What did i just watch??? Kudos for Zelensky not thumping Trump on the head, or walking away…
This is fucking embarrassing.
Trump still thinks he’s the star of some corny TV show. Get fucked asshole.
Yea, that is what trump is: weaponized reality tv for rubes. No competence, just circus and mayhem.
It exploits fatal vulnerabilities in education, democracy and 24h-journalism.
Where is the fucking EU?? Step up Europe the US is not an ally anymore and can’t be trusted under this government.
I watched some of the transmission and all I can say is my respect to Zelensky grew tenfold with that exchange alone.
Having to interact with these two clowns and still keeping his cool (as much as he was able to) requires A LOT of patience and will. It was horrifyingly stupid in a train wreck kind of way.
Indeed. He’s in an awful situation and has no good options. With only Europe (both politically and militarily) it will be real hard for them. OTOH with a blackmailed ‘deal’ with orange they loose a big piece of resources without any guarantees not to loose the rest to Russia or to the orange in a deal extension. To get out of this situation without a major loss would be a miracle, but hey, I really hope they make it.
If we’re lucky this will be (another) kick for the European leaders to get serious about a possibility of US bailing out completely. Maybe. Hopefully. Please?
Zelensky deserves every award there is for being able to keep his cool like that. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to.
Here’s a link to the entire exchange. It’s fucking surreal and infuriating.
I’m tempted to watch it but I only watched a clip and I can feel my blood boil.
I was torn as well. eventually decided to watch because to turn away feels like a betrayal of fellow human beings. an open and raw display of human depravity. now I need to find a politically useful outlet for this rage.
Holy fucking shit Zelenskyy needs the peace price now for not slapping that geriatric blowhard to the floor. What the actual fuck.
Given how much Trump allegedly wants the peace prize because Obama got one, the Nobel committee have an opportunity to do the funniest shit ever by giving Zelenskyy it over him.
To be fair, he would’ve also deserve it for slapping that geriatric blowhard to the floor.
Trump has been craving a Nobel ever since 2016. Sweden can do something extremely funny right now.
Does anyone else have the feeling that Ukraine is safer with no deal?
Yeah, and the EU should immediately step up, and triplicate support for Ukraine.
We (Europe) already did most of the heavy lifting for Ukraine. The US mostly gave old stockpiles of weapons that they would’ve needed to destroy anyway. We are the ones actually paying cash to keep them afloat.
The problem is, in the post-WW2 order, our defense and our defense industry was made dependent on the USA by design. And even up until last November, Europe didn’t want to challenge this arrangement and just went full steam ahead with this arrangement, ordering US made weapons. I think Europe was in denial that Biden could lose or that NATO could ever end.
Only France, and to a limited extent, Sweden and Turkey, have independent defense industries.
In the future, we will have it again. And Ukraine will actually be a key player.
But in the short term, there is no magical button to press that can produce the arms.
Undoing decades of integration isn’t going to be easy.
Indeed, especially during the first Cold War, the US Military Industrial Complex was everywhere. Germany and Japan were forced to buy out dated shit from the Americans. The magical button, tell the US military to shutdown all their European military installations and leave. What would the US MIC do then? I highly doubt they want to lose business.
Putin is going to make a hard move into the baltics during Trump’s first 2 years, including NATO countries. And Europe won’t be able to do shit about it. They need defenses now and European leadership needs to fast track it.
Maybe,just maybe, look up your world politics again.
- All baltic nations(except Russia) are NATO members
- All baltic nations (except Russia) are EU members and therefore covered by the Lisbon accords as well - which are much more far reaching than what NATO accords cover,btw.
So while the Baltics are in a shitty situation it’s not like Russia could attack a “non NATO” Baltic nation - as your “including” make it seem.
And currently there are 40.000 Soldiers of the ARF either deployed in the Baltics or ready to deployed within short notice - while the EU battlegroup is also available and gaining speed. The former is - for the first time - not sustained by US troops mainly,the later one of course never was. And as the ARF is a very British corps the UK has made it very clear that the ARF also operates under the British nuclear deterrence - so did France with both battlegroups.
