Following through on this threat would likely result in another Arab-Israeli war.

Maybe he does.

Maybe Putin’s colleagues found out something interesting about Trump back in the days, and made him an offer he could not refuse - “go and become King of America, we’ll even help you a little, but you’ll serve us”.

Wild speculation, of course. But he definitely doesn’t have national interest burdening his mind in any way or manner.

P.S. If I worked in the Secret Service, I would use my telescope to watch birds fly and tree leaves wobble. Even if there was a remote weapons station turning towards my client, or a wire guided object coming in - I would hardly notice until impact.

To go a bit deeper on the role of armor - on the background of drone warfare - I would explain like this: armor reduces casualties when moving people and supplies forward.

In these days, armor no longer controls the battlefield, it more likely delivers people and ammo.

If one moves soldiers and equipment forward with armor, it can move under machine gun fire, protect its occupants from one antitank mine, and somewhat protect them against one FPV hit.

If one moves them forward in a 4 wheel drive minivan or lorry, there will be ugly casualties when a mine is found, FPV arrives or a machine gunner opens fire. These vehicles also tend to get stuck easier. So, lack of armor tends to result in higher personnel losses and lower arrival rates of supplies.

No amount of aid is going to turn one Ukrainian into four.

A mine field can cancel out numerical advantage. A robotic weapons station can turn one machine gunner into four (or more). Likewise, a swarming algorithm can allow one pilot to direct a flight of several drones.

So, to put it shortly - on the battlefield, technology can cancel out numerical advantages of 3.5 to 4 quite realistically.

Economically - Ukraine alone would not sustain production against Russia, but Ukraine happens to have EU in its back yard. The Russian economy is actually quite small compared to EU’s economy. So the economic unbalance can also be canceled out.

But yes, you are correct to note that village by village, the map is turning red - Ukraine is running a thinly manned front and when pushed hard, yields territory to Russia gradually. During the past year, I would not be surprised if Russia had taken 1 additional percentage point of Ukraine, moving from 20% to 21% for example.

As for attrition on Russia - if you observe the footage and news, you will notice that they are low on cars, low on armor (and using a large percent of antiquated armor), and low on artillery barrels. Out of the USSR stockpile of ~13 000 tanks, estimated losses were recently standing at 9859 machines [1].

At a rate of 10 tanks per day, Russia will have to rely on freshly produced tanks after 300 days. Given how logistics behaves, they are using up all their production already currently, and supplementing it with renovation of increasingly old hardware.

Sadly, they are not anywhere near low on air-dropped bombs. Which I would characterize at their foremost advantage currently. As long as Ukraine cannot deter the bombing runs. (It can stretch and slow them by regularly visiting forward air bases with flights of drones.)

I will not tell you that “Russia is losing”. I will only say that just like Ukraine cannot sustain the current situation, Russia cannot sustain the current intensity of attacking. Even a small technical development (e.g. arrival of a modern long-range air defense missile comparable to quite ancient Soviet S-200 missiles, or arrival of a fighter that can fire Meteor instead of AIM-120) could drive Russian aircraft beyond bombing range of the front, and halt the advance.

Some notes:

• this is not confirmed, but seems credible enough to speculate about

• regardless of veracity, European defense readiness needs a big boost, and people are working on the instruments that would allow giving that boost

• another source says that Trump is planning cuts in the US armed forces, to the tune of 8% per year [sources that add “for multiple years” remain hearsay for me]

• around January 20, I saw a table circulating on social media, describing Trump’s intended cuts, and that table did drop about 21 brigades and paused the development of various capabilities (edit: found it)

• so apparently, the Trump administration intends to lower its defense readiness no matter what, believing it has too much

On this background, not much point negotiating with him. He is framing as an ultimatum what he intends to do anyway. No point getting delayed either.

Just get the framework agreed upon, and quickly start supplying Ukraine with fresh stuff. Ukrainians aren’t newbies, for now they have accumulated some small reserves (they knew what to expect under Trump, and Biden’s administration pushed the last remains of its assistance out like there was no tomorrow)… but arrival of European assistance must start rapidly increasing within a window of 2…3 months.

Yes, an Estonian anarchist named “perestroika”. You can read my blog at: http://perestroika.pw/ to see if I’m a nazi russophobe.

Can I do a background check in return? :)

Oh, you only registered 3 days ago, likely because you got your previous account banned by pushing Kremlin talking points.

