Summary
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the U.S., its primary military supporter, cuts funding.
Speaking to Fox News, he stressed the importance of unity between the U.S. and Ukraine as Russia accelerates its territorial gains.
Zelensky acknowledged Ukraine’s challenges on the battlefield, despite new U.S. weapon supplies, including long-range missiles and anti-personnel land mines.
He criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for engaging with Putin, calling it a risky move.
Trump has pledged to end the war quickly but offered no specifics.
Hows that “bleed Russia out slowly” strategy working out dipshits?
what’s next? the sky is blue? duhh
I’m all for America funding as much as possible, but FFS Europe, the monster is ringing your doorbell.
That reads as if the EU is just sitting on its hands and doing nothing. Please keep in mind that there is significant financial support coming from the EU:
Source: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Where the EU cannot compete with the US is in the supply of military goods. For the simple reason that these do not exist to the extent that the US has them.
Edit: I have to correct myself in a detail. The graph of course shows Europe not the EU. So it includes e.g. the UK as well. The point still stands though looking on the rest of the data.
Europe ARE doing a lot. We just don’t have as much of an aging stockpile of weapons as the US does. Also when turned into financial contribution you need to convert it to a percentage of GDP.
Well, turns out someone made that data available.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303450/bilateral-aid-to-ukraine-in-a-percent-of-donor-gdp/ https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Europe most certainly are doing their part.
However, that’s not the real fear. The USA is going into a new presidential term, a term where the house, senate and the supreme court are going to likely side with the president on most things.
The USA can put significant pressure on European countries. If we’re to believe Trump is really working in Putin’s favour then, as well as stopping US aid, there’s not too much stopping the US pressuring Europe from doing the same. That is my real fear. I think without US support this is hard, very hard for Europe to fill that gap. But, we certainly can still try.
Sadly there is no if. To me it looks like the EU and US want to make the war as expensive as possible for Russia. Their aim is not to strengthen Ukraine to the point where they can win. (I don’t know if out of fear from russia’s nuclear weapons or if there simply isn’t enough political support for more help.)
Ukraine losing, is also exactly the story which Russia wants the world to see and believe in. Hence their inhumane warfare.
That must be hard for the people in Ukraine. I wouldn’t be very grateful for this kind of support if I were in their position. Rn it just prolongs the war.
Just a note, it’s “Ukraine” not “the Ukraine”.
In my first language, German, using an article for a country is usually a deterogatory leftover from colonial speech, unless it refers to Unions like the US or the UAE.
Thanks. Fixed it.
The actual sad truth is that unless the Russian people turn on Putin or it turns into their next Afghanistan, there is no path to victory for Ukraine. Russia is larger with more people and more resources. It may be extremely painful but they will win in the end if the war goes on long enough. That’s why NATO is treating Ukraine as a way to bleed Russia. The best case scenario is to turn it into a version of Afghanistan, so expensive in money and manpower that Russia is forced to leave. The next best scenario is to bleed Russia and destroy enough infrastructure in Ukraine that Russia cannot use it as a base of operations into Europe, cannot make use of it’s industrial capacity, and cannot sustain a military campaign until the next generation is old enough to rebuild the Russian military.
A negotiated peace where Russia gets to keep Eastern Ukraine and start again in a couple years is the worst possible scenario as far as NATO is concerned. It will cause an arms race, and it allows Russia to absorb it’s losses (economic, material, and manpower) in a way that avoids critical problems.
Ukraine is in a horrible spot between two giants, one is despicable and the other is willing to defend itself with the utilitarian moral guide of the ends justifying the means.
Trump: Hold my beer.
Right? Before the election I had a political conversation with a coworker who leans more conservative and she was excited about Trump “making peace with Putin”. It was a serious wtf moment for me. “Peace” with Putin means pulling funding for Ukraine and letting Russia roll over it.
