Russia-Ukrainian War

[cubsfan]

18 minutes ago, Sweet said:

Cubs, with respect, MANY have been saying exactly that for years.  It’s not a ‘few’ who have called this out.  

Why the leaders of European nations have not taken decisive action is the question that ‘few’ have the answers to.

 

I was once told by a guy who worked for intelligence, that Russians have been funding and infiltrating the green movement in Europe.  Net zero and deindustrialisation weakens Europe and relatively strengthens Russia.  Who knows for sure though.

 

I agree with you 100%. Europe needs new leadership. 

[james22]

Funny how this is still so hard for some to understand.

 

Trump’s statements are not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action.

 

 

 

 

[John Hjorth]

Enjoy your fun,  James [ @james22 ],

 

Reuters - World - Europe [February 20^th 2025] : Exclusive: US refusing to co-sponsor UN motion backing Ukraine ahead of war anniversary, diplomats say.

 

Why do you consider it funny that someone reacting to that they can't take the words of your POTUS at par? What is actually funny about that?

[Parsad]

7 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

I agree with @Gamecock-YT here, above.

 

Mike [ @cubsfan ],

 

It's a behavioral problem - of yours - while discussing in this topic. Have you even thought about how you're actual phrasing of the content of your posts lately appear condecensing and patronizing, all while you - constantly, on and on - ignore and disregard the points brought up several times, by several CofB&F members, including me, about the trustworthyness of Putin, ref. the concept of 'lasting peace'.

 

In short, you're by many European CofB&F members and others considered naive, short term, or both.

 

 

 

+1!  Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

4 hours ago, JoJo1 said:

POTUS is an idiot. Putin will never, ever give a cent to Trump. Never.

And why? Trump gives him everything for a promise, an illusion of cooperation. in the Arctic, pah.

 

If the Germans understand that instead of 11000 cars a day they can also build 100 tanks, 10 million drones, optics, laser and horny, small robots, a day; finally organize 20 satellite launches every week again ... and if the Germans then talk intensively with their Jewish friends about military technology, laser, quantum optics, I see potential there.

 

It's time too. who needs a tesla if can having a bmw.

Petersburg and Moskau, end of russia

This is in German but if you understand the language the it’s worthwhile. It from the CEO of Rheinmetal and pretty impressive. Had clearly says they can build a lot of Lynx vehicles , air defense system that make short work of drones etc. They have capacity to produce 1M rounds of artillery ammo and are building factory in the Ukraine in JV’s. They have a blanket order to build 100 Lynx for Italy and build 150/ year but that’s because the order is structured that way and they could easily build twice as much. 

I think Germany has better means to quickly ramp up weapons manufacturing on an industrial scale than the US quite frankly. There is an amazing about of resources available.

 

I know for example Thales a bit and they have deeper internalized manufacturing integration than US aerospace cos like Boeing and other defense primes. It can be a bit of a hindrance to some extend and does not comply with the asset light operating model of the US primes but it does allow them to remap better and make them more resilient in term of supply chains.

 

There is a tremendous amount of technical , industrial and financial resources that Europe can draw from but it takes a common vision and political will to do so.

 

FWIW, Rheinmetal stock  is close to a 20x bagger from the COVID-19 lows.

Edited yesterday at 01:34 AM by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

On 2/21/2025 at 2:32 AM, Spekulatius said:

This is in German but if you understand the language the it’s worthwhile. It from the CEO of Rheinmetal and pretty impressive. Had clearly says they can build a lot of Lynx vehicles , air defense system that make short work of drones etc. They have capacity to produce 1M rounds of artillery ammo and are building factory in the Ukraine in JV’s. They have a blanket order to build 100 Lynx for Italy and build 150/ year but that’s because the order is structured that way and they could easily build twice as much. 

I think Germany has better means to quickly ramp up weapons manufacturing on an industrial scale than the US quite frankly. There is an amazing about of resources available.

 

I know for example Thales a bit and they have deeper internalized manufacturing integration than US aerospace cos like Boeing and other defense primes. It can be a bit of a hindrance to some extend and does not comply with the asset light operating model of the US primes but it does allow them to remap better and make them more resilient in term of supply chains.

