Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[-Jrabbit]

After turning our back on NATO, the UN, Ukraine, it is laughable to think that either our "powerful allies" or "weak vassals" will come running to help the country that betrayed them.

[BeBMan]

Putin spent 8 years in an un-declared war against Ukraine after his little green men stole Crimea.

FTFY

[N35t0r]

Putin spent 8 years trying to avoid "empire" and if the west really gave a damn about democracy they'd be negotiating for an autonomous Donbas now that Minsk is dead.

That's not in line with his actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Belarus, Crimea and Donbass.

Negotiating for an autonomous Donbass would require Russian troops to leave Ukraine, which isn't something that Putin seems to want.
Also, if Russia cared about that, the time was before invading, not after. You're arguing that the allies in '39 should have tried to negotiate an autonomous Danzig corridor with Hitler rather than declaring war after he invaded Poland.

[Berzerker]

Trump wants to extort money out of Ukraine and to please his Russian masters. One of the Russians present in the US-Russia negotiations was Dmitry Rybolovlev, the oligarch who bought a Trump property in Florida valued at USD 40 million for USD 95 million back in 2008.

Anyway, if the US thinks that having a 'friendly or neutral ' Russia is worth losing Europe (and possibly Canada and Mexico) as allies is a good trade, then good for him.

Nevermind that Putin could have remained perfectly happy as a 'friend' of Europe, earning millions of Euros in gas, oil, and mineral exports, but he seems to prefer his empire over this. That's a nice friend to have.

Putin spent 8 years trying to avoid "empire" and if the west really gave a damn about democracy they'd be negotiating for an autonomous Donbas now that Minsk is dead.

[Geronimo]

There's some reporting that Trump's "friendliness" towards Russia might be an attempt to separate Russia and China.

*If that is a thing I say good luck with that. Both Russia and China are long term competitors, if not enemies of the US, with deep-rooted ideological and geostrategic diffs towards America. And Russia can't be sure what POV next US presidents will take, while China is a relatively safe bet for them.

Russia has enormous reasons to distrust China. They would want to be as close to China as possible while avoiding becoming totally dependent on them. It's easy to imagine them pretending to peel away from China (but not to China itself) if it would help restore other trade opportunities. Russia and China will never be the kinds of allies that the affluent democracies used to be but now that advantage is gone and who knows if they'll ever get it back.

[BeBMan]

There's some reporting that Trump's "friendliness" towards Russia might be an attempt to separate Russia and China.

*If that is a thing I say good luck with that. Both Russia and China are long term competitors, if not enemies of the US, with deep-rooted ideological and geostrategic diffs towards America. And Russia can't be sure what POV next US presidents will take, while China is a relatively safe bet for them.

[N35t0r]

Europe has nukes and Trump wants a friendly or neutral Russia

Trump wants to extort money out of Ukraine and to please his Russian masters. One of the Russians present in the US-Russia negotiations was Dmitry Rybolovlev, the oligarch who bought a Trump property in Florida valued at USD 40 million for USD 95 million back in 2008.

Anyway, if the US thinks that having a 'friendly or neutral ' Russia is worth losing Europe (and possibly Canada and Mexico) as allies is a good trade, then good for him.

Nevermind that Putin could have remained perfectly happy as a 'friend' of Europe, earning millions of Euros in gas, oil, and mineral exports, but he seems to prefer his empire over this. That's a nice friend to have.

[Berzerker]

Europe has nukes and Trump wants a friendly or neutral Russia

[Berzerker]

Why do you think negotiations are democratic?

[N35t0r]

Trump is making our allies think about arming themselves. If a war ever did break out the USA will need powerful allies, not several weak vassals.

Well, congratulations then. The way things are going, Europe will make sure it can stand against Russia alone, and leave the US to its own devices.

[BeBMan]

Also in the movie Star Wars the Great Republic is slowly destroyed by the evil guys from within before the Galactic Empire is established and Pal Putin takes over.

[giblets]

Who runs Nato and Ukraine? Of course Russia is talking to us.

That is how the Russian government sees it, because the Russian government does not value democracy.

[Berzerker]

"Experts point out that Trump, despite his reputation as a strong negotiator, has a long track record of failures. The most glaring examples include the deal with the Taliban, which led to the US collapse in Afghanistan"

Getting out of Afghanistan was the goal and he calls it Trump's most glaring failure? Maybe from the neocon perspective but everyone else wanted to leave. The Taliban didn't kill any US soldiers after Trump's deal.

"several attempts by Trump's team to threaten the Kremlin with the deployment of US troops and large-scale missile deliveries to Ukraine, resource-extraction deals with Kyiv, or restrictions on Russian oil exports proved ineffective."

after claiming Trump skipped negotiations he says they failed. We don't know what worked or failed, negotiations are ongoing.

"Russia has won a complete victory in the first round, the Kremlin has secured the normalisation of bilateral diplomatic relations that excludes Ukraine and NATO, and sacrificed nothing in return, Democrat Jake Okincloss, who co-chairs the House Ukraine Caucus, told Reuters."

Who runs Nato and Ukraine? Of course Russia is talking to us.

"His impression was drawn from Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich, which effectively served as Trump’s team’s declaration of a fundamental shift in US foreign policy. For the past 80 years, that policy has been based on a foundation of Euro-Atlantic alliances and bipartisan consensus on key international objectives – particularly the principle of indivisible Euro-Atlantic security. Vance’s speech and the actions of the Trump administration overturn this doctrine.​"

BS, the USA dictates policy. What did Victoria Nuland say about the European opinion on the future government in post-coup Ukraine? ef them. Europe does what we say.

"Trump’s team has signaled two key shifts: firstly, it is relinquishing its responsibility for the security of its allies and, secondly, it does not want to deal with the current EU leadership, but would instead welcome the rise of ideologically aligned far-right forces in Europe."

Trump is making our allies think about arming themselves. If a war ever did break out the USA will need powerful allies, not several weak vassals. The far right is a reaction to the flood of refugees running from Obama's moderate rebels. Now that'll be interesting, how will Trump and Gabbard deal with the head choppers in charge of Syria. She hates ISIS, even likened Obama's policy of arming them to a betrayal in the war on terror. That's why many in the Senate hate her, they support(ed) those thugs too.

[BeBMan]

My hope is that at least for defense and Ukraine the message has been received, and that we'll see improvement on that. Otoh you can't be sure that it somehow gets lost in between again for whatever reason.

After all Scholz made a nice start with 100bn extra in 2022, but then reverted to mostly indecisive slomo for quite a while before support for Ukraine finally increased again.

My 2nd hope is that it may sink in in Washington that things are not as easy as they'd like to have it, at least if the declaration that peace has to be sustainable is meant seriously.

Howevah, China will watch and take notes, I'm sure.

[The Mad Monk]

That's a very nice country you have there...shame if something were to happen to it.