- Source says Putin demanding control of entire Donetsk region
- Trump says Zelenskiy has ‘gotta make a deal’
- Zelenskiy reported to have rejected demand
- Zelenskiy to visit Trump on Monday with European back-up
- Europeans say they will maintain or increase pressure on Russia
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW/KYIV, Aug 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war with Russia because “Russia is a very big power, and they’re not”, after a summit where Vladimir Putin was reported to have demanded more Ukrainian land.
After the two leaders met in Alaska on Friday, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Putin had offered to freeze most front lines if Kyiv ceded all of Donetsk, the industrial region that is one of Moscow’s main targets, a source familiar with the matter said.
I agree that Russia has performed pathetically in the war, yet European governments still seem to be shitting themselves given their scrambling to increase defence spending. Russia is both strong and weak.
A lot of the increase in defense spending seems to have been in response to America being ruled by Trump and Europe realizing they can’t rely on us for protection anymore. Trump has talked about leaving NATO. When your strongest ally seems to be backing down from defending you, you’re gonna increase defense spending to make sure you can still defend yourself.
There’s also a chance that America will not only be an unreliable ally but an aggressor. They have to defend against that as well as what’s left of Russia’s capabilities (which will again be temporarily strengthened if they sack and destroy Ukraine).
My understanding is that NATO currently has the capacity to absolutely wreck Russia in every engagement, until they run out of ammo. So the new spending is supposed keep them from running out.
Ammo factories ain’t cheap and even getting old machines running takes a tonne of time and money. Fun fact I knew a guy in northern Idaho who worked at an ammo factory with machines that dated back to WW1 though they have been upgraded, he was a racist prick.
It’s unfortunate that the machine upgrades didn’t improve his racism.
No but the brain lesiones definitely made his racism so much more blatant.