Will that be enough to deter Putin? Who knows. Is it nothing? Definitely not - at the moment it would be, even without US support, enough to cause either the Ukrainian front or the “new front” (wherever that would be) to collapse fast.
Your narrative is either influenced by Russian misinformation or you are Russian misinformation - it is known that Russia tries to “it’s not worth it to even fight” narrative heavily into Europe and it has done so in Ukraine before.
Making a dumbass geography mistake proves I’m American, not Russian 😅
Anyway, I don’t think 40,000 is enough if the USA is aligned or even allied with Russia. Which you know, seems entirely possible given current events.
40.000 is what is currently part of the reaction force - not the total force strength.
Active service/Reserve forces of the nations with direct borders to either Belarus or Russia:
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Norway: 33.000/60.000
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Finnland: 18.000/ 180.000-280.000 (And we all know how this turned out the last time)/18.000
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Lithuania: 23.000/104.000
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Estonia: 7.700/80.000(but almost half in rapid response readiness)
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Latvia: 17.000/38.000
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Poland: 216.000/670.000
That does not include the countries that are currently heavily investing in the Baltics. Germany plans to have 4.000 soldiers stationed there permanently with 30.000 active personal rotating in and out. Canada has also a brigade stationed there, the UK does the same and hosts the command in the UK.
If you count the other Baltic sea nations that mostly have a very high interest in keeping the Russiand at bay you also have Sweden (24.000+22.000 Homeguard/32.000), Denmark (16.000/12.000+51.000 HomeGuard) and Germany (180.000/930.000) you have even higher numbers.
These are roughly twice as many soldiers as Putin currently can access at the moment - and he is heavily based on conscripts and semi general mobilization which is not part of the equations for most countries here, neither are other key players (e.g. UK 135.000/32.000), France (270.000/63.000), Spain(133.000/264.000), Italy (165.000/35.000), Romania (81.000/55.000) and the smaller but often highly motivated nations, e.g. the Czech Republic (34.000/4000). Even though there are some countries who’s motivation may be shaky (Italy, to some extend Germany and some smaller players like Hungary) Europe very likely would be united against a common cause in a situation like that. The most interesting point would be how Erdogan in Türkiye would respond - he has one of the largest armies on this side of the pond (481.000/380.000) and there are quite a lot of people who believe that Erdogan would actually stick with “European NATO” in this case simply he would be too afraid that Putin could either reconsider his “future” border (post Georgia invasion which is far more likely) with Türkiye or simply because he would be afraid of his old military guard.
Would that guarantee victory against a joint Putin-Trump full on attack against Europe? No. Not at all. All sides would loose. Terribly.
In total soldier numbers Europe does actually surpass both the current Russian and all US armed forces combined (narrowly). Of course the US have a huge material advantage,but this is partially based on logistics from Europe (and often stored here). All this facilities would be lost then and Russia would be unable to easily supply similar logistical capacities - they simply don’t have them and transport via eastern polar routes(as the western routes are within Norwegian and Finnish reach) or the eastern ports of Russia is bothersome.
While the US navy is mighty,it would be operating very far from home - further away than it has operated from any allied base ever and in very very hostile waters. (Actually the British navy is the last modern navy to have operated that far away from an allied base during a combat mission) So the US would be limited to high flying stealth bombers (don’t do that much damage and can absolutely be detected by modern western radar), stuff they drag all the way through Russia, whatever they can ferry through the pond which would be infested by various submarines that, while mainly non nuclear, are still a major treat to their navy (ask the Swedes).It would certainly not be enough for a D-Day like operation.
