badgerx16

Putin's useful idiot.

How about somebody who still denies the result of the 2020 Presidential election saying that cancelling a result due to strong evidence of Russian interference was anti-democrstic.

Sergei Lavrov has just said that the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO was the "root cause" of the war.

Disagree about NATO, Russia sees NATO expansion as western aggression, and would like the Baltics to have not joined either - though he has now shot himself in the foot through his belligerence, with Finland and Sweden abandoning their neutrality. Why should Ukraine have to give up any territory? The bottom line is Putin does not accept Ukraine as being a legitimate country, and it's annexation would be the first step in restoring Russia to it's Imperial glory - Georgia next ?

"You should have never started it, you could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, no city would have been demolished, .........but they chose not to do it that way". What he missed out was "...and my good friend Vladimir Putin, very smart guy, one of the smartest guys around, would have kept to our agreement, my agreement, the deal I made, an excellent deal, very excellent, and would have been happy, very happy in fact, and would keep to his side of the bargain, our very good deal for Ukraine, my good deal for them, and never threaten to take more territory, at least not much more, just those little bits to tidy up the borders, not much at all really, not really useful land, land Ukraine can afford to give up because it isn't worth much really, not at all, and Putin, smart guy, very smart guy, would stick to our deal, the deal, my very good deal really, and he would not threaten anybody, well not much and the war would never have happened, probably not, not at all,possibly, and nobody would have died, well maybe not, perhaps not died".

Sergei Lavrov tells the Americans that Russia does not target any civilian energy infrastructure. A blatant lie, left unchallenged. This is the level of "negotiation" that has been taking place. Trump tells Ukraine " You could have made a deal 3 years ago" - true, they could just have surrendered. This will not end with a negotiated settlement, or at least it will only have been "negotiated" between the US and Russia. It will end with a settlement imposed on Ukraine that grants Putin most of what he wants.

Trump's team return from talks with the Russians

Buttress

He is probably an ABBA or S Club 7 fan, and has told the manager that Metallica and Megadeth are not real musicians.

Would you go to war in a tank built by pissed Russians ?

Maintaing a 'war economy', especially on top of international sanctions, is severely detrimental to the domestic one. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-economy-putin-ukraine-war-b2699716.html "The result in Russia has been rampant inflation, currently running at over 9 per cent, crippling interest rates of 21 per cent and runaway price hikes on staple goods that far outpace the headline inflation rate and have hit ordinary Russians hard. Last summer the price of eggs jumped by 42 per cent, bananas by 48 per cent, tomatoes by 39.5 per cent and potatoes by 25 per cent. The Russian ruble has lost over half of its value since Putin first invaded Crimea in 2014, and over $600bn of the Kremlin’s foreign currency reserves have been frozen in Western banks. More than 1,000 Western businesses – including Ikea and McDonald’s – pulled out, as did Western car manufacturers. Imports of Western goods – especially technology – are now expensively routed through sanctions-busting neighbours like Kazakhstan and Georgia. And last month Russian utility companies hiked prices for electricity by up to 250 per cent. “Everyone drives Chinese cars these days, but there are no spare parts,” says Alexandra, 39, a former journalist who lives in Moscow and whose ex-husband is fighting in Ukraine. “The only foreign cars you buy are right-hand-drive [from Japan]. Anyone with a mortgage is paying crazy interest. People complain how expensive everything has become.” "The current crazy levels of expenditure are unsustainable, so Putin has a strong economic incentive to bring his war to an end"

They had an even bigger one before the Second World War, having taken much of the remnants of the Spanish Empire in the 1898 war, particularly the Phillipines. That was also the year that they militarily occupied and annexed Hawaii.

Gaza, Panama, Canada, Greenland, Ukraine; it would appear that US foreign policy is built around a series of land grabs. I suppose that is the only language Trump speaks.

Russia is undoubtedly weaker, her best troop formations have been decimated, and the tank reserves have been burned through. Whether the Russian forces have been sufficiently weakened to the point where they do not pose a significant threat to Western Europe is open to question : they had a significant superiority before the SMO, still have vast reserves of manpower and the capacity to rebuild, and the UK's ground military headcount is probably smaller than at any time since the Spanish Armada.

Boasting ?

It seems that both Badenoch and Starmer may have been misinformed over the case of the Palestinian fsmily and the Ukrainian asylum process ; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgp47mpxgno

Are they ? Replacing Russian military aggression with US economic colonialism is hardly going to help Ukraine, and using extreme intimidation to force them to accept is morally corrupt. What little has been suggested so far is more like a pause in proceedings before round 2 begins, Putin's new BFF tells him there are no adverse consequences to his aggression, and he can keep most of the territory he has overrun as he rebuilds his military and sets his sights on his next target. Edit; from Lavrov's comments, Russia is opposed to any external security guarantees for Ukraine, so there would be nothing to get in the way of SMO 2.0. ( Not that security promises to Ukraine have ever counted for much ).

Oops!

And GM wants us to negotiate a trade deal with him.

Ask the water fowl murderer.

Trump punishes Ukraine for being invaded. Make "the deal" so bad that whatever Putin offers looks the better option.

You haven't woken up in another one, a version of you exists in all of them. In fact, there are some where you, Turkish, LD, and Nic are great pals, and are often seen drinking together in a local alehouse.

Vance at the Munich conference berated European countries for cancelling election results, specifically targeting Romania's recent Presidential poll. Coming from somebody who to this day refuses to acknowledge that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 this has more than a touch of the Alanis Morissette about it.

So which SOG was this making reference to ? "More vile nonsense from SOG II"

If you think SOG is ever embarrassed on here you still have a lot to learn.