It's not surprising, considering that, apart a few temporary moves to (pretend to) sanction Russia, Trump has consistently supported the Russian position during the last 2 years:

- he got funds blocked by the GOP congress in H2 2024, during the Russian automn offensive;

- he halted the provision of American intelligence during the reconquest of the Kourk region;

- he continuously diffused the Russian narrative;

- feigning to be angry at Putin, he announced tough sanctions which have been continuously delayed or watered down.

8 minutes ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

This annexation of Crimea you speak of,which started this whole conflict, was that on Trumps watch? Oh🤣

I absolutely agree that Obama has been too weak (or to confident) re Putin at that time (as about nearly every other politician).

 

However, you seem to forget that Trump, at that time, praised Putin for the annexation of Crimea on Fox News. 🤣

 

Anyway, leaving your deflection apart, fact is that the attitude of Ukraine re Russian speaking Ukrainian worsened only after the annexation of Crimea.

1 minute ago, candide said:

However, you seem to forget that Trump, at that time, praised Putin for the annexation of Crimea on Fox News. 🤣

Like he praised Nazis?🤣

19 hours ago, BeastOfBodmin said:

If it is implemented, it will also be a good deal for the soldiers and civilians that would otherwise be injured or killed.

Provided Putin would respect the treaty and wouldn't attack again a country which military position would have been significantly weakened by this plan. The probability of Putin respecting the treaty and not taking advantage of a weakened Ukraine is close to zero.🤣

5 minutes ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Like he praised Nazis?🤣

You're right, for once. He praised Putin! 🤣

2 hours ago, Bannoi said:

Vietnam didn't go so well did it.

 

The U.S. military had the brawn, they just lacked the brains.

 

I don't mean that of all Americans, but of those who made the decisions.  In conventional warfare, as in the Ukraine today - something no western military has experienced in an active lifetime - 'firepower' counts.  US success in the Tet offensive demonstrated this.  The final phase of war leading to the fall of Saigon was also of a conventional nature.

 

But for the most part the Vietnam war was an asymmetric conflict to which the Viet Cong adapted while the U.S. Army did not.  With the exception of a few units which studied Australian tactics learnt in the jungles of Malaya.

 

The anti-war movement in the U.S., encouraged by conscription and high casualties, was an important factor in the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces. 

 

Incidentally the Tet offensive was highly favourable to the North Vietnamese as it cratered 'Viet Cong' strength.  The Viet Cong was not communist-controlled but was a liberation front that had hoped eventually to take political control of the South.  At least one Viet Cong cabinet minister fled to the United States after the take-over by Hanoi.  (I have his autobiography, if it has not been eaten by termites)

 

It is very doubtful that the U.S. Government was so ill-informed as to think the Ukraine could defeat the Russian Federation.  The Ukraine was the stick the neo-cons and neo-'liberals' used for eight long years to repeatedly poke the bear into aggression.  So that a plethora of sanctions could be imposed.

The intended result:  extreme hardship of the Russian population, leading to overthow of the government, and dismemberment of the Russian Federation.

The actual result: it backfired on the west, and most especially upon Europe, with its imbecile, sycophantic, authoritarian-leaning governments harbouring delusions of past glory.  They deserve to be defenestrated.

 

Trump has to go!  

21 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Ukraine should thank its lucky stars the killing of its people can finally stop. 

Russia should be lucky if the killing stops. Over 1 million dead Russian soldiers and counting...

4 hours ago, Bannoi said:

Vietnam didn't go so well did it.

Neither did Korea or Afghanistan for that matter. American soldiers are just a bunch of useless losers.

4 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

Bear in mind the disgusting behaviour of the Ukrainian govt, over many years, towards Russian speakers living in eastern Ukraine.

Bear in mind that the vast majority have been forcefully relocated by Stalin after the end of WW2. Just for the future of possible intervention by Russia. Standard Russian MO.

Putin doesn't give a big eff for any Russian life anywhere, just like Stalin. It's just a political excuse for him to "protect the Russian speaking population". And whtf is this Nazi narrative he has adopted? Doesn't he yet comprehended that Zelenskiy is a Jew whos relatives perished in the Nazi death camps?

4 minutes ago, SpaceKadet said:

Bear in mind that the vast majority have been forcefully relocated by Stalin after the end of WW2. Just for the future of possible intervention by Russia. Standard Russian MO.

