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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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In Ukraine’s prolonged struggle against Russia, the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president was a black swan event.

Among other positions, Trump ran on the promise of extricating the United States from the conflict in Ukraine. His closest allies have openly disparaged Kyiv and made overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thus, with this transition of power begins a new chapter of the war in which Western support for Ukraine could fall by the wayside.

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s belated decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to strike targets deep within Russian territory, a critical condition of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “victory plan,” is hardly a godsend. These missiles cannot singlehandedly change the course of the war, and they put Zelensky in an awkward position. Striking Russian targets will trigger not only the wrath of Putin, but also that of Trump, who will undoubtedly view any escalation as a shot against his own prospects for dealmaking.

With Trump making threats to pull out of NATO and cut a deal with Putin, Europe is also having second thoughts on backing Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Putin on Nov. 15 about bringing an end to the war, while Czech President Petr Pavel announced plans in October to send a new ambassador to the Czech Embassy in Moscow in early 2025.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently attended the annual summit of the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and several recently added members—hosted in Kazan, Russia. The U.N.’s involvement in an event hosted by a country engaged in a war of aggression, whose president is wanted under an International Criminal Court warrant, sends a disheartening message.

Almost three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, the West is tired. It no longer has the political will to help Ukraine win by military means and is seeking a settlement with the aggressor instead.

The U.S. shift toward isolationism may hasten the inevitable: Ukraine and the West will soon find themselves negotiating with Russia to define the terms of a settlement—and, by extension, shaping a new world order. This emerging order will not be the rules-based system established after World War II, but one driven by idiosyncratic dealmaking among strongmen.

The problem is that any deal will amount to Ukraine’s—and the West’s—capitulation to Russia.

A bad peace is better than a good quarrel, according to a Russian proverb. If the West is set on securing this “bad peace,” then it must have a negotiating strategy along four critical parameters: territories, security guarantees for Ukraine, reparations, and sanctions.

Even before Trump’s election, some of Ukraine’s staunchest allies began expressing the view that Ukraine would have to accept some loss of land. The most obvious settlement strategy, then, would likely involve buying Ukrainian and European security with territory—possibly including Donetsk; large chunks of the Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions; and the peninsula of Crimea, which Russia first seized in 2014.

This outcome is a far cry from the Western leaders’ earlier commitments to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and hopes for regime change in Russia, but realpolitik leaves little room for moral considerations.

Should Zelensky agree to this loss of territory, the only realistic security guarantee for Ukraine would be membership in NATO. Yet this runs counter to what U.S. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has lobbied for: a demilitarized zone along the current front lines and an enduring commitment to Ukraine’s neutrality.

The next White House does not seem to have a plan for what happens to Europe in a few years, when it would face a revanchist Russia with a subdued Ukraine at its Western borders. Such an outcome is not in Trump’s best interest. Another option, therefore, may have Trump concede to Ukraine’s membership in a new NATO—one without the United States, perhaps—leaving Europeans to be the masters of their own security.

Battered and curtailed but still sovereign, Ukraine would gain a nuclear umbrella against future Russian aggression, and Europe would fund the postwar reconstruction. There would be no international tribunal and no reparations. (Putin won’t be negotiating his own sentence.) Sanctions against Russia would remain for the time being. Europe would accept the occupation de facto, but it wouldn’t de jure recognize the territory as Russian land.

It will be difficult to come up with a deal that satisfies all parties. But in any negotiation, reaching a mutually satisfactory outcome depends on the motivation and constraints of those involved. The West is motivated to settle in Ukraine because it is tired of war, and because Trump is uninterested in leading the existential fight for democracy. Ukraine, understanding that it cannot win on its own, can be motivated to settle in order to stop the now-pointless bloodshed.

Putin’s motivations are murkier. In fact, a closer look would reveal that Putin has no need for lasting peace.

