Gymnastics

If Ukraine gets a cease fire but not permanent peace then too many Ukrainians will leave the country and Ukraine will be defenseless. UA Officials cannot let it happen. They need to fight war, unless a permanent, final peace treaty can be negotiated.

None of the blows dealt by the West to the Russian economy turned out to be a knockout. However, since 2022, the Kremlin has been receiving further blows, the effects of which are gradually accumulating. The longer the current situation lasts, the more difficult it will be for Russia to maintain its current status, both in terms of state spending and the standard of living of its citizens.
At the same time Ukraine receives funding from fellow democraties.

Nobody knows which country will collapse first. Biggest risk for Ukraine is USA elections and a friend of Russia (some people even call him Russia agent) being one of main candidates.

He is referring to appeasement in general in my opinion.
And he is right.

Ukrainian Officials already said no to a ceasefire last year, on instructions from Nato, in the link provided, above, and as widely reported, and commented in this thread. Also, 6? years ago Ukrainian Officials outlined that they would go to war with Russia sometime around 2021, and they would have several wars with Russia in order to break away from Russia. That interview was posted in this thread last year. Therefore the Ukrainian position is that they will use a peace treaty to regroup and then fight again. Knowing this is the plan advertised I find it quite difficult to comprehend the idea of Russia allowing Ukraine to do this. I find it more likely that Russia will demand Ukraine demilitarize, similar to what happened with Germany after WW2. Nato (and Ukraine) won't tolerate that, so the likely scenario in my view is regime change in Ukraine, which may involve a push on the capital by Russia, at some point later in this war. The only hope for a permanent peace is one in which Ukraine now has to give up Crimea, and eastern Ukraine, and w/e else is required for a landbridge to Crimea, and forget about Nato membership. By then Zelensky in all likelyhood will not be ruling Ukraine. Thats the harsh reality.

You can talk all day until the cows come home about blows to Russia but suggesting its a wait and see who collapses first - Ukraine or Russia - I hate to break it to you but Ukraine is in a much worse position then Russia, as outlined by the various statistic posted in the last number of weeks. I have not seen any data to suggest Russia crumbling. If you compare spending, Ukraine is literally crippling itself for decades right now via these billions of "AID" which, unfortunately, is not free, and with Ukraine getting rekt, Ukraine is going to have a very very hard to paying back those loans when it has been so torn by war.

Finally, Calling Donald Trump a Russian agent is really reaching, it has already been confirmed that Russiagate was built on a pack of lies. Yes Donald Trump would throw Ukraine under a bus, because ultimately provoking a war with Russia was so monumentally stupid.

This post was edited by ferdia on Nov 21 2023 05:43pm

Zelensky assassination attempts show negative growth





This post was edited by Malopox on Nov 21 2023 11:04pm

12 attempts
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/01/16/7385128/

10 attempts
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/zelensky-60-minutes-assassination-russia-war-b2069789.html

5-6 attempts
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/zelensky-assassination-ukraine-war-russia-putin-b2450889.html

Will we get to zero attempts by 2024?

you are a naive person my dear friend.

"Ukrainian Officials already said no to a ceasefire last year, on instructions from Nato, in the link provided, above, and as widely reported, and commented in this thread."

I checked the address of this webpage, its in London, UK, in a residential area. Somebody runs the page from his house, and you guys quote its like its some kind of well known and respected institution.

"I find it more likely that Russia will demand Ukraine demilitarize,"
And this is something that Ukraine cannot do.
Do you really think its a good idea to demilitarize your country when your neighbour country wants to eat you? You cant be that much naive.
If Ukraine demilitarizes than Russia will have much much easier to invade them.
Ukraine already given Russia their nukes for peace.
Russia didnt respect that peace deal. Why trust Russia again that they will respect the new deal?
Russia has a long history of not respecting any deals.

"The only hope for a permanent peace is one in which Ukraine now has to give up Crimea, and eastern Ukraine, and w/e else is required for a landbridge to Crimea, and forget about Nato membership"
That would not be a permanent peace. the only way for smaller countries to defend themselves against a single big country is to unite in some kind of military mutual-defense pact.
Russia can take any single European country 1vs1, so its obvious that smaller countries need to stay and fight together if attacked.
So a permanent peace must include either a NATO membership, or at least some very strong guarantees for Ukraine.