I grew up during the cold war. The idea that Republicans (after spending decades calling people left of them “pinko commies” - it was their cold war version of complaining about people being “woke”) are the party that sees nothing wrong with Putin now is part of what has convinced me that Trump has somehow made them lose their minds.
I absofuckinglutely guarantee that there are crusty old white guys who were wearing “better dead than red” tshirts all through the 80s who are somehow now cheerleading for Trump being in bed with Putin.
Didn’t anyone learn from his “Peace in Afghanistan”? He literally just gave the Taliban everything they wanted and told the Afghans we were leaving.
That is a bad example. The occupation of Afghanistan went nowhere and well, it eas an occupation fighting the people who actually live there. That is completely opposite to Ukraine wanting to get rid of their Russian occupiers.
Yeah sure, “the people” who actually supported the Republic when polled. The people of Afghanistan never got a say. Trump told the ANG that he was leaving them and all of the governors and tribal leaders immediately made side deals with the Taliban. When the Taliban attacked those leaders told all the government’s most fervent supporters to go fight. And then left them cut off and surrounded to be killed.
That’s the kind of deal Trump wants to make with Russia. Russia gets everything they wanted and Ukraine has to deal with it. You can also check out the Trump family deal for peace in the middle east that was essentially getting the Arab world to accept Israel and cut off support for Palestinians.
He doesn’t make actual peace deals. He just gives autocrats what they want and claims it’s peace.
I had an argument on here with a supposed green party voter who “hated trump”, but admired him for his sincere efforts to end wars…
I reminded them about ending the nuclear deal with Iran and then assassinating their most idolized military commander. He just went on to admit he didn’t care about a war with Iran.
There are so many “green voters” who are just trump supporters turfing as leftist on this site.
Love the Pax MAGA:
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Russia moves west until Putin doesn’t need to drum up nationalist fervor back home;
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Israel gets all the weapons it needs to control every inch of the Mediterranean coast from the Suez to Turkey;
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All US troops out of South Korea and IDK probably an arms sale to the DPRK;
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The Seventh Fleet gets permanently reassigned to patrol the California coast as some immigration stunt and to make Pooh happy;
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Probably a tactical nuke dropped on Tehran.
Seems awesome, right?
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Can you link to it? Because i havent come across this at all. On the contrary third party voters and advocates are usually doing so because of the fucked up US Middle East meddling, war mongering and genociding. The JCPOA was about the only positive coming out of the US for the region in the past decades, probably the last half of a century.
Trump: “Putin may I have someone hold my beer?”
Ukrainian people and russian people already lost the war, casualties are up to a million
Yeah but Ukraine can lose twice.
Can’t believe you’re being downvoted for this. Everyday people are the ones who lose in a war regardless of nationality. The people who wage wars don’t fight them.
Fuck off, Zelensky; Russians are white. We need that money to kill brown fuckers
If US cuts funding it would be abandoning its allies in violation of the Budapest memorandum which the US signed in '94 to protect Ukraine if Russia invades, and that violation from Russia since 2014 also grants Ukraine back its nuclear program which should have been supported by allies like the US. The only language a dictator like Putin understands is violence or the threat of violence, look at the nuclear saber rattling he does frequently and how people and nations capitulate to it and the only neighbors they avoid are either nuclear armed or NATO allied.
Well, if it violates the Budapest memorandum of 1994, of course Trump will change his mind. /s
That aside, it only would kick in if Russia used nuclear weapons, anyway. Link to the text. The present effort is all about trying to keep Europe safe through deterrence, and to a lesser degree supporting a democracy that’s under attack.
The US may yet betray Ukraine and break its agreement under the treaty, I hope not but I don’t expect anything else from Putin’s #1 sycophant.
- The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.
CSCE final act, not exclusive to using nuclear weapons: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Final_Act_of_the_Conference_on_Security_and_Cooperation_in_Europe
Yeah, Russia definitely broke their word here. I just don’t see anything that says the US has to intervene.