 

There is a tremendous amount of technical , industrial and financial resources that Europe can draw from but it takes a common vision and political will to do so.

 

FWIW, Rheinmetal stock  is close to a 20x bagger from the COVID-19 lows.

 

 

It's actually a very good point about the situation for Germany by now, @Spekulatius, 

 

In every challenging situation is also the basis and foundation of a new opportunity, if one looks sufficiently around. It's time for some tailwind for Germany on the bicycle path, in stead of headwinds, that appear without end.

 

There wil be a lot to do, all while European defense budgets are swelling and going beserk.

[Xerxes]

From CSIS:

 

something that has not been mentioned here in this thread is Putin’ advance age and desire to shape his legacy. Given his advance age, contrary to popular believe that the Russia will come again for round 3 w/ Ukraine after any ceasefire, may not be totally correct. 
 

Meaning that his scope of ambitions for round 2 maybe much higher than “hit pause and re-arm” school of thought. 
 

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/russian-roulette/id1112258664?i=1000694809666

 

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/russian-roulette/id1112258664?i=1000694520512

 

 

[John Hjorth]

Related to the POTUS 'dictator' statement related to Volodymyr Zelenskyj :

 

Rating Group - [ratinggroup.ua] [February 21^st 2025] : Attitudes toward specific European leaders :

 

Quote

... Two-thirds of Ukrainians trust President Zelenskyy, while one-third do not. Since January, trust in him has increased from 57% to 65%. Valerii Zaluzhnyi is trusted by 76% of respondents, 16% do not trust him. Serhii Prytula is trusted by 34%, and 51% do not trust him. Petro Poroshenko is trusted by 22%, while 76% do not trust him, Dmytro Razumkov is trusted by 19%, and 41% do not trust him, Yuliia Tymoshenko is trusted by 11%, and 86% do not trust her. ...

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Belonging PowerPoint Deck attached.

RG_Ukraine_Monitoring_Leaders_САТІ_022025_ENG.pdf

[cubsfan]

 

26 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

Related to the POTUS 'dictator' statement related to Volodymyr Zelenskyj :

 

Rating Group - [ratinggroup.ua] [February 21^st 2025] : Attitudes toward specific European leaders :

 

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Belonging PowerPoint Deck attached.

RG_Ukraine_Monitoring_Leaders_САТІ_022025_ENG.pdf 1.28 MB · 1 download

 

Of course that is so much BS. 

 

If Zelensky has such massive popularity - then why would he NOT hold free and fair elections?

He would win in a landslide.

 

By your logic, Putin is NOT a dictator becuase he has overwhelming support by the Russian people.

 

 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by cubsfan

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

 

It's actually a very good point about the situation for Germany by now, @Spekulatius, 

 

In every challenging situation is also the basis and foundation of a new opportunity, if one looks sufficiently around. It's time for some tailwind for Germany on the bicycle path, in stead of headwinds, that appear without end.

 

There wil be a lot to do, all while European defense budgets are swelling and going beserk.

There is absolutely opportunity in all this upheavals for Europe if you look close enough. i think Merkel has a shot of reshaping the political landscape if he gets a strong enough mandate. the changes to the EU will come from political leaders demanding changes not from the current EU bureaucrats themselves. 

[james22]

On 2/20/2025 at 4:10 PM, John Hjorth said:

Why do you consider it funny that someone reacting to that they can't take the words of your POTUS at par? What is actually funny about that?

 

That some still reflexively underestimate Trump is funny.

 

In this case, for example, he isn't wrong. And acknowledging that reality makes a negotiated peace much more likely.

 

If you have a pot that needs stirring, call Donald Trump. 

 

A couple of days ago Trump made heads explode when he claimed (among other things) that Volodymyr Zelensky was “a dictator without elections” who started the war with Russia.

 

“Oh my God, can you believe it? Trump doesn’t know Russia was the aggressor in the war. What an idiot.”