Putin’s megalomaniacal intransigence is now reinforced by his perception that he is winning, even if it is taking longer than he hoped. Piecemeal shipments of Western military aid have made Russian advances slow and painful—but they have been advances nevertheless. While Ukraine’s ability to affect Russian military logistics was until recently severely hampered by Western restrictions, the Russian army has faced no such limitations, regularly bombing civilian infrastructure and military targets alike.

In wars of attrition, the side with more resources is poised to win, and Russia still mobilizes resources with frightening force. Russia has activated the economic and cultural mechanisms necessary for around-the-clock military production—bread-making factories churning out drones, schoolchildren making camouflage nets, and old Soviet tanks hauled out of Siberian forests and shipped to Ukrainian front lines.

Now that the economy has been switched on to military footing, there is no shortage of munitions. Meanwhile, government payouts ensure an ample supply of volunteers to enlist in the military, meaning Russia does not have a manpower crisis like Ukraine does.

No human toll is too high for Russia. During World War II, Russia lost more than 27 million people—the largest number of fatalities of all involved. Peter the Great’s 18th-century Great Northern War, which established Russia’s power in the Baltics, lasted 21 years and incurred enormous casualties, as did the 25-year-long Livonian War fought by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century.

Russia has already suffered upward of 700,000 people dead or wounded during the Ukraine war, according to estimates from the National Interest. But with families of dead soldiers mollified by the “coffin money” they receive, society writ large has not budged in its support for the war. It will likely stay that way short of another mobilization.

It certainly helps that the brunt of the war is borne by recruited volunteers, who sign up to fight to improve their and their family’s economic standings, and by convicts—both groups making up a significant number of those killed and wounded in Ukraine. Another large constituency fighting Russia’s war is national minorities, often from depressed economic areas and the lowest strata of society. And now, those minorities are joined by North Korean soldiers and potentially by citizens of the other dictatorships that Putin courts.

Contrast this low visibility of Russia’s war toll, further obscured by Kremlin propaganda, to its loudly celebrated nativist successes. In the last two years, not only did Russia fail to fold under the weight of Western sanctions, but it also managed to build parallel economic, financial, and cultural structures that are independent of the West.

Economically, Russia has reoriented itself toward the East, increasing trade with China, India, and other countries in Asia and the Middle East. It has shifted its energy exports away from Europe and developed domestic production capabilities. Despite sanctions, oil money—the main source of Russia’s war financing—keeps flowing, albeit from a different direction than before. Cross-border payments are now handled through SPFS, a homegrown alternative to the SWIFT global financial system, and the Mir payment system that replaced Visa and MasterCard. Russia touts these systems to its BRICS partners as alternatives to “Western financial hegemony.”

If anything, the war in Ukraine has given Putin more money to play with than before. Assets belonging to Western companies exiting Russia have been nationalized or bought for cheap and redistributed to businesses with ties to the Kremlin—one of the largest property transfers in Russia’s history. Cut off from Western banks, Russian oligarchs must invest their money domestically. Sanctions evasion schemes protect Russians’ access to Western consumer goods, creating enormous enrichment opportunities for Russian and Western business agents alike. Tankers shuttle Russian oil with payments cleared through offshore shell companies. Putin’s personal wealth, estimated at somewhere between $70 billion and $200 billion, remains safe. Though he is a product of a socialist state, the Russian leader is a master of capitalism.

Cultural shifts in Russia increase Putin’s confidence in victory. What little dissent remained before the war has largely been rooted out, with Russians closing ranks around their leader. According to a recent poll conducted by the Levada Center in September and October, more than two-thirds of Russians who said they want the war to end are against returning Russian-occupied territories to Ukraine.

On the global stage, Russia has managed to upgrade its status from a regional power to a leader of the anti-Western coalition. These coalition members have their own stakes in Ukraine. A Russian victory would embarrass the United States, weakening its influence in Asia and helping China. North Korea has found exports—bad shells and soldiers—that it can exchange for food, money, and energy. And Iran is happy to keep the United States distracted from the Middle East.