Putin doesn't give a big eff for any Russian life anywhere, just like Stalin. It's just a political excuse for him to "protect the Russian speaking population". And whtf is this Nazi narrative he has adopted? Doesn't he yet comprehended that Zelenskiy is a Jew whos relatives perished in the Nazi death camps?

No different to the systematic replacement of ethnic Europeans by NAFRIs and other muslims. Yet that great replacement is considered marellous by the left yet when Russia does it its bad? Standards my boy, standards.

6 hours ago, BLMFem said:

Don't know what you're on about. This "peace plan" was put forward by the Americans/Trump, not Rutte/NATO.

 

Looks like you're a bit slow regards Rutte rather obsequiously calling Trump "daddy" a few months back. The former Dutch PM is an oxygen waster. All hat and no cattle. I think he's just treading water until Ursula gets the elbow.

 

As for the "Americans/Trump" plan, it does seem to handily bypass Ukraine and sideline NATO, the EU and other nations a lot nearer the fray than Mar A Lago.

4 hours ago, candide said:

It's not surprising, considering that, apart a few temporary moves to (pretend to) sanction Russia, Trump has consistently supported the Russian position during the last 2 years:

- he got funds blocked by the GOP congress in H2 2024, during the Russian automn offensive;

- he halted the provision of American intelligence during the reconquest of the Kourk region;

- he continuously diffused the Russian narrative;

- feigning to be angry at Putin, he announced tough sanctions which have been continuously delayed or watered down.

 

...and infamously hosted the war criminal on American soil.

On 11/21/2025 at 2:54 PM, Chomper Higgot said:

Trump doing Putin’s bidding… again.

 

Anticipatory obedience.

On 11/21/2025 at 12:41 AM, Eric Loh said:

Hilarious it’s call Trump’s plan when this is the same 2020 Russia proposal that Biden rejected. Witkoff is nothing but a water boy for Putin and Trump remained the compromised idiot and pushing Putin’s agenda. This plan will be laughed off by Ukraine. No Ukraine leaders will sell out their sovereignty. 

Seems strange when Biden was not in office in 2020. The Istanbul Accords that both sides agreed to in 2022 but did not sign called for Ukraine to retain the Donbas but with semi autonomy and minority language rights. Crimea would go to Russia. Ukraine backed out of the deal after Boris Johnson intervened. Likely on the orders of Biden. Personally I don't see the logic in losing 30% or more rather than the 20% on the ground now. I felt from the start & I still believe Ukraine never had a chance of defeating Russia. It's been nothing but a proxy war between the Americans and Russia with the willing mafia Ukraine leadership as a willing participant. If this peace agreement gets shut down I think it's should be an obligation on the British to send troops to help slow down the Russians by sending 100,000 minimum troops to the front lines. It was your Prime Minister, that moron Boris, that is responsible for this war getting to where it's at. The British may not have the troops now but there's no reason they can't call up former service members to make up the hundred thousand.

World Leaders clearly not supporting Trump

It feels like Trump who more and more seems to melting down at the rate of his poll approval numbers is trying to flush the great nation of Ukraine down the toilet to divert from what's in the Epstein files.

Decent Americans are horrified and disgusted.

Vlad Vexler with his as usual brilliant intellectual commentary on the matter.

 

 

1 hour ago, pegman said:

Seems strange when Biden was not in office in 2020. The Istanbul Accords that both sides agreed to in 2022 but did not sign called for Ukraine to retain the Donbas but with semi autonomy and minority language rights. Crimea would go to Russia. Ukraine backed out of the deal after Boris Johnson intervened. Likely on the orders of Biden. Personally I don't see the logic in losing 30% or more rather than the 20% on the ground now. I felt from the start & I still believe Ukraine never had a chance of defeating Russia. It's been nothing but a proxy war between the Americans and Russia with the willing mafia Ukraine leadership as a willing participant. If this peace agreement gets shut down I think it's should be an obligation on the British to send troops to help slow down the Russians by sending 100,000 minimum troops to the front lines. It was your Prime Minister, that moron Boris, that is responsible for this war getting to where it's at. The British may not have the troops now but there's no reason they can't call up former service members to make up the hundred thousand.

 

Excellent idea. And then after about 50 years have elapsed, some of them can be arrested and charged with murdering innocent Russian conscripts.

 

With regard to this "willing Ukraine mafia leadership", is a "Kremlin puppet leadership" the preferred alternative?

16 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

Bear in mind the disgusting behaviour of the Ukrainian govt, over many years, towards Russian speakers living in eastern Ukraine.

