TACO Trump got no deal out of Putin in Alaska and dropped his demand for a cease fire after saying it should happen immediately after his talks. No ramping up of sanctions either.
What next? Word is that he's agreed to Putin keeping the land he's stolen with no security concessions. All this without Ukraine at the table.
Has America forgotten all this?
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
Witkoff is claiming that Putin expressed a willingness to allow strong security guarantees for Ukraine. Since the proposed guarantees would be little short of NATO membership I find that hard to believe. At the least it would prove to the world that Russia’s real motive in starting the war was acquiring territory from Ukraine..
More likely Putin made vague noises without committing to anything - and will never agree to strong security guarantees .
The European leaders from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO will not be present at the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting. They will meet with Trump in a separate meeting afterwards. This is not good. They need to be present at the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting, at which JD Vance is also expected to be present, in order to support Zelenskyy and prevent a repeat of the March Oval Office mugging.
It must be the position of all freedom loving countries that aggression cannot be rewarded, and that one country cannot dictate the foreign policy of another country nor the membership policies of an independent organization. Showing strong support for the sovereignty of nations is critical.
Trump has announced that he will tell Zelenskyy to relinquish his claims on Crimea and to cease his efforts to join NATO when he meets with him at the White House today.
unsurprisingly trump doesn't understand the meaning of "unconstitutional" and how it pertains to the proposal of Ukraine giving up territory. trump should also go fuck himself.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds soon I discovered that this rock thing was true Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world And so there was only one thing I could do Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On *not an actual doctor
After repeatedly expressing scepticism that Ukraine could continue to hold its own against Russia, last week Trump said Kyiv could "win all of Ukraine back in its original form" – a shift that reportedly even surprised Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky.
Vladimir Putin's response to Donald Trump's peace efforts has been a clear escalation in Russian attacks.
But they don't only target the Ukrainian capital.
In the eastern Donbas region, more than 20 civilians were killed by a Russian glide bomb on Tuesday as they queued to collect their pensions.
Its ironic that Ukrainian deaths are seemingly more serious than Gaza deaths. Of course, Hamas is to blame, and Israel wont face international charges of genocide any more than Russia will. War is hell.
When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy God alone is God *but* God is not alone~Ellis Potter We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
Critics would of course say that "God" is a product of human imagination...but then again God may well declare that all of creation is a product of His imagination! It is all in the perspective of the observer.~Phat
Do you think it makes any difference to anything what Trump says Phat? You know he’ll say something different tomorrow.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine.
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
We're seeing the same with US companies not reacting to Trump's tariffs. Of course, at first they were jumping and panicking over every announcement, but then as soon as the TACO reality set in ("Trump Always Chickens Out") and they realized that he's just going to say something completely different tomorrow, they no longer jump every time he says "Boo!" and just wait for his new position tomorrow or the day after that, etc.
quote:
"He's a fucking moron!" -- Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after that first Cabinet meeting in 2017
Fortunately for us, Trump is too stupid to think with Cardassian cunning:
One might legitimately conclude that, after 4 years of escalating sanctions on Russia because of its war on Ukraine, that there would be almost nothing left for the west to sanction, but you'd be wrong. In a very technical article Brookings reports on Stiffening European sanctions against the Russian oil trade. Apparently there's still a lot left to sanction. Did you know the west provides insurance to Russian oil operations, including tankers and production? Me either.
At the beginning of this war I declared that sanctions would be ineffective. This wasn't a result of any detailed analysis, nor any analysis at all, not even a cursory one. It was based on the history of sanctions which records a lengthy string of failures. They don't work, and my bet is that the main reason is that sanctioning countries, afraid of hurting their own economies, impose the least injurious sanctions first, then gradually ramp them up over time at a rate that gives the target country plenty of room to find options that ease or even eliminate the pain of the sanctions.
I just witnessed a very minor sanction. It is traditional for opponents to shake hands after a tennis match, but at the match's conclusion between Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus (a Russian neighbor and puppet state, er, ally) and Elina Svitolina of Ukraine at the recent Australian Open there was no handshake. Ukrainian tennis players refuse to shake the hands of Belarusian and Russian tennis players, and that has been true throughout the entire 4 years of the war.
This is a symbolic sanction of honor, not of economics or politics, and while meaningful it is not effective. It would seem that the sanctions of the west have been equally ineffective so far.
quote:
VALENTYNA ROMANENKO Thu, March 5, 2026 at 5:51 AM PST 1 min read
Source: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on X (Twitter)
Quote: "We condemn Iran's strike on Azerbaijan, which follows its reckless attacks on countries in the Middle East and Europe.
There was never any reason for Iranian terrorists to harm Azerbaijan, Ukraine by giving their drones to Russia, or other countries where they have caused chaos, murder and destabilisation.
Iran's attack on Azerbaijan once again demonstrates that the regime in Tehran is a global threat, not a regional one. And it is not only about Iran but also its terrorist allies, including Russia."
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and immediately called for Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts to be independent. But Russia slaughtered many in the area during the occupation, and by 2024 80% of the once Pro-Russian Oblast's supported joining NATO. Russia then insisted they be annexed, but the residents opposed being part of Russia. Putin said the "situation on the ground has changed" when he was asked why he earlier supported independence.
The Russians early in the invasion supported a ceasefire, but as time went on it was Russia that opposed peace.
Iran armed Russia with drones, and they were cheap and effective.
Russia refuses the ceasefire now and has for quite a while. Russia has been arming Iran with thousands of anti air craft missiles as recently as this week.
Ukraine and Boris Johnson were right to refuse a ceasefire in 2022 - they read the tealeaves accurately and saw Russia for the threat that it was and is.
Ukraine was fighting the righteous fight. The Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts were in a civil war type of situation with Ukraine, pre February 2022, but Russia proved to be the oblast's people's worst enemy. The people clearly supported Ukraine and NATO but Russia refused to grant them independence.
Ukraine's fight against Russia has been a fight for us all.
11 countries have requested anti-drone weapons from Ukraine.
BBC just reported - 11:15 EST - that Ukraine has developed extremely cheap, extremely easy to build, extremely fast remote-controlled drone-destroying helicopters. And countries that have been attacked by Iran want the product, and they want these things very badly. Ukraine, in return, wants guarantees for anti-missile technology.
Other news:
quote:
Two-time Olympic medalist comments on Iran’s attack on Azerbaijan Story by Богуслав РоманенкO
On his Instagram page, Parviz slammed Iran’s strike on the airport in his homeland.
“As practice shows, ‘neighbors’ are not always good — or good at all,” Nasibov wrote.
“Iran attacks an Azerbaijani airport with a Shahed… I have long known what kind of country Iran is. Now, I think, the whole world will find out what a vile country it is.”
I hate to call the latter "news" as the international media wants to ignore the Iranian attack on Azerbaijan. Multiple attacks, actually.
Ukraine has been right about just about everything the past four years, and it has been right to take drone threats seriously. Research and Development is something we as humans have failed miserably at, and it is dangerous to our lives not to mention our economies. Look at the oil crisis we could be about to risk entering into.
(I think we all see the foolishness of not building oil pipelines, though that is another topic. There should be infrastructure in the Middle East that enables the oil to be piped to the Mediterranean. Here in the United States, the West Coast and North East suffers much higher oil prices, and it is because they don't have pipelines from the petroleum producing regions of the United States. The oil has to be shipped via sea from the far reaches of the planet! Stupid.)
(And what about refineries? We are too cheap and stupid to build more of these?)
("National Security" is compromised because we are cheap and stupid - and we pay for it 1000 times over during a crisis, and one that could have been avoided)
™ Version 4.2
(1)