Even if Putin wanted to end the war, it would entail serious risk for his regime. Drones, shells, and missile production would have to be scaled down, ending the economic boom. The sudden drop in government spending would create real prospects of an economic collapse. Around 1.5 million veterans would have to be pulled out of Ukraine to find new roles in a corrupt Russian society. The manufactured sense of national unity would give way to envy that beyond the border, on Russia’s “ancestral lands,” Ukrainians are thriving under European Union and NATO banners.

Taken together, in a country reacclimatized to grand-scale violence, the prospect of revolt becomes clear and present. To find an outlet for that aggression, Putin would have to start a new war not long after agreeing to settle for peace.

Ultimately, the status quo—an ongoing border squabble with conventional weapons—suits all but Ukraine and Europe, for which security deteriorates in direct proportion to Putin’s success.

The Putin that the West would face at the negotiating table is a former underdog—a man on a mission to free the world from what he has characterized as Western “hegemony,” his economy thriving, his new and old friends paying court, and his people unified behind him.

He is not, however, as invincible as he seems. The BRICS countries are not rushing to replace SWIFT with the Russian alternative. By putting all his economic eggs into the military basket, Putin has siphoned off resources from everywhere else, an unsustainable move. Inflation is real, and the ruble is weakening. Even the overheated military sector can’t keep up with demands. Moreover, as a student of Russian history, Putin knows that the support and adoration of the Russian masses can turn on its head overnight.

But Putin also knows how to keep a poker face. Having staked his survival on this war, Putin would be negotiating from the position of strength and with obligations to his domestic and international stakeholders in mind.

He has already shot an opening volley at the U.S. president-elect: After a call during which Trump told the Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine, Russian state television released a special on Melania Trump’s modeling career, including nude photos of the once and future first lady.

The West, meanwhile, will be negotiating from a position of inherent weakness. After tiptoeing around the Kremlin’s red lines throughout the war, Western leaders have signaled their readiness to consider cessation of a large chunk of Ukrainian territory, wishing away what little leverage they had.

There is nothing stopping Putin from believing that he can’t get more. Unless Russia is decisively defeated on the battlefield or Putin is given precisely what he wants, he will not stop.

Of the options put forward for a negotiated solution, the only one that Putin would agree to is the one that gives him Ukraine’s capitulation on a platter. He will never agree to a thriving, independent, armed, and Western-aligned Ukraine on his border, because he would lose too much face. Putin will therefore demand an unviable Ukraine—without an army and without NATO membership—and, in effect, a Western surrender.

The issue of European security cannot be solved by a settlement with Moscow because appeasement only increases the aggressor’s appetite. Only the containment of Putin’s expansionism by military means will remove the existential threat to his neighbors. So long as there is an aggressive, revanchist Russia in the picture, lasting peace is an illusion.

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darkmaga-returns · 26 days ago

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A full-fledged economic pressure campaign by the US against the BRICS countries might be imminent.

Trump reposted late November’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS countries if they go through with their alleged plans to create a new currency or support an existing one to replace the dollar, which was analyzed here at the time. It was assessed that his threat was based upon false premises since such plans were only floated around by the group and never seriously advanced. Even Putin downplayed them as was proven in the aforesaid analysis citing speeches from the official Kremlin website.

The reality is that BRICS hasn’t achieved anything tangible in the decade since it agreed to create the New Development Bank in 2014, with even last October’s Kazan Summit falling flat despite the unprecedented hype that preceded it as explained in detail here back then. Shortly after Trump’s initial threat, Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar clarified that his country has no de-dollarization plans, which was reaffirmed after his latest threat and also echoed by Russia too.

In any case, it’s worthwhile wondering why Trump would repost the exact same threat two months later, which can be answered by remembering that this immediately preceded his imposition of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China on the pretext that they won’t help him stop the fentanyl scourge. It might therefore very well be that he’s planning to expand the anti-Chinese dimension of these tariffs on the pretext that Beijing is trying to internationalize the yuan via BRICS as a competitor to the dollar.

