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For Putin, an outbreak of peace means certain death.
If you want to spew a stupid flame, spell it correctly, loser. -
1,563
Updates and events in the War in Ukraine 2025
Mark Galeotti gets it's and he's one of Ukraine's biggest supporters. https://archive.ph/0emMe Nonetheless, Putin does seem to have reshaped the debate. By making it about whether or not this surrender is acceptable, he has in effect made the West acknowledge that the existing occupied territories are lost. Perhaps some day, whether through military or political means, they may be regained, but there is no credible theory of victory that sees Kyiv regaining them in the foreseeable future that does not rest on some unlikely deus ex machina like a Russian economic collapse or Putin’s imminent demise. The question is how far Ukraine’s allies are willing to offer those serious and credible guarantees and to force Putin to swallow them. They may be tempted to stick to their hollow mantras that ‘Putin cannot be allowed to win’. Ukrainians, fighting at the front and hiding from Russian drones in air-raid shelters, have every right to choose to hold out and resist any such ugly deal. Given that Ukraine’s European allies are clearly (and rightly) unwilling to put their own soldiers directly into harm’s way, though, one could question the morality of their seeking to encourage Zelensky to stand firm simply to avoid confronting the grubby moral compromises peace would demand. -
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Transport Thailand Aims for More Polish Tourists with New Flights
I try to skip articles about things that might happen, but this is of interest because I've become more intrigued by Eastern Europe lately. Had a great trip to Poland last fall flying Turkish Air (which I like) through Istanbul. I'd like to check out more of Poland and countries south and direct flights would be even better. -
1,563
Updates and events in the War in Ukraine 2025
I find myself siding more with Neil than with those Western commentators who continue to speak as if Ukraine’s victory is only a matter of time - the writing's on the wall for those who wish to see it.. Such confidence is often asserted without a sober reckoning of what “victory” would demand industrially, financially, and in lives lost on both sides. To talk of winning without mapping out the economic and logistical pathways is less strategy than sentiment. I asked where the money , arnamants and manpower would come from that could "win" this war - but I'm getting fine words but no parsnips. Europe has indeed played a major role aid, training, rearmament but contribution is not authorship. Europe reacts, sometimes decisively, but it does not set the pace and under Trump the game has changed, utterly.. It remains bound by American guarantees and by its own limitations in industrial scale. In that sense, Neil is right to warn of a continent at risk of spectator status - he's no fool , even an old fool And we must also acknowledge what is happening within Ukraine itself. Many Ukrainians are voting with their feet, seeking ways to avoid conscription. Who can blame them? Few people want to be cannon fodder for a conflict waged by a government they see as corrupt, particularly when the frontline has become a grinding stalemate where the line on the map matters little compared to the human toll exacted each day. Meanwhile, Western leaders have invested vast amounts of high-sounding moral authority in this war, declaring it vital to their credibility and survival. That may well be true but if so, the harder lesson is that the war they framed as winnable may in fact not be. And in that misjudgment, Ukraine pays the highest price. It has already lost the most in people, in land, in future prospects. Putin is not Hitler, and this is not an inevitable prelude to a Third World War. For that, I am grateful. But gratitude should not blind us to the realities: this is a contained, grinding, attritional conflict, not a civilisation-defining struggle between good and evil.Beyond the battlefield lies the broader reality: history is not unfolding in Europe’s favour. While the West expends itself in this war, the world’s economic centre of gravity continues to shift. China and India are rising with vast populations, expanding markets, and growing political leverage. The West, meanwhile, carries the burden of debt, demographic decline, and political division - don't pick fights you can't win in which everyone loses and don't troll your psychotic neihgjbout. If you find an inflated bill at at a Thai bar at closing time and start fighting the bouncer expect to get smashed up - it's irrelevant about the justcuie of your case - them's the rules. From where I stand , the war becomes less about who “wins” in the Donbas, and more about whether Europe and the West are prepared for a future in which their relative influence inexorably diminishes - permanenly and epochally. I may not agree with every one of Neil’s conclusions, but my opinion is beside the point. The march of history does not pause for our preferences. And it is moving, inexorably, into darker and more unstable terrain whether we like it or not and the less peoople who die needlessy in this end of empire power shifts the better. -
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Ukraine Putin Agrees to Strong Security Promises for Ukraine: US Envoy
Russia sees NATO as a threat, NATO sees Russia as a threat. The common denominator is... Nato. Talk about para bloody noia. Treat people like people, politics suck. -
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