#Trump Putin talks

[latestnews-now]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his willingness to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, opening the door to critical discussions on Ukraine, global diplomacy, and more. What does this mean for the world stage? Watch the full analysis and share your thoughts below!

[presidentkamala]

One day i will wake up and he will be dead.

[greencheekconure27]

Tankies when USA was sending Ukraine military aid so they can defend themselves from Russia, a country invading them for imperialistic reasons:

USA BAD! AMERICAN IMPERIALISM!! NATO PROXY WAR!!!

Tankies when the President of the United States is being an imperialistic asshat who's trying to force Ukraine into a "peace deal" with Russia, doesn't allow Ukraine to participate in negotiations about its own fate, and is completely ignoring Ukrainian interests in favour of making this a conversation between two empires, all while also demanding half of Ukraine's natural resources for his "help":

*cricket noises*

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine is totally correct not to fall for phony agreements with Russia. Russia has a long history of not keeping its word – maybe that's why Trump is such a Putinphile..

Russia's invasion violated at least three major international agreements.

The 1945 United Nations Charter [Article 2, Section 4].

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act [1. (a) III and 1. (a) IV] by the CSCE which in 1990 became the OSCE.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

Why should anybody trust Putin's Russia to observe any new agreements?

Tim Mak is a journalist working in Ukraine. He was formerly with NPR and The Daily Beast. This is from his Substack The Counteroffensive. He and two colleagues spoke with diplomat and international attorney Oleksandr Merezhko who participated in negotiations with Russia of previous ceasefires known as the Minsk agreements.

"I believed that [the agreements] could be implemented with good will... but Russia did not even try to achieve a result, they just wanted to use it for purely propagandistic military purposes to destroy Ukraine," Merezhko said. As February 2022 approached, when the full-scale invasion began, Oleksandr began to suspect that Russia was planning something more significant. After all, Moscow was increasingly spreading information online that Ukraine was violating the Minsk agreements. "Russia was looking for an excuse to abandon the ceasefire, accuse Ukraine of violating it, and then its hands would be free for full-scale aggression... We did everything to prevent Russia from having a chance to say that even if it was aggression, an attack, it was provoked by Ukraine," Merezhko said. [ ... ] The main problem is that the Russians were uninterested in a ceasefire and negotiations. They comply with rules and requirements only when it is to their advantage. "The Minsk agreements have once again confirmed that we cannot have anything to do with the Russians, because they are liars and never keep their commitments, or keep them only when it is in their interest. When [their] interest disappears, so do the obligations," Ukrainian diplomat and former foreign minister Volodymyr Ohryzko told The Counteroffensive. The main conclusion to be drawn from the Minsk agreements is that to negotiate anything with the Russians is to disrespect oneself, said Ohryzko. Therefore, the main argument in talks with Russia is strength.

Anybody who believes that Russia would observe a new agreement without Ukraine getting solid security backing from the West probably attended Trump University and bought a year's worth of Trump Vitamins.

The Russian word показуха generally means "window dressing" but can sometimes be used to describe a staged event. In that sense, that's what the Trump-Vance hissy fit in the Oval Office was.

I suspect that somebody told Trump that Ukraine got the better end of the minerals deal. The only way Trump could weasel out of it was to have a temper tantrum to keep it from being signed as scheduled.

As for Ukraine not being grateful, fact checkers pooped all over Trump's lies about that.

Fact check: 33 times Zelensky thanked Americans and US leaders

How often does Trump thank people? He probably never thanked the doctor who faked the diagnosis of a bone spur to keep him from getting drafted.

Back to 1994 for a moment. In the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons for secure borders. Now that Ukraine's territorial integrity has been violated, does that mean it's okay for them to have nukes again?

[alfredolover119]

[ID: The "I love you" Supernatural Destiel meme. The second panel is filled out to have Dean responding, "Donald Trump just announced he will be arrested on Tuesday /End ID]

[Posted on 18 March 2023 11:01am GMT-5]

[SOURCE 1: CNN]

[SOURCE 2: THE NEW YORK TIMES]

[SOURCE 3: NBC]

[buttacake80]

Here is the oath enlisted military make upon joining.