 

Is it similar to the contempt that certain white English people bear towards their less fluent brethren of an alternative ethnicity?

 

Back on topic, it's very possible that the "disgusting" Ukrainians, unlike yourself, are fully aware of how Russia forces mass migration on their people to inflate or otherwise make the argument that there's an ancient, Russian-speaking enclave in a foreign country that is incontrovertible evidence of Russian statehood.

 

I believe they're playing the same game over in Moldova and the sliver of "Russian-speaking" land called Transnistria that only came about after the intervention of the Russian 14th army in what was otherwise an internal war.

15 hours ago, ericbj said:

It is very doubtful that the U.S. Government was so ill-informed as to think the Ukraine could defeat the Russian Federation.  The Ukraine was the stick the neo-cons and neo-'liberals' used for eight long years to repeatedly poke the bear into aggression.  So that a plethora of sanctions could be imposed.

The intended result:  extreme hardship of the Russian population, leading to overthow of the government, and dismemberment of the Russian Federation.

The actual result: it backfired on the west, and most especially upon Europe, with its imbecile, sycophantic, authoritarian-leaning governments harbouring delusions of past glory.  They deserve to be defenestrated.

Your analysis of Ukraine fails to take into account the agency of the Ukrainian people themselves, who actively chose to seek membership in Western institutions rather than wallow in Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainians were able to travel and could compare their own circumstances with those of the newly prosperous Poles and Romanians. For all its flaws, the neoliberal economic system has proven more attractive than anything Russian leaders have managed to offer over the past several centuries. And, true, Western powers encouraged Ukrainian ambitions in this direction, but the impetus clearly came from within Ukraine. And why wouldn’t it?

 

As for “poking the bear,” during the 1990s NATO and Russia were actively cooperating, and there was speculation that Russia itself might eventually qualify for NATO membership. Until Putin took control of the country and began fancying himself as Peter the Great, resurrecting 18th-century concepts like “spheres of influence.” So Western strategy changed from courting the Russians to containing them, as Putin himself began “poking” his neighbors. I think your reference to “authoritarian-leaning governments” with “delusions of past glory” is targeting the wrong side.

 

I like your reference to the defenestration of Prague. And did termites attack your books? I have a library in its own building, heavily protected with double-layer brick and concrete walls and thick tile floors, with bug spraying service every two months and a couple of dehumidifiers keeping the air dry. It’s a constant struggle!

3 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

Your analysis of Ukraine fails to take into account the agency of the Ukrainian people themselves, who actively chose to seek membership in Western institutions rather than wallow in Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainians were able to travel and could compare their own circumstances with those of the newly prosperous Poles and Romanians. For all its flaws, the neoliberal economic system has proven more attractive than anything Russian leaders have managed to offer over the past several centuries. And, true, Western powers encouraged Ukrainian ambitions in this direction, but the impetus clearly came from within Ukraine. And why wouldn’t it?

 

As for “poking the bear,” during the 1990s NATO and Russia were actively cooperating, and there was speculation that Russia itself might eventually qualify for NATO membership. Until Putin took control of the country and began fancying himself as Peter the Great, resurrecting 18th-century concepts like “spheres of influence.” So Western strategy changed from courting the Russians to containing them, as Putin himself began “poking” his neighbors. I think your reference to “authoritarian-leaning governments” with “delusions of past glory” is targeting the wrong side.

 

I like your reference to the defenestration of Prague. And did termites attack your books? I have a library in its own building, heavily protected with double-layer brick and concrete walls and thick tile floors, with bug spraying service every two months and a couple of dehumidifiers keeping the air dry. It’s a constant struggle!

 

If by Ukrainians you are referring to the Ukrainian-speaking people who predominate in the western Ukraine you are broadly correct.  But this is not true of the Ukraine as defined by its borders at the time of the Maidan coup of 2014.  It was a multi-ethnic country, divided principally into those of Ukrainian and Russian culture, language, religion, etc.  But also Hungarian and Tartar.  And until liquidated in the early 1940s, substantial Polish and Jewish populations.   Broadly speaking, western Ukrainians, influenced by the Holomodor, welcomed the German occupation and sought to collaborate, forming for example the Galicia SS Division; while those in the east resisted.

 

Incidentally, deaths from starvation caused by Stalinist confiscation of harvests to finance military spending affected all agricultural areas of the USSR, including for example Byelorussia.  The highest death rate was amongst the Kazars.

