Why J. D. Vance is clueless about Ukraine

 Timothy Ash, Kyiv Independent:

"Opinion: JD Vance’s neutrality pitch for Ukraine is a shortcut to Putin’s next invasion

October 10, 2024

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance might consider himself a genius for proposing “neutrality” for Ukraine as the centerpiece of his plan to end Russia’s war. For Vance, this appears to be a true eureka moment.

Unfortunately, the concept of neutral status for Ukraine is not new. Vance may not realize it, but Ukraine effectively had neutral status in 2014. Until Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its initial invasion of Donbas that year, Ukraine maintained a non-aligned status, which implied neutrality.

This neutral, or non-aligned, status failed to protect Ukraine. Instead, its military weakness and neutrality were a green light for Russian President Vladimir Putin to annex and invade Ukrainian territory. It’s hard to imagine such a status would deter Putin from attacking again. The only assurance against further Russian aggression is a strong defense, ideally in alliance with Western partners.

The obsolescence of neutrality in Europe is underscored by Finland and Sweden – previous supporters of neutral status – joining NATO after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, this shift seemed impossible. Unlike Vance’s starry-eyed view of Putin, Swedes and Finns have a clear-eyed understanding of the threat Russia poses to European security. History has proven that neutrality provides no defense, and it would offer Ukraine zero assurance that Russia wouldn’t attack again.

Vance also suggests that Ukraine can appease the threat from Russia by forgoing any ambition to join Western structures – presumably NATO and the European Union. It’s important to remind Vance that Ukraine had no real prospect of joining NATO in 2014 when Crimea was annexed. Opinion polls showed single-digit support for NATO membership, and NATO itself had little appetite for Ukraine’s accession. Russia understood this but invaded anyway – not out of fear of future NATO enlargement, but because Putin saw an opportunity to exploit Ukraine's weakness in a pure imperial land grab.

Putin has since openly stated that his invasion was about his refusal to accept Ukraine as a sovereign state or Ukrainians as distinct from Russians. For Putin, Russia and Ukraine are the same people and should be united. His invasion wasn’t about NATO enlargement, which was never a reality – it was about imperialism.

Only in response to Russian aggression has Ukrainian support for NATO grown, out of necessity and a recognition that non-aligned status failed. Rejecting Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, as Vance suggests, would bow to Russian bullying and reward aggression. It would likely encourage more expansionist policies from Russia. Ukrainian membership in NATO not only assures Ukraine's security but also strengthens Europe’s defense. Ukraine’s enhanced military capability, proven in battle, would be an asset to NATO.

As for EU accession, if Vance also seeks to block Ukraine’s membership, it reveals a deep misunderstanding of recent Ukrainian history. His plan seems rooted in outdated thinking – that Ukraine’s best position is to remain a bridge between East and West, as it did before 2014. Vance may have a romantic vision of a golden age of Ukrainian neutrality, but in reality, that status failed. It invited Russian aggression and stunted Ukraine’s economic development, leaving it vulnerable to state capture by oligarchs, particularly those with ties to Russia.

A key statistic Vance should consider is Ukraine’s per capita GDP compared to Poland and Russia in 1991 – around $3,000 for all three. By 2013, Poland and Russia had grown to nearly $14,000, while Ukraine remained stuck at just over $3,000. Poland chose the EU, Russia relied on commodities, and Ukraine was caught in a no-man’s-land of corruption and stagnation. This instability led to two revolutions – the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan in 2013-14. By 2013, Ukraine had to choose: East or West. Ukrainians opted for the West, and Putin couldn’t accept that, leading to war.

Vance may not comprehend this, but Ukrainians do – and I would argue Putin does as well. Returning to neutrality or non-alignment is a recipe for failure. Ukraine’s economy would collapse, it would be unable to sustain a defense against Russia, and Vance’s plan would pave the way for another Russian invasion. Economic failure would likely lead to political and social instability, creating risks for Europe. Imagine tens of millions of Ukrainians fleeing west, while Ukraine’s military and security forces become destabilized. How would Europe confront such a security threat?

Vance seems desperate to avoid a Russian defeat in Ukraine – so much so that he’s willing to offer Putin a win. But in doing so, he fails to grasp the consequences of his appeasement: future security risks to Europe and a weakening of the Western alliance, which even Vance should recognize as vital in the looming battle for hegemony with China."