While true, this shit is 10,000% lawyer speak and weasel words. Every country is going to make nukes because guess what… they always needed them to protect their sovereignty.
No more fooling non nuclear powers that there is any “order” in this world. Just the strong crushing the weak.
Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was
Now playing Talking Heads - Once in a lifetime
If I sign a treaty that says if someone really fucks you up me and my friends will definitely come help, and one of my friends that signed it comes by and keeps fucking with you because you don’t have the things you gave up in the treaty, then I think there’s a pretty large responsibility on me and the rest of my friends to come help. I think it would be a dick move to help awhile then walk away.
It doesn’t say the signatories will help, though, it just says they won’t hurt. To “respect” is a passive activity.
Is there something more specific in CSCE?
Except US is going to cut funding because Trump is a piece of shit, this isn’t new.
It is technically not a violation, the memorandum just gives the US and the UK “the right” to intervene, but not the obligation…
This issue is a great example of the insane double think that most of Europe has about the US. We are too involved in world affairs until someone needs to take military action and then all of a sudden we’re the only ones who can address it. Ukraine is your neighbor, not ours. You should be the ones funding Ukraine’s defense because if you don’t Russia is on your doorstep. Ukraine should have so much money that it doesn’t matter what the US does but instead all of Europe is looking on like “it’s a shame a country on the other side of the world isn’t doing enough to stop this”.
Edit: lots of people proving my point for me below. Downvote if you like but Europe is gonna have to step up or watch Ukraine fall. There isn’t a third option no matter how much you wish there was.
It doesn’t help that the US spends an ‘OBSCENE’ amount of money on their military for their own internal workings.
It’s hard for any NATO member to justify more spending of their GDP.
When everyone decides to build 2/tanks per cycle… and yet one entity is just pissing out 20/tanks per cycle,
There’s so much oversupply in general, why would anyone else increase their output to 3/tanks?
stretch that out over 50 years, and that’s where we are today.
There’s so much oversupply in general, why would anyone else increase their output to 3/tanks?
I think the why should be pretty obvious at this point.
Sure, the US will at the same time see a lot of their international soft power evaporate. The US is showing what it means if they for decades keep riling up a country, rattling sabers only to not be home when it counts. Taiwan and whole of Asia Pacific is watching this.
Also the US will see their intelligence networks dry up, humint will become less reliable and less likely to reach them. Tulay gabbard as head of the national intelligence in the US means a lot of countries cannot share their intelligence with the US anymore.
That will surely help the US prevent their next international tragedy.
And if the US emboldens dictators around the world and make the whole less stable, what happens to the world economy and all these countries the US sells to… they can’t afford… or shop elsewhere. Especially the EU fending for themselves will probably mean short term gains for the US in weapons sales, and then they stop. The EU will have been forced to do everything in house and the US will lose a massive customer base. And create a larger competitor at the same time.
The examples of this short sighted way of thinking are endless. But it is true the EU needs to do more in terms of re-armament. Because the US is an untrustworthy Partner.
Just like Putin proved to be when our leaders made him too important in our energy market… he leveraged his power. Now trump will do the same.
I hope you people in the US will be OK, because if you think we will have it bad because if this, if only a part of what maga says they will actually happen, you’ll be in for a heck of a ride.
We’re definitely not looking at a good time on the home front that’s for sure. I agree with the rest of what you said as well. People don’t seem to like it being pointed out to them though. Perhaps they think Trump will not pull funding from Ukraine but if I had to bet on all the things Trump will do over the next four years that would be in my top 3.
Well, I wonder if the US defense contractors and Trumps team will play nice. Because Biden gave them a shit ton of extra billions. I wonder if the dynamic duo will try and play rough with the defense sector to save the 2 trillion of waste.
The US defense had a huge stockpile of equipment that was aging out or even needed decommissioning.
And a new generation of tech needed to be battlefield tested.
