Stupid Shit in Kyiv

[Paulie97]

Most Ukrainians now want an end to the war.

That's been the case from the start, but not at the cost of their country and their identity.

[Paulie97]

New Issue Out January / February 2025.

Read Now.

Putin Will Never Give Up in Ukraine.

The West Can't Change His Calculus—It Can Only Wait Him Out.

Peter Schroeder.

September 3, 2024.

Peter Schroeder is Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was an analyst and a member of the Senior Analytic Service at the Central Intelligence Agency and from 2018 to 2022 served as Principal Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.

Two and a half years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States' strategy for ending the war remains the same: impose enough costs on Russia that its president, Vladimir Putin, will decide that he has no choice but to halt the conflict. In an effort to change his cost-benefit calculus, Washington has tried to find the sweet spot between supporting Ukraine and punishing Russia on the one hand, and reducing the risks of escalation on the other. As rational as this approach may appear, it rests on a faulty assumption: that Putin's mind can be changed.

The evidence suggests that on Ukraine, Putin simply is not persuadable; he is all in. For him, preventing Ukraine from becoming a bastion that the West can use to threaten Russia is a strategic necessity. He has taken personal responsibility for achieving that outcome and likely judges it as worth nearly any cost. Trying to coerce him into giving up is a fruitless exercise that just wastes lives and resources.

There is only one viable option for ending the war in Ukraine on terms acceptable to the West and Kyiv: waiting Putin out. Under this approach, the United States would hold the line in Ukraine and maintain sanctions against Russia while minimizing the level of fighting and amount of resources expended until Putin dies or otherwise leaves office. Only then will there be a chance for a lasting peace in Ukraine.

PUTIN THE OPPORTUNIST?

When Putin ordered the invasion, it was a war of choice. There was no urgent security threat to Russia that necessitated a large-scale invasion of its neighbor. And it was distinctly Putin's choice. Both William Burns, the director of the CIA, and Eric Green, the National Security Council's senior director for Russia at the time, have noted how out of the loop other Russian officials seemed to be about Putin's decision. Even at Putin's stage-managed, televised meeting of his top security officials on the eve of the invasion, some participants didn't seem to know exactly what to say. Russian elites eventually lined up behind him, but before February 2022, very few were pushing for a confrontation that would cost Russia so much and shatter relations with the West.

Because it is a war of choice, Putin has the power to stop it. Recognizing that the gambit proved to be harder than he anticipated, he could decide to cut his losses. The war is not existential for Russia, even if he has cast it that way rhetorically. Withdrawing Russian forces from Ukraine wouldn't threaten the existence of the Russian state, nor would it likely even threaten his own rule. Putin has made sure that no potential successors have appeared on the horizon. The two who came closest to challenging him—the opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin—are now dead. The Kremlin has decades of experience shaping domestic narratives to bolster Putin. He could easily declare victory in Ukraine and launch an accompanying information campaign to justify his about-face.

But while Putin has the power to stop the war, would he ever be willing to do so? USA Policymakers have largely answered that question in the affirmative, contending that with enough pressure, he could be forced to withdraw troops from Ukraine or at least negotiate a cease-fire. To change his calculus, Washington and its allies have imposed sweeping economic sanctions on Russia, given Ukraine military equipment and intelligence support, and isolated Moscow on the global stage.

Underneath this policy lies a belief that Putin is fundamentally an opportunist. He probes forward, and when he discovers weakness, he advances, but when he is met with strength, he withdraws. According to this view, Putin's assault on Ukraine was driven by both his imperial ambitions and his perception of weakness in the West and in Ukraine. In President Joe Biden's words, Putin has a "craven lust for land and power" and expected that after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, "NATO would fracture and divide. " If that is the diagnosis, then the right prescription is to show strength and resilience. Raise the costs of the war high enough, and he will eventually conclude that his opportunism isn't paying off.

A SENSE OF INSECURITY.

But Putin is not an opportunist, at least not on Ukraine. His most prominent international moves have not been opportunistic ploys to gain an advantage so much as preventive efforts to forestall perceived losses or retaliate against perceived provocations. Russia's military action in Georgia in 2008 was both a response to that country's attack on the separatist region of South Ossetia and an effort to avoid losing control of a territory it considered a point of leverage that could prevent Georgia's integration with the West. When Putin seized Crimea in 2014, he worried about the loss of Russia's naval base there. When he intervened in Syria in 2015, he worried about the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, a Russia-friendly leader. And when he interfered in the 2016 USA Presidential election, he was responding to what he saw as USA Efforts to undermine his position in Russia—namely, the United States' public criticism of Russia's elections in 2011–12 and the Panama Papers' exposé of the secret financial dealings of his cronies in the spring of 2016.

