5mo ago

Ukraine and Europe reduced to bit players in US-Russian plan for peace

www.independent.co.uk

Summary

A senior White House team, led by Steve Witkoff and Mike Waltz, is traveling to Saudi Arabia to set up Ukraine peace talks, excluding both Ukraine and Europe from negotiations.

This move raises concerns about sidelining key stakeholders while favoring direct U.S.-Russia discussions. European leaders, including Macron and Starmer, are meeting in Paris to respond.

Trump’s team has hinted at lifting Russian sanctions, a stance welcomed by the Kremlin.

NATO allies are wary of U.S. inquiries on security guarantees for Ukraine, fearing strategic leaks.

54 comments

- Just FYI to other readers, this is just made up. Like not even "did a search and is being a little hyperbolic", just not even in the vague realm of reality.
  
  Funny, I recently spoke with a guy from Finland, who basically claimed they could take Russia on their own.
  That's probably overstating it a bit, but in the 40's Germany took a pretty huge chunk of the Soviet Union alone.
  Only with help from USA was the Soviet Union able to resist the Germans.
  Russia is thoroughly corrupt and incompetent, and even the Soviet era of willingness to die for nothing, will not help them if Europe joins in helping Ukraine in a full scale military effort.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel
  France alone has 270000 troops! Just including Germany makes it almost ½ a million! Adding Italy, Spain, Poland and Greece we are easily at a full million!
  This is even without counting about 20 smaller countries, and UK which is not in the EU, but would absolutely help too I'm sure.
  
  You sound like you'd be interested in this piece of waterfront property I happen to have for sale! It is on the moon, but that just makes the views amazing, right??
  Did it ever cross your mind that if there was any truth to your statement, Russia would've easily invaded every country in Europe by now? Oh, but I suppose facts and logic are just fancy words for lies - I mean, not like your feelings would lie to you, right???
  ಠ_ಠ
  
  What about against the Russian military?
US is not an ally of the west.
- Or the east, or the north, or the south
  
  Seems like they are getting close and closer to admitting to the love affair they have with Russia and getting married.
  
  They are a Russian ally, so that is not quite correct.
- They never have been.
- I hate that our leaders are wannabe Imperialist swine.
The rest of NATO needs to call Trump's bluff and just start acting without the US. Hold a vote to induct Ukraine into NATO without giving the US a chance to vote on it and then deploy NATO troops into Ukraine. Russia has already been claiming that there are NATO troops there for a while now, should show him what an actual NATO defense looks like instead of a bunch of desperate Ukrainians with hand me down surplus weaponry.
- since russia has claimed there are nato troops in ukraine, what is actually preventing nato from sending the troops? Russia is going to invade eu anyway after awhile when kremlin feels more secure about it. By lying, didnt they blow their ultimatum regarding nato intervention too?
Honest question to someone who is a legit expert on … international treaties? geopolitics?
How the fuck can an uninvolved and uninvited country declare itself a party to negotiations for peace? Does anyone even think the US is authorized to offer concessions on behalf of an absent nation? Isn’t this entire disgusting spectacle unenforceable?
- There's no such thing as "authorization". The US can make whatever deals it likes, it doesn't mean Ukraine has to listen. There's no such thing as "international enforcement" in the first place, just individual nations flexing power on other nations.
  US weapons are important to Ukraine, so the US could flex that power and try to make Ukraine do what it says by withholding them, but if they think they can go it alone or Europe steps up, they don't need to listen.
- Isn’t this entire disgusting spectacle unenforceable?
  Yes, but Trump is far too stupid to realize that.
- Yes, it's completely unenforceable.
  However, Ukraine depends on US aid and if they reject the deal they'll have to keep fighting without it.
  So they're fucked either way.
The main thing I got from this is that Saudi Arabia doesn't respect an international arrest warrant on Putin.
Trump and Putin can talk all they want, without Ukraine it means nothing.
- Saudi Arabia isn't an ICC member state, though, so they don't have to comply with the warrant (probably part of why they picked Saudi Arabia).
  If they want Europe to enforce the peace in Ukraine, a 'deal' without Europe is meaningless as well (you'd hope, anyway. Otherwise the European establishment would agree with America treating Europe like their bitch).
Wtf are we even doing there? Even if we're trying to sell out Ukraine, I don't see much happening without Ukraine at the table. The motivators are going to be sticks and carrots. The best carrot I can see the US getting Ukraine is peace or ceasefire alongside the cessation of some of their land. But that ignores that Russia broached peace agreements twice in this mess. So it's not possible to trust anything Russia offers (kudos on that 4D chess, Putin, you pathetic slobdog).
That leaves leaning on the rest of Europe and continuing the resistance as the only viable option. Unless we give them sticks, which would be insane and fully exile the US as a pariah state from the rest of the free world. It would kill trade and drop us into an instant depression. Which they might think they're fine with, but that's quite a shortcut to the guillotine.
- I'm waiting for an AI edited version of everyday news where current "people in charge" discuss using wise and sensible words.
  Let's use modern tools with some grain of salt
  
  exposing the location of those bunkers would do wonders to world peace
- What evidence do you have to prove that Russia broke 2 peace agreements? If you're referring to Minsk 1 and 2 that wasn't Russia who broke them. It was France and Germany, both leaders of those countries at the time, are on record indicating that The West never intended to honour those agreements. It's hard to find the evidence in Western media as it's been scrubbed (this alone should alert folks) but I found a reference in Ukrainian Pravada via Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-disappointed-merkels-words-minsk-140859136.html
  
  France and Germany weren't even signatories to the treaties save for as members of the OSCE. Their only responsibilities in the treaty were to, as part of OSCE, monitor and verify the ceasefire.
  Nothing about either treaty says that Ukraine can't re-arm during the ceasefire, and literally the only thing Merkel said is that Ukraine used the time to re-arm.
  Minsk I collapsed because nobody even implemented the ceasefire and then Russia launched a new offensive to take Donetsk airport. That is an explicit violation of the treaty, unlike Ukraine re-arming.
  Minsk II collapsed when Russia launched its 2022 invasion.
  Ukraine preparing for a Russian invasion is not a ceasefire violation. The leader of a country that's not even a party to the conflict saying that "it's good that Ukraine prepared" is even more thoroughly not a violation. You know what is a violation? An invasion.

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