 

Taiwanese leader: Help Ukraine first

 From Politico:

"Taiwan’s former president says Ukraine needs US weapons more urgently than Taipei 

By Jack Detsch

11/23/2024

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said Saturday that the United States should prioritize helping Ukraine despite the looming threat of a Chinese cross-strait invasion of the self-governing island.

“They should do whatever they can to help the Ukrainians,” Tsai said at the forum. “We [Taiwan] still have time.”

The comments from the former Taiwanese leader at the Halifax International Security Forum came after U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo said Tuesday that supplying weapons to Ukraine had begun to affect the U.S. military’s ability to prepare for a conflict in Asia...

While Taiwan is heavily reliant on purchasing American weapons and receiving U.S. military aid for its defense, Tsai said that American support for Ukraine would help deter China from a cross-strait attack.

“A Ukrainian victory will serve as the most effective deterrent to future aggression” globally Tsai said.

Taiwanese officials have said that the island has boosted defense spending by 80 percent in the past eight years, hitting a record $19 billion in 2024.

But that hasn’t been enough to placate President-elect Donald Trump, who has suggested that Taiwan “should pay” and has also called for the island to boost defense spending to 10 percent of GDP. Tsai did not directly respond to whether Taipei should raise its budget to that level. “We would have some difficulty accepting an arbitrary figure,” Tsai said..."

 

 

Trump should change course on Ukraine

 From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

Opinion - With Trump taking over the US military, it’s time to finally change course on Ukraine

Joseph Bosco, November 19, 2024

For much of the last decade, Joe Biden and Donald Trump took turns lamenting America’s “forever wars,” with each advocating a rapid end to the 20-year U.S. involvement in Afghanistan’s civil conflict.

In February 2020, Trump negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban. Unfortunately, it was done without the participation or even the knowledge of the Afghan government, and without consulting other U.S. allies fighting alongside Afghans and Americans.

For its part, the Taliban did not honor its commitment to consult with the Afghan government regarding the future of the country. Now that it was clear the U.S. was intent on pulling out, the Taliban simply overran the government in Kabul. The agreement was fatally flawed in relying on the Taliban’s nonexistent good faith.

Yet despite Biden’s demonstrated willingness to reverse and unwind scores of Trump policies and executive actions, he made no effort to correct any of the plan’s deficiencies through either renegotiation or unilateral action. He explained later that, had he tried, the Taliban would have resumed the attacks against Americans it had suspended to get the favorable Trump deal.

Instead, Biden plunged rashly ahead, exploiting the opportunity to get out of Afghanistan and blame any ill consequences on his predecessor. His decision, rejecting the unanimous advice of his military commanders that he follow Trump’s plan to retain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and keep control of Bagram Air Force Base, created the tragic and humiliating debacle of August 2022, which Trump aptly called “the most embarrassing moment in U.S. history.”

Now, with Trump and Biden again reversing the roles of predecessor and successor, Trump threatens to create an even more grievous American embarrassment in Ukraine.

The president-elect is inheriting a deeply flawed U.S. approach to Russia’s ongoing invasion that has become America’s latest forever war, albeit a proxy conflict since no U.S. forces are fighting on the ground there. The Ukrainians have never requested the presence of any foreign troops — only the arms for their own fighters to repel and reverse Russia’s criminal occupation.

The U.S. and NATO allies have responded by providing Kiev with billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and munitions, but the Biden administration has consistently denied transfer of the most effective systems needed to defeat the Russians. Even now that Biden has grudgingly allowed delivery of some advanced weapons, he has vetoed many of Ukraine’s requests to utilize them in the most productive ways. Biden’s persistent fear that more successful Ukrainian resistance will trigger Vladimir Putin’s dangerous escalation has paralyzed Ukraine’s initiative from the start of the war and created a debilitating strategic stalemate that plays into Russia’s war of attrition.

Just as he warned he would do in the campaign, Trump is pressing to have the Ukraine war ended even before he takes office in January. The goal is certainly laudable from a humanitarian and economic perspective, but the manner by which Trump intends to achieve it is morally wrong — and geostrategically misguided.

According to media reports, Trump intends to push some kind of freeze-in-place ceasefire that would pressure Ukraine to permanently surrender most or all of its sovereign territory that Russia illegally invaded in 2014 and still occupies. Trump’s plan will reward Putin’s aggression and would ratify the Obama-Biden administration’s passive acquiescence to Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, after then-President Obama assured Putin in 2012 that he would be “more flexible” after his reelection.