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eugenedebs1920 · 4 months ago

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“No prior President has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant” Were the words spoken by the late Senator from Arizona, John McCain after the July 2018 summit between President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. His fellow Arizonan Senator Jeff Flake would say, “I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful.”

McCain would pass away from an aggressive brain cancer on August 25, 2018. His fellow statesmen would not seek reelection, giving a lengthy em passionate speech condemning “new normal” of the Trump era, saying, “the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.”

Look at those pictures of Donald Trump! Have you ever seen that lack of overbearing arrogance on his face before!? Putin either makes him soil his diaper with fear, he has dirt on Trump, or our tiny handed tyrant is in love! This has little to do with what we’ll dive into but, just happened to run across Flake’s announcement for not seeking reelection. It was pretty good! Anyway…

With our short attention spans and constant distractions, we may only remember a phrase when we associate the word Russia, and the word Trump. That being the former President’s response to a reporter, saying “Oh! Russia Russia Russia”, that’s my word association image anyway. But yes. Russia Russia Russia.

We’ll go in a reverse chronologicalish order, or most relevant recent order, or whatever order it ends up as. There’s a lot to cover, see how long you make it… 😆

Trump has long had affairs overseas, and no, not the kind he’s known for, but business dealings. After making a series of bad decisions in the later 80’s early 90’s American banks were hesitant to loan to Trump. As it turns out, the Kremlin had their eye on Trump, and had Czech spies working for the Kremlin covertly tail him as early as 1987. Throughout the years Trump Would rely on Russian assistance quite often. From the financial and business side to the political and personal side.

Upon the merger of Trump’s, Truth Social and Digital World Acquisition Corp, Truth Social became, Trump Media and Technology Group. Before the merger Truth Social had been hemorrhaging money, showing significant losses on all quarterly reports.

In late 2021 the social media platform seemed as if it was doomed. In December of 2021, a Christmas miracle occurred in the form of two loans totaling eight million dollars, acting as a lifeline to the failing site.

These loans came as one for $2 million and another $6 million. The $2 million loan was from Paxum Bank, an entity tied with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Paxum Bank is partially owned by a man named Anton Postolnikov, who is related to a man named Aleksandr Smirinov (not the same As Alexander Smirinov that tried to relay Russian misinformation to the FBI, and was subsequently arrested for doing so in the House, Biden impeachment inquiry, political theater headed by James Comer of KY, but a different Smirinov) a former Russian government official, who runs Rosmorport, a Russian shipping company. There was $6 million loan paid by a separate entity by the name of ES Family Trust, who’s director at the time was the very same man who held the title of director at Paxum Bank, the same bank who loaned the smaller $2 million loan. You almost need a poster board with pictures, some tacks and yarn with that one!

In 2023 prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York began an investigation into the Russian based financial backing and Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG). The case is still ongoing.

We’re going to skip out of order here because this is already lacking brevity, so. Let’s turn to the end of Trump’s presidency, in the waning days, after the insurrection, Jan 16-20th.

After the disgraceful behavior Trump had engaged in upon losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Trump and his remaining staff were scrambling to exit the White House. On Jan the 18th, just two days from Biden’s inauguration, Trump requested the delivery of a binder.

This ten inch thick, treasure trove of documents contained some of the United States most closely guarded information and secrets. So much so that even lawmakers and congressional aides with top secret clearance could only view the binder, and information within, at the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) headquarters in Langley Virginia. Inside were the highest levels of confidentiality and secret information from the United States, its allies, and top secret NATO intelligence as well. It was a collection on Russia, assets working for or against the Kremlin, sources, methods in which the U.S. government received its information and even an assessment of the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Trump’s request was carried out under the care of the Presidents Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Trump’s sociopathic narcissist disorder caused the exiting, disgraced President to feel the need to declassify a host of documents, including the FBI’s investigation into himself and Russia.

