Trump says Russia has made ‘pretty big concession’ to peace by not seizing whole of Ukraine

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-ukraine-airstrike-response-b2738787.html

President Donald Trump on Thursday said Russia’s failure to forcibly seize and occupy the entirety of Ukraine’s territory amounts to a “pretty big concession” to Kyiv as he continues to push for Russia and Ukraine to come to a settlement to end the war Moscow started three years ago.

Speaking in the Oval Office during a bilateral meeting with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump insisted to reporters that he is putting pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin behind the scenes as reporters asked him what he would ask the Russian leader to give up to match the massive territorial concessions he has asked Ukraine to make as a way to find an end to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the end of the Second World War.

Trump replied: “Stopping the war, stopping [from] taking the whole country.”

He added that not seizing all of Ukraine’s sovereign land — the goal Putin had laid out when he launched the war in February 2022 and which was foiled by Ukraine’s military resistance — was a “pretty big concession” in his view.

EXCERPT

Unbelievable...

 

[DefiantMassRINO]

At Munich, 1938, Hitler made a 'pretty big concession' to peace by not seizing the whole of Czechoslovakia ... unitil he did in 1939.

[berdie]

I heard this interview and was so appalled by much of it. It is not a concession to not take the whole country.

That thought process is a little scary and probably gives the rest of Europe the screaming heebie jeebies. I wonder what his attitude would be if Putin conceded to stopping a war against us and just take Alaska?

[Fishrrman]

Realpolitik:
Ukraine isn't getting all of its territory back.
The Russian-speaking areas are going to remain under Russian control.

If the rest of Europe wants to start a world war over this -- up to and including nuclear war -- that's fine with me. Let them destroy each other. We should STAY OUT of it.

Hmmmm....
As part of a peace plan, why not let the people of the Donbas and Crimea have an election, to determine which side they wish their allegiance to be...?

[Canuck Conservative]

The opposite of Ronald Reagan.

 

[mountaineer]

Look how triggered John Kerry gets when MSNBC's Chris Jansing reminds him that he was Secretary of State when Russia annexed Crimea.

https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1915836200339861960

[cato potatoe]

Trump is running headlong into reality, that this is likely to end in a frozen conflict after the peace deal fails.  The Russians aren't getting pushed off the land they have seized, but have the means to take what the Kremlin is calling Novorossiya, and the Ukrainians are unwilling to make the concessions that could have prevented the war.  Maybe Trump is the only one who can wash his hands of the slavic conflict, and not immediately get sucked into a war with Iran.  Time will tell.

[Hoodat]

Trump says Russia has made ‘pretty big concession’ to peace by not seizing whole of Ukraine

It's not as if they haven't tried.  The only thing stopping them from it is the incompetence of their military.

[Hoodat]

Ukraine isn't getting all of its territory back.

Why not?

The Russian-speaking areas are going to remain under Russian control.

Why?  Just because people in an area speak Russian doesn't mean they want to be under Russian control.  Certainly, people of the United States don't want to be under English control, right?

This whole 'Russian speaking' argument is typical totalitarian propaganda.  Austrians spoke German in 1938, thus it was OK for Germany to invade Austria?  Czechs in the Sudetenland spoke German, thus it was OK for Germany to invade Czechoslovakia?  Today, Germany does not control either of those areas.  And one day, Russia won't control Ukrainian territory either.

[Timber Rattler]

As part of a peace plan, why not let the people of the Donbas and Crimea have an election, to determine which side they wish their allegiance to be...?

Putin did allow "elections," and they were completely corrupt and coerced, at the points of Russian guns. 

Remember the old Stalin quote that "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything"? 

Well....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66750202

[Hoodat]

Look how triggered John Kerry gets when MSNBC's Chris Jansing reminds him that he was Secretary of State when Russia annexed Crimea.

https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1915836200339861960

Nice.  Thanks for posting.

[Timber Rattler]

And Chris Jansing just goes right along with his weak excuse...

[berdie]

It's not as if they haven't tried.  The only thing stopping them from it is the incompetence of their military.

And the willingness that the Ukrainians have shown to fight and die for their country.

[Right_in_Virginia]

And the willingness that the Ukrainians have shown to fight and die for their country.

Ukrainian men haven't been permitted to leave the country for three years, literally dragged back across the border when they tried in the beginning of the fighting --- and Zzman canceled all elections, lest he be voted out and the death and destruction could end @berdi.  This is "willingness"??

[Timber Rattler]

Ukrainian men haven't been permitted to leave the country for three years, literally dragged back across the border when they tried in the beginning of the fighting

Just like in Russia?

https://meduza.io/news/2022/09/25/istochniki-meduzy-soobschili-chto-muzhchinam-mobilizatsionnogo-vozrasta-posle-referendumov-zapretyat-vyezzhat-iz-rossii

--- and Zzman canceled all elections, lest he be voted out and the death and destruction could end @berdi.  This is "willingness"??