Trump needs to show how a strong American president, unlike Obama and Biden, responds to threats and bullying. In addition to warning Putin against further escalation, he should tell him to start withdrawing from Ukraine, send North Korean forces home, and demand that China start sending no-strings financial assistance to help Ukraine rebuild its country.

If Putin refuses to follow these measures, Trump should tell him that he will remove all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons except for civilian structures and historical and cultural sites, such as the Kremlin’s iconic onion domes. He should also threaten to increase the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine until Russia stops bombing Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, and say he will work with NATO to accelerate Ukraine’s admission to the alliance. Further, Trump should also significantly increase sanctions on China for helping Russia conduct its aggression.

Finally, he should tell Putin and Xi Jinping that since Russia’s 10-year invasion of Ukraine has clearly emboldened Beijing to step up its own aggression against Taiwan, he is declaring formally and officially, with the full consent and approval of Congress, that America will unconditionally defend Taiwan against any form of aggression.

Since neither Russia nor China wants an actual war with the United States, these steps by Trump showing U.S. resolve would go a long way toward preventing China’s strategic miscalculation and assuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Maintaining the present course, much less making further concessions to either U.S. adversary, will inevitably bring disastrous conflict.

Trump’s decision now will indelibly mark his place in history."

 

 

 

 

Biden finally doing something right

 From the Hill / Yahoo!News:

"Opinion - Biden finally shows backbone in the face of Putin’s threats

Dov S. Zakheim

On Nov. 17, after nearly two months of internal soul-searching that resulted in what can only be termed unnecessary delay, President Joe Biden finally agreed to permit Ukraine to employ long-range ATACMS missile systems against Russian targets, initially in the Kursk region that Ukraine seized earlier this year...

Whatever his motives, Biden’s decision to grant the Ukrainians the ATACMS that they have long sought may signal that, at long last, with his term of office waning, the president has decided to no longer deter himself out of fear of a Russian nuclear threat that has not materialized. It is tragic that the White House took so long before it decided not to “go wobbly,” as Margaret Thatcher put it to George H.W. Bush on the eve of the 1991 Iraq War.

Had Washington shown a couple of years ago the spine it is showing today in the face of Putin’s hollow nuclear threats, the war in Ukraine might well be long over. And Ukraine would have avoided so much of the massive death and destruction that it continues to suffer."

Best US elections cartoon

 From Why Evolution Is True, original source: the Elder of Zion.

Boris Johnson: Don't drift back to the ghastly negotiation format treating Russia and Ukraine equally

 Former British prime minister Boris Johnson strongly disapproved the recent phone call between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin:

 

"I am afraid Volodymyr Zelenskyy is completely right. We risk drifting back to the ghastly Franco-German Normandy format which treated Russia and Ukraine as equally valid interlocutors in a domestic squabble.

That is a shameful betrayal of reality - that Putin has launched a criminal and unjustifiable invasion while Ukraine is an entirely innocent party.

The only way to bring this war to an end is massively and rapidly to strengthen the position of Ukraine."
 

Invite Ukraine into NATO, now!

 From the Hill:

"Opinion - To save Ukraine and avoid World War III, invite it into NATO before Trump takes office

Evelyn N. Farkas, opinion contributor

Mon, November 11, 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Donald Trump last week on his electoral victory on X and reminded his American counterpart of his “peace through strength approach,” adding, “This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer.”

This is true, but Trump has given no sign of approaching Russia’s imperial aggression the way Ronald Reagan approached the Soviet Union.

For this reason, the period we have entered now — before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 — is critical. President Biden and the Senate leadership have an opportunity to shield Ukraine from the immediate impact of Trump’s election — emboldening Russia President Vladimir Putin and perhaps setting the parameters for the next Trump administration’s policy towards Ukraine.

The situation in Ukraine is dire. Ukraine’s armed forces lack sufficient personnel, equipment and training. They are innovative and technology is helping, but not enough. The state of their democracy is improving, but they need more human capital, which continues to be eroded by the war. The rule of law must be bolstered, and for that, Zelensky and his government will need encouragement and assistance.