If opportunism is motivating Putin in Ukraine—if the gambit is the product of his imperial avarice to gain Russian control of the country whenever the possibility presented itself—then his decidedly nonopportunistic approach to Ukraine from 2014 to 2021 needs to be explained. After Russia's seizure of Crimea in March and April 2014, the Ukrainian government was in disarray. Yet rather than moving aggressively to seize additional territory, Putin chose to launch a low-level insurgency in eastern Ukraine that could be used as a bargaining chip to limit Kyiv's foreign policy options. In September 2014, after Russian forces dealt a devastating defeat to Ukrainian forces in the city of Ilovaisk, Moscow probably could have advanced farther along the coast of the Sea of Azov, creating a land corridor from Crimea to Russia. Yet Putin instead opted for a political settlement, agreeing to the Minsk protocol.

Even after USA President Donald Trump took office, when it became clear that Washington was not inclined to help Kyiv, Putin still held back from launching a broader military attack or making any other attempt to expand Russian influence in Ukraine. Such missed chances sit uncomfortably alongside a view of Putin as a master opportunist.

The evidence suggests that on Ukraine, Putin simply is not persuadable; he is all in.

Rather than an opportunistic war of aggression, the assault on Ukraine is better understood as an unjust preventive war launched to stop what Putin saw as a future security threat to Russia. In Putin's view, Ukraine was turning into an anti-Russian state that, if not stopped, could be used by the West to undermine Russia's domestic cohesion and host NATO forces that would threaten Russia itself. On some level, USA Officials seem to understand this. As Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, has said, "he saw Ukraine inexorably moving towards the West and towards NATO and away from Russia. ".

While the invasion was not a crime of opportunity, it was a surprisingly risky move for Putin. He has tended to be risk-averse internationally, making calculated moves and minimizing the commitment of Russian resources. At just several thousand troops, Russia's deployment to Syria has remained relatively small and mostly reliant on the Russian air force. When his fellow autocrat Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro seemed to be on the verge of overthrow in 2019, Putin deployed just a few hundred soldiers to help keep him in office. The war in Ukraine, by contrast, has cost Russia more than 100,000 soldiers' lives and done untold damage to its economy and international standing.

That the war is so out of character with Putin's normal risk calculus suggests that he made a strategic decision about Ukraine from which he is unwilling to back away. His decision to send the bulk of Russia's army into Ukraine in 2022, and then mobilize more forces when his initial attack failed, demonstrates that he considers the war too important to fail. And for all the costs of his decision to invade, Putin likely thinks that the costs of inaction would have been higher—namely, that Russia would have been unable to prevent the emergence of a Western-aligned Ukraine that could serve as a springboard for a "color revolution" against Russia itself. If Putin doesn't succeed now, he thinks, Russia is destined to incur those same costs. Given that this is likely how Putin is weighing the scenarios before him, Western pressure is unlikely to come anywhere close to coercing him into changing his mind and ending the war on terms acceptable to Kyiv and Washington.

THIS IS HOW IT ENDS.

If Putin is unwilling to halt his assault on Ukraine, then the war can end in only one of two ways: either because Russia has lost the ability to continue its campaign or because Putin is no longer in power.

Bringing about the first outcome, by degrading Russia's capabilities, is unrealistic. With Putin committed to the war and able to continue throwing soldiers and resources into the fight, the Russian military is unlikely to collapse. Defeating Putin on the ground in Ukraine would require a vast increase in munitions, but only in 2025 will the United States begin increasing production of necessary artillery shells, and even that uptick will not be enough to meet Ukraine's battlefield requirements—to say nothing of the air defenses Ukraine could use. Ukraine will also need to continue sending soldiers into battle, and while the West can help train them, Western countries are not willing to commit their own troops. Adding to the difficulty, as over two years of war have shown, larger offensives are extremely difficult in the face of prepared defenses, especially now that drones and other surveillance technologies reduce the element of surprise for both sides.

