Posted on 05/25/2022 9:19:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
PARIS -- It was inevitable that sooner or later, leading European countries would start distancing themselves from the aggressive rhetoric that has been the hallmark of the European Union leadership's approach to the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Last week in Turin, Italian Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio presented a four-point peace plan to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who made contact with Moscow and Kyiv in visits a few weeks ago. Di Maio also chaired the group of Europe's foreign ministers at a meeting in Turin, including those of other EU countries which have recently shown interest in de-escalating the months-old debacle.
Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron has been criticized by Baltic state leaders for even picking up the phone to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was pressured to contribute to the irresponsible flood of weapons into Ukraine and slammed for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about doing so.
So now Di Maio has laid out a concrete exit strategy that may already enjoy quiet backing from some EU member states. First, there would be a ceasefire and demilitarization of the battle zones. Then enshrinement of neutrality for Ukraine with security guarantees. Thirdly, a bilateral agreement between Russia and Ukraine regarding the status of contested territories. And finally, an end to anti-Russian sanctions and a multilateral peace agreement between the EU and Russia that would no doubt have to take into account arms control in the wake of flooding the zone with weapons, which may have already reportedly made their way onto the black market.
It's hardly surprising that some individual member states within the EU are seeking an off-ramp, even as the bloc's unelected supranational leadership in Brussels ramps up the irresponsible rhetoric.
The most aggressive behavior in the western world has been exhibited by those with the least to lose from prolonging the conflict -- politically, economically, or otherwise.
Washington's recently approved $40 billion package for Ukraine that includes military, economic, and humanitarian support that will end up who knows where amid corruption and chaos suggests a long-term investment in promoting instability. But the various rounds of U.S. sanctions against Russia is telling as to how confident Washington feels that its economy is mostly sheltered from any related fallout. Clearly, the roughly 8 percent of overall U.S. supply of petroleum and oil products previously imported from Russia can be replaced by other sources from Mexico, Canada, South America, or West Africa, even though in some cases the increased shipping distance could bump up the cost, as the Wall Street Journal explained last month.
So when President Joe Biden sanctions Russian industry -- energy or otherwise -- there's perhaps even a net future benefit for the U.S. through the urgency to establish greater North American energy independence (anti-pipeline anti-environmentalists be damned).
It's slightly more puzzling why the UK is taking a hari-kari approach to the conflict by arguably going even further than the U.S. In prohibiting even British citizens and companies from offering business consulting services - including accounting and public relations - to Russian business entities, the UK isn't really harming the Russian economy so much as its own by causing Russia to pivot to service providers from Europe, America or elsewhere.
Anti-Russian fervor in the UK is so misguided that even the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) decided on May 20 to strip the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament of its ranking points for participants -- effectively reducing the competition to an exhibition match -- as a result of the tournament's decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players. You'd think that they were directly lobbing missiles into Ukraine with backhand serves.
Britain's scorched earth approach to Russia suggests that it is either ideologically drunk to the point of economic recklessness, or else it figures that it can weather the storm. Britain's National Institute of Economic and Social Research suggests that "the impact on the UK could be to reduce GDP growth by around 0.8 per cent to 4.0 per cent in 2022 and to 0.5 per cent in 2023." Meanwhile, British gas comes from the North Sea and Norway, with just 3 percent imported from Russia (compared to 35 percent for the EU).
But it's the EU that risks being hit hardest and is staring down the barrel of potential recession. Which would explain why despite EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's vow to eventually ditch Russian energy, 20 EU companies supplying member states have opened accounts in rubles in order to continue buying gas from Russia's Gazprom in light of the EU's own anti-Russian sanctions.
Some EU member states know that their citizens are fed up with the chaos and are now taking the first tentative concrete steps toward peace. What remains to be seen is how much courage they have against ideological pressure from the U.S., UK, and EU leadership.
Of course it mostly ignores the tactical advances that Russia has made at it learns how to operate effectively in Ukraine against modern western systems. Arrogant folks in the west just sort of presumed that the Russians started off ignorant and incompetent and were too stupid to learn, preferring to die on the battlefield while sticking stubbornly to their way of doing things.
I love how the Russians are so stupid that they are retreating backwards through Ukrainian lines in Donbass and the Ukrainians have to move quickly to avoid being encircled by the swirls of Russians running away to the West.