The last time Ukraine took the initiative was when the military seized territory in Russia’s Kursk region in August. Putin made his countermove last month, expanding the war to introduce thousands of North Korean soldiers onto his territory to fight Ukrainians. Although this is not likely to prove decisive — and could even backfire on the Kremlin and Kim Jong Un’s regime — we should not downplay its diplomatic significance. This moves the war in Ukraine into the “global” category, especially if you consider Iran and China’s support for Russia’s war effort.

The next move is likely to come from South Korea in the form of direct weapon supply to Ukraine — although we can’t rule out that they may wait to see what a new Trump administration holds in store.

Washington must now immediately make its own move. President Biden should work now with our NATO allies to urge the alliance to issue a swift invitation to NATO membership, one that can be ratified by the majority of the members rapidly. This also means seeking the help of current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), which should be possible since he’s on the record supporting Ukraine’s entry into the alliance.

NATO enlargement to include Ukraine will entail some risk that Putin will test our resolve, so the existing bilateral assurances that most NATO countries signed with Ukraine this year should be referenced as the diplomatic basis for new NATO troop deployments to Ukraine to deter Russia from any further military action in the period between invitation and ratification. We can start preparing now by deploying a Polish Patriot to help create stronger air defenses and consider taking other action to shoot down Russian drones and missiles over Ukrainian territory, much as we have done for Israel in its current fight with Iran.

It has been increasingly apparent to European allies — even in the West — that they could well come under attack by Russia under certain scenarios, that are not far-fetched. Already last year French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of deploying troops back to Ukraine.

But the sabotage operations executed by Russian agents — attacks on the Paris metro, ammunition depots in the Czech Republic and bases in Germany — have provided a jolt to Europe’s leaders, along with break-ins to Finnish water towers and treatment plants and the attempted assassination of the CEO of Germany’s Rheinmetall, a major provider of munitions for Ukraine’s military, including through four military plants in Ukraine.

Russian agents are also suspected of a plot to place incendiary devises on aircraft bound for the U.S. and Canada — this operation alone, if it had succeeded would have brought us to the brink of war with Russia. German intelligence chiefs now warn that Russia could be in a position to attack NATO “by the end of the decade.”

It remains to be seen if this has been a wakeup call, bringing a realization that Putin tested NATO and in our muted response to these attacks, we have invited further probes. Ultimately, as many of us have written repeatedly, Putin wants to eliminate NATO as a threat to his quest to recreate a Russian empire. Only a strong United States with its allies can stop him from destroying the international order, which rests upon respect for sovereignty of state borders and human rights. Providing no response only invites more frequent and lethal attacks from Russia. And it emboldens China to take similar aggressive action against Taiwan and its other neighbors.

We don’t want war with Russia, so we must act firmly now to punish Russia for these acts. We can start by declassifying more information on these attacks and communicating the reality more broadly to European, American and Asian publics with sanctions — adding more Russian banks to the list, and slapping secondary sanctions on countries providing electronics, machine tools and other precursors and components that are being used to manufacture drones and other weapons in Russia. And we can warn Putin that if he persists in such operations on NATO territory, NATO will implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Bringing Ukraine quickly into NATO will create territorial depth for NATO allies and we gain a member that has the most experience fighting Russians — and in keeping them off balance. President Biden and senators from both parties owe it to the American people to support an invitation to Ukraine during the lame duck. Without the prospect of a NATO security umbrella, Ukraine will be another kind of duck — a sitting duck in Vladimir Putin’s sights."

Why Trump won

 From the New York Times:

"A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat

Bret Stephens

Nov. 6, 2024

...How, indeed, did Democrats lose so badly, considering how they saw Donald Trump — a twice-impeached former president, a felon, a fascist, a bigot, a buffoon, a demented old man, an object of nonstop late-night mockery and incessant moral condemnation? The theory that many Democrats will be tempted to adopt is that a nation prone to racism, sexism, xenophobia and rank stupidity fell prey to the type of demagoguery that once beguiled Germany into electing Adolf Hitler.

It’s a theory that has a lot of explanatory power — though only of an unwitting sort. The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable, comeback.

Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”

There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political competition — an insult to the democratic process that handed the nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to take Biden’s obvious mental decline seriously until June’s debate debacle (and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more), making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.

But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R.