That leaves the second route to ending the war: Putin's exit from the Kremlin. Attempting to accelerate this process might look appealing, but it is an impractical idea. For decades, Washington has shown little ability to successfully manipulate Russian politics; trying to do so now would represent the triumph of hope over experience. Moreover, although Putin probably already thinks the United States is bent on ousting him, if it actually started taking steps to do so, he would very likely notice the change and see it as an escalation. In response, he might intensify Russian efforts to sow chaos in American society.

Given those risks, the best approach for Washington is to play the long game and wait for Putin to leave. It's possible he may step down voluntarily or be pushed out; what is certain is that, at some point, he will die. Only once he is no longer in power can the real work of permanently resolving the war in Ukraine start.

PLAYING FOR TIME.

Until then, Washington should focus on helping Ukraine hold the line and preventing further Russian military advances. It should continue to impose economic and diplomatic costs on Moscow but not expect them to have much effect; the main purpose of such pressure is to send the right message to USA Allies and hold a point of leverage in reserve for a post-Putin Russia, all while avoiding domestic criticism. At the same time, Washington should husband its resources, expending them as efficiently as possible and convincing Kyiv to avoid large, wasteful offensives. Even Kyiv's successful offensives to date—including the surprise attack into Russia's Kursk region last month—have had little effect on the overall course of the conflict. It remains a war of attrition with no sign of a coming breakthrough for Ukraine.

When the Kursk offensive dissipates and Kyiv manages to arrest Russia's progress in Donetsk, Washington should also support a cease-fire that halts the fighting. Although Putin could of course break any agreement, the benefits of a cease-fire outweigh the risks. A cease-fire would allow Ukraine to consolidate its defenses and train more soldiers, and the West could hedge its bets by continuing to supply the country with weapons. Most important, a cease-fire would prevent more soldiers and civilians from dying in a war that has no realistic end until Putin is gone.

When Putin does leave, however, Washington needs to be ready with a plan—one that not only resolves the war between Ukraine and Russia but also creates a positive framework for European security that eases military tensions, reduces the risk of conflict, and offers a vision that new Russian leaders in Moscow can buy into. That will require bold leadership, assertive diplomacy, and a willingness to compromise—in Moscow, Kyiv, Brussels, and Washington.

Since the invasion, the United States' strategy toward the war in Ukraine has been characterized by wishful thinking. If only Washington can impose enough costs on Putin, it can convince him to halt the war in Ukraine. If only it can send enough weapons to Ukraine, Kyiv can push Russian forces out. After two and a half years, it should be clear that neither outcome is in the offing. The best approach is to play for time—holding the line in Ukraine, minimizing the costs for the United States, and preparing for the day Putin eventually leaves. This is an admittedly unsatisfying and politically unpalatable approach. But it is the only realistic option.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/unite...ck_logged_in=1

[Paulie97]

You are as delusional on this as on Covid.

As the great federal judge while shooting down Trump's ludicrous stolen election claims adeptly stated, "Saying it's so doesn't make it so. "

And some Republicans have been scared of being painted as Putin lovers.

Now we get wild speculation combined with mind reading skills. Russia invaded a sovereign country unprovoked, has been raping and murdering civilians while hiding their bodies, has been kidnapping and indoctrinating Ukrainian children, etc, etc. Bipartisan US support for aid to Ukraine isn't surprising.

That is something you Dems...

How weak. I'm an independent, officially "no party affiliation" as registered in FL, not that this matters. US support for Ukraine has been very bipartisan since the start. Can you read? Can you look up Congressional voting records? Why don't you go to some political forums and pitch your Dem conspiracy theory arguments in the matter of Ukraine aid? That's because you'll be trounced again and again, and can only stay somewhat above water in stupid shit where few are willing to spend time bothering with you.

Ah yes, the truckers in Canada protesting Covid could have been and were accused of the same. They may have unwittingly been acting on behalf of Russia too. Hell, who could NOT be accused of that? So being a Putin lover, is the same as in the 50's of being a communist lover. So just like in the 1950's, no pol is gong to run on not being pro Zelensky and anti Putin. The question is not what European leaders say but what are they going to do.The real question, and one that does not bother you at all, is why the hell was the FBI bending over backwards and conducting an illegal investigation to call Trump a Putin lover. The deep state seems to originated this whole shaming crap and making the accusation of being a "Putin lover".

