Posted on 05/18/2025 7:59:17 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Ukrainia's military intelligence agency said that Russia was planning to conduct a "training and combat" launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile late on Sunday to intimidate Ukraine and the West.
The GUR agency said in a statement on the Telegram app that the launch was ordered to be implemented from Russia's Sverdlovsk region, adding that the flight range for the missile was more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Trump gets blamed for everything anyway. He will not care about that.
Ukraine is not NATO and we have no obligation to them.
The warning part is to stay the heck out of the Ukraine because Russia plans on serious after talks break down
Realistically, the most they can do is 10k.
Ukraine biolabs are CIA-driven.
Under Secretary Victoria Nuland Admits U.S. Funded Biological Research Labs Exist in Ukraine
The Baltics are not under attack. And NATO is in no position to “demand” anything.
And Trump wouldn’t be impeached, he didn’t start the war. But the fate of a President politically is not what makes it a US National Interest.
A US national interest is something that matters to the American people... not just a war of convenience that DC and a few old country zealots want.
Fortunately, Trump is not going to take your advice.
“It’s not in our national interest for that to happen.”
It absolutely IS in our national interest.
- Detente with Russia
- Normalization of commodity markets
Trump is interested in all of that but the war in Ukraine will have to get resolved first. He is giving Putin that opportunity. But Putin may not be willing to play ball.
Crimea won’t fly because that is Russian. Belarus won’t agree to that because they aren’t a party to this. Telling Belarus Russians cannot be there would be like trying to get an agreement that US Troops cannot be in Poland.
I think Moldova could work, but the Russians won’t withdraw from Transnistria.
Basically, that plan would probably provoke a demand from Russia that the Baltics, Poland and Romania also be demilitarized.
And you know another thing I would expect in a peace treaty but haven’t seen discussed, is access to the Baltic with Estonia and others harassing and stopping shipping going in an out of Russian ports to enforce our self-appointed sanctions... or any review of access in and out of the Bosphorus.
In all honesty, there will never be peace in the bloodlands, and it’s foolish to try to impose it. That region makes teh Brit/Irish war seem positively civil.
Guess we’ll see.
At least it does addresses all the things that Putin supposedly says he wants. Rights for Russian minorities, and no NATO presence up against the Russian border.
If that’s not good enough for Putin, then it will be clear then he wants a lot more than that.
I doubt he would. But the Russians know this is existential and no force of personality or deal making will make them sign onto something that achieves the NATO goal.
DC and London decided about a year ago to push for a Korean style DMZ frozen conflict and a rebuildup of Kiev forces. That is basically a slightly reduced version of the NATO war aims.
Turns out this was an actual red line and there’s no art of the deal, or Euro sophistry, that can talk the winning side into a deal that is bad for them and saves the Uke side.
And even if a deal appears close, the western admitted Minsk II deception did incalculable damage to trust. They aren’t going sign a new deal until they are convinced the west is trustworthy.
Even if they trust Trump, and I think they do, they know in 18 months the barely trustworthy House Repubs will lose the house, and Trump will be fighting for survival against impeachments and investigations again. They see him already hitting a judicial insurrection already. There must be already 80 or 100 injunctions that are gumming up the works.
Anything they sign with President Trump won’t be worth the paper it’s written on as soon as 18 months out. Certainly not in 3 years.
He faced the same problem with Kim. I think he could have actually got a peace treaty and reunification started... but Kim saw Bolton raising hell inside Trump’s cabinet. He saw the GOP leaders Graham and McConnell threatening to impeach him constantly, (which came true a few months later).
Kim knew any deal he tried with Trump would be ripped up in a year or less.
The Russians notified of this launch about three weeks ago, which is apparently in compliance with several treaties, even some of those suspended. This is ancient news. They already cleared relevant airspace.
Ukraine isn’t our to lose. Why should anyone in the US give a rats a$$?
I guess that’s why he’s hiding out at the Vatican, afraid to go home in Kiev.
Rights for Russian minorities, and no NATO presence up against the Russian border.
That’s a good point. But in light of the incredible damage to trust done by the Minsk II deception, I think promises of rights for minorities would ring hollow and I can’t imagine how it could be ensured, and they see Crimea as Russian, and it has been longer than Ohio has been American.
They won’t agree to joint ownership of Crimea with the Banderists. And do think they won’t withdraw from anywhere they are without seeing a NATO pull back.
They pulled back all the way from Berlin into their present borders and NATO pursued them and is now knocking on their door and begrudgingly begging for a 30 day R&R for the Ukes.
My prediction is this goes on and on. Our betters and defense industry keep gorging on money as long as it goes. It will go on until one side or the other collapses economically. NATO won’t be able to stomach a “defeat”, and the Russians see it as existential.
BTW and all of this and not a thing is being offered to Russia. Sanctions, the fake Hague war crimes cases, SWIFT, the gold and currency we confiscated... not a word about any of that.
Russia also knows that will be beyond discussion when there is a cease-fire with NATO peacekeepers.
It’s quite a pickle.
Yeah, it’s like those tests we do a couple of times a year from Vandenberg.
Unless the “UFOs” are ours. But they aren’t going to let to that until things get real hot.
The Ukrainian cause really got hyped up by the mass media, so you had millions of people who probably couldn't find Ukraine on a map prior to February 2022 suddenly flying Ukrainian flags or pasting maps of Ukraine with American falg colors on the sides of their trucks - all that fuss over a place they knew and cared next to nothing about just a few days earlier. It's a classic case of astroturfing. Reminds me of all the people who wouldn't know Kuwait from Australia on a map of the world wearing "Free Kuwait" t-shirts back in 1990.
It’ll either be a neonazi dictatorship with, no semblance of freedom. Or Russians with significantly more freedom. But there are no Jeffersons, Adams, Madisons or Washingtons waiting in the wings there.
Even if Ukraine's maximalist goals (getting Crimea and Donbas back) are achieved, it's will still be going nowhere fast with a corrupt kleptocracy in charge. At best, it will be somewhere between Bulgaria and Belarus in economic and social development - though it was behind both in per capita GDP even before Russia invaded. The notion of it being a Slavic version of the USA in the making (or even a more easterly version of Poland) is laughable. It's almost as laughable as the people who think that Ahmad Al Shara in Syria has shed his Al Quaeda baggage and is on the path to being an Arab Thomas Jefferson.
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