Political impacts of Ukraine war

[Remius]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1894296917556732301

Europe looks like it is making a counter offer on resources

 

[KevinB]

Is there a place we can hide?

I’ll start another thread for my NGSW rant.

 

[PrairieFella]

I’ll start another thread for my NGSW rant.

I look forward to a good rant lol

 

[QV]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1894296917556732301

Europe looks like it is making a counter offer on resources

Wait... so it's a good idea? Or still no?

 

[Remius]

Wait... so it's a good idea? Or still no?

That they make a counter offer? One that excludes Russia? That might be more beneficial to Ukraine?

Devil is in the details. But the a Russian aligned US plan is definitely not.

 

[OldSolduer]

300,000 peacekeepers for 20 years should just about do it...

Analysis: Three years of conflict in Ukraine

World leaders are in Kyiv for formal events marking the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

news.sky.com

So Ukraine can be secure and economically benefiting from peacekeeper expenditures.

Corruption? Not a chance!!! We’re peacekeepers!!!

 

[Kirkhill]

These three items should be taken together

Boris Johnson abruptly ends Good Morning Britain interview in Ukraine

Boris Johnson was speaking from the Ukrainian capital on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion

www.independent.co.uk

‘Toddler management’ of Trump may be behind Ukraine’s hints at minerals deal

There is a rapidly evolving pan-European effort to gently massage Donald Trump’s ego as talks between Europe, US, Ukraine and Russia reach a crucial stage

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile Keir Starmer, who was sitting at 2.3% of GDP and had been dragging his heels on when he would reach the 2.5% level promised (eventually) by Rishi Sunak, is now saying he will raid the Foreign Aid budget for 0.2% and transfer those funds to Defence by 2027. At the same time he is setting 3% as a new target but sometime in the future...after 2030.

Next British Election - NLT 15 Aug 2029
Next US Election - November 2028


12:50pmStarmer: Defence spending to increase to 2.5pc of GDP by 2027
1:01pmAnalysis: Starmer takes a decision he didn’t want to take
1:12pmPM wants defence spending to rise to 3pc after 2030
4:52pmUS defence secretary praises Starmer’s spending boost

5:27PM

Starmer: Trump’s return has ‘accelerated’ defence boost​

Asked if a Donald Trump White House had bounced him into today’s decision, Sir Keir Starmer replied: “I think in our heart of hearts we’ve all known that this decision has been coming for three years, since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.

“The last few weeks have accelerated my thinking on when we needed to make this announcement and I’ll be very clear about that. Because it is absolutely clear that the decision that, as it were, started life three years ago needs to be taken now to rise to the challenge that we have to face.

“The conflict in Ukraine is about the sovereignty of Ukraine but it’s also about security and defence in Europe and our security and defence, and the first duty of government is to ensure that citizens are secure and that’s why I’m taking that as a matter of duty and responsibility today.”

Whether viewers should be “alarmed” at the significance of the announcement, he said: “This is a significant moment and this is why we’ve got to rise to this generational challenge.

“It is a moment where we have to fight for peace.”

 

[Kirkhill]

And Jeremy Hunt - faint praise
Good but should be better

Key Words - Self-Reliant. Take note Canada.

In this self-reliant era, Starmer’s defence package is only the start

Britain has taken an important step in the right direction. It needs to finish the job

www.telegraph.co.uk

Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with Donald Trump on Thursday may be the most consequential of his premiership. It is not just Ukraine’s future that is in the balance but the very future of Nato that is at stake.

If that sounds dramatic, think back just a few years. I first met President Trump at the Nato summit in Brussels in July 2018. He had a showdown with Angela Merkel and nearly pulled America out of the alliance. Key members of his staff flew over from Washington to talk him out of it.

Trump was not bluffing. His anger at European freeloading on defence was palpable. And he had a point.

Most people recognise it is not fair for the United States to spend 3.4 per cent of GDP on defence when many European Nato allies do not even spend 2 per cent.

After today’s announcement to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 the UK is an honourable exception. But even after that, a vast imbalance remains: the Foreign Office told me that between a third and a half of the cost of defending Europe is being paid for by American taxpayers. If you want to know why we don’t have a seat at the table on Ukraine, look no further.

