Jimmy_D

Every single ally the US has are currently moving to isolate from the US as much as is possible and are treating its president like a toddler.

The US president has never looked weaker on the world stage.

Feels like we played better during both 9-0 games than we have the last two.

It’s difficult to read how this will play out in the US. Trump has an extremely strong grip on power just at the moment, and certainly isn’t throwing his full weight behind Ukraine at the moment, and his motivation for that isn’t entirely clear, but below Trump there’s still extremely strong bipartisan support for Ukraine, and among the US public there’s still extremely strong support for Ukraine. Trump has gone so strongly against Ukraine with his rhetoric that it seems to be one of the factors contributing to his approval rating in the US sinking, and it’s certainly one of the factors uniting Europe in its support of Ukraine. It’s possible that Trump’s ultimate aim is to burn a hefty amount of political capital with Europe to shift a significant amount of the burden of Russia and Ukraine to Europe.

The only victories for Russia are entirely Pyrrhic, coming at bigger costs than ever before. Their resources are more and more stretched just making those small gains, some of which are starting to be reversed. For more than half a year they haven't even been able to hold all of Russia. They don't have anywhere near the resources they'd need to make it 'inevitable' Ukraine loses.

Not to mention that, regardless of Russian claims of the military power they have, some of the best options they have (and so are actually using) on the front in Ukraine are donkeys, domestic vehicles, motorcycles, military vehicles from 70 years ago, and troops on crutches. Meanwhile Ukraine lead the world in drone warfare, and are increasing that domestic capability at an incredible rate.

You only have to read Russia’s demands from today to realise that they’re certainly not stepping back or willing to concede anything, but they match almost word for word their demands all along. Fortunately Russia has been weakened enough by Ukraine that Europe can probably support Ukraine as long as they’re willing to fight, albeit at a greater cost than anyone would like. Whether political pressure from Europe can keep US support flowing remains to be seen, but the US has burned an awful lot of political capital, goodwill and and soft power in Europe just for a surface scratching exercise.

Right now the US ‘negotiating’ hasn’t changed Russia’s demands one bit. There’s absolutely zero chance Ukraine agrees to that, they’re as far from peace as they’ve ever been.

What's happened is that Trump made pledges that were impossible to keep about ending the war in Ukraine, and is now making a big show of being able to say he's 'started negotiations', only doing that by not even involving the country that's been invaded in negotiations, to distract from that original lie so he can blame someone else when Ukraine decide they'd rather not agree to a deal where only Russia have set the conditions.

Proper FA Cup tie that one!

Well they still can’t have Tella.

Holy ****

Yes, VAR would and could have corrected that decision, and don’t get me wrong, I’m all for VAR being available as a tool to use, even if its actual use has been less than ideal, but even if VAR had been available, that offside tonight isn’t a decision it should ever have been needed for. The lino is literally in the perfect position to make that call.

VAR isn’t even part of the discussion with that one, it’s just a straight up shocking decision.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!