 

I shall not enter into a long explanation of how during the 1990s the Russian economy was hollowed out under the alcoholic Yeltsin, by Russians in position of influence who became plutocrats by selling off Russia's assets at bargain-basement prices to western businesses; all justified by the Chicago-boy economic advisors provided by the US;  extreme poverty leading to high mortality and crime rates in Russia;  the west's rejection of proposed joint-security arrangements; NATO's eastward expansion in defiance of the promises made to Gorbachev; etc.  However this reveals some of the background:

 

How Dick Cheney Started the USA War in Ukraine in 1991

 

Regarding termites, my house, rented since 2007, clearly bears little resemblance to yours.  Built of hollow concrete block walls with no foundations or damp-proof course, on 55 cm of clay placed over the black earth of a former paddy field.  Multiple cracks in the walls, which I regularly fill, superficially.  Tiled floors on concrete which has in places clearly subsided.  A termite infested wasteland a few metres from the north wall.  About seven years ago an old irrigation ditch that ran alongside my property was blocked off and filled in.  During the monsoon season it evacuated rain-water, which these days laps at the foot of my walls.  I regularly use expensive termite poison around the house and protect woodwork before painting with concentrated borax solution.  Books themselves are difficult to protect.  Termites will eat through plastic film to get inside.  Recently I have taken to tearing cardboard boxes into small pieces and soaking in DILUTE borax solution to scatter around outside as poisonous bait.  I put naptha balls in filing-cabinets and storage boxes.  Although the fumes are detrimental to human health.

 

5 hours ago, NanLaew said:

 

Is it similar to the contempt that certain white English people bear towards their less fluent brethren of an alternative ethnicity?

 

Back on topic, it's very possible that the "disgusting" Ukrainians, unlike yourself, are fully aware of how Russia forces mass migration on their people to inflate or otherwise make the argument that there's an ancient, Russian-speaking enclave in a foreign country that is incontrovertible evidence of Russian statehood.

 

I believe they're playing the same game over in Moldova and the sliver of "Russian-speaking" land called Transnistria that only came about after the intervention of the Russian 14th army in what was otherwise an internal war.

 

 

19 hours ago, SpaceKadet said:

Neither did Korea or Afghanistan for that matter. American soldiers are just a bunch of useless losers.

 

22 years Ex British Army here I have worked with the US Army and can assure you American soldiers are not just a bunch of useless losers.

 

As in any army you will find some are average some good and some very good, personally I always got on well with them, at times we may have taken the piss out of each other but there was always a sense of mutual respect.

 

I respect anyone who voluntarily puts on his countries uniform and stands up to be counted.

 

Unless you have served you dont have the right to criticise let alone call them "just a bunch of useless losers".

 

If you had served I very much doubt you would have made such a disparaging remark.

1 hour ago, Bannoi said:

22 years Ex British Army here I have worked with the US Army and can assure you American soldiers are not just a bunch of useless losers

But that is what Trump called the fallen US soldiers........slight correction here, he called them suckers and losers.

 

Having said that, I respect you for your service.

Reality seems to have slipped passed many posters on here. Compromise now or surrender uncoditionally later. Russia will win this war if the war continues resuting in huge numbers of further deaths. If you disagree then argue your point. Convince me that Ukraine can win. Any thumbs down, laughing emojis I get for this simply indicates that those who react with these have absolutely zero idea about what is happening on the battlefield and are simply reacting emotively and not rationally. 

6 hours ago, ericbj said:

If by Ukrainians you are referring to the Ukrainian-speaking people who predominate in the western Ukraine you are broadly correct.  But this is not true of the Ukraine as defined by its borders at the time of the Maidan coup of 2014.  It was a multi-ethnic country, divided principally into those of Ukrainian and Russian culture, language, religion, etc.  But also Hungarian and Tartar.  And until liquidated in the early 1940s, substantial Polish and Jewish populations.   Broadly speaking, western Ukrainians, influenced by the Holomodor, welcomed the German occupation and sought to collaborate, forming for example the Galicia SS Division; while those in the east resisted.

 

Incidentally, deaths from starvation caused by Stalinist confiscation of harvests to finance military spending affected all agricultural areas of the USSR, including for example Byelorussia.  The highest death rate was amongst the Kazars.

