ukraine has been loosing a three-day-special operation for three years.
Russia's refinery's are getting hit and all that crude oil is worthless with a refinery. In the case of the campaign again Nazi Germany's refineries funny enough it's the allies who didn't think it as critical as the Nazis did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_campaign_of_World_War_II#O...
Ukraine knows the future of warfare and will prosper if they survive this. They will be the ones with the technology and experience in future warfare, and the USA is throwing away a chance to partner with Ukraine and guarantee such a victory.
In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine's side.
>In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine's side.
Spot on. This is what Zelenskyy implied when he said "now you have an ocean but one day you'll know how it feels". But the dumb kakistocrat commander-in-chief took it personally.
By the way remember the New Jersey drone sightings that spooked the East Coast for a week? That was likely the government secretly testing defense deployement against a hypothetical drone swarms attack.
I have assumed the same about the gatwick airport shutdown caused by drones in the UK in 2018. Newspapers saying "No culprit ever found" says "results of military exercise are classified" to me...
The value of having a front-row seat to this, from a doctrine and R&D point of view, is staggeringly high. Anyone who's getting copied on the reports is going to be a full generation ahead of countries that aren't.
... that goes for Russia's partners, too. Meaning it's even more important for us.
Trump is the commander in chief. Top military leadership who disagree with him will be forced to retire, and replaced with loyalists, if they haven't been already.
I agree, no coup. On the other hand, if we the US keep changing alliances at the whim of what are essentially twitterheads, we could end up having ZERO allies.
Beau of the Fifth Column (Youtube channel for Justin King) would always emphasize (before he relinquished it all for his wife "Belle of the Ranch" to take over) that international relations are usually well-orchestrated, even between enemies, with speeches and releases using heavily coded language, to minimize the possibilities of conflict. Friends and enemies both would telegraph to some degree their intentions, their protestations, their agreements, and shifting policies ... very very carefully.
Trump, Vance, Musk ... have upended this all with their amateur hour antics. They are not serious people. They think they can rewrite the rules but they've bought us at least a decade of hurt and isolation on the international stage, and likely worse economic prospects for a while. Nobody will trust us, even if saner leadership comes round in a few years.
Betting on the wrong horse while Xi just has to stand aside to see the crown of superpower being handed to him with no effort, Russia on the road to implode in a fire sale, while China looks to sign lucrative trade agreements with the EU.
Brexit was shooting yourself in the foot, today was a gruesome display of diplomatic suicide on live television.
The EU could end up taking that crown if they handle this well.
Firstly of course, they need to be united, steadfast and decisive in their support for Ukraine until Russia collapses. They should be building new alliances, with India, South America, and any free countries in Africa and Asia. And maybe some unfree ones. Possibly even China, because let's face it, despite its many flaws, China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU.
Then, after Russia collapses and the US has withdrawn from the world stage, it will be the EU that saved Ukraine, just like after WW2, the new super powers where the US and USSR that defeated Germany. And Ukraine has a lot to offer that the EU lacks.
The EU is incredibly powerful. Biggest common market in the world, half a billion people, 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together. The EU just needs to learn to flex its muscles, to unite and assert itself, instead of hiding behind the US.
The ascent of Europe is the sort of outcome I might hope for — speaking as an American who believes in American values that my country no longer represents.
Speaking of religion and Europe ... while not in Latin America I spent a few years growing up here and there in Arizona, my parents being ministers in a pentecostal church. All the pentecostal and charismatic churches were in thrall of the Hal Lindsey book "Late Great Planet Earth" [0] and other prophetic books trying to map nations/geographies from the Book of Revelation / Apocalypse to the then-day international power structure. "Sister Drew", our local in-congregation prophecy expert, would relay the latest findings. From what I remember, the idea was that Russia and Europe were to fight it out, Europe being the seat of the Antichrist's power, and somehow the Vatican was embroiled in it too.
