Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[mongers]

Excellent AP News Photo presentation of 1,000 days of war in Ukraine, warning included phots of the dead:

AP PHOTOS: 1,000 days of war in Ukraine captured in images

Includes these two:



Elena Holovko sits among debris while being helped outside her house that was damaged after a missile strike in Druzhkivka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)



Ukrainian military doctors treat their injured comrade who was evacuated from the battlefield at the hospital in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Well this is an interesting 'slip of the tongue' if true:

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Europe and Ukraine will be "done for" if Russia comes to an agreement with the US on a ceasefire. Lukashenko said Moscow and Washington would hold Europe's fate "in their hands".

I'll try to find a better source.

edit:
It's on AP and several news websites, maybe it's a mistranslation or I'm not reading it right?

It is staple Russian propaganda.

[Josquius]

Kursk looks to have had a smidge of reality to it. Some big equipment losses.
I wonder why they couldn't sabotage them before/after running?- or set them up as traps when Russian salvagers come.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/13/the-things-they-left-behind-retreating-from-kursk-the-ukrainians-abandoned-some-of-their-best-weapons/

[mongers]

Leaving aside words like fascism and Godwin's law, I'm surprised that I've yet to see a mainstream tv news report that looks at the putin-trump 'negotiations' about Ukraine, in the light of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Trump plans to speak to Putin about land and power plants


On board his presidential plane Air Force One on Sunday evening, US President Donald Trump announced to reporters that he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

He said "a lot of work" has been done over the weekend, and they will see if they have "something to announce" on Tuesday.

It comes one week after US and Ukraine delegates met in Saudi Arabia, where they announced the prospect of a 30-day ceasefire - the first step to ending the war.

However, the US is still trying to convince Russia to agree.

On the talks with Putin, Trump says: "I think we'll be talking about land. It's a lot different than it was before the war, as you know. We'll be talking about power plants, that's a big question.

"But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets and they've been working on that."

source: From the BBC Live feed Ukraine page.


Given the above 'talks' I think it's a comparison worth outlining to the wider public.

Incidentaly I'd not compare trump to Hitler, but rather Stalin, someone who is ruthlessly taking advantage of countries weaknesses, whilst placating the hitler of our time.

[Duque de Bragança]

I have seen it in the French press,

https://www.marianne.net/monde/accord-de-munich-pacte-germano-sovietique-entre-trump-et-poutine-un-retour-a-la-fin-des-annees-1930

see pacte germano-soviétique

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/vu-de-hongrie-le-lachage-de-l-ukraine-par-trump-un-air-de-1939_228004#:~:text="Un%20nouveau%20pacte%20Molotov%2DRibbentrop,lança%20la%20Seconde%20Guerre%20mondiale.

French translation of a Hungarian website article, courtesy of Courrier international

[Tamas]

"But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets and they've been working on that."

Holy shit.

[Zanza]

I think Trump will soon learn that his power is limited with regards to Ukraine.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I think Trump will soon learn that his power is limited with regards to Ukraine.

indeed. And so far Europe is still walking the walk and talking the talk, given their recent promises of additional aid.

[Zanza]

He can of course bully them as he usually does, but that will not by itself extinguish the fighting spirit of a nation that has endured much worse for three years.

[Zoupa]

Ukraine won't sign anything without clear-cut security guarantees. I'm 2000% sure Trump won't sign anything with clear-cut security guarantees.

That's not even mentioning that muscovy won't sign anything without their ridiculous demands.

Trump's america is quickly becoming irrelevant.

[mongers]

I have seen it in the French press,

https://www.marianne.net/monde/accord-de-munich-pacte-germano-sovietique-entre-trump-et-poutine-un-retour-a-la-fin-des-annees-1930

see pacte germano-soviétique

https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/vu-de-hongrie-le-lachage-de-l-ukraine-par-trump-un-air-de-1939_228004#:~:text="Un%20nouveau%20pacte%20Molotov%2DRibbentrop,lança%20la%20Seconde%20Guerre%20mondiale.

