The US has been facilitating the transfer of these weapons systems to Ukraine for free….. now the US is getting paid by the Europeans.

Seems like a win win situation.


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True that.

 

Agreed.

It's for a good cause, and the people with wolf closest to the door are taking the financial lead.

 

Yep…. and it might have stirred things loose.

The Europeans paying for advanced US weapons systems for Ukraine and the tariffs against India penalizing them for purchasing russian oil seem to have made a three way negotiating session between Trump, Putin, and Zelensky a possibility.


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https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...esidency-news/



President Donald Trump suggested in a radio interview Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could join him and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for a second meeting after Trump holds a summit with Putin on Friday. Trump said remaining in Alaska “would be by far the easiest” way for the three leaders to hold talks. But Trump also cautioned the meeting with Putin could go poorly — he put the odds of failure at 25 percent — and said he would return to Washington immediately in that case.



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the last guy would have been awesome to watch in this same meeting!

 

Doesn’t seem like much happened other than Putin buying himself more time before the threatened further sanctions.

 

Sometimes you have to give people a chance even when you know they probably won’t take it…..
​​​​​….. then move on to the next step.


There were people complaining about Trump giving putin a meeting. Now there are people complaining that nothing happened. Morale of that tired story is people whine and complain.



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The problem with making threats and not living up to them is that the next time when you make a real no-$hit threat they may not take you seriously. Realistically, I doubt that Putin would even survive politically if - after taking a million casualties - he gave everything back like Zelensky is demanding. Nor would replacing Putin guarantee someone even worse might not take his place.

I’ve never been really convinced of the efficacy of sanctions. We’ve been sanctioning Cuba for about 65 years - to little effect. And I doubt we’d do secondary sanctions on China in any event.

I have repeatedly opined that the only way the Russians leave the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine is either US boots on the ground in Ukraine or the use of nukes, with all the inherent risks of either of those courses of action. Yet Zelensky continues to demand every square meter of his soil back and the Europeans egg him on. I would predict that Trump will now have a serious come-to-Jesus meeting with Zelensky and if Z-man doesn’t acknowledge reality he will cast him adrift - still willing to sell the Europeans anything they want to donate to Ukraine - but basically telling Ukraine and Europe alike that it is their problem.

 

Haven’t you been paying attention? The come to Jesus meeting was in February, when Trump kicked Zelensky out of the White House.

It worked….. that is the subject of this thread. Trump is sending advanced US weapons to Ukraine and he is making the Europeans pay for them. That already happened.

The step we are at now is if russia doesn’t agree to a ceasefire India gets sanctioned for buying russian oil. That cuts off russia’s income and is why putin is finally negotiating. He is dragging his feet, but after 3 years of murdering Ukrainians he is actually negotiating about the endgame.


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