 

The BBC, CNN and many other news sites ran little “fact-checking” stories. Politicians dusted off their most serious faces to deplore Trump’s lies/exaggerations (the US hasn’t given $350 billion to Ukraine, it was “only” $180 billion or whatever)/historical ignorance. “Ukraine did not start the war,” CNN intoned. “Russia started the war by invading Ukraine in 2022.” 

 

Well, Russia did invade Ukraine in 2022. But is that when the war started?

 

“OK, it really started in 2014 during the Maidan protests when Russia snatched Crimea.”

 

Do you think so?  

 

I think that the national security analyst Mario Loyola is right that the conflict started much earlier, in the  aftermath of the Soviet Union’s implosion in 1991.  

 

In an important essay for the Federalist from 2022, Loyola points out that Ukraine and Crimea gradually and separately became part of Russia beginning in the seventeenth century. “Ukraine came in stages as Poland waned in territory,” he notes, “with the areas east of the Dnieper River firmly in Russian hands by the time of Peter the Great, while Crimea was captured from the Ottoman Turks.”

 

Jump forward to the period after World War Two. “The Soviets wanted to give the impression of a diverse coalition of states, particularly in order to justify their demand for multiple seats at the United Nations, so Ukraine was presented to the world as a powerful Soviet Socialist Republic.”

 

Then in 1954, Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian, ceded territory and nominal control of military forces to Ukraine but, “it was all a show, because everyone knew the Kremlin retained total control:

 

When those borders suddenly became “real” in 1991, amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kiev found itself in control of a nuclear arsenal, the Black Sea fleet, Russia’s most important commercial and naval ports in the world (Odessa and Sevastopol), and tens of millions of Russians.

 

US diplomats realized the situation was dangerously untenable, and quickly pressed Kiev to return the nuclear arsenal and Black Sea fleet to Russia. Unfortunately, the adjustments stopped there, leaving Ukraine with a bigger bite of Russia than it could safely chew.

 

Was Ukraine strong enough to maintain both its territorial integrity and its political independence? That is the question that Loyola asks. History has answered with a resounding no.

 

"Ukraine had no problem controlling the territory as long as it accepted Moscow’s control,” Loyola points out. “But the moment it definitively broke away from Moscow in 2014, it immediately lost control of those areas that were most vital to Russian interests, and nobody with an even minimal sense of Russian and Ukrainian history can pretend to have been taken by surprise.”

 

The fate of Ukraine is one of those subjects that seems automatically to induce moralist posturing all around. A couple of points. One can acknowledge that Russia is an aggressor while still admitting that it has real and legitimate interests. 

 

Should we support the idea of Ukrainian membership in NATO? I think that Loyola is correct: “the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine, while it still claims sovereignty over Russia’s most important naval base in the world, is both preposterous and needlessly provocative.”

 

Russia may, as Loyola notes, be a “malign force in the world.” But that does not mean that it is without genuine political interests and real grievances.

 

It’s fun to denounce Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” and all-round bad hat. It allows one to bask in the glow of one’s superior moral fiber. But as Henry Kissinger observed, “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy, it is an alibi for the absence of one.” 

 

The larger point, however, brings me back to the pot-stirrer in chief. Donald Trump’s comments about Ukraine and Zelensky sent the commentariat (and Zelensky himself) around the bend. But what if it was a gambit designed to bring about the peace he promised to bring to the region? And what if, despite the grumbling and grandstanding of the talking heads, it succeeds?

 

https://thespectator.com/topic/donald-trump-comments-ukraine-gambit-bring-peace/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/04/in-russia-crisis-ukraine-should-trade-land-for-independence/

[John Hjorth]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Of course that is so much BS. 

 

If Zelensky has such massive popularity - then why would he NOT hold free and fair elections? He would win in a landslide.

 

By your logic, Putin is NOT a dictator because he has overwhelming support by the Russian people.

 

Mike [ @cubsfan ],

 

Here, you are right by your logic in your last sentence in your post above. Reading around 'Rating Group', you'll find it's beyond the control of Putin. It's Ukranian, yes.

 

Other CofB&F board members have already provided answers upstream to your question about why Zelenskyj hasen't held free and fair elections by now.