Why do you feel the need to personally attack me Imp. If I have personally attacked you in these posts please point out where and I will immediately apologise.

There's nothing shifting about what Putin is. Hands up who thought Prigozhin wouldn't get whacked?

"Why do you feel the need to personally attack me Imp. If I have personally attacked you in these posts please point out where and I will immediately apologise."

I dunno I'm sorry.

Just something I feel strongly about. I sympathise with the people of Ukraine and what they are going through. I admire their strength and not just letting Putin take everything away from them.

I've never flagged off Zelensky for not being petrified of Trump though have I. For a bloke who claims to only deal in hard facts you seem to confuse opinion and fact constantly.
My criticism was of the farce that was played out in front of the world by actors who should have known far better and shown far more constraint - on both sides. Played right into Putins hands.
As for your childish suggestion that mineral rights be sold to China, that wont further suit Putin or put Trumps back up further will it? Probably push us closer to another WW in fact.

I 100% also sympathise with the people of Ukraine but this whole situation was avoidable and should never have taken place. The Ukrainians are badly suffering for a war they never asked for but Zelensky is a whole different ball game.

Be fair, everyone’s had trouble with cowboy contractors….

Trump is offering nothing except broken assurances. Putin is stealing his country. Europe is lazy. I don't think he would care about any of them.

Zelensky showed restraint. It would have been fair to kick Trump in the slats.

The official title is ‘butler’ but prefers ‘valet’.

They never asked for Russia stealing land and making cock and bull Nazi/Nato/Russian speaker oppression/non existant missile reasons either. Nobody forced Russia to invade, they did their usual false-flag crap and did it anyway.

They're heads of state ffs speaking in front of the world's media and there was no restraint or diplomacy on display all round. Huge win for Putin who will smell the weakening support from the US and act on it.
Will Trump deal with Zelensky without a public apology now? Hopefully he will because without the US support it's all over for Ukraine.

Rachel Maddie !?
She’s a well known Russian conspiracy nut

https://www.facebook.com/819218846/post ... iNWSCxLnl/?
Fortunately Zelensky kept his cool.

Bottom line