So the other option is: Well… intercontinental ballistic missiles. While I am absolutely sure that the fascist orange wouldn’t hesitate a minute to use this option if someone tells him it makes his golf course worth more as all of Scotland’s course are now burned to crisps it would also mean that Putin and Trump himself would be fucked. Because the very next minute he presses the button someone else will press a button - either in London or Paris. France is already offering to place nuclear capabilities in eastern and central Europe for this very reason. In the end Washington would be nuked the same way Moscow, London, Paris and Berlin would be. And while the Orange acts irrational his buddy Putler does not - the mediocre KGB officer understands what happens to him if his puppet in Washington overreacts.
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You just made all of the points that I was thinking about.
I mostly agree, but I think the list needs Germany’s excellent Leopard (2) tanks, the modern APC variants and all their industry.
Europe also has a lot of good marine yards that can make Navy vessels and submarines.
And it can drum up drone production in a rapid tempo where needed.
What’s more, European Steel and metallurgy are out of the door of higher grade than the US, Russia and Chinese productions. This is a boon to produce heavy armor quickly.
So when push comes to shove Europe can no doubt ramp up a unified military industry rapidly, no need for it to take a decade, and keep finances in house. Another factor that works against the Trump economy if he thoughtlessly pulls the plug on NATO
I do agree, but it does take 3-5 years, unless the EU is willing to turn into a wartime economy. But the political will for that is just not there.
All to play for . Join EU. Agree no NATO Putin fucks off.
America frozen.
Not sure how the US would react. Probably war.
Yes. USA already knows what its going to do. A hypothetical trade agreement isn’t going to change the decision, so Ukraine should make exactly zero concessions in pursuit of influencing a decision which has already been made.
Any deal with Trump is no deal at all. He’s the kind of guy that, if you give an inch, starts waving his hands around about how you stole 16 inches from him, and how you must be thrown in a hole somewhere.
Granting him anything is telling him that you are weak and ripe to be exploited.
Just like with any dictator deals are worthless. Putin broke the ceasefire and Trump is breaking trade deals.
This guy does (he was there too, sitting next to vance, btw)
I’m certain Dr Birx can recommend him a therapist who specializes in sold souls…
A man who, by the way, was fully supported by every single democratic senator.
He was supposed to be the “adult” in the room. They all fear Trump… For some reason, I don’t get it.
trump is a good punishment for power-hungry politician types, too bad that it is at everyone else’s expense.
They can sign a 50 year deal and stop payment 10 years from now, hopefully thing change for better then.
I’d suspect they’re safer with a deal… but they absolutely shouldn’t honor that deal.
They’re safer if they develop nuclear weapons on their own.
Don’t do it, Zelensky. Trump is a Russian asset.
The E.U. will have your back.
Are you kidding, that was fucking legendary. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my entire life. In the Oval office Zelensky told Trump and Vance they were full of shit, bullies, and simping for Putin. Based Zelensky.
The guy as a reputation for having the hardest balls one can carry, of course he wasn’t going to surrender like that.
Fuck Trump and Vance
Now let’s all marvel at the there being not a single headline about Trump’s many references to Obama.
…this was a less respectable exchange than what you watch in most vapid reality shows…what a display with so much at stake…
If only Zelensky could give steel spine lessons to Starmer, among others.
fuck you america for voting for this fascist scumbag. nobody should trust you again.
I’m an American and I’m upvoting this. After 2016, I thought that there were some misguided people who didn’t realize what they were doing, but that the first Trump term would push the pendulum hard the other direction. I felt a little validated when Biden won in 2020, but it wasn’t as one sided as I’d hoped. But Trump winning decisively in 2024 tells me that everyone knew and did it anyway. People are getting what they want: rampant racism, sexism, and global bullying.
So yes, we suck, and no one should trust us as a country, regardless of the fact that there are many of us who knew how catastrophic another Trump term would be.
I don’t think Trump won quite as decisively as it first seemed.
But shit, it’s still like… a third of our country that looked at Trump and went, “yeah sure”.
How the fuck do we fix this? I straight up have no clue. And that means it very likely will devolve into violence. And that is legitimately terrifying.
Just watched the 4 min video what a pair of a holes. I need to take a shower.