Regarding the first, I’ve lost track of the number of times liberal pundits have attempted to steer readers to arcane data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve to explain why Americans should stop freaking out over sharply higher prices of consumer goods or the rising financing costs on their homes and cars. Or insisted there was no migration crisis at the southern border. Or averred that Biden was sharp as a tack and that anyone who suggested otherwise was a jerk.

Yet when Americans saw and experienced things otherwise (as extensive survey data showed they did) the characteristic liberal response was to treat the complaints not only as baseless but also as immoral. The effect was to insult voters while leaving Democrats blind to the legitimacy of the issues. You could see this every time Harris mentioned, in answer to questions about the border, that she had prosecuted transnational criminal gangs: Her answer was nonresponsive to the central complaint that there was a migration crisis straining hundreds of communities, irrespective of whether the migrants committed crimes.

The dismissiveness with which liberals treated these concerns was part of something else: dismissiveness toward the moral objections many Americans have to various progressive causes. Concerned about gender transitions for children or about biological males playing on girls’ sports teams? You’re a transphobe. Dismayed by tedious, mandatory and frequently counterproductive D.E.I. seminars that treat white skin as almost inherently problematic? You’re racist. Irritated by new terminology that is supposed to be more inclusive but feels as if it’s borrowing a page from “1984”? That’s doubleplusungood.

The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency.

Last, liberals thought that the best way to stop Trump was to treat him not as a normal, if obnoxious, political figure with bad policy ideas but as a mortal threat to democracy itself. Whether or not he is
such a threat, this style of opposition led Democrats astray. It goaded them into their own form of antidemocratic politics — using the courts to try to get Trump’s name struck from the ballot in Colorado or trying to put him in prison on hard-to-follow charges. It distracted them from the task of developing and articulating superior policy responses to the valid public concerns he was addressing. And it made liberals seem hyperbolic, if not hysterical, particularly since the country had already survived one Trump presidency more or less intact.

Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how’s that ever going to be a winning electoral look?

I voted reluctantly for Harris because of my fears for what a second Trump term might bring — in Ukraine, our trade policy, civic life, the moral health of the conservative movement writ large. Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change."

Podolyak: Media of Ukraine's partners keep implying that Ukraine alone must make concessions

A recent article in the Economist discussed the possibility of having a ceasefire on January 20, 2025, the day U.S. President Donald Trump is inaugurated, and having elections on May 25, 2025. Mihaylo Podolyak, advisor of Ukrainian President Zelensky, minced no words in his comment: 

"The war today is in a hot phase... a high-intensity war... I see no ground to talk about the beginning of a political season or process... When Western media, citing anonymous sources, spread some information, they never explain why things must happen as said. Facts must be obvious to Ukraine's international partners, particularly the fact that the war is continuing with high intensity. 

I have seen many similar publications, citing some sources about the possibility of freezing the war and starting negotiations. The sources are always anonymous, and the publications themselves are always devoid of logic. Because... all these texts are based on the premise that Ukraine must be forced to do something, to make some concessions... And the authors do not even understand the premise around which they build all their arguments. All these publications imply that the war must be stopped at the expense only of the country that was attacked. In other words, that Ukraine must be forced to stop resisting.

At the same time, please notice that in these publications, there is never any analysis how to force Russia to do anything. I find strange the position that everything must be achieved at the expense of the victim rather than of the aggressor. And I find it amoral."

Ukrainian expert: The USA worships Russia's nuclear weapons like a god

 The Times somehow got access to a report prepared for the Ukrainian defense ministry by the expert Olexiy Izhak. Discussing the options for the country to regain its nuclear status, he remarked:

"I was amazed by how much awe the United States feel to Russia's nuclear threat. Possibly this cost us the war. They treat the nuclear weapon like some god. So maybe it is time for us also to pray to this god."

I hope very much that they will do.

Wildcard

 With Trump elected as US president, all bets about world politics are off, and nobody knows what is to happen and what Trump will do. Including, I suspect, Trump himself.

Ukrainian columnist Oleksandr Kirsh wrote best about this, in the Obozrevatel:

"The New World under Trump becomes truly new: the main peculiarity of President 45/47

You say that Putin is unpredictable? But it is fully predictable, compared to Trump...

You say that there is the Pompeo's peace plan? You guessed wrong: the correct answer (from Trump) is that Pompeo will not be in his team, i.e. thank you for the service and get lost. Indeed, this does not mean that the plan will be forgotten, just that it will not be referred to this way.