 

[Kirkhill]

Fun with numbers time

Population of Ukraine 33,000,000
Population of Russia 146,000,000

Population of Ukrainian Supporting Countries at UN 2,130,000,000
Population of Russian Supporting Countries at UN 221,000,000

Population of Observers (Abstained or Did Not Vote) 5,056,000,000

And then there is the US 340,000,000

For Reference the Population of the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is broadly the same as that of Russia - 142,000,000 vs 146,000,000
JEF minus the UK has a population of 53,000,000
The EU has a population of 561,000,000 (including Turkey but excluding the UK)

Pro Ukrainian Africans 408,000,000
Pro Ukrainian South Americans 213,000,000
Pro Ukrainian Indo-Pacific 764,000,000

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I have to wonder what Trump is thinking, if those minerals are that important, than making sure they do not fall under Russian control would also be extremely important. but his current line of action places those mineral deposits at risk of falling under Russian control or their abilty to prevent safe access.

 

[Kirkhill]

Zelensky agrees to US minerals deal after Trump rows back demands

Ukrainian president will meet with his US counterpart in Washington DC to sign the pact

www.telegraph.co.uk

Ukraine has agreed to a US-proposed deal for the rights to its mineral wealth after Donald Trump backed down on his most extreme demands.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is set to sign the deal in Washington DC as early as this Friday, bringing to an end a heated dispute with the US president over the terms of the pact.

The draft deal does not commit to Ukraine using the profits from its natural resources to repay the United States up to $500bn (£400bn), a key demand of Mr Trump, who has complained that the US “got nothing back” from its support of the Ukrainian war effort.

Instead, Kyiv will contribute 50 per cent of the funds raised by future developments of minerals and energy reserves, according to a draft of the agreement seen by the Financial Times.

The US will not gain the rights to any of Ukraine’s existing oil or gas production.

The deal does not contain any specific US security guarantees, but Ukrainian officials have described it as a way to weave America into a stake in the country’s stability and future survival.

 

[Kirkhill]

Was this the day the UN died?

At the Security Council, America sided with Russia – and against the founding principles of the United Nations

www.telegraph.co.uk

Nothing could be simpler than the procedure for casting a vote in the United Nations Security Council. Fifteen ambassadors gather around a horseshoe table, beneath a mural of a phoenix escaping the ashes, and raise their hands like obedient pupils.

Until Donald Trump regained the White House, the easiest duty of America’s representative was to vote alongside Britain and France to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as exactly the kind of blood-soaked tragedy which the UN was created to prevent.

But no longer. When the Security Council marked the third anniversary of the onslaught on Monday, there was stunned silence in the chamber as America’s acting ambassador, Dorothy Camille Shea, raised her hand not with her allies but with Russia and China, supporting a perfunctory three-paragraph Resolution devoid of any condemnation of the Kremlin, as if Ukraine’s calamity was a natural disaster for which no-one could be blamed. Britain and France, abandoned by their companion, were left to abstain.

Next door in the UN General Assembly, America’s behaviour was still more extraordinary. A roll-call of US allies, ranging from Australia to Japan and a raft of Nato members, including Britain and France, co-sponsored a Resolution denouncing the “devastating and long-lasting consequences” of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Faced with a carefully drafted text, designed to reflect the founding principles of the UN as expressed by its Charter, even China and Iran decided to abstain rather than oppose. And America? Suddenly the red lights on the membership board disclosed how Washington had lined up not just with Russia but with North Korea and Belarus to vote against.

Well, Trump had little respect for the UN.

Will the UN continue to respect the three rogues with veto power on the Security Council?

 

[YZT580]

I have to wonder what Trump is thinking, if those minerals are that important, than making sure they do not fall under Russian control would also be extremely important. but his current line of action places those mineral deposits at risk of falling under Russian control or their abilty to prevent safe access.