Europe was supposed to be the "late stage" of human civilization, from Daniel's Old Testament dream of the human-form statue. The head of gold was the pinnacle of civilization, Babylon. The silver chest and arms were Persia. The belly and thighs were the Greek Empire. The legs of iron were the Roman Empire, resurrected as the fractious European Common Market (now European Union) in the feet of "iron mixed with clay".
The USA was variously portrayed as the Great Wh*re of Babylon, or else had some heroic role of some kind in these End Times.
At some point, all nations would stop fighting each other and join together to turn on Israel. Israel would be doomed but for God's intervention. From Daniel's dream, a pebble would form from nothing, grow to be a mighty boulder, and smash the feet of iron and clay (Europe, and by proxy godless humanity) and the rest of human civilization in form of the statue would crumble. The mighty boulder being ... Jesus. Israel would be mostly destroyed but a rescued "remnant", faithful Christians would be raptured / taken to heaven, the World would End ... and eventually all humanity would be judged for eternal salvation or punishment.
Wacky, fringe stuff ... EXCEPT THAT THESE BELIEFS ARE SO RELEVANT TO OUR PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE USA. Check out the book "The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy" by Matthew D Taylor [1]. In this book and various podcasts Taylor describes the origins, religious and political philosophy, and current political power of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). No NAR church / congregation will claim the moniker today, but it remains a perfect description of the structure, leadership, and influence of this movement. The Bebbington Quadrilaterial splits "evangelicals" in the USA (and internationally) into four groups based on measures along two axes ... the "denominational vs non-denominational", and "charistmatic vs non-charistmatic". I grew up in in the denominational charismatic square, where churches believe in and expect the miraculous, but also belong to a centralized denomination with standards and accountability. The NAR congregations fit in the non-denominational charistmatic square, have a very authoritarian leadership structure with "apostles and prophets" at the top of each organization, and with a forest of MLM trees of such organizations, with no accountability at all for the "apostles" (c.f. the Mike Bickle scandal, and so many others, where people got away with abuse for years). In any case, in 2015 Trump's "spiritual advisor" Paula White (in early 2025 now is head of the White House Faith Council) gathered many apostles in this NAR movement around Trump, to throw their weight behind his candidacy and make him an acceptable candidate for their brand of evangelicals, and to pull in low-information evangelicals of other stripes behind his candidacy. And hence ... a conversation today between Trump and Zelensky, and many other knock-on effects.
Note that the NAR proposes to take over the world through their Seven Mountains Mandate, to "Bring Heaven to Earth", and usher in the End of Time. Of course, Trump does not believe any of this, but the evangelical power base is extremely loyal to him.
>China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU
It gets interesting when you realize that Russia is also a rival to China in Northeast Asia. A balkanized Russia, like the one the EU could have manifested had it took Russia warnings seriously and brought about decisive action after troops were invading Crimea. But no they lived in their "End of History" fantasy and that virtuous liberties will magically be spread if we just trade goods and ideas between spheres of influence.
Of course this reality will be bad for our allies in Asia (ie. Japan, SK, Taiwan). But maybe this time it'll wake up some in America from becoming isolationist again.
I see SK and Japan also as necessary allies for the EU. But if China decides to take Taiwan, I don't think there's anything the EU could possibly hope to do about it; Taiwan remains independent because the US guarantees their independence. If Trump were to withdraw that guarantee too, I don't think there's anything that can save Taiwan.
It sucks, but the EU has more urgent problems closer to home. All I can hope for is that Trump hates China enough that he'll continue to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. But I'm sure at some point he's going to ask them for some more material "thanks" too.
But yeah, the EU's relationship with China should not be the same as that with other allies. But I think there's room for some cooperation, and the EU might not object too loudly if China were to take outer Manchuria back, for example.
Honestly I don't think I can see China taking Taiwan militarily. They witnessed how the world isolated Russia economically after the aggression on Ukraine and especially since their economy relies on exports. They don't have much to win other than some geopolitical credit at the expense of their manufacturing and technology sector.