Yes, let’s clear that up - it was a law, not the constitution.

Constitution, article 83(4) - extends the Parliament’s powers until martial law is over. Also allows for the possibility of martial law, says that under martial law, some rights may be restricted.

Ordinary law, “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” - forbids elections during martial law.

So, holding elections in Ukraine during war is merely illegal. And I repeat - with 20% of the country occupied, and millions in emigration, very hard. If you hold a public meeting with your voters and a ballistic missile arrives, then what?

But since you consider them “banderite coup defenders”, you clearly take your clues from Moscow-based sources - why concern yourself with technicalities in law? The Kremlin does not concern itself with law, international, Ukraininan or Russian for that matter - it does what it wants. And you’re verbally supporting that.

Oh yes, only the Rada was mentioned in the constitution. The president was mentioned in an ordinary law. As the blog you linked explains:

As discussed elsewhere, the prohibition of wartime elections is established in Ukraine’s statutory law. Ukraine’s Constitution does not explicitly address the issue of wartime elections, except for Article 83(4) that provides for the extension of the Parliament’s powers until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the Ukrainian Parliament), elected after the termination of martial law or state of emergency. Nothing similar is made with respect to the president. According to one of the drafters of the Constitution, this special treatment of Parliament was originally aimed to enhance Parliament’s standing in the constellation of powers and prevent possible abuses during wartime or national emergency.

Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” (2015) prohibits the holding of elections during martial law and the Electoral Code of Ukraine (2019) ordains suspension of all elections during such period.

No, Trump is not an authoritarian.

That’s clearly false. He is actively attempting to expand presidential authority at the cost of the Congress, courts and federal agencies. He’s also replacing staff very agressively, installing loyalists whom he expects to do what he says. He has already gradually purged internal opposition within the Republican party, and continues work towards that end.

The essence of authoritarianism is grabbing more power (accompanied by claims of needing it for legitimate purposes) - with dictatorship at the far end.

He urged Trump’s team to be “more truthful”

Trump responded by calling Zelensky a “dictator without elections”, and suggested his ratings were low.

(for those curious: the Ukrainian law constitution prohibits electing a president during war, it’s especially hard with 20% of the country under hostile control; and regarding Zelensky’s rating, it’s about 57% 70% currently)

After that, some Republicans with a spine (Mike Pence, Don Bacon, Thom Tillis, Mike Rounds, John Kennedy, et al) also called out Trump to be more truthful.

If Elon is true to his word, he now has to give 100 M to politicians who oppose those Republicans in primaries. Because he threatened to beat anyone who badmouths his boss with his wallet.

Stand up against useless wars and military spending

Meanwhile, read about Ukrainian anarchists building drones and sending supplies for their comrades in army.

They know: if you get Putin’s regime deployed on yourself, your chances for peaceful activism tumble down to nothing - you can’t even hold a blank sheet of paper.

https://takku.net/article.php/20250106233015550

The west is as much corrupted as russia

You did not check. Go and find some sources to confirm your claim.

• I also suggest counting how many opposition leaders sit in prison or have been recently killed in the west, preferably per capita (for about a billion people). Then I suggest comparing that to Russian figures (for 140 million people).
• After that, I suggest checking out how longer the ruling politicians have been ruling.

I claim that the west is considerably less corrupt than Russia. I offer a source too (below). I also claim that the west is an incredibly safe place to be in opposition, and that power changes hands frequently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

“Both sides bad” is running like a disease among some leftist circles. Mostly Western leftists who have never seen Russia up close. It’s a nice excuse to do nothing.

I think the reason is: because the EU has seen nothing good coming recently from Trump’s or Putin’s mouth.

• Putin’s previous record is that he poisons opposition figures, attacks countries and attempts to conquer them. He has not resigned from the goal of controlling Ukraine yet, so there is no reason to come out of war mode - and indeed, perhaps going deeper into war mode will make him willing to let go.

• Trump’s previous record is that he makes a mess where he goes, has previously obstructed military assistance to Ukraine multiple times. On his best days, he behaves like a protection racket.

Those two are currently negotiating “behind the shed” somewhere.

What EU is doing, is putting together a contingency plan for a possible outcome: Trump helping reach an agreement which Ukraine cannot accept, and US support to Ukraine ceasing to flow.