You say that there is news for Ukraine - Crimea is gone because regaining it would be unrealistic? And Trump has news for his former advisor who announced this: he (Brian Lanza) was just elections organizer, and was not authorized to speak for Trump, so let him know his new place - he is an anonymous nobody, and we must wait what Trump himself will say on this topic (he can of course say absolutely the same).

Silly Orban, proud that Trump mentioned him already 1.5 times during the last year (though mistaking him for Erdogan), says things on behalf of Trump, allegedly told to him by Trump? Let's first figure out whether he is a Hungarian or a Turk to Trump, and then the details.

Trump's world is trumpocentric. The truths and the future are known to him and him alone, provided that he does not reconsider. Get used to this, world, and get used to this, Ukraine!"

Trump's evil degenerate son mocks heroic Ukraine

 From the Newsweek:

"Donald Trump Jr. Shares Video Mocking Zelensky: 'Losing Your Allowance'

Donald Trump Jr. has shared a video mocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Instagram.

In a video, originally shared by Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, a photograph can be seen of Zelensky frowning while standing next to President-elect Donald Trump. The text overlay reads: "POV: You're 38 Days from losing you're allowance."

Donald Trump has been critical of the amount of aid the U.S. is giving to Ukraine, having previously referred to Zelensky as "the greatest salesman on Earth.""

Below is a screenshot from the video, from UNIAN. 

I really wish that Americans stop electing presidents having evil, degenerate sons: four years ago, Hunter Biden's father, and now, the father of the lowlife who shared that video.

 

Starmer less supportive of Ukraine than Sunak was

 From the Guardian:

"Relations between Ukraine and UK are worse under Labour, say Kyiv officials

Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since the Labour government took power in July, officials in Kyiv have told the Guardian, voicing frustration over Britain’s failure to supply additional long-range missiles.

The UK prime minister is yet to visit Ukraine four months after taking office and a frustrated Kyiv has said that a trip would be worthless unless Keir Starmer committed to replenishing stocks of the sought-after long-range Storm Shadow system...

Ukraine is growing increasingly unhappy with London as Russian troops advance in the east of the country at their fastest rate since 2022, with US officials concluding that the frontlines can no longer be considered static. Ukrainian commanders said they were heavily outgunned...

Ukraine’s principal complaint with the UK is that it has not supplied any additional missiles from its reserves of Storm Shadow, even for use against targets in Crimea and other Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since 2014.

The official said: “It isn’t happening. Starmer isn’t giving us long-range weapons. The situation is not the same as when Rishi Sunak was prime minister. The relationship has got worse.”

Sunak visited Kyiv in November 2022 within a month of becoming prime minister...

Britain and France said in 2023 they would supply Storm Shadow missiles, known by the French as Scalp, but the number of strikes has dwindled during 2024. “You would know if the UK had provided us with new Storm Shadow missiles because we would be using them to hit Russian targets. We are not,” the official added.

The last Storm Shadow strike claimed by the Ukrainian military was on 5 October, targeting Russian command posts. Prior to that five or more missiles were thought to have been used against Sevastopol naval base in March of this year.

Starmer met Zelenskyy on Thursday at a European political summit in Budapest. The prime minister said the UK’s support for Ukraine was “unwavering” and acknowledged “we need to step up”. “It’s very important that we stand with you,” Starmer said.

But the Ukrainian president pointed to the private frustrations in a social media post, accompanied by a picture of the two leaders. “An important element of the victory plan is providing Ukraine with long-range weaponry and granting permission to use it against military targets on Russian territory,” Zelenskyy said.

Privately, sources in Kyiv complained that the meeting in Hungary led to “no progress at all” on the missile issue. Until deliveries of Storm Shadow resumed there was little point in Starmer travelling to Kyiv, they added.

“We have been discussing since August a possible visit by Starmer. Various dates have come and gone. Starmer has postponed several times,” the official said. They added: “There’s no point in his coming as a tourist. At the moment he’s not willing to take the decisions which are necessary.”...

Zelenskyy has also repeatedly urged the UK to lift restrictions on the use of Storm Shadows against military sites deep inside Russia. Downing Street had been thought to be sympathetic to the request but has not rescinded the ban because of entrenched opposition from the Biden administration.