By doing this the US was able to:
- funnel extra cash into the defense sector (the US version of welfare)
- give the military the extra cash to buy new stuff
- get rid of old and unwanted stock
- save money on storage, maintenance and decommissioning of old stock.
- Show their allies they are the arsenal of democracy and can be counted on… while showing their adversaries they will go to bat for their allies.
- Be on the right side of history.
What I mean to say is the US got a bargain on crippling one of their main geopolitical adversaries. It only cost them old military stuff they did not want anymore, while boasting about billions… that never left the US and stimulates the US economy.
I honestly don’t get how the Dems can do such awesome things in the last 4 years and are unable to tell people about it.
I’ll give you an angry upvote on this one.
I agree that the EU should do better and be independent from the US. But I still think the US should keep helping out, or at least present a plan for its decreased support over time so that the EU has time to pick up the slack.
Just suddenly pulling funding is more supporting Putin than it is “changing to America first interests”.
The vast majority of the stuff we send to Ukraine is slightly outdated weapons that are sitting in warehouses. The US military isn’t going to use this stuff. Sure they put a dollar amount on it, but that just confuses people to think we’re sending American tax dollars.
We need to send every bit we can in huge shipments before Trump takes office.
Absolutely. If I had my way we would be giving Ukraine everything they ask for and more. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. My point is that European apathy is just as much to blame for the situation we find ourselves in as the instability in the US. Europe has allowed, and continues to allow, the situation to become hopeless without US support and that can’t be blamed on the US.
The US being eager to integrate more countries into NATO, getting closer and closer to Russia as well as blocking Russias ambitions for a joint security structure in the years after the SU fell paved the way to this. Also there is tens of thousands of US soldiers stationed all over Europe and Europe has been and is ised as staging point for US war endeavours like Iraq.
You dont get to play empire and then pretend its not your responsibility.
Russia joining NATO was never going to happen. And it’s weird to think it lead to the current state of affairs. If anything it held it back. Else the fox would have been in charge of guarding the hen house.
I never said it wasn’t the US’s responsibility to defend Ukraine I said we’re clearly not going to continue to do it. If you want to play the blame game we could talk about how it was a mistake for Europe to accept the situation you described but they wanted to spend their defense budgets on other domestic projects so they let the US take on a role they never should have outsourced.
At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter how we got here. The fact remains that Europe is going to have to sort this one out with drastically reduced assistance from the US. Are you guys going to step up and fill the void or are you going to be satisfied watching Ukraine become a vassal state to Russia because it was supposed to be someone else’s job to stop that from happening?
That being said, it’s not crazy to ask the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years to donate those weapons to an anti-Russian cause. That’s what they were built for after all.
More than anything your statement just makes me wonder why the phrase “the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years” does not refer to a European country. They seem to have been content to outsource defense spending for the last half century at least and now are acting surprised that they have to rely on someone else for defense.
I guess then America shouldn’t have gotten involved on the European front during WW2. Not our problem, Hitler can run wild, America was only directly attacked by the Japanese so the Pacific front is the only one that matters.
If the collective West doesn’t stop Putin, what’s to say he can’t follow in Hitler’s footsteps? He’s already shown that he is not above invading sovereign countries.
Bad argument. Japan and Germany were allies. Popular public sentiment to join the war had been growing before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards it would have been political suicide to not join. Moreover, it supercharged factory production and created a patriotic wave that didn’t die down for years.
But yeah, let’s just ignore all that.
What the other commenter is saying is that Europe has relied on U.S. intervention. For better or worse (for worse) we are seeing the results of placing so many eggs into what is amounting to an oversized trash bin. While we should provide support across seas, I hope the larger public sentiment shifts hard towards fixing things here. Gaza and Ukraine are big deals. What about the major issues WITHIN our borders?
Y’know, such as the slow rise of fascism over the years.
The bad faith war on drugs.
Rising costs of housing and medical, and living in general.