Note that they swear to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Note that their first allegiance is to the Constitution.

Then, they swear to obey the President, and then the officers above them.

This is oath made by commissioned officers.

Notice the key difference? Whereas the enlisted oath mentions obedience to the President, the oath an officer makes does not.

Yesterday, five former Secretaries of Defense sent a letter to Congress, appealing for them to reign in Trump.

I wonder if this message is intended for the military. A signal that this is that time to support and defend the Constitution against enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC.

Trump's aim is to purge the military of the flag officers who would order units to stand down. However, he is underestimating all of the officers under them. I think this letter is to those individuals; the ones who don't swear to obey a President.

Hegseth ordered all trans military members to be separated out. I think by March 5th. That will be several thousand individuals who volunteered to serve when we are at record low recruitment numbers.

Trump just ended peace talks with Ukraine on the war in Ukraine. He was trying to extort Ukraine. Now, he's saying Zelenskyy insulted the US. He was already impeached ONCE for trying to strong-arm Zelenskyy and Ukraine.

His ego was bruised. He thinks he is the United States of America, and since his ego was bruised, he will want to use "his" military to bully Ukraine into submission.

[jccheapalier]

KAMALA HARRIS wants to run for PRESIDENT again!?

[qqueenofhades]

Happy Pride 🥳

[mugiwara-lucy]

Talk about IRRELEVANT and WASHED UP.

Of course I had to chime in 😂

[skitskatdacat63]

I really hope this leaked convo is real because oh my god what in the deranged ass old man yaoi 😭😭

[ricisidro]

How to 'end the Russia-Ukraine War within a day.'

US President-elect Donald Trump Peace Plan or Peace Talks in Europe.

Creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine, patrolled by European troops, with Russia retaining its territorial gains (20% of Ukraine: Crimea and the Donbas region made up of Donetsk and Luhansk) and Ukraine pledging not to join NATO for 20 years. Ukrainian President Zelensky has condemned the plan as "suicidal for Europe."

Source: Newsweek

[half-life-crisis]

#ITOLDYou! #Podcast S2/E3! #Trump’s #cabinet #picks are destroying #America already. #People in the #presidential orbit shall never be #blind #loyalists.

#watch here https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ql6P3cH2AVE…

#learn more https://halflifecrisis.com/hlc-articles/how-trumps-cabinet-picks-destroy-america…

#MAGA actually #voted for #Russian's #intererests.

[greencheekconure27]

I suggest they have Putin and Trump sit down in a room together, lock the door, and burn the place down.

Bonus points if they manage to lock them in a sauna. (It's a long trip to Saudi Arabia after all, they'll need to relax before the big negotiations)

Princess Olga school of diplomacy. 👍👍

[tomorrowusa]

Elon Musk, Donald Trump's chief pompom boy, has been secretly communicating with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for the last few years.

A report that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been in regular contact over the past few years with President Vladimir Putin will not come as much of a surprise to officials in Ukraine—or to the frontline troops fighting a brutal war of attrition with Russian forces. In the few months after Putin’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the South African-born billionaire was hailed a hero by the country’s defenders as they used Musk’s Starlink satellite terminals to coordinate their military operations. Freely provided by Musk in a gesture of solidarity, the terminals gave Ukrainians a crucial battleground edge against the numerically superior Russian forces. Since then, however, relations between Musk and Ukrainian leaders have deteriorated significantly. The Wall Street Journal report on the regular contact between Musk and the Kremlin—the newspaper says Putin even asked Musk not to activate Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to China’s Xi Jinping—will only confirm suspicions in Ukraine that, if not yet a full-blown Russian asset, Musk is becoming a Russian ally. And Starlink is the key. The portable satellite terminals, allowing reliable and secure internet access, remain the backbone of Ukraine’s frontline communications—although the bill is now picked up by the Pentagon rather than Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX. Increasingly, however, the Russians are using them too. Ukrainian officials say Russian forces are deploying thousands of the terminals in captured Ukrainian territory, closing the technology gap and enabling their grindingly slow and brutal offensive in the Donetsk region. Because of international sanctions, Starlink cannot sell its hardware in Russia and its satellite do not cover Russian territory. But the Russians appear to have a reliable supply of smuggled Starlink terminals through a third country, which its forces can then use in Ukraine.

