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On March 03 2025 23:39 Velr wrote: I wasn't joking. Get help. Engaging with you is futile for quite some time now.
Nah, I've made my logical, specific, fact-based points. You have no counter points. So it is pointless.
All of Europe will be catering to Donald Trump's schedule while Trump figures out which New York Yankees games he is going to watch this spring. LOL.
So Donald Trump, one of the biggest narcissists on the planet, chose to be humiliated in front of the entire world so that Zelensky could possibly have a bad peace deal, that will actually not help Ukraine in any way. And to get the EU to draft their own version of a peace plan, that he could have just asked for if he wanted.
You arguments have more holes then a swiss cheese.
But Zelensky didn't thank Trump specifically. It said Biden in that message. And we all know that Trump is America. After all, Hunter Bidens Laptop brahbrahbrah.
This is quite interesting. I'm no financial expert so can't speak to its validity but the guy presents how some media (including Financial Times) are giving us numbers that aren't true and this can create false narratives.
This is quite interesting. I'm no financial expert so can't speak to its validity but the guy presents how some media (including Financial Times) are giving us numbers that aren't true and this can create false narratives.
This isn't particularly surprising, to be honest. And false narratives have been around since basically before the war even started. This is also just looking at what each nation claims the things are worth, and getting reliable numbers out of Russia is pretty hard. 100B Dollars adjusted for PPP spent on refurbishing BMP-1 from the 60s isn't quite the same as 100B Dollars spent on modern, western equipment. Perun had a pretty thorough look at the EU (or at least non-US NATO countries) compared to other nations out there, what the challenges are and so forth. I think it was posted a few pages ago and is worth a watch to get a fairly good understanding and it comes with a selection of sources to look into.
That aside, it is also not a useful comparison in the first place. It compares a (somewhat) peace time European military against an unsustainable Russian one on full war footing and at full mobilization. That a nation spends significantly more during a war should not come as much of a surprise.
On March 04 2025 01:57 Uldridge wrote: He's playing the Western heel. Don't you know anything about 1988 rasslin'!?
Kind of a random thought, but I would bet a lot of Trump supporters (like huge percentage) are WWE/wrasslin fans. Guys who think fake tough guys are cool, have trouble with reality, immature, surprised and amused by the same dumb tropes over and over.
Wow. Trump really sinks this low, because he couldn't humiliate Zelenskiy ENOUGH in the white house.
The Trump Administration wanted Zelenskiy to actually go apeshit on the accusations. They would have. They hate him because he showed restraint and cool.
No amount of begging and mineral deals will bring back the Trump administration to the table.
They want to get rid of 80% of nuclear arsenal, so they need a deal with russia, they want to reduce the military budget for even more tax cuts.
I legit think that Billionaires in the Trump admin think that the country runs "on their money". And they want it back.
On March 02 2025 05:04 Uldridge wrote: Jimmy. You can't explain that. Ever. Does every country always just fold when they get invaded then, via your logic, because you can't let your 20 year old sons die to the meatgrinder? Come on. What is this? With your logic the nation who moves first just always wins everything while everyone who'soved upon just loses.. everything? What a weak synthesis.
Ukraine and Russia engaged in peace talk few days after the war. Not all war are fight to the last men.
I see some mentioned Ukraine can still be in the war for a few more years, yes maybe they have the resources, but no way they can last another 3 years.
And that's the reality of it, the conscription number shows it clearly that Ukrainians aren't THAT motivated to fight, especially if they need to be in the battle front. If EU wants to support Zelenskyy and continue the war, then they should send troops. That's how they can get momentum back and regain grounds.
Zelenskyy was there just for one diplomatic mission: Sign the deal, get US support and comes with EU support, and kickstart the negotiation to end the war. if he didn't want to take the deal, then just don't go or say it out right during the discussions. Instead of whatever happened. Literally one of the worst outcome.
Dude, Ukraine doesn't even have enough equipment to arm the men they do have. What would be the point of lowering conscription age? It's insane to me to pretend that they aren't motivated to fight, after all that's happened. And at the end of the day, polls show the majority still wants to fight for their land, and they support Zelenskyy. Of course peace is preferred, nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die. But it can't be at any cost and no guarantee
This isn't pretend. Ukraine conscription effort wasn't as good as they wished, this is a known fact. Conscription is compulsory, has nothing to do with equipment. they want to lower the age to get more men. "nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die." and even less if they have to go to the frontline to die.