The clear and obvious issue with money in politics.
Homelessness.
The slow decline in experts staying or immigrating here, and poorer education.
And possibly the biggest argument for why we should step back military presence and focus inward: The absolute shit show that is support for veterans from a medical and insurance perspective.
I could keep going. Many of these could be called endemic issues. For a Nation so large we sure as hell see the same problems nearly everywhere.
The collective West hasn’t been stopping Putin, that’s the point. Ukraine has been with primarily American support. It needs to be collective and it isn’t up to this point.
It is though, UK, Germany, Norway, etc are all also giving supplies and other support.
US is just so big that our support our lack thereof is very difficult to compensate for.
They’re not doing nothing but they’re not pulling their weight either. If they were then Zelensky’s statement here would not be necessary.
Yes they are. Check the % of GDP. We’re pulling our weight, pretty much as much as we can. More really considering we mostly don’t prioritise defence as much as the US does.
Ukraine has been with primarily American support.
Did you check this link?
https://protectukrainenow.org/en/report
The problem with your statement: it’s too simple and thus simply false. The sum of support from other allies considerably exceeds US support. The US is the biggest among donors however, and that is a great amount of support.
People often tend to oversimplify the picture. People also tend to memorize the state of affairs at some moment, and assume too long that the same snapshot still applies. The US fell behind when Biden’s bill spent months being stuck in Congress (and lots of it is spent domestically anyway - to replace the supplies being sent to Ukraine - sometimes with newer articles, e.g. ATACMS with PrSM). The US also seems to have something at hand which prevents sending any fixed-wing combat aircraft (my guess: state secrets). After some trying, the sides seem to have agreed that US tanks aren’t appropriate for Ukraine, so they sent only a handful and stopped. However, again after some trying, US infantry fighting vehicles are highly sought after, and they’ve been sending a lot. For some reason, the US is unable to send appreciable amounts of self-propelled artillery guns. But it more than made up by sending towed guns and ammo for guns.
Meanwhile, some European countries which were surprised and unprepared at first (e.g. Germany) have become high-ranking donors in the table, because they got their industry started eventually. Going by percentages of GDP however, one can observe that the biggest contributions relative to their own weight are from countries closer to Russia - other invasion candidates are contributing very seriously.
It’s not so much about USA helping Ukraine as it is about USA helping Russia.
If the US cuts funding can Ukraine use their remaining stockpile of US weapons without restriction?
Yes, but they will run out of weapons very quickly
True but at least deliveries are being supercharged for the next couple of months. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that though
“if”
so hear me out.
- Biden baits Russia into attacking US personnel
- Declares a national emergency which stalls the incoming administration
- Ramps up war with Russia and declares war on Putin
- Hands the reigns over to Kamala due to failing health
- Trump is never allowed office because he’ll die choking on a hamburder
I think that could happen in 30 days.
Now if only Joe wasn’t spineless…
First Past The Post voting and the two party system that comes along with it is a national security threat.
I mean all offense when I say this that is a stupid idea and you should be ashamed to have even thought of it. Essentially saying Biden should get some American soldiers killed so he can prevent trump from taking office.
You can’t claim trump is a fascist and also suggest using fascism as a weapon to prevent fascism.
Well that’s shitlib logic for ya
Dunno how a state of emergency would stall the transition of power. That’s happening no matter what. On time. Period.
During WW2 FDR got himself a third term (now prohibited) because of the war.
That’s because there wasn’t any law against it at that time. Now we’ve got the 22nd amendment.
by declaring a state of emergency it gives the executive branch unfettered powers to maintain the stability of the country. this includes skipping elections and changes to the administration and other branches of government.
this is especially true in times of war where maintaining the status-quo maintains progression of winning a war abroad.
It’s within his powers, but would tear the country apart.
“Maintain the stability of the country” by not handing out power on time is an oxymoron.
No. It very much is not in his powers.