White House lawyers and aides hurriedly redacted names, dates, locations as fast as they could knowing the erratic behavior of Trump. His top administration officials would attempt to block the publication of the classified information. The day before leaving office, on Jan 19th, despite pleas from White House officials, aides and staff, as well as out of spite, Trump issued the declassification of nearly all the sensitive material, putting the lives of agents, informants, and sources in jeopardy. Multiple copies of the initial redacted version were printed out and were set to be distributed throughout Washington to Republicans in Congress and to right wing media outlets. The copies that did get sent out were quickly recovered by White House lawyers, demanding that further redactions were necessary.

Minutes before the inauguration of President elect Biden, Meadows rushed to get approval from the Justice Department, hand delivering the redacted copy for final approval.

Suspiciously, in all the chaos of the final 48 hours, and Trump’s temper tantrum, the original, unredacted, ten inch thick binder of the most sensitive material regarding the U.S. and its allies went missing. There’s a redacted copy in the National Archives, but the whereabouts of the original binder remains a mystery.

During the hearings on the criminality that occurred in Trump’s final weeks in office, aide, Cassidy Hutchinson testified that she saw Chief of Staff MarkMeadows leave the White House with the binder, suggesting that her assumption was that he had put the top secret information in a safe, located at his home.

This brings us to our next act… Of sedition.

The declassification and illegal retention of the world’s most secretive binder was not the only act of treason Trump would engage in. After his loss in November and into December Trump had authorized the removal and transport of dozens of boxes of classified information, state secrets, nuclear secrets, U.S. and its allies war plans to various properties he owned.

The FBI was aware of the taking of the documents, after requesting their return several times a warrant was issued to Trump’s Florida “home” Mar-a-lago. It was coordinated out of respect, safety and to not make a spectacle of the raid, that Trump would not be present when the FBI searched his club/home.

What the FBI found was dozens of boxes containing the classified documents as well as other trinkets like magazines and newspaper articles, strewn around, knocked over and spilling in various locations such as a closet, bathroom, his youngest child Barrons’s room and a hidden room containing surveillance equipment for the property.

In thier assessment of the evidence they found 43 empty folders with tabs labeled, Classified, 28 empty folders labeled, Return to Staff Secretary or Military Aide. In the boxes, folders that weren’t empty included, 18 documents marked, Top Secret, 54 marked as, secret, 31 marked as, Confidential, and 11,179 other Government documents, some with photos that weren’t marked.

This case is the most egregious act of sedition of American President in our nations history. A Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, was tasked by the DOJ of heading the case. In a stunning move of partisanship and a complete disregard of standing Jurisprudence, Federal Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, would go against 50 years of precedent and dismiss the case under the grounds the the special counsel was improperly funded. The American people would be denied their right to get the truth about who, what, when and why these documents were retained, missing, and in the condition they were found. The binder talked about earlier was not in the trove of documents found at Mar-a-lago, its location remains unknown.

So yea! Russia Russia Russia… There’s SO much more Russian ties, scandals, shady business dealings to show but. If this is nearly as long to read as it was to write, I’m proud you made it all the way through.

I’ve been saying it for years, Trump is a Russian asset, I even made a bet saying in 20 years if it doesn’t come out that Trump was a Russian asset I owed this person a sloppy, dentureless blowjob (because I’ll be kinda old in 20 years and I assume I’ll have dentures).

Don’t be conned by Americans most notorious conman and give him the chance to steal and share even more of our state secrets. Vote Kamala Harris for President. Blue down ballot for real change in our country.

I may finish this and post the whole thing from 2013 to what we dove in to on my substack, which I’ll try to remember to leave a link in the comments section. Until next time. Let’s hope for the sake of our democracy Trump loses here in 2024 or maybe I’ll see some of you f*cks in Gitmo 😉😅😆☮️🇺🇸

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detroitpedxing · 4 months ago

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'We do hope that America will become stronger', says Ukraine president

Back to Europe now, where Ukraine's president says relations between the US and the continent "must be valued and cannot be lost" after Donald Trump's US election victory.