Disillusionment on the Ukrainian side with the new government follows discussions between Starmer and Zelenskyy last month at No 10. Zelenskyy presented his “victory plan”, which includes Nato membership for Ukraine, and more military and economic support from key allies.

The plan met “no big response”, the senior official said. They suggested that Starmer was unwilling to make strategic decisions without approval from Washington, despite private assurances he made to Zelenskyy that the UK had freedom to act independently.

In recent months the Kremlin has stepped up bombardments using Iranian Shahed and ballistic missiles, with a major drone attack early on Thursday. Much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has already been destroyed as the freezing winter season approaches, and air raid alerts in Kyiv and other cities sound practically every night.

Meanwhile, as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers are mustering in western Russia to join battle against Ukraine. In a post last week on X, Zelenskyy accused the US, UK and Germany of passively “watching” as North Korea’s army took part in a war in Europe. He urged allies to approve long-range strikes so that North Korean troops might be attacked before they killed Ukrainians."

***

Despite the nice talk of Western leaders, the harsh truth is that Russia has allies while Ukraine has none. And this, unfortunately, includes the USA and the UK that disarmed Ukraine with the Budapest Memorandum, promising to defend it in return - a promise which turned out to be false.

Putin thinks he has the USA in his pocket

 From the Institute for the Study of War:

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be assuming that US President-elect Donald Trump will defer to the Kremlin's interests and preferences without the Kremlin offering any concessions or benefits in return. Putin stated during his November 7 Valdai Club address that he is open to discussions meant to "restore" US-Russia relations but that the United States must initiate these negotiations, and implied that Russia will only consider a reset in US-Russia relations if the United States drops sanctions against Russia and ceases supporting Ukraine – terms that exclusively benefit Russia and offer no benefit to the United States.[1] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted on November 8 that Putin's statement about negotiating with the United States does not mean that Russia's military goals in Ukraine have changed and that instead, Russia's goals remain the same.[2] Putin may be attempting to posture himself as reaching out to Trump, but Putin is signaling to his domestic audiences that the Kremlin is unwilling to concede any aspect of its maximalist objectives in Ukraine or the wider global arena.

Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported that the Kremlin issued a manual to state and pro-Kremlin media with instructions to cover Putin's Valdai statements by highlighting the special role Russia plays in bringing about a proposed "new world order" and portraying Putin as the "world's greatest leader" whose deep thinking, "breadth of political thought," and role as the "voice of the global majority and new world order" distinguish him from Western political leaders, presumably including Trump.[3] Meduza noted that, by contrast, the manual does not mention reporting Putin's statements about Trump or possible future negotiations with the United States about the war in Ukraine, even though Putin largely aimed his Valdai statements at shaping Trump's foreign policy and achieving another reset in US-Russian relations on Russia's terms.[4]...

Putin doubled down on an existing information operation falsely claiming that Ukraine violated its neutral status in an attempt to justify Russia's illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Putin, answering a question about which borders of Ukraine Russia recognizes, claimed that Russia always recognized Ukraine's borders as defined in the 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence as long as Ukraine agreed to remain neutral, but said that Russia did not agree when Ukraine announced its intent to join NATO.[10] Putin did not mention, however, that Ukraine's parliament did not vote to abandon Ukraine's neutral status until December 2014 – months after Russia's illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea in February and March 2014 respectively.[11] Russia also committed to respecting the independence, sovereignty, and existing borders of Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbas, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for the return and decommissioning of Soviet-era nuclear weapons in Ukraine.[12] Putin also attempted to use Article I of the UN Charter on the right to self-determination to justify Russia's invasions of Crimea in 2014 and broader invasion in 2022, claiming that these occupied areas voted to join Russia.[13] Russia notably conducted sham annexation referendums in Crimea in 2014 and Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022 under conditions of occupation and intense militarization, using the referendums to create a veneer of legality and local support for Russia's occupation.[14]"

[1] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/75521

[2] https://www.interfax dot ru/russia/990786; https://tass dot ru/politika/22352497

[3] https://meduza dot io/feature/2024/11/08/sobytie-goda-v-sfere-idey-i-smyslov

[4] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-7-2024

[10] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/75521

[11] https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-parliament-abandons-neutrality/26758725.html

[12] https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf

[13] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/75521

[14] https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/24-210-01%20ISW%20Occupation%20playbook.pdf; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-20; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-7; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-26; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-23