China is conducting a policy where they'll cripple Taiwan's will to seek independence from just sheer soft and economic power. They offer fantastic perks to Taiwanese from the oppurtinity to work visa free, access to credit/mortgage with no social credit screening and ability to invest with no usual red tape.
The Taiwanese are being told China is an aggressor but nowadays they see the opposite. Also if China invades it'll destroy every goodwill they had built to win over Taiwanese hearts and won't get control over TSMC supply chain market since the latter promised to torpefy their fabs before China gets its hand on them.
> 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together
Military industrial capacity is Europe's main problem right now. I believe they're ramping up production, but it's going to take years. They may end up having to buy the arms from the US in the meantime if they want to aid Ukraine. If it gets to that, the question is whether they give China some business.
I'm not so sure that's a realistic option when there's US officials saying to allies they should buy less US equipment.[1] It doesn't inspire confidence.
> A British defence figure, who is not part of the government, was told privately by US officials that it should “recalibrate” its reliance on US equipment.
And then there's this.
> They said that a US administration could put restrictions on kit from the US and that if countries are “deemed not to be doing what you are told you will suddenly find out missiles won’t fire and planes won’t fly. You have got to be careful.”
When allies buy less US equipment, what happens to the US citizens employed in the defence industry?
Seriously, I'm wondering who is going to be a more dangerous geopolitical foe for Europe going forward, the US or China. The ascendant forces in the in the US are pro-Russia, and that's not likely to change in the near term. Unlike China, though, we haven't sold military hardware to Russia. Yet.
I'm not so sure China is a threat to Europe. They're as far away from each other as they can possibly be. Sure, Europe is upset about China's human rights record, and their cheap manufacturing circumventing EU rules, and maybe also the economic influence China is trying to gain over other countries (Africa, central Asia), but it's not a threat to Europe itself, which Russia clearly is, and the US could become, if Trump decides to join Russia.
If the US turns, Europe may have to ally with China.
EU is a lot looser union of sovereign nations than USA, where the states are federal. California or Texas do not have their separate foreign policies; France and Germany do.
I don't see "EU taking that crown" happening any time soon, sadly. With the ascent of (often Russia sponsored) far-right nationalist parties, this is even less likely.
Why are you acting as if China is a benign bystander in this? They literally sided with Russia in the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin of intelligence the US shared with them in the months leading up to the war.
You also seem to be yet another person predicting Russia's "collapse", which is a prediction I've been hearing since a few years after Putin took control.
In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but the world is unfortunately very far removed from that. You don't have to agree with everything to look for common ground in other areas. Support the good, criticize the bad.
True. Well, I still don't disagree with the initial policy of opening trade with Russia. It's just that Europe should have realized much earlier that in Putin's hands, Russia was becoming more hostile again. And after they invaded Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014, they should have cut ties immediately, and not invest in more ties.
Though I suppose you could argue the same is true after China's expansion into the South China Sea. But even then, China isn't remotely as aggressive, expansionist or hostile as Russia is. And their government, although totalitarian and unfree, is at least competent. Although Xi's narcissism and vanity are definitely a bad sign.
Trump's approach is probably going to work partially in the short term. - The US is very powerful, a lot of countries are reliant on them, so bullying can be used to extract benefits. They got their plane thingy with Colombia, Mexico didn't react much to the preludes of military action against the cartels. The US could annex the Panama Canal and Greenland.
There's a reason why hawks like Bolton and Cheney are against it. It harms US interests in the mid-to-long-term. To me it seems like the Trump adminstration is a) trying to distract from their domestic agenda and b) isolate the US internationally and create new external foes to justify domestic changes.
China sided with Russia from the very beginning of the war, including notifying Putin as soon as the US revealed their intelligence in a meeting with Xi before the invasion. Interesting how quickly you forget this inconvenient detail in the narrative you've constructed in your head.
Oh is China going to guarantee Ukraine's security now?
At the end of the day, Zelensky had the most obvious proposition in the world -- allow American companies access to Ukrainian minerals. He kept asking for a security guarantee as if he needed anything more.