Don't they already control a large portion of Ukraine's industrial and mining heartland? One would think he would be bargaining to return to 2014 borders

 

[KevinB]

Don't they already control a large portion of Ukraine's industrial and mining heartland? One would think he would be bargaining to return to 2014 borders

Trumps dealing with Russia for those.

Appalling but…

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile Keir Starmer, who was sitting at 2.3% of GDP and had been dragging his heels on when he would reach the 2.5% level promised (eventually) by Rishi Sunak, is now saying he will raid the Foreign Aid budget for 0.2% and transfer those funds to Defence by 2027. At the same time he is setting 3% as a new target but sometime in the future...after 2030.

Next British Election - NLT 15 Aug 2029
Next US Election - November 2028


12:50pmStarmer: Defence spending to increase to 2.5pc of GDP by 2027
1:01pmAnalysis: Starmer takes a decision he didn’t want to take
1:12pmPM wants defence spending to rise to 3pc after 2030
4:52pmUS defence secretary praises Starmer’s spending boost

But...

Starmer preparing bright ideas for our government

Starmer accused of ‘misleading’ public over spending on rearmament

Raising defence budget to 2.5pc of GDP equates to half the £13bn PM claims, says IFS

www.telegraph.co.uk

The Prime Minister also committed to raising defence spending to 3pc of GDP in the next parliament, hailing it as “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”.

Sir Keir suggested that more spending would be pulled into the Nato defence budget in order to reach the new 3pc goal, which could require tens of billions of tax rises or spending cuts in the next parliament.

He said the definition of defence spending will be “updated” to “recognise the incredible contribution of our intelligence and security services to the defence of the nation, which means, taken together, we will be spending 2.6pc on defence by 2027”.

George Osborne, the former chancellor, deployed a similar accounting shift in the 2010s. He moved pensions spending, UN peacekeeping and some intelligence spending into the Nato definition. Had he not, the UK would have been just shy of the 2pc target for most of the 2010s.

 

[QV]

Don't they already control a large portion of Ukraine's industrial and mining heartland? One would think he would be bargaining to return to 2014 borders

I think Putin knows he wouldn’t survive long if he agreed to that. Guessing from his standpoint he must come out of this with a gain or he finds himself flying out a high rise window.

 

[Kirkhill]

7:45AM

France believes US agreed to provide backup after Ukraine ceasefire​

France’s finance minister said he believes the US has agreed to provide backup for European troops to help maintain peace once a ceasefire is agreed between Ukraine and Russia.

The UK, Germany, France and other European countries are willing to send troops to guarantee a truce, Eric Lombard told Bloomberg Television, where he’s attending a meeting of Group of 20 finance chiefs.

“If we want a ceasefire to be respected, we need a US backup,” he said on Wednesday. “I believe the Americans have agreed to do that.”

Earlier this week, Mr Lombard and Emmanuel Macron travelled to Washington to discuss Ukraine and trade with their US counterparts including Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“We discussed all the issues, trade, tariffs, non-tariff barriers,” he said. “We agreed to continue to talk, which is a step forward.”

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky says security guarantees not part of minerals deal - yet

Ukraine’s rare earth minerals deal with the US will be “directly” tied to security guarantees, Ukraine’s prime minister has announced.

www.telegraph.co.uk

The problem with dealing with someone who can change their mind is that they can change their mind.....

And I say that as someone who has been inclined to give POTUS 47 the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Kirkhill]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1894296917556732301

Europe looks like it is making a counter offer on resources

European Commission denies EU has offered Ukraine its own proposal on minerals

The day prior, AFP reported that the EU has offered Ukraine its own deal on the country's natural resources, describing it as "mutually beneficial" and a "win-win partnership."

kyivindependent.com

Looks like someone might have been trying to put a spoke in the wheel and make life more difficult for Zelensky in his relations with Trump.

 

[Good2Golf]

France getting more serious about European capabilities relevant to the UKR-RUS war…

France Eyeing Deployment Of Nuclear-Armed Rafale Fighters To Germany: Report

Amid concerns over U.S. commitment to European security, France is mulling the extension of its nuclear umbrella farther across Europe. The latest proposal reportedly involves the deployment of nuclear-armed French fighter jets in Germany.

www.twz.com