French translation of a Hungarian website article, courtesy of Courrier international

Duque, thanks for that, interesting.

All see if I can find much on mainstream UK sites I haven't tried.

[Sheilbh]

Ukraine won't sign anything without clear-cut security guarantees. I'm 2000% sure Trump won't sign anything with clear-cut security guarantees.

That's not even mentioning that muscovy won't sign anything without their ridiculous demands.

Trump's america is quickly becoming irrelevant.

I thought this was interesting on the chance of Russia signing up to anything - why I think the 30 day ceasefire proposal is very canny:

Ukraine talks show that 'macho' Putin hates tough decisions
The Russian president is buying time before a ceasefire deal is struck. Will his big opportunity slip away?
Mark Galeotti
Saturday March 15 2025, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times

Faced with the proposal of a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is doing what he does best: creative dithering. By saying that he is broadly in favour but "there are nuances" which need "painstaking research on both sides", he is in effect delaying having to accept or reject the proposal. He may be hoping to buy time to get the best deal, but the fear in Moscow is that he will lose the opportunity altogether.

A pattern of avoidance

This approach does not "demonstrate that Putin is not serious about peace" as Sir Keir Starmer put it, nor is it simply "promising but incomplete" as Donald Trump said. Instead, it highlights the way that, for all his macho public persona, Putin is uncomfortable making tough decisions, especially when forced to respond quickly. From deciding how to handle the maverick Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov's murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015 (Putin disappeared from public view for a fortnight) to handling the terrible dilemmas of Covid (he essentially dumped the responsibility on his officials), when there are no easy answers, he tries to dodge or delay.

Even though the US-Ukrainian ceasefire proposal is really just a means to open space for preliminary peace negotiations — essentially talks about talks — the stakes are high for Putin.

Reject the ceasefire and he risks alienating Trump. Accept it and he is likely to anger the Russian ultra-nationalists who are few in number but hold disproportionate political clout (and are primed to radicalise a returning generation of veterans by telling them they had been stabbed in the back). There is a sense that, as one thinktanker close to the Kremlin put it, Putin wants "just enough time to get his head round the new situation".

Who benefits?

Putin is not necessarily opposed to any deal. In recent weeks, for example, he has been willing to do something he previously resisted: divert forces from the Donbas front to the fighting on Russian soil in Kursk, allowing the Ukrainians to make some limited counterattacks in the east as a result. This suggests that he envisages a ceasefire happening and wants to make absolutely sure that no Russian territory is left behind when the fighting stops and the frontlines are frozen.

A truce would allow Ukraine to regroup and rearm, but it would offer the same chance to Russia. While Moscow claims the Ukrainians would benefit the most, a defence analyst in Kyiv assessed that the Ukrainians were hampered by "continuing manpower shortages, whereas the Russians can rotate their forces and also use the pause to redirect them to regain the initiative" along the Donbas front.

Accepting the 30-day deal would not commit Putin to anything — again, the negotiations can be subjected to death by a thousand nitpicks — but it would reduce the possibility that Trump comes to regard him, not President Zelensky, as the main obstacle to peace.

Political means

Many Russian officials also feel Putin's ultimate goal — establishing a degree of hegemony over Kyiv — would best be achieved through political means. A complete military conquest of Ukraine is now inconceivable. However, as one Russian foreign ministry insider put it, "Once the war is over and the Ukrainians are demanding more and more reconstruction aid, and a fast-track into the European Union, then watch Europe tire of its 'heroic friends'."

Will Putin be too nervous to take the next step and follow through with negotiations, though? His armies have been advancing, albeit at terrible cost, and while the technocrats in his government are warning about the growing economic damage caused by the combination of sanctions, inflation and excessive defence spending, he tends to underplay the importance of economics.