Wrong.  It was the Ukrainian Parliament that postponed the election due to wartime conditions, just like Great Britain did in 1940, leaving Winston Churchill in office as Prime Minister until July 1945.

And Zelensky's approval rating in Ukraine is currently at 67%. There is no serious challenger except perhaps Valerii Zaluzhnyi (former Ukrainian commander-in-chief and current Ambassador to the UK who hates Russians even more than Zelensky) so he's in no danger of losing an election if it was held today.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I heard this interview and was so appalled by much of it. It is not a concession to not take the whole country.

That thought process is a little scary and probably gives the rest of Europe the screaming heebie jeebies. I wonder what his attitude would be if Putin conceded to stopping a war against us and just take Alaska?

How about, Russia is conceding to the USA by not attacking it anywhere?

[the OlLine Rebel]

The opposite of Ronald Reagan.

 

He's not even close to Reagan.

Sick of all the butt-kissers for this jackass beating their chests and even declaring he's so much better than Ron.

Seriously, I really think largely people just desperately want another Reagan - and they convince themselves they have it, and thus, all this worship and pontifications.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Just like in Russia?

Who cares about Russia?  My post comments on a Briefer's declaration of a presumed glorious willingness of *Ukrainian* men to fight.

     

[Right_in_Virginia]

 

He's not even close to Reagan.

Sick of all the butt-kissers for this jackass beating their chests and even declaring he's so much better than Ron.
-

Trump surpasses Reagan in vision and courage --- and Trump will surpass Reagan in legacy and historic impact.

And ICYMI, Reagan's legacy --- defeating the Russians --- has, as Zelensky followers keep reminding the world, morphed into a big "oops, nevermind!"

@the OlLine Rebel

[Timber Rattler]

Who cares about Russia?  My post comments on a Briefer's declaration of a presumed glorious willingness of *Ukrainian* men to fight.

Well, somebody's killing all those Russian soldiers along a 600-mile front.  It's not Ukrainian fighting men?

[Timber Rattler]

Trump surpasses Reagan in vision and courage --- and Trump will surpass Reagan in legacy and historic impact.

And ICYMI, Reagan's legacy --- defeating the Russians --- has, courtesy of Ukraine, morphed into a big "oops, nevermind!".

 

[240B]

Why Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons — and what that means in an invasion by Russia

NPR
By Mary Louise Kelly, Kat Lonsdorf
February 21, 2022

Three decades ago, the newly independent country of Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world.

Thousands of nuclear arms had been left on Ukrainian soil by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in the years that followed, Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize.

In exchange, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine's security in a 1994 agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum.

Now, that agreement is front and center again.

Mariana Budjeryn of Harvard University spoke with All Things Considered about the legacy of the Budapest Memorandum and its impact today.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights
On whether Ukraine foresaw the impact of denuclearizing

It is hard to estimate whether Ukrainians would foresee the impact.

It is clear that Ukrainians knew they weren't getting the exactly legally binding, really robust security guarantees they sought.

But they were told at the time that the United States and Western powers — so certainly at least the United States and Great Britain — take their political commitments really seriously. This is a document signed at the highest level by the heads of state. So the implication was Ukraine would not be left to stand alone and face a threat should it come under one.

And I think perhaps there was even a certain sense of complacency on the Ukrainian part after signing this agreement to say, "Look, we have these guarantees that were signed," because incidentally, into Ukrainian and Russian, this was translated as a guarantee, not as an assurance.

So they had this faith that the West would stand by them, or certainly the United States, the signatories, and Great Britain, would stand up for Ukraine should it come under threat. Although, the precise way was not really proscribed in the memorandum.

(more)
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion

[kevindavis007]

Trump surpasses Reagan in vision and courage --- and Trump will surpass Reagan in legacy and historic impact.

And ICYMI, Reagan's legacy --- defeating the Russians --- has, as Zelensky followers keep reminding the world, morphed into a big "oops, nevermind!"

@the OlLine Rebel

@Right_in_Virginia




You are so full of it.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Trump surpasses Reagan in vision and courage --- and Trump will surpass Reagan in legacy and historic impact.

And ICYMI, Reagan's legacy --- defeating the Russians --- has, as Zelensky followers keep reminding the world, morphed into a big "oops, nevermind!"

@the OlLine Rebel

You demonstrate exactly what I postulated.

I guess Maggie and John Paul II and the various great leaders we had at the time, also were big fools doing “oops!”

[Right_in_Virginia]

You demonstrate exactly what I postulated.

@the OlLine Rebel

I don't know why you're so bent out of shape.   You're among the global strategists around here who have spent years relentlessly working to convince me the Soviet Union is alive and remains the dastardly threat to the United States it always has been ---- proving Reagan's accomplishment is inflated.