War in Ukraine

trump carrying putin's water in direct conflict with what congress is proposing

US and Russia discussing restoration of Russian gas supplies to Europe, Reuters reports

Representatives of the United States and Russia held negotiations regarding US assistance in restoring the supply of Russian gas to Europe, Reuters informs.

The agency notes that since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, Europe has significantly reduced its gas imports from Russia, leading to huge economic losses for the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom. Meanwhile, the US has become one of the main suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, replacing Russian supplies.

However, some European countries, such as Hungary and Slovakia, continue to receive gas from Russia through the TurkStream pipeline.

Sources from Reuters claim that after a potential peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, more European buyers may return to Russian gas. According to them, US involvement in restoring gas supplies could help Moscow overcome political opposition in most European countries.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

personal sanctions against oil brokers..that's going to make a few people pucker up and reconsider their business associations

Key Player in Russian Oil Trading Hit by U.K. Sanctions

Britain said its “largest ever sanction package” will target dozens of tankers Russia uses to transport oil and five traders from Azerbaijan. They were Eyyub, his business partner Tahir Garayev and three associates.

It is the first time a Western country has sanctioned any of the main oil middlemen who came to Moscow’s aid after Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022. Russia found workarounds to previous rounds of sanctions that had mostly targeted smaller players, as well as tankers and the shell companies that conceal the people moving Moscow’s crude.

Whereas sanctioned firms can easily be replaced, there are a finite number of people and tankers able to distribute oil, said Moody’s sanctions analyst Hera Smith. She said the sanctions appear to be the most potent by Ukraine’s allies to date.

They could complicate Russia’s ability to transport and finance its oil exports, the economy’s lifeblood. The U.K. is home to international banks, insurers and law firms that service the energy sector, and lenders elsewhere in Europe tend to abide by its sanctions.

 

Ukrainians can’t win for losing. Even English-speaking blacks don’t want them in Poland …

 

Apparently Trump has had a revelation that it’s not easy to stop wars and Putin is playing him


https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-israel-gaza-russia-ukraine-war-f847b04a?mod=mhp

When President Trump spoke to a room of top donors at his Florida club last week, he described ending Russia’s war in Ukraine as a growing frustration that keeps him up at night, people in the room said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was particularly tough to negotiate with, and wanted “the whole thing,” Trump said, referring to Ukraine, according to an attendee. His comments came in response to a donor’s question about his biggest foreign-policy concerns.

In recent weeks, Trump has privately griped to advisers that Putin doesn’t want to end the war, and that both sides refuse to compromise. Trump has also asked advisers if they believe Putin has changed since Trump’s last time in office, and expressed surprise at some of Putin’s military moves, including bombing areas with children, according to people familiar with the remarks

 

Most predictable thing in the world. The President should publicly throw his hands up and say, “Despite my best efforts, Mr. Putin wants war. Who am I to deny him what he wants? I have directed the Secretaries of Defense and of the Treasury to fulfill Mr. Putin’s wishes. Perhaps a year from now when he has buried his millionth Russian, his economy is in ruins, and he still has no appreciable gains in Ukraine, he will be ready to talk.”

Is that going to happen? Well .. not yet, no.

 

To me this shows what a child he is “did Putin change?” and confused that Putin would bomb children. Did he not pay attention to Syria? He really thought Vlad was his friend and would do what Trump asked him to.

 

Need to remind Trump he’s been fooled and ask him in press conferences how it feels to be played like a fiddle.

Maybe that will anger or frustrate him enough to start back to providing Ukraine with military assistance. That’s what I’d like to see if that’s what Ukraine wants.

 

“Trump acknowledged that it was especially difficult to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.”

Translation: Trump not used to dealing with people he can’t bully into submission.

 

This is what a lot of folks do not understand about dealing with the Ukrainians. Their default position for ending the war is returning to pre-2104 borders. That is as unrealistic as the Russian demand for Ukraine to disband their armed forces but they are often unwilling to budge from it.

I honestly think Trump thought if he could get the Ukrainians to give up Crimea and the current oblasts that Russia has, Putin would be willing to take that deal and so he put a lot of pressure on Z5 and the Ukrainians to be willing to take it. When Putin refused, Trump was like "What the Hell, man?!?!" and now is like OK screw 'em, Ukraine keeps getting arms.

 

If Ukraine can hold on for another year or so, there is a good chance that Russia folds economically and their troops go home. Ukraine needs assistance to go the distance, however. I don't know if Trump is strong enough to provide significant amounts of weapons to the country that is fighting his hero, Vlad Putin. (Of course, long before Russia gets near collapse, Trump will disavow even knowing Putin, since at that point, Putin will be a loser to Trump.)

 

The question is whether or not NATO and other donor countries have the ability to maintain the level of donations for another year or two. Jake Sullivan talked about how the US only had so many ATACMS missiles that we could donate to Ukraine since the DoD was not willing to give them until we had enough. This is a high intensity conflict that was been going on for over three years at this point. While the Ukraine economy is getting close to operating on a wartime footing, NATO and the US are not.

 

Russian advances have slowed to about 50 square miles per month from about 250 sq. mi. a half year ago, according to the Brits.

Map shows Russia's frontline gains drying up: Ukraine war update April 7

 

Another installment of war is hard: the Seige of Mosul in 2016 …

A motley band of as few as 5,000 ISIL fighters held off as many as 108,000 coalition troops, throw in daily aerial bombardment from the U.S. Air Force, for NINE months and four days.

Estimates of civilian casualties range from 11,000 to 40,000 and 65% of the old city was destroyed.

And this was before the Age of Drones.

Now continue lambasting the Russian army for taking so long.

 

Top Russian officer killed in Ukrainian Storm Shadow strike

 

Kiev is trying to figure out how to flee to a safe place with as much stolen money they can get away with. At that point will Poland invade Western Ukraine to retake land it previously lost?

 

Although I obviously cannot speak for Zelensky and the government of Ukraine, my guess is that if Russia agreed to end hostilities immediately Ukraine would be willing to return to the status quo ante prior to the Russian invasion of February 22, 2022 when the current war began. Although Ukraine would never formally accept the Russian annexation of Crimea it would most likely not insist that Russia return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine as a condition of ending the war. As I stated in previous posts Putin only understands strength. If Trump actually had balls he would resume US aid in full to Ukraine and make it clear to Putin that if Vlad wants to continue hostilities the US could continue to provide military aid to Ukraine with the addition of more economic sanctions for good measure.

 

don't underestimate the value that Russia puts on that nuclear power plant and surround lakes systems

 

Russia is on pace to run out of financial reserves by this fall, which would cripple war efforts, economist says

Russia is facing a critical challenge to its war effort in 2025: The nation is quickly running out of cash, with financial reserves potentially running out before the end of the year, one European economist estimates.

Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist who's a former fellow at the Atlantic Council, has said liquid reserves in Russia's National Wealth Fund could be depleted by the fall of this year.

That spells trouble for the nation's military efforts in 2025, he said, given how heavily Russia has relied on its wealth fund over the past several years. Liquid reserves in the wealth fund have been drawn down from $117 billion in 2021 to $31 billion as of the end of November, Åslund noted.

Yet, according to its 2025 budget, Russia is on track to spend a record $130.5 billion on defense this year.