If he expected Trump or Vance to publicly announce they would go to war with nuclear-armed Russia over these mineral deals, then he's not fit to be president of any country.
The security implication was obvious... if Russia threatened American mining operations, the United States would obviously respond.
But the demand that Trump say he would go to war with Russia.. what purpose would that possibly serve? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the implication.
So maybe he can now turn to China, but I'll tell you that China's propositions for Ukraine's rare earth minerals will likely have Ukraine losing a lot more sovereignty than the scenarios where America took them over instead of the one where Russia wins.
Colonize it while it remains nominally Russian, would be a pretty good move. "Sick Man of Europe"-style. "Oh we British are just, just, like, helping the Ottomans administer Egypt, we're good chaps like that"
Other regions are comparable, 2-3 million rubles ($20000-$30000) are available in several more regions. Then there's a federal one-time payment of 500000 rubles ($5000) and a monthly salary of $2000.
Not exactly to get enrolled, but in Moscow websites officially advertize 2300000 rub to sign, which is about $25000. Then monthly payment is 190000 rub so for first year it'll be about $50000 which is 5 to 10 times more than average salary (depending on the region). Initial bonus for enrollment is city-dependent but as far as I understand anyone can just travel to Moscow and sign in there.
I heard that volonteer numbers right now are pretty high so army became more selective - people expect that war will end soon and hope to get sign in bonus without spending much time on the battlefield, if any.
Most informed analysts say Russia has the opposite problem. They don't have any more meat for the grinder without tapping the middle and upper class of Russian citizens, which will have repercussions, potentially serious ones, for Putin.
Well, North Korea benefits from getting experience and field-testing radios and winter underwear. The drone environment is very good advertising for their goal of becoming a major arms dealer.
Yes, North Korea gains immediate benefit (money or material aid) and a theoretical delayed benefit (demonstration of mercenary abilities, and real world experience for their troops if they survive). Russia gains bodies to throw against bullets. If every North Korean soldier died but took several bullets for Russian soldiers, it's a win for Russia. They do not care about the North Korean soldiers or North Korea.
The regions Russia is taking from Ukraine have some value in terms of GDP. It's interesting that the Freudian slip US offering involved an additional minerals deal (as in, this is the main interest of the taking parties). Russia is not going to give back GDP, and that's probably behind the break in negotiations. Russia is not relinquishing any gains, and the US wants more resources, and there is no guarantee given to Ukraine regarding its remaining territorial integrity. They are trying to make Ukraine eat shit.
I follow a lot of Ukrainian commentary, it's hard for me to conclude Ukraine is doing well.
They're having to conscript younger and younger people every day.
No business is insane enough to invest in Ukraine at the moment.
Some companies are crazy enough to try to ship goods in and out of Odesa, but its significantly less than pre-war.
Every time the Ukrainian army tries to take back territory in the Donbas, the Russian army repels their forward strikes, and usually takes a few more feet of the Donbas in the process.
It's really hard to win a war of attrition against the largest country in the world.
The Russian army occupies some of the largest energy sources of Ukraine. I haven't investigated recently but I suspect Russia is still Ukraine's largest LNG provider.
Ukraine doesn't consume Russian LNG. As of January 2025, the LNG transitting Ukraine for Russia has stopped because Ukraine refused to renew the deal.
No, Ukraine is not in a position to reclaim significant ground. The state of the war is such that any offensive action is ruinously expensive, and while Russia is willing to pay that price, the fact that they're shipping North Koreans in to pay that cost rather than generally mobilize speaks volumes about the state they're in. Interest rates are at 21%; food inflation at 30%; unemployment at 2%, which indicates a severe labour shortage. They're destroying their own economy to grab just a few more feet before it unravels at home.
Meanwhile, Rheinmetall is launching joint ventures and building factories in Ukraine because they have the most warfighting experience of anyone right now and are leading the world in drone combat. Ukraine is still not conscripting anyone under 25, which is a large pool of recruits they've held in reserve. And after today, Europe is making a conspicuous show up increasing spending and standing behind Ukraine.