Biden’s term ends at noon in 2 months. He can’t just declare that it doesn’t. If he could, Trump would have done that in 2021 instead of trying to overturn the election.
Give em full air support. If it causes world war 3, it causes world war 3. Fuck it. Avoiding that isn’t worth letting Russia just consume its neighbors on a whim - that shit certainly won’t stop with Ukraine.
Liberals have become full throated right wing war hawks.
You willing to go there to die?
I’ve already got my DD-214 but sure I’ll go back in to fight invasion of allies
Same page as catloaf - I already did my time and got my honorable discharge. If WW3 breaks out, pretty sure I’ll be getting recalled. So, yes.
Then again, the alternative is wait for shit to destabilize until we get there anyway - again this shit won’t end with Ukraine.
Call Russia’s bluff. If we’re wrong, it’s not like we aren’t fucked anyway. Might as well go down fighting evil, vs going down with evil’s dick in our throat.
*looks at recent presidential election*
…oh yeah. Reality. Pass the lube, my throat is sore as fuck.
They’d rather have us back as training personnel. Most of us are broken in some way that makes deployment problematic unless we’re actually desperate. Then they can dump most of TRADOC into leadership spots for new units.
You don’t have to wait, instead of wasting time commenting here you are free to join the front in ukraine
Because of you don’t stop Russia now, there is a big chance that in a few years it’s a gangbang with the all the Brics nations who learned to handle the nuclear whip like a pro dom.
Give em full air support. If it causes world war 3, it causes world war 3. Fuck it
If you are so willing to die you can join the front and fight russia in ukraine. Don’t drag other people and the rest of the world in.
Give em full air support. If it causes world war 3, it causes world war 3. Fuck it
If you are so willing to die you can join the front and fight russia in ukraine. Don’t drag other people and the rest of the world in.
Bold stance. Better to bring about world war 3 than let Russia consume its neighbors? I’ll have to sit with that one for a bit.
I grew up with the USSR so maybe I’m not quite ready to throw all earthly civilization into the fire to prevent 20% of that empire from being restored.
What in earth makes you think they will stop there?
The way they’re struggling in Ukraine. 3 years for what they thought would be 3 days, and they haven’t accomplished their goal.
Plus, several of the former USSR states are formal NATO members: the Baltics. With Russia struggling to hold the worst 1/3 of Ukraine, what on Earth makes you think they could sustain a war with NATO, proper?
what in sky makes you believe they’d be able to continue elsewhere?
You guys are really batshit crazy about war. I hope you are the first ones in the front lines. “The stars of the firing line”.
Russia is also already instigating it with having North Korean troops in the combat zone. It’ll just be a tit-for-tat response.
Up to 100k North Koreans. I don’t care how inept they are, 100k dudes with guns will utterly wreck Ukraine.
I heard rumors of South Korea sending troops to counter. I don’t want world war but that seems fair to me.
it would be more fair that every online bellicist (no matter what camp) enlisted voluntarily and got the chance to validate their theories in practice.
if it causes ww3, it will be a lot less bloody war than what will be if russia is allowed to recover and take over next country
There isnt enough North Koreans for that.
Maybe if WW3 breaks out, Biden won’t hand over power to the literal fascists that are already making decisions to cause our demise.
Standards are low
That doesn’t sound very good either. I still want a chance to vote in another election. Trump might be able to dismantle it before then but if Biden held on to power it would be immediately dismantled.
Wtf? That’s such a casual suggestion to dismantle democracy. Yeah let’s do that so we never get a progressive in office /s
If we’re going to have an autocracy, it may as well be the one that is still somewhat benevolent to the common man.
wow yeah I hope we have global nuclear apocalypse so we can avoid the consequences of elections! totally worth.
These people are unhinged. This is just Reddit 2.0.
As this point? Yeah.
I’m glad the traditional American desire to fuck up the world because you feel upset is alive and well. that was really fun in the 2000s.