Speaking at a European leaders' summit in Budapest, Volodymyr Zelensky says: "We do hope that America will become stronger."

"This is the kind of America that Europe needs," he says. "And a strong Europe is what America needs - this is the connection between allies that must be valued and cannot be lost."

Zelensky, according to AFP news agency, also tells the summit it would be "unacceptable for Ukraine" and "suicidal for all Europe" if Russian leader Vladimir Putin is offered any concessions.

Nearly a full day after Donald Trump's victory speech, reactions to his return to the White House are still trickling in.

Latvia's President Edgars Rinkēvičs says he's not nervous about a second Trump administration.

"Everyone is now trying to figure out" the incoming government's foreign policy, "particularly vis-à-vis Ukraine," he tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

Asked about the suggestion Trump could enforce a settlement between Ukraine and Russia, he adds: "Whatever the political process there is, it must include Ukraine."

Western leaders have been calling on president-elect Trump to renew American support to Ukraine.

But France's Emmanuel Macron warns European leaders "we cannot delegate our security to the Americans forever", adding it is now time for Europe to "write its own history".

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine "within 24 hours" but has not clarified what either side would have to give up to secure a peace deal

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blackpilledkremlintsarina5294 · 22 days ago

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July 16, 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin's plane landed in Helsinki, Finland, 30 minutes later than planned, pushing back his meeting with US President Donald Trump. Putin's spokesman said he hopes the summit is a "baby step" toward fixing US-Russian relations

#putinedit #vladimir vladimirovich putin #finland #helsinki #politics #vladdy #my edits #Президент России Владимир Путин #Финляндия #Хельсинки

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justinspoliticalcorner · 10 days ago

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Tristan Snell:

America is under assault, but today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City officials have the opportunity to strike back against the revolting foreign corruption that has infested our nation — by removing Eric Adams as mayor of NYC. This assault on America has been ongoing for nearly two decades now, with concerted attacks on our civic discourse, our media, our information ecosystem, our international alliances, our elections, and our elected public officials, of both parties but especially the Republican Party. The malefactors hail from all over the world, in league with collaborators and craven opportunists right here at home — but the largest single source of evil has been from the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin. We are quite possibly slogging through the worst period of corruption in all of American history — with seemingly limitless foreign money seeping into every corner of American politics and the open, permeable world of digital media that is replacing the TV-dominated media world of the 20th Century.1

Our elected officials and thus our government institutions are influenced and controlled by shadowy foreign powers — with illegal summits and meetings, under-the-table deals, secret telephone calls, disinformation campaigns, election interference, fake bomb threats, and yes, foreign money flowing directly and indirectly into the hands of our politicians. Including Eric Adams, according to federal prosecutors. Adams allegedly pocketed over $10 million from NYC taxpayers, to illegally fund his campaign for mayor — by astroturfing donations from Turkey, which then triggered matching funds from NYC’s fund for public financing of campaigns. Not to mention the free travel and other perks Adams personally accepted, per the indictment. And now Adams stands accused of cutting yet another quid pro quo with another disgustingly corrupt politician from NYC — Donald Trump. Adams appears to have traded away his policy position on immigration — and the lives and freedom of New Yorkers — so that the Trump administration could get a political win and then order DOJ to withdraw the charges against Adams. But with a catch: the charges are to be withdrawn “without prejudice” as the legal term of art goes, so that they can still be re-filed at a later date, giving Trump a sword of Damocles to dangle over Adams. Adams has now shown that he cannot be left in office for even one more day. Every day that he remains as mayor is another day when he can abuse his office and hurt New Yorkers and violate their constitutional rights. No more. It ends here.

New York City’s MAGA-coddling and corrupt disgrace of a mayor Mayor Eric Adams must resign from his job pronto!