My biggest issue with the whole situation, is that this is presented as existential threat for Europe and its values by EU leaders and Biden. So far I think only Macron (respect) has suggested they should consider sending deployments in some form. (not for peace keeping after the peace deal) That's when I would actually respect the EU and admit they aren't just doing a massive political show.
now that Trump has pushed the EU to be more active, and we can expect a longer war, maybe it isn't impossible. Last time the proposal was rejected war 2024 Feb, so a year ago.
You want to be able to equip the men. It is a lever Ukraine is saving so when they get the equipment they will have men to operate it.
Clearly given the size of the two countries and the populations you can see that Ukraine needs to not trade 1 for 1 or worse to survive. Russian meat wave style would be disastrous for them.
I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but it seems to have kernels of truth but then like really dumb analysis of the info. I assume it is purposeful with how bad the analysis is.
They are not delaying conscription because they have an equipment problem. There are other roles for army, and conscription doesn't mean they are deployed on the field right away. This is also why both presidents in the US asked to lower the conscription age.
On March 02 2025 05:04 Uldridge wrote: Jimmy. You can't explain that. Ever. Does every country always just fold when they get invaded then, via your logic, because you can't let your 20 year old sons die to the meatgrinder? Come on. What is this? With your logic the nation who moves first just always wins everything while everyone who'soved upon just loses.. everything? What a weak synthesis.
Ukraine and Russia engaged in peace talk few days after the war. Not all war are fight to the last men.
I see some mentioned Ukraine can still be in the war for a few more years, yes maybe they have the resources, but no way they can last another 3 years.
And that's the reality of it, the conscription number shows it clearly that Ukrainians aren't THAT motivated to fight, especially if they need to be in the battle front. If EU wants to support Zelenskyy and continue the war, then they should send troops. That's how they can get momentum back and regain grounds.
Zelenskyy was there just for one diplomatic mission: Sign the deal, get US support and comes with EU support, and kickstart the negotiation to end the war. if he didn't want to take the deal, then just don't go or say it out right during the discussions. Instead of whatever happened. Literally one of the worst outcome.
Dude, Ukraine doesn't even have enough equipment to arm the men they do have. What would be the point of lowering conscription age? It's insane to me to pretend that they aren't motivated to fight, after all that's happened. And at the end of the day, polls show the majority still wants to fight for their land, and they support Zelenskyy. Of course peace is preferred, nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die. But it can't be at any cost and no guarantee
Of course peace is preferred, nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die. But it can't be at any cost and no guarantee
The fact that "most people would like the war to end without more bloodshed" is not any kind of the smoking gun you seem to think it is. That doesn't mean they are ready to throw down their weapons and give up. There is no correlation
I didn't talk absolute like you did: "It's insane to me to pretend that they aren't motivated to fight, after all that's happened. And at the end of the day, polls show the majority still wants to fight for their land" https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/23/why-is-ukraine-struggling-to-mobilise-its-citizens-to-fight >The narrative of fighting an existential war no longer seems to move the majority of Ukrainians.
But it can't be at any cost and no guarantee
sure but there's plenty of cost and there will never be any guarantee. There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war. And more importantly, what cost and what compromise, isn't anyone's choice but Ukrainian.
On March 04 2025 19:52 ETisME wrote: There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war.
I think Europe post-WW2 kinda got it out of their system (at least when it comes to fighting within Europe itself). Turns out in the modern world everyone benefits more if there is no war. Who would've thought?
On March 02 2025 05:04 Uldridge wrote: Jimmy. You can't explain that. Ever. Does every country always just fold when they get invaded then, via your logic, because you can't let your 20 year old sons die to the meatgrinder? Come on. What is this? With your logic the nation who moves first just always wins everything while everyone who'soved upon just loses.. everything? What a weak synthesis.
Ukraine and Russia engaged in peace talk few days after the war. Not all war are fight to the last men.
I see some mentioned Ukraine can still be in the war for a few more years, yes maybe they have the resources, but no way they can last another 3 years.
And that's the reality of it, the conscription number shows it clearly that Ukrainians aren't THAT motivated to fight, especially if they need to be in the battle front. If EU wants to support Zelenskyy and continue the war, then they should send troops. That's how they can get momentum back and regain grounds.
Zelenskyy was there just for one diplomatic mission: Sign the deal, get US support and comes with EU support, and kickstart the negotiation to end the war. if he didn't want to take the deal, then just don't go or say it out right during the discussions. Instead of whatever happened. Literally one of the worst outcome.
Dude, Ukraine doesn't even have enough equipment to arm the men they do have. What would be the point of lowering conscription age? It's insane to me to pretend that they aren't motivated to fight, after all that's happened. And at the end of the day, polls show the majority still wants to fight for their land, and they support Zelenskyy. Of course peace is preferred, nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die. But it can't be at any cost and no guarantee
This isn't pretend. Ukraine conscription effort wasn't as good as they wished, this is a known fact. Conscription is compulsory, has nothing to do with equipment. they want to lower the age to get more men. "nobody wants their brothers and sisters to die." and even less if they have to go to the frontline to die.