 

I shall not enter into a long explanation of how during the 1990s the Russian economy was hollowed out under the alcoholic Yeltsin, by Russians in position of influence who became plutocrats by selling off Russia's assets at bargain-basement prices to western businesses; all justified by the Chicago-boy economic advisors provided by the US;  extreme poverty leading to high mortality and crime rates in Russia;  the west's rejection of proposed joint-security arrangements; NATO's eastward expansion in defiance of the promises made to Gorbachev; etc.  However this reveals some of the background:

 […]

Regarding termites, my house, rented since 2007, clearly bears little resemblance to yours.  Built of hollow concrete block walls with no foundations or damp-proof course, on 55 cm of clay placed over the black earth of a former paddy field.  Multiple cracks in the walls, which I regularly fill, superficially.  Tiled floors on concrete which has in places clearly subsided.  A termite infested wasteland a few metres from the north wall.  About seven years ago an old irrigation ditch that ran alongside my property was blocked off and filled in.  During the monsoon season it evacuated rain-water, which these days laps at the foot of my walls.  I regularly use expensive termite poison around the house and protect woodwork before painting with concentrated borax solution.  Books themselves are difficult to protect.  Termites will eat through plastic film to get inside.  Recently I have taken to tearing cardboard boxes into small pieces and soaking in DILUTE borax solution to scatter around outside as poisonous bait.  I put naptha balls in filing-cabinets and storage boxes.  Although the fumes are detrimental to human health.

 

Of course Ukraine is a multiethnic country, along with nearly every other state on the planet. That doesn’t mean that Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine automatically would prefer Russian sovereignty. I would not be against an internationally monitored referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk gauging what the people who actually live there want. Crimea is more complicated -- being a part of the Russian SFSR until Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukrainian SSR as a symbolic gesture, at a time when no one thought it would ever matter.

 

States and the borders that divide them are purely political constructions, and as such they are temporary. That doesn’t mean that states should be allowed to invade their neighbors willy-nilly and unilaterally absorb new territory.

 

As for the privatization of state assets in Russia during the 1990s, I am well aware of the Chicago school, Milton Friedman, and the “disaster capitalism” that Naomi Klein writes so eloquently about, going back to the US-backed overthrow of Allende in Chile in 1973. US-style neoliberal capitalism was for sure a factor in the expansion of Western institutions (and business interests) after the fall of Soviet communism, and in Russia and elsewhere it had detrimental effects, to say the least.

 

But it’s not as simple as that. There were other factors involved in the former (non-Russian) communist world’s embrace of the West, most important the overwhelming desire of all of those peoples to seek Western security (and relative prosperity) while they had a window of opportunity. Many, the Poles and Balts in particular, had endured centuries of Russian oppression, and they all considered the relative “oppression” of Brussels far preferable.

 

As for “promises” made to Gorbachev about NATO, the nature of those promises is debatable, and frankly, I don’t give a rat’s a** about them -- what concerns me the most, and what should concern everyone, is what the people who live in those “border” countries (including Ukraine) themselves want for their future. If they want to join the West, great! Why shouldn’t they be able to choose? Any “security threat” this poses to Moscow is imaginary; nobody’s marching on Moscow. (The last to try it was Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group.)

 

Good luck with your house and the termites -- sounds like you have more work on that score than I do!

1 hour ago, xylophone said:

But that is what Trump called the fallen US soldiers........slight correction here, he called them suckers and losers.

 

Having said that, I respect you for your service.

 

Trump is a repugnant despicable excuse for a man unworthy of the high office he holds.

23 hours ago, SpaceKadet said:

Bear in mind that the vast majority have been forcefully relocated by Stalin after the end of WW2. Just for the future of possible intervention by Russia. Standard Russian MO.

Putin doesn't give a big eff for any Russian life anywhere, just like Stalin. It's just a political excuse for him to "protect the Russian speaking population". And whtf is this Nazi narrative he has adopted? Doesn't he yet comprehended that Zelenskiy is a Jew whos relatives perished in the Nazi death camps?

Fair comment, however the treatment of those of Russian origin in Ukraine is a significant issue.

11 hours ago, NanLaew said:

 

Is it similar to the contempt that certain white English people bear towards their less fluent brethren of an alternative ethnicity?

 

Back on topic, it's very possible that the "disgusting" Ukrainians, unlike yourself, are fully aware of how Russia forces mass migration on their people to inflate or otherwise make the argument that there's an ancient, Russian-speaking enclave in a foreign country that is incontrovertible evidence of Russian statehood.

 

I believe they're playing the same game over in Moldova and the sliver of "Russian-speaking" land called Transnistria that only came about after the intervention of the Russian 14th army in what was otherwise an internal war.

White English people are not racist. I find your comment unjustified, to put it mildly.