They can't kick Russia out, but they can certainly hold on longer than Russia with the ongoing support of Europe, and the way Zelensky was treated today has been a huge morale boost for standing firm.
Yes, plus Ukraine learnt a lesson when the GOP stalled aid and they ran low on supplies, so they have stockpiled and domestic production has increased. It's a war of attrition and so both sides are hoping to keep going until the other collapses. The US withdrawing support is a victory for Russian, but it won't end the war. What happens with sanctions might, but also without the US telling them what to do the gloves will be off Ukraine.
So much for stopping the war in 24hrs. Trump's plans were never going to work there, and both Russian and Ukraine were going to try and make it look like the failure was not their fault - guess Russian won that particular battle, maybe it was never even a contest.
This is not a popular analysis. Russia has ramped up their war machine significantly over the last 2 years and have been successfully grinding Ukraine down. They can and will continue to do this. They’ve reoriented their economy around sustained military production, and the tariffs issued against Russia by the US and EU have proven to be ineffective.
> Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realize
What makes you say that? I thought it was generally agreed that Ukraine has been on the back foot for a while now. People used to be quite optimistic about Ukraine recovering the occupied territories.
Ukraine isn't likely to recover much territory. But Russia will have a hard time taking more territory. At this point the war favors the defenders in either direction. Both sides are dug in and attackers get hammered by drones.
Russia was supposed to win easily right away. There is a huge size difference.
But if the little guy, even thought has been on back foot since the beginning, has lasted 10 rounds, and still hitting back. They are on the back foot. But now it starts looking like a win could happen. The underdog wins the crowd right? Now looks like US is the bully.
Current (by some of course) long-term analysis is that Ukraine is better commited to a long-term strategy of fiercely defending its rights, and it can grind Russia long term.
If you like Game Theory, is more as if Ukraine is much more prone to Total War than Russia possible will. Russia is spending their own GDP maintaining the war, Ukraining is "spending" its infrastructure but has foreign money being poured in.
That's why USA withdraw by Trump is so important to Russian interests.
There are two truths when it comes to Ukraine. The one quietly stated in dispassionate terms by actual military and geopolitical analysts which is that in the long run Ukraine loses in virtually every scenario, but it’s in everyone except Ukraine’s best interest to drag it out and for the West to weaken Russia via aid without the political fallout of actually putting boots on the ground.
Then there’s the “Ukraine will win as long as we keep sending aid” truth that the pubic needs to believe in order to accomplish that goal of weakening Russia since the alternative is Ukraine still loses but Russia doesn’t suffer for it.
I suspect someone misguidedly told Trump the first one, and his takeaway was that if Ukraine loses anyway, why should the American taxpayer be funding needless deaths.
This does not account for what can happen in Russia itself. There's this widespread belief that Russia is stable, no matter what.
If that were true, why would Putin take such extreme care for the elites in Moscow and St Petersburg? What is he afraid of? We don't need to know exactly what, but we can conclude he probably has a good reason.
Russia is not stable. The economy is creaking. Unsound, favourable loans are being made to corrupt companies who pocket as much cash as they dare while they deliver as little they can, Soviet style. Something is gonna give eventually, probably to the sound of drones over Moscow becoming the new normal.
Credit to Biden who set the tone. He was very fast and forceful in backing Ukraine even when the general assumption was that they had no chance. Europe was willing to step up since then and will have to carry them from now on.
He was pretty wishy washy and would never say he'd like Ukraine to win and get their land back. The UK generally led at the start sending missiles and tanks and the Biden was embarrassed into matching it.
If only that credit had any weight against his equally quick decision to fund a Zionist genocide against Palestine, and engage in administrative subterfuge, Doublespeak and Ministry of Truth type shit about the true nature of the conflict.
The insane AI-generated one he posted to his socials the other day outlining his vague plan to profit off the suffering of Palestinians by building a utopia resort? What a world we are living in.
It's a weird world that objecting to genocide makes you an antisemite now.
Don't support Netanyahu's weaponization of the word antisemite. It endangers Jews everywhere, and does not help Israel. It only helps Netanyahu silence his critics.
Some people cannot understand that a country, its people, and its government are all completely separate things. Other people pretend not to understand.
Regardless of which, the person you're replying to has decided to be on the wrong side of history. I will not be shamed into silently supporting genocide in the name of a made-believe invisible man in the sky.
“the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse”
This is delusional. Russia would’ve bulldozed Ukraine without US support. What county is under US sanctions? What country is receiving US weapons? Which, to be sure, is the correct choice. And having public spars with Ukraine is not.
But the fact that someone just typed this out and posted it is just so delusional. The fact that people upvoted this is delusional.
On March 16, 2014, the President issued Executive Order
13661, which expanded the scope of the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13660, and found that the actions
and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with
respect to Ukraine undermine democratic processes and
institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security,
stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and
contribute to the misappropriation of its assets.
…Therefore… I [Trump]… am continuing… Execute Order 13660.
I don’t know why this pisses me off so much. Ostensibly we agree broadly. It’s just, HN really used to have such good nuanced and factual discussions, even outside tech. Now it’s all just raw anger.
There's a difference between "siding with Russia" and siding with negotiated peace.
Many people seem to think that the US, and to a lesser extent the EU, should fund this war indefinitely. However, the US clearly does not benefit from a direct war with Russia, and while we may gain from a proxy war, choosing not to fund it does not equate to “siding with Russia.”
Negotiated peace was what Russia and Ukraine had before, and Russia unilaterally broke it.
That is why the focus now is on security guarantees, which the U.S. is refusing so far. Without those, anything negotiated is a gift to Russia, specifically the gift of time to regroup and re-arm for another attack later on.
Lasting peace is not created by concessions, it is created when instigators believe they have more to lose than to gain from further violence.
It is an absurd position that the US should be on the hook to indefinitely pay for any war anywhere in the world forever, and if they attempt to negotiate peace while pulling out of that war that they are siding with the opposition.
The problem is not that the U.S. is trying to negotiate for peace, the problem is that the administration is doing a hilariously bad job of it by giving up all leverage right off the bat.
We don't have any leverage against Russia. America has no appetite to fight them directly. If Ukraine were more effective at hurting Russia where it counts, then we might have leverage but the last few years have shown that they are not capable of that.
US should be on the hook to indefinitely pay for a particular war that resulted out of a diplomatic agreement (Budapest memorandum) that effectively prevented Ukraine from defending itself by making it surrender its nukes in exchange for nebulous security guarantees that weren't honored by US.
I think it's a fine rule of thumb but what does Putin have to gain from negotiating with Zelenskyy who he is seen as a Western puppet orchestrated as legacy of US intel agency involvement? (Which we admitted is true…)
People in this thread are completely incapable of seeing any legitimacy in any Russian concerns about Ukraine.
Whether someone's concerns are legitimate is in the eye of the beholder, but actions can be directly observed. Unilateral violent invasion must not become a legitimate tactic again. It was the norm for centuries, and excluding it resulted in the fastest rise in global living standards in history--including in the U.S. and Russia.
Putin could have kicked back and enjoyed his dacha like other less powerful dictators do all over the world, but no, he had to write a "scientific" treatise about Ruski Mir and how the Ukraine isn't actually a thing. He wants a legacy.
Well, he got it and whatever happens in the war, Russia is cooked. It's never coming back from this.
It will either fracture from the war going badly, or it will become a vassal state of China, and ironically, perhaps the US, the way things are going with the White House these days.
The other powerful “dictators” get dragged through the streets or hanged for daring to enjoy an economic system outside the US dollar. Putin knows this and so should you.
> That is why the focus now is on security guarantees, which the U.S. is refusing so far.
This seems obvious to me, but is apparently not obvious to many here.... America (no country really) can guarantee Ukrainian security without risking WWIII, and frankly there's no reason to. At the end of the day, from a non-Ukrainian standpoint, it doesn't really matter who administers the land that today is Ukraine.
When the “negotiated peace” is “Russia gets everything they want, you give us every dime and your treasury, and we don’t promise to actually help you when Russia attacks again after we let them re-arm for as long as they like”…. That isn’t a peace deal, it’s virtually unconditional surrender.
Under what circumtances is the US allowed to pull out of a war they didn't start, which does not directly involve any US interests, in which we have already invested $110bn? Never? Not until we spend another $500bn we don't have?
No one is arguing that the US isn't allowed to pull out.
But "negotiating" a treaty with the other side and then claiming that that treaty is the final word on the war is atrocious. That's what's crazy. Not ending US involvement, but trying to say that Ukraine must stop fighting.
Now, I also think the US should keep supporting Ukraine, but that's a totally different topic.
This isn’t pulling out. It’s embarassing an ally on the world stage while acting like the spoiled toddler and Putin asset that he is. This is not normal. This isn’t even bad. This is outside politics and just flat out treasonous.
The US has sided with Russia against European and Western civilisation. Don’t understate what we are witnessing. The betrayal of civilisation is almost complete.
Yes, there's a difference, and what Trump is doing is clearly siding with Russia. His "negotiated peace" is neither negotiated nor peace. It's a surrender.
You don't have to support Ukraine indefinitely; only until Russia stops. Your options are to support Ukraine until Russia stops, or to surrender until Russia stops.
No. Not at all. There will come a point when Russia will stop the war because either Russia is completely exhausted and on the verge of collapse, or Putin is dead or removed from power. And chances are those two will go together.
Depends on who does the removing. It could go a lot of different ways, but even if it's someone from his own government who is hostile to the west, they're still likely to use it as an excuse to end the war.
It's mind blowing to me to see the left being the war mongers now. That used to be the mantle of the right, but hey, here we are.
The arguments I see for the US staying involved are the same hand wavy ones used in Vietnam - "better to fight them over in Asia then in America". It was a weak argument then, and it's a weak argument now.
The people that helped fan the flames of this war don't give one crap about Ukraine. What they care about is the neocon policy of "do anything to keep America's rival weak". So funding a war that Ukraine pays the price for works just fine.
The truth is that the war is going to end eventually and it's not going to be Russia capitulating. So rather than a hundred thousand more dead might as well find a solution.
I do not think you can compare this conflict with Vietnam. US army went into Vietnam, while Ukraine is fighting a US rival with their own military, but they do use US provided equipment.
General public in Europe didn't see US as actively involved, or at least didn't see it until the new administration said it would end the conflict. This is when Trump administration started getting into "talks with Russia" and offering Ukraine "mineral deals". While US might have tried to do that even before, it was not discussed openly by presidents.
This war is going to flame out eventually. Lessons learned in this one will be used for the next one, which is going to hurt even more.
> There's a difference between "siding with Russia" and siding with negotiated peace.
There is absolutely no difference, when the US is negotiating that peace only with Russia, without Ukraine in the room.
With Trump administration officials not able to name a single compromise they’ve asked from Russia.
If the “negotiated peace” is “I asked the country that invaded you what they want, and you must do everything they asked for”, that’s not negotiation.
I will never understand how people can be so quick to abandon independence nations, and are so willing to bow to dictators. You would cheer Chamberlain submitting to Hitler as he launches an invasion as a momentous day for peace. You would be wrong then, and you are wrong now.
Exactly... so what's the purpose of continuing the fight and killing Russian and Ukrainian men for no reason? This forum used to be a strong supporter of men's rights, but apparently these disappear once we dehumanize them via international relations. There's literally no reason for any individual Russian or Ukrainian man to die right now, since we all agree that no territory is being gained or lost.
Europe is happy to let others do the fighting and dying for them. They want Ukraine to fight the Russians so they don't have to. Sounds like a continent of cowards.
The EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, Ukraine drone production is through the roof. Europe needs Ukraine and its army as a bulwark against Russia.