My biggest issue with the whole situation, is that this is presented as existential threat for Europe and its values by EU leaders and Biden. So far I think only Macron (respect) has suggested they should consider sending deployments in some form. (not for peace keeping after the peace deal) That's when I would actually respect the EU and admit they aren't just doing a massive political show.
now that Trump has pushed the EU to be more active, and we can expect a longer war, maybe it isn't impossible. Last time the proposal was rejected war 2024 Feb, so a year ago.
You want to be able to equip the men. It is a lever Ukraine is saving so when they get the equipment they will have men to operate it.
Clearly given the size of the two countries and the populations you can see that Ukraine needs to not trade 1 for 1 or worse to survive. Russian meat wave style would be disastrous for them.
I'm not sure where you are getting your information from but it seems to have kernels of truth but then like really dumb analysis of the info. I assume it is purposeful with how bad the analysis is.
They are not delaying conscription because they have an equipment problem. There are other roles for army, and conscription doesn't mean they are deployed on the field right away. This is also why both presidents in the US asked to lower the conscription age.
Not lowering the conscription age is a deliberate move on the side of Ukraine. They want to preserve the next generation and not go into serious demographic issues after the war is over. Right now there is no need to lower the age (they did it once I think) because so far they've been able to match Russian conscription rate (influx of NK soldiers kinda disrupted that but not too much) and considering the casualty rate is 1:4 (or 1:7 if you trust the very optimistic sources) in favor of Ukraine they're doing quite well all things considered.
Right now is not really the time to make any ceasefire deals with Russia since they're in some deep shit. Military contract offers have been increased yet again, showing that there aren't enough volunteers. New round of prison conscription is now being talked about and NK soldiers as well as severely wounded soldiers on the ground (they're literally sending people with crutches to the front) means that Russia has manpower issues. They also have equipment issues (now using donkeys for transport and command vehicles in place of armored transports) and their coffers are running dry (their reserves are at 1/3rd of what they were, they only have some gold left now since they spent all of their euros and yuans).
I guess the biggest tell that Russia isn't doing too hot is that even if they manage some breakthrough on the front nothing much really comes out of it. They just don't have enough reserves to send into the breach and collapse the front entirely so they're forced into this slow and extremely costly slog. At the rate they're going they'll capture all of Ukraine in about 100 years.
And one day we'll understand that all these geopolitical movements are stupid when you have near zero barrier trade, so that everyone can actually benefit as mucn as possible. Coutries borders may be the stupidest social construct ever. I don't understand, for example, why you need the Scottish in your unified Kingdom or whatever when they'll just be a thorn in your side the entire time and setting them free and working with them will benefit you.
Borders create socio economic petri dishes and allow to basicly try variations on different starting conditions.
When the industrial revolution clearly showed that specialization and "economy of scale" can multiply wealth by the shere productivity, bordes started to look stupid.
Unless you are one greedy motherfucker. Then you'd exploit cheap labour in another country.. and cheap regulartions here and cheap ressources there.. and so on.
On March 03 2025 10:08 Falling wrote: Well sure, but Russia has a track record of not honouring agreements, so it follows that Zelensky's number one question is... okay, so what happens if Russia doesn't honour the deal?
Even if Trump is right- that Putin will never attack because of Trump's personal guarantee. Who cares, Russia seems to take a five year pause to build up and take the next swing... by then Trump's out of office and Putin's ready to go again. And even if Trump is going for a third term, unless Trump plans to live forever, Trump's say so as the single guarantee that Putin won't do nothing means nothing.
You also cannot force other country to give security guarantee, especially up against a nuclear arm bearing nation. Similarly, I have no problem with Ukraine not taking it and hope for better.
But if peace negotiation happens soon, then every single day they are just losing out more bargaining power. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/01/4/7492042/ >Ukraine’s defence forces lost control of over 3,600 sq km of territory in 2024, losing more than 20 sq km per day in November. In 2023, they lost a total of about 540 sq km and liberated about 430 sq km.
Some saying this an elastic defensive strategy to ensure better combat outcome, but negotiation is based around seized land, not who wins on the field better.
I am a strong believer that next Russia invasion is not a matter of "if" but "when". Spending all the time hoping for a better deal, with your bargaining power draining away, is just bad decision.
Unless of course Zelenskyy gamble worked out, with Europe deploying men and we start the next escalation and Russia backs off.
EPT