In that case, the EU must move enough military resources to replace the US. The package volume (0.7 US defense budgets, in addition to EU countries’ individual defense budgets) indicates that it’s a “replace the US” package.

Correct messaging in this situation.

Well, Ukraine quite recently rejected Trump’s neocolonial proposal.

Which, for some reason, Biden has forgotten to even send …so maybe part of the US doesn’t really want that kind of stuff. ¹

…and well, the title describes European countries rushing to turn the page on Trump - assemble about three (maybe four) times the resources the US has thrown in, worth about six or seven Russian annual defense budgets. It seems a move that’s not only intended to help Ukraine repel Russia, but end defense dependence on the US, on the premise that the partner no longer is reliable.

¹ IMHO, it’s just that the US has so much power invested in one damn person and an electoral system that prevents diversity. Which is tragic. :(

Tox is nice. My favourite flavour is qTox.

The typical pattern over here: if someone uses Signal, you guess they’re some military type (wants things to be secure, doesn’t care much about anonymity, wants things to work one way and simply).

If someone uses Tox, you guess they’re some hacker / anarchist type (wants things to be secure, but also anonymizable, wants things to be flexible, even if it can backfire).

Don’t sigh before any papers are signed, but…

…while they may get stuck for a while passing a measure of this volume (or someone will need to lure Orban out of the room while others push buttons) - the volume is doable.

For comparison, the NextGenerationEU budget allocation (spent in a dozen ways) to help countries recover from COVID damage) was worth 2 trillion euros, and it was possible to pass.

The actual part? Probably multipronged:

• supercharging EU and Ukrainian arms industries, especially ones that can be expanded fast (drones)
• reducing formalities that need to be followed
• buying the weapons some members have in reserve for a Russian attack (because some do)
• buying the weapons Turkey and Greece have in reserve for each other
• subsequently, raking the global market (including the US) for weapons that come loose for money
• allowing Ukraine to pay really attractive salaries to its own soldiers and foreign soldiers

P.S. And jokingly - buying all the optical fiber available in South-East Asia.

Go inform yourself.

https://protectukrainenow.org/en/report

• in weapons donations to Ukraine, the US has been bypassed by European NATO members
• in economic assistance, the US was bypassed even earlier
• Biden was somewhat cautious in assisting Ukraine
• Trump did his best to block all that Biden tried in Congress (especially last spring)

As a result, the word of the US weighs less now - but it still weighs a lot. If a settlement acceptable to Ukraine is found, great - Trump won’t have to find out that alternatives exist. However, it is my personal belief that negotiations will fail. Trump is a poor negotiator, Putin’s team is far more experienced and can bend their country around the czar’s decision. Meanwhile, Zelensky is competent and cannot back down - he will absolutely go shopping elsewhere (Europe for sure and China if he’s lucky) for solutions when he cannot sign the Trump-mediated outcome.

What you likely know:

• some European NATO members are poorly armed

What you probably don’t know:

• air forces of European NATO members considerably overshadow the Russian air force
• the ground forces of Russia are in a sorry state, Ukraine has consumed them all
• while most don’t, some European NATO members have weapons reserves suitable for a large war
• while most don’t, a few European NATO members have their own nuclear weapons
• several European companies are major weapons makers for the world

Funny how the “European Peace Facility” now funds bullets and drones.

When war has started, making an invader want peace requires weapons.

Frozen Russian assets as collateral?

Interests and dividends from frozen Russian money have already bought Ukraine weapons. If the situation is unresolvable, confiscating it for good and using it for Ukraine is a rational course of action.

Trump didn’t break NATO—he just held a mirror to its rigor mortis since the Soviet collapse

While you slept in a cave, NATO has been reviving itself since 2014. Read the stats.

This is wrong, or perhaps I misundertand.

Entropy is a different concept from economic viability.

The rule of non-decreasing entropy applies to closed systems.

A carbon capture system running on solar energy on Earth (note: wind energy is converted solar energy) is not a closed system from the Earth perspective - its energy arrives from outside. It can decrease entropy on Earth. Whether it’s economically viable - totally different issue.

…and I don’t think the Sun gets any worse from us capturing some rays.

If I was a person living in Afghanistan, I would ask myself: “is it our choice to remain poor and not achieve better living conditions?”. If yes, no need to give anyone education. If no, giving a maximum of people the best education that local resources allow, it has helped other countries…