Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-26

[crazy canuck]

The Daily Express (so yeah) reports that European leaders are considering dumping trillions of dollars of US debt if the US "sells out" Ukraine...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2140719/trump-ukraine-russia-peace-deal-europe

I'd entirely ignore the Express. Interesting to see what the WSJ report it's summarising says though. I've not seen anyone else pick it up so my assumption is they've put a fair bit of spin on a throwaway line in the WSJ.

And it looks like it mostly originated as a Reddit post.  Both it and the WSJ report were both probably drafted by AI.

Although there was a bit of a bond sell off today, but for the usual kinds of reasons. Not because of displeasure with US policy over Ukraine.

[Tonitrus]

There is no way those cowards will risk pissing off Daddy Trump

I think they would be fine pissing off Trump, but bringing down the US economy would likely bring down everyone else's economy.  It would be game of chicken, see who blinks first.  Trump often backs down with faced with real resistance.  Anyway, at this point I am fine with destroying the economy.

It worked for China.

[Valmy]

Yeah. Trying to be friends with Trump is the path to disaster. He sees being friendly as a sign of weakness. He will betray you.

Canada and Mexico eventually learned from trying to play nice last time. The UK just has no self respect.

[crazy canuck]

Yep, recently Carney was asked when he will speak with Trump again, his answer was basically "why would I do that?"

[Josquius]

Yeah. Trying to be friends with Trump is the path to disaster. He sees being friendly as a sign of weakness. He will betray you.

Canada and Mexico eventually learned from trying to play nice last time. The UK just has no self respect.

We have leverage.
We control access to golf and kings.

[Sheilbh]

There's no leverage and there's no friendship with Trump (although I'm not sure that he's actually worse than what's going on with the rest of the GOP like Vance). But I've said before but I think foreign policy has been the one area Starmer's done pretty well Very challenging, but I think he's managed it about as effectively as you could expect.

Although I'd say that is just purely on the foreign policy side, I think when it interacts with the rest of his policies and particularly spending it's bad - especially with defence spending. And ultimately I think we're in a more hard-edged period when actually that's what matters and he's not moving far or fast enough (on the other hand I see that deployment of Ajax, after a decade of development, has had to be halted because it makes the soldiers sick - so maybe we shouldn't spend until we work out how to do things ).

[Zoupa]

Seems Budanov has a few cards, Mr Trump.

[Syt]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-that-if-europe-wants-war-then-russia-is-ready-2025-12-02/

Putin warns Europe: if you want war, then Russia will defeat you
By Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned European powers on Tuesday that if they started a war with Russia then Moscow was ready to fight and that the defeat of European powers would be so absolute that there would be no one left to even negotiate a peace deal.

Almost four years into thewar in Ukraine, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, Russia has failed to conquer the country, a much smaller neighbour which has been supported by European powers and the United States.

Ukraine and European powers have repeatedly warned that if Putin wins the Ukraine war then he could attack a NATO member, a claim which Putin has repeatedly dismissed as nonsense.

Asked by a reporter about remarks in the Russian media that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had cautioned that Europe was preparing a war against Russia, Putin said that Russia did not want a war with Europe.

"If Europe suddenly wants to start a war with us and starts it," Putin said, then it would end so swiftly for Europe that Russia would have no one left to negotiate with. Putin used the Russian word for "war".

He also suggested that the war in Ukraine was not a full-blown war and that Russia was acting in a "surgical" manner which would not be repeated in a direct confrontation with European powers.

PUTIN SAYS EUROPE IS HINDERING TRUMP'S PEACE EFFORTS

Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War.

U.S. officials say more than 1.2 million Russian and Ukrainian men have been killed in the war. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses its losses.

Putin accused European powers of hindering U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to end the war in Ukraine by putting forward proposals they knew would be "absolutely unacceptable" to Moscow so they could then accuse Russia of not wanting peace.

Putin said European states had locked themselves out of peace talks on Ukraine by cutting off contacts with Russia, adding: "They are on the side of war."

Putin also threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the sea in response to drone attacks on tankers of Russia's "shadow fleet" in the Black Sea.

[Syt]

Was looking at the casualty numbers on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war#Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine_(2022%E2%80%93present)

Even with the low estimates of 200k dead Russians (plus 500-800k wounded) those are numbers not seen since Iran-Iraq War, I believe (though Russia obviously has a larger population than both combined at the time of the war).

[Zoupa]

Conservative estimates for russians KIA in the battle of Bakhmut are around 50 000.

Granted, that was probably the most meat assaults we've seen in this war.

It wouldn't surprise me to have russian KIAs as 10 times that overall.