The Globohomo propaganda machine has also been making every Russian flag officer or colonel who dies into a “victory is right around the corner” story.
It’s only a US military tradition (and a recent one at that) that the perfumed princes have to be protected at all costs.
Generals and colonels in winning armies still say “follow me” instead of “I’m right behind you”.
Our way of war is so superior with top end $135M F-35’s with mission availabilities running as high as 17-20% although the Naval variant at 10% availability still needs some improvement. If we can get one of those suckers in the air it is going to be a bad day for the guy trying to fly against it.
Get this:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/24/american-fighters-ukraine-white-supremacists-00034860
Seems as if the media only acknowledges Nazis in Ukraine when it suits their need to attack US conservatives.
If Ukraine was smart they would start talks now and keep Odessa Otherwise they will lose the black sea port. We will see Mr. Z. fly to Florida soon to join his family in a nice mansion and a job on CNN. Russia has all the cards now—and if they play them right—they will win. Unless Poland marches in with US and UK to win our own victory?
“The results of barrages from the TOS-1A thermobaric MLRS”
VIDEO CLIP
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1529771411023306753
Our Genius Generals spent twenty years and trillions of dollars losing to the Taliban, leaving billions in weapons behind, and the Taliban only had AK-47s and improvised IEDs, and no air assets at all.
But I’m sure the Genius Generals of the Pentagon would do MUCH better against Russia, right next door to Russia.
Especially now that we have Lady Rangers.
The current antiseptic high tech American style of warfare overlooks a crucial thing. That stuff works against ships and aircraft and really expensive hardware, but to control what happens on the ground you have to hold ground and exclude others from using the ground. And that means boots on the ground willing to engage in the bloody nightmare of combat on the ground killing people.
Anyone who read EB Sledge's classic book "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" or y T. R. Fehrenbach's book on the Korean War "This Kind of War" would get a clue about the problem. You cannot defeat the guy trying to knife your pilot on the ground by taking off in a B52 and bombing your own base.
We blew Sadam out of his villas, but we created the Iraqi resistance. As Tom Schelling wrote in his classic "Arms and Influence" even unconditioanl surrender isn't really total surrend in the sense that you didn't fight the war to utterly exterminate a people and a culture. And so what you can get in war, even total war resulting in total surrender of the other side's military only gets you so much.
You never take the house. You just get another turn at the table.
Which means, inspiring and holding the hearts of men.
Can you imagine Milley or Austin doing THAT?
Italy and France are far from the front-lines, so they think that in the case of a war, the Central European nations will take the brunt of the attack.
The UK see’s that helping the Ukrainians is bolstering its image among its former allies in the EU - the central european states.
Kissinger wants Ukraine to give up territory for peace.
That won't work with Putin. He'll take some today and tomorrow come back for more.
it’ isn’t the beginning of winter. That’s another indication of the utter failures of Russia’s invasion.
Now the gas usage is down. Germany, Poland, etc. have the time to switch and build up reserves.
It won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap, but it will be possible and it IS possible
In 3 months? September? Nope.
November, yeah, but not earlier
So you are happy if a defensive group that protects its members form Russian attack would be weakened?
well, you are going to be disappointed - Putin has actually strengthened NATO
NATO was due to be scrapped in another couple of years if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine
Dude, what are you talking about?
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria all are in this war because they know that they are next on the Russian eagle's target list if Ukraine falls
Germany is in this to rejoin the rest of humanity and not be seen as supporting an aggressor Nazi state like Putin's Russia
the UK is rebuilding its network of allies
These countries are not doing it for the USA in any way.
Congress has to step in!!!
Zelenskyy’s family are still in kyiv, so there isn’t a “removal of the Zelenskyy fmaily from Ukraine”
This was as of April 13th
this is as of May 19th
Russia has given up in the north around Kharkiv and retreated.
in the east it looks like they have slowly advanced.
Will this lead to encirclement? Perhaps - but as you see in the map below, they've been trying to do this since March 2022 and failed.
Is it a breakthrough? No. Is it a Russian victory? a minor one, yes.
Can they translate this to something more? Well, that depends.
“they now have Donbas”
“they” haven’t got Donbas - not yet.
If you look at Intel Slava Z there’s a lot of Soviet symbology showing up there.
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