Carrots and sticks

Up to now, Trump has focused on getting the Ukrainians to, as he sees it, fall into line, while waving carrots such as potential sanctions relief at Russia. There is, however, considerable concern in Moscow that he could soon wield the stick, instead. Officials around Putin remember that in his first presidential term Trump ended up taking a tougher line against the Kremlin than Obama did (including sending Javelin anti-tank weapons to Ukraine and attacking Russia's ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria with Cruise missiles).

Andrei Kartapolov, a Russian general turned senior parliamentarian, warned not to "expect anything from Trump ... he is not our friend", because the time will come when his and Russia's interests will no longer coincide.

The worry is not so much about more economic sanctions, for all Trump's earlier warning that he was "strongly considering" new measures until a ceasefire and final peace are agreed. In practice there is little room for escalation there without wreaking disproportionate damage on western economies.

Together against Europe

Rather, the risk is that a historic window of opportunity will be lost to forge a new alignment with Washington against Europe. Trump famously believes that "the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States" and is now involved in a trade war with the bloc. Meanwhile, Moscow portrays the Europeans as war-mongers eager to waste Ukrainian lives simply to hurt Russia.

From the Kremlin's perspective, the latest developments highlight European weakness. Starmer's "coalition of the willing" is not taken seriously, as the envisaged deployment of peacekeepers or ceasefire monitors would depend on Russia agreeing to a deal that stops fighting first, and on US support, in effect granting both Washington and Moscow a veto.

One senior European military officer, previously very gung-ho about a potential role in the conflict, is now sounding much more deflated: "A wonderful idea in theory," he sighed, "but the more we look at practicalities, the more it looks as if Europe is years from having the kind of capability and credibility required."

Workshopping options

For all his absolute control of Russia, Putin is politically cautious. So, in what is a familiar tactic, the Kremlin is using the Russian media to gauge opinion within the public and the elite over various different options.

But this goes both ways. Sensing that Putin is undecided, different interests are in turn using the public debate to influence him. As the president's own circle shrinks and the chain of gatekeepers controlling access to him grows more impenetrable, one of the best, last ways to get to him is through his daily press digest.

The ultra-nationalist Tsargrad TV channel, for example, presents any pause in the fighting as betrayal, and argues that "there should be only one version of a peace treaty — on the conditions that Putin set out long ago". Meanwhile, in the business press, the potential benefits of sanctions relief and the return of foreign companies to the Russian market are being trailed.

Pushing for more

It is a classic Moscow gambit to slow or kill negotiations by nitpicking point after point. Putin's stone-faced diplomats know exactly how to reject the ceasefire in practice while pretending that they are committed to constructing a watertight agreement.

However, if the Russian leader decides to accept the US-Ukrainian proposal then by trying to add conditions, Putin also hopes to shape future expectations. In the words of a British diplomat, "Any concessions now, such as over limiting arms supplies to Ukraine, the Kremlin will simply pocket and then ask for more when it comes to any peace talks."

Still dithering

By not rejecting the ceasefire deal out of hand and through token measures such as agreeing to Trump's request to spare the lives of Ukrainian troops alleged to be surrounded in the Kursk operation (Kyiv denies that this is the case), Putin is buying himself time. Notoriously unwilling to be associated with failure, he will be determined to drive Ukraine out of Russia before any deal is reached. But his appearance last week in Kursk wearing military fatigues (rather awkwardly) shows how confident he is that this part of the process is almost complete. Then it will be decision time.

Even in Moscow, no one really knows what he will eventually do. The concern is that he will be paralysed by the risks on both sides. The White House is unlikely to remain patient for long. As one veteran political observer there said on Saturday morning, "We're all living on accelerated 'Trump-time' now, and the longer Putin stalls, the more likely he'll miss the opportunity." He paused. "God only knows what happens then."

[grumbler]

Trump's america is quickly becoming irrelevant.

From your mouth to God's ear.

[Legbiter]

Not unexpected.

VILNIUS, March 18 (Reuters) - NATO members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia plan to withdraw from the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel mines due to the military threat from their neighbour Russia, the four countries said on Tuesday.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-baltic-nations-pull-out-landmines-convention-2025-03-18/

[Admiral Yi]

bravo