"You can talk all day until the cows come home about blows to Russia but suggesting its a wait and see who collapses first - Ukraine or Russia - I hate to break it to you but Ukraine is in a much worse position then Russia"
We will see about that. Its true Russia had a lot of money saved, they were preparing for war for a long time after all, but its unknown how long they can keep up. Ussr has bankrupted, so can Russia. Dont trust Russia statistics, its war and statistics are made up.
EU has given Ukraine dozens of billions euro, and we can keep up doing so, we are big economy, unlike Russia.

Finally the war was unprovoked, Russia wanted to rebuild ussr and conquer Europe because they hate we are doing better than they are, and Russians considers existence of rich European democracies as an existential risk for Russia.
Russians would want to live in rich, liberal countries, this is why Russian authorities need to destroy rich, liberal european countries, so that their citizens dont see any alternative and will accept being a slaves to their rulers.

Use your brain god dammit.

This post was edited by Ironfister on Nov 22 2023 01:43am

You are discrediting the website that is providing an english transcript of the article, instead of the article itself. have you read the article? what aspect of the article do you disagree with?

Michael von der Schulenburg, former UN Assistant Secretary-General, escaped East Germany in 1969, studied in Berlin, London and Paris and worked for over 34 years for the United Nations, and shortly the OSCE, in many countries in war or internal armed conflicts often involving fragile governments and armed non-state actors. These included long-term assignments in Haiti, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sierra Leone and shorter assignments in Syria, the Balkan, Somalia, the Balkan, the Sahel, and Central Asia. In 2017, he published the book ‘On Building Peace – rescuing the Nation-State and saving the United Nations’, AUP.

You are so utterly close minded.

Putin is an idiot, he waited until he was old and slow before taking steps to realise his life long dream of being a telly tubby. i get it.

This post was edited by ferdia on Nov 22 2023 02:02am

It feels as if you haven't actually read the article. It references, with links, interviews of heads of state Naftali Bennet - a major US ally Israel and Regep Edrogan - a NATO member Turkey - quoting them verbatim. These are not cheap Russian propagandist so you cannot discard their words.


In fact Russia has been respecting all the deals like Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 accords as well as many others, but NATO countries kept breaking those deals and then bragging how they "tricked" Russia into actually believing them. Interviews with Merkel, Hollande have been posted here many times. If anything Putin now looks foolish for having trusted Europeans. He should have been more strict, ruthless and decisive and none of that would have happened.


NATO membership for Ukraine is a cornerstone piece of this conflict. Ukraine cannot be in NATO. This and Crimea are two points Russians are not willing to concede on any terms. If you have read the articles - an alternative security guarantee to NATO was proposed and agreed by e.g. Turkey and Israel and Russia but declined by the US.


So far we have seen that Russia has flourished as they managed to encapsulate themselves from the sanctions which were badly implemented. Oil, gas, fertilizers, uranium, metals, agri exports keep flowing to countries that do not support NATO military expansionist policies.


There is absolutely no evidence that Russia or Putin wants to rebuild the USSR or conquer Europe. This is a feverish dream of some misguided western propagandists misinterpreting Putin's speeches where he is explained himself quite well. It has been explained many times here in this thread that Russians and Putin consider breakup of USSR a great tragedy due to all people getting stranded in all kinds of countries being essentially stateless (white guy with nowhere to go in an mostly islam country of Tajikistan e.g.). See e.g. this speech: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181. This is by no means an evidence anyone wants to rebuild anything. If Putin or Russia truly wanted to take over Europe or Ukraine - the invasion would have been done with 2-3-4-5 Million people to overwhelm Ukraine and make it swift and decisive.

This has been a great podcast with Lex Fridman and John Mearscheimer touching upon US, Russia/Ukraine, Israel and China.


This post was edited by Malopox on Nov 22 2023 02:22am

Lex must be struggling for decent guests to get that hack.
Couldn't stomach more than five minutes of his opportunist bullshit