And I am lying? How about you and all the Democratic leaders saying we were supporting Ukraine until they achieved victory? Yeah, Ukraine is going to win against Russia. How long have you all been lying about that? When is Victory Day Paulie? This crap has been going on for years now. How pathetic are you to claim yourself moral as the bodies continue to pile up.

And the Trump election did not signify a change in Ukraine policy? Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Come back and talk to us when aid to Ukraine from the US, Canada, Germany and France ends, as you predicted is about to occur. As it stands right now that's only a hope of yours. Putin isn't going to stop short of controlling the entirety of Ukraine, while Trump can only look terrible if he facilitates this. The aim is to outlast Putin, as victory for Russia in Ukraine would cost the West more than the continuing aid. I recently posted articles to support the latter point. As far as outlasting Putin goes (war of attrition), this is the best article I've read on that subject. And though I don't agree with every point, he's on the right track. I'm going to post it in it's entirely in a second post in case some are blocked by the paywall.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/unite...ck_logged_in=1

I'll add that the world isn't safe while the imperialistic ambitions of murderous dictators like Putin are rewarded. Appeasement only invites more aggression.

I couldn't give a rat's ass about your "deep state" conspiracy theories, at least as it stands now, but if you can come up with a better source than zerohedge or Alex Jones I'll give it a second look.

[Xpartan]

Valid point. I think that Russia can continue with the current loss rate as long as they get enough volunteers from the poor parts of Russia. If they have to mobilize to mobilize in Moscow and St Petersburg, that would be the end of the current regime.

This is what terrifies Putin and why he's paying a $50,000 sign up bonus for every "volunteer" including the sick, the old and the invalids -- rather than mobilize.

Watch the first 2 minutes (unless you want to know what some Russians use in lieu of toilet paper, LOL).

https://youtu.be/qvIcQHVF6N4

If you don't know how to set up English subs:

Hit Settings. Subtitles. Auto-translate. Choose your language.

[Tiny 12]

Talking about what? All you want to do is to talk, talk and talk, like talking is going to make everything better.

The point is that any agreement with Putin never had a chance. Which makes it what? Right, a fantasy.

For one thing it wouldn't matter even if it were true. These territories belong to another country, so who the fuck are you to go in and occupy them? That's an act of aggression and a war crime. How hard is it to comprehend?

But what makes it worse is that isn't true. At first, a significant part of Donbas' population were swayed by incessant Russian propaganda that managed to convince them that Kyiv is attacking their language, but the most powerful Russian argument came along with the Russian armed forces FROM Russia who organized and orchestrated the coup. Igor Girkin / Strelkov, an FSB lieutenant-colonel and his band of opportunists are ultimately responsible for seizure of Donbas.

Read: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/...-donbas-a84917.

Then the Russian "management" arrived. The living standards in Donbas had been relatively high, as it was one of the most prosperous regions in Ukraine. In 10 year-time, since 2014 the Russia mafia state has raped and pillaged the region. They divvied it up between their oligarch crime families who robbed everyone blind, destroyed the industries and every resemblance of normalcy. Their industrial landscape is a burned out desert right now.

Read: https://congress-files.s3.amazonaws...._article_0.pdf.

Politically, they installed a mafia-controlled dictatorship. People who would question the actions of their rulers would disappear. They have practically decimated the male population of Donbas, grabbing people off the streets and sending them to the frontlines armed with weapons from the WW2. That started even BEFORE the full-scale invasion, but was greatly exacerbated in 2022. The vast majority of these men are dead now, the rest are hiding.

No Tiny. Donbas wouldn't "prefer to live in Russia period". If the AFU were able to reconquer the territory today, Donbas women would line up for a chance to give a free BJ to their Ukrainian liberators. Sorry, make it BBBJ.

Oh, no you didn't! Ask your BFF Elvis why we're forced to talk about this insanity today. Not my fucking president.

While it didn't change my mind, that's a well-written post with links worth reading, or maybe scanning for the second one. What I'm getting from the Moscow Times piece is that the situation was a complete cluster fuck. You had pro-Maidan and anti-Maidan forces clashing in eastern Ukraine. Then Russian volunteers, initially without government support, entered the fray, which was at some point followed by support from the Russian government. It's interesting to read that some Russian nationalists view the Minsk accords as a betrayal. It sounds like the escalation was not, contrary to what the media claims, driven by Putin, but rather Russian nationalistic sentiment among some groups.