Well, now we know how Putin obtained those Starlink terminals.

While Russia illicitly using Starlink in communications networks and drones is an alarming sign that they can access American technology to make their drones better, they might not become commonplace. Russian forces on the ground are in desperate need of stable communications and the military might prioritize giving them Starlink access over putting the hardware in a drone that will more than likely be shot down after a single use. Even if Starlink is put in some Shahed variants, it’s unlikely that every single one of the dozens of drones launched per month would have it. Even so, Russia’s use of Starlink to coordinate its forces and drones create new worries for Ukraine and SpaceX alike.

It's deeply troubling that somebody with close ties to America's space program should be playing footsie with one of America's enemies.

With Election Day 10 days away, what are YOU doing in real life to defeat the Trump-Musk-Putin Axis? You can inform low information voters, you can help people vote, and you can shoot down bullshit you hear being publicly spewed by MAGA cultists.

If you don't have a bone spur or something, see how you can help in the final stretch of the campaign.

Volunteer | Kamala Harris for President

[wherepond]

Ukraine war

Trump's Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg postponed his trip to Kyiv until after the inauguration

[generallemarc]

This is a transcript of a CNN interview by Secretary Rubio regarding the Zelenskyy fiasco yesterday, and in a first for both the Trump administration and CNN I think both sides have a point here. Insulting Putin won't help end the war, which Ukraine needs to have happen to avoid losing more land and more people, as reconquest is no longer feasible thanks to manpower shortages that are only going to get worse the longer things go on. But at the same time, while Zelenskyy may have said that a specific thing was a Russian lie when it wasn't, I feel like he, with his imperfect English, may have been intending to say that Trump has been saying other things that really are Russian lies, like blaming Ukraine for the war starting. I feel like it should've been obvious to a man who's dealt with Trump before that he was just trying to butter up Putin, but at the same time I can only imagine the level of frustration that one could have from trying to work with such an aggravating person as Trump.

I think the CNN interviewer has a point in pointing out how Rubio is suddenly unwilling to say alot of the things he said about Putin as a Senator, and I think Rubio has a point in saying that that was before he was America's top diplomat with a mandate to end a war that still primarily hinges on bringing Putin to the table. Because, at the end of the day, this shouting matches changes very little, arguably nothing about what everyone wants and needs. Trump still wants the war to end whether or not he follows through on his threat to withhold military aid(which I personally doubt as Zelenskyy is far more likely to just swallow his pride and apologize rather than risk people actually dying for the sake of said pride, shitty as it is for Trump to tacitly use that to get what he wants from him). Zelenskyy still wants the war to end because he knows there's not going to be an indefinite supply of weapons regardless of whether it stops now or later, and also because manpower is something that can't be supplied at all and can't be fixed in a manner that Russia can't just roll over with more North Korean meatshields. Europe still wants peace while giving Russia as little as possible, and in fact following the argument Rubio spoke with the UK's Foreign Secretary regarding ending the war.

Is this a bad look? Absolutely. Is Trump to blame? I'd love a full transcript of what was said, as Rubio only provided snippets, but I'd put good money on "probably, or at the very least to a greater extent than Zelenskyy was." But is this going to change anything? Aside from that mineral deal maybe needing to be a bit more in America's favor, probably not. Regardless of your stance on both this incident and the war, I encourage you to read the interview, to get a more detailed perspective on both from two sides who, against all odds, manage to overcome the usual insanity that surrounds Trump to be reasonable and coherent with each other.