The second link was interesting too. The per capital income of Russia is much higher than Ukraine. As such, I figured economically, in the long term, people living in eastern Ukraine may be better off under Russian rule. The decline in income from 2014 to 2019 is striking.

The polling info I've read indicates that post 2014 and pre 2022, a majority of the population in separatist controlled areas of Donbas preferred to be part of Russia, and vice versa for areas under Ukrainian government control.

I don't know how this gets settled without the two sides talking. Otherwise it goes on forever, which is not good for anyone.

As to Elvis, I don't believe he's as huge a Trump fan as you think. If you give people two bad choices (Harris and Trump), they'll make a bad choice. I don't presume to speak for him, but if Democrats had nominated someone like Joe Manchin that might have given him pause when he voted.

[Goatscrot]

Valid point. I think that Russia can continue with the current loss rate as long as they get enough volunteers from the poor parts of Russia. If they have to mobilize to mobilize in Moscow and St Petersburg, that would be the end of the current regime.

Exactly why the Afghanistan war ended for Russia.

[PaulInZurich]

About 15,000 Russian military died in the Afghanistan war over 11 years. The Pentagon estimated that 115,000 Russians died in Ukraine up to October, 2024. Russia is dead set on not losing this war. The stakes are higher in its view given it borders Ukraine.

Valid point. I think that Russia can continue with the current loss rate as long as they get enough volunteers from the poor parts of Russia. If they have to mobilize to mobilize in Moscow and St Petersburg, that would be the end of the current regime.

[Xpartan]

The agreement was "torpedoed" by the Kremlin (not Boris Johnson) which at the last minute tried to insert a provision that would give Russia a veto on defense of Ukraine by other countries. That doesn't change that the sides were very close and should have continued talking.

Talking about what? All you want to do is to talk, talk and talk, like talking is going to make everything better.

The point is that any agreement with Putin never had a chance. Which makes it what? Right, a fantasy.

I don't see how that happens. And believe that civilians living in Russian-occupied territories would much prefer living in Russian oblasts instead of continuing the war. In fact, I believe the majority would prefer to live in Russia period.

For one thing it wouldn't matter even if it were true. These territories belong to another country, so who the fuck are you to go in and occupy them? That's an act of aggression and a war crime. How hard is it to comprehend?

But what makes it worse is that isn't true. At first, a significant part of Donbas' population were swayed by incessant Russian propaganda that managed to convince them that Kyiv is attacking their language, but the most powerful Russian argument came along with the Russian armed forces FROM Russia who organized and orchestrated the coup. Igor Girkin / Strelkov, an FSB lieutenant-colonel and his band of opportunists are ultimately responsible for seizure of Donbas.

Read: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/...-donbas-a84917.

Then the Russian "management" arrived. The living standards in Donbas had been relatively high, as it was one of the most prosperous regions in Ukraine. In 10 year-time, since 2014 the Russia mafia state has raped and pillaged the region. They divvied it up between their oligarch crime families who robbed everyone blind, destroyed the industries and every resemblance of normalcy. Their industrial landscape is a burned out desert right now.

Read: https://congress-files.s3.amazonaws...._article_0.pdf.

Politically, they installed a mafia-controlled dictatorship. People who would question the actions of their rulers would disappear. They have practically decimated the male population of Donbas, grabbing people off the streets and sending them to the frontlines armed with weapons from the WW2. That started even BEFORE the full-scale invasion, but was greatly exacerbated in 2022. The vast majority of these men are dead now, the rest are hiding.

No Tiny. Donbas wouldn't "prefer to live in Russia period". If the AFU were able to reconquer the territory today, Donbas women would line up for a chance to give a free BJ to their Ukrainian liberators. Sorry, make it BBBJ.

The USA may be on the verge of taking over Panama and Greenland, and invading Mexico to pursue narcos. Apologies for tu quoqing.

Oh, no you didn't! Ask your BFF Elvis why we're forced to talk about this insanity today. Not my fucking president.

[Tiny 12]

I guess Tiny is solely responsible for the fall of all the Zelensky loving, Putin hating governments falling in the Western powers like Germany, the USA, now Canada, and soon to be France.

Of all the arguments made, the most compelling against Ukraine I have seen is that we could have built a water pipeline and natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Western USA with the money wasted on Ukraine.

This is a clear case of Democratic pols putting their interests above their constituents and IMO why they and the other Zelensky backers got voted out. In the USA's case, the Dems wanted payback for their belief Putin rigged the 2016 election and to hide all the dirt that is and was going on in Ukraine.

Yes, I'll be responsible for Ukraine's failure to regain lost territories. Questner and Blood Red are paid Russian propagandists. And one that cracks me up, you and I are cowards. The person or people saying that haven't to my knowledge volunteered to fight on the front lines in Ukraine. I'm not intending to single out Paulie here. Those are just some of the comments posters have made in this thread.

You are as delusional on this as on Covid. Trump ran on peace in Ukraine not war. The support for war among Republicans in Ukraine is dwindling like crazy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/h...ance-on-russia.

Yeah, Paulie thought he had a slam dunk with those MSN links. One showed 112 Republicans and no Democrats voting against the Ukraine / Israel / Taiwan aid bill in the house. And in the Senate 15 Republicans voted against the bill and three, including Rand Paul, abstained. Only two Democrats and Bernie Sanders voted against the bill. In this instance I agree with you about Bernie, he did the right thing.

Any Republican voting against Ukraine aid would be accused of voting against help to Israel and Taiwan as well. Ukrainian aid would have gotten less Republican support if it were in a standalone bill.

[Tiny 12]

You keep repeating the same propacondoms' lies about some mythical agreement that had been hammered and would've been signed if mischievous Boris Johnson didn't torpedo it at the last moment.

That's a phantasy. There was no agreement ready to sign. It's an FSB construct for useful idiots in the West, and it's upsetting that you believe this nonsense.

The agreement was "torpedoed" by the Kremlin (not Boris Johnson) which at the last minute tried to insert a provision that would give Russia a veto on defense of Ukraine by other countries. That doesn't change that the sides were very close and should have continued talking.

You don't know Russian history very well. Russia has managed to lose wars it started in way more favorable conditions. It's one thing to capture a village or town, but it's an entirely different proposition to hold on to it. One way or another, sooner or later, Ukraine will regain its territories.

I don't see how that happens. And believe that civilians living in Russian-occupied territories would much prefer living in Russian oblasts instead of continuing the war. In fact, I believe the majority would prefer to live in Russia period.

My goodness, please tell me you DO understand how removed the US is right now from the Manifest Destiny. Please tell me you don't fall for this yet another Russian narrative that we're not better than them. It's 2025, not 19th century when everyone and their mother were in a mad dash to conquer new colonies; we haven't been "that guy" for a long, long time; yet Russia and its imperial aspirations are exactly the same today as they were 200 years ago.

Sane nations do not conquer foreign lands anymore. Russia is the biggest anachronism in the history of mankind, and it will fail -- hard.

The USA may be on the verge of taking over Panama and Greenland, and invading Mexico to pursue narcos. Apologies for tu quoqing.

[Tiny 12]

So how come they lost in Afghanistan? They were a nuclear power then, with a lot of manpower and military capability.

About 15,000 Russian military died in the Afghanistan war over 11 years. The Pentagon estimated that 115,000 Russians died in Ukraine up to October, 2024. Russia is dead set on not losing this war. The stakes are higher in its view given it borders Ukraine. Afghanistan to Russia was like Vietnam to the USA. A place that was farther away and not of high strategic importance. Finally, Putin is more determined to come up with, at a minimum, a face saving end to this than Gorbachev was.

[Tiny 12]

Despite challenges, Ukraine is currently winning the economic war with Russia.

https://www.economist.com/finance-an...against-russia

A Russian victory would come with very high costs for the West, in both the short and long term.

https://www.globsec.org/sites/defaul...n%20report.pdf

https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...eat-and-beyond

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukrai...ussian-victory

There's a lot of good content out there folks, for those that want to learn. Or one can continue to read Russia propaganda and listen to YouTube blowhards that knowingly or unknowingly promote the same. It's your choice.

Most Ukrainians now want an end to the war. Ukraine is not going to win this war. And no country has offered to take the lead in the Ukraine Contract Group if the USA Withdraws from that role.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...end-to-the-war

https://www.ft.com/content/6137b633-...0-6191388e4092

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...-nato-00197179

There's a lot of good content out there folks, for those that (sic) want to learn. Or one can continue to read propaganda and listen to YouTube blowhards that (sic) knowingly or unknowingly promote the same. It's your choice.

[Tiny 12]

Your "point" is fallacious. It's called the tu quoque fallacy. When faced with the fact that there was no treaty stipulating that NATO won't expand into Eastern Europe, and while even the idea of past verbal assurances are questionable, you dive back 180 years and start talking about the Mexican-American War. So whether it's this whataboutism or some other, rest assured folks, that when Tiny goes there he's a fish out of water in the hear and now and regarding his slanted, Russophile perspective. Congratulations Paul in Zurich.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque

I'll also add that it's nauseating when you claim to care about human life when appeasement historically has encouraged aggression rather than deter it. What is Russia's word worth in any agreement? Oh but forgot, you're the guy who believes Putin hasn't targeted civilians, while you glad hand here with guys who assert that Alexi Navalny died of natural causes.

Quoque tu too, and quoque your Ivy Leave philosophy degree. Does that make sense? Or how about "Paulie makes Ad Hominem arguments, and then when somebody replies in kind, Paulie tu quoques him." I didn't know what Ad Hominem meant until I saw it used in your posts. Well, you're the master of that. You end up calling board members losers, stupid or immoral in the majority of your posts.

I said the Mexican American War occurred long ago, and that my analogy came from "my fantasy world. " With the possible exception of you, I don't believe board members are current or past movers and shakers in the USA foreign policy / defense / military complex. Furthermore, the person I was replying to presumably wasn't even American. He lives in Zurich. So how am I "appealing to hypocrisy. To shift the focus back on the person making the criticism"?

What's "nauseating" is enabling this war, so hundreds of thousands more will die, instead of pushing the sides to stop fighting.

Navalny is one person. According to the UN, 12,300 civilians have died in Ukraine over 2 years and 10 months. The allies killed around 24,000 in bombing raids in Dresden in three days. Around 200,000 died from the Hiroshima bomb. Is that another good example of quoque tu?

[Paulie97]

Despite challenges, Ukraine is currently winning the economic war with Russia.

https://www.economist.com/finance-an...against-russia

A Russian victory would come with very high costs for the West, in both the short and long term.

https://www.globsec.org/sites/defaul...n%20report.pdf

https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...eat-and-beyond

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukrai...ussian-victory

There's a lot of good content out there folks, for those that want to learn. Or one can continue to read Russia propaganda and listen to YouTube blowhards that knowingly or unknowingly promote the same. It's your choice.

[Elvis 2008]

Yours is the most common fallacy of the ad-nauseam. A large portion of Republicans have from the beginning been in favor of Ukrainian aid, while Trump himself oversaw the first administration to send lethal aid.

You are as delusional on this as on Covid. Trump ran on peace in Ukraine not war. The support for war among Republicans in Ukraine is dwindling like crazy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/h...ance-on-russia.

And some Republicans have been scared of being painted as Putin lovers. That is something you Dems have been falsely charging since Russiagate. And this is what was in the news today, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...document-shows The Electronic Communication, dated May 16,2017, claimed to have an "articulable factual basis" to suspect that Trump "wittingly or unwittingly" was illegally acting on behalf of Russia. Aaron Mate is looking like crazy as to why this FBI investigation was actually begun.

Ah yes, the truckers in Canada protesting Covid could have been and were accused of the same. They may have unwittingly been acting on behalf of Russia too. Hell, who could NOT be accused of that?

So being a Putin lover, is the same as in the 50's of being a communist lover. So just like in the 1950's, no pol is gong to run on not being pro Zelensky and anti Putin. The question is not what European leaders say but what are they going to do.

The real question, and one that does not bother you at all, is why the hell was the FBI bending over backwards and conducting an illegal investigation to call Trump a Putin lover. The deep state seems to originated this whole shaming crap and making the accusation of being a "Putin lover".

And I am lying? How about you and all the Democratic leaders saying we were supporting Ukraine until they achieved victory? Yeah, Ukraine is going to win against Russia. How long have you all been lying about that? When is Victory Day Paulie? This crap has been going on for years now. How pathetic are you to claim yourself moral as the bodies continue to pile up.

And the Trump election did not signify a change in Ukraine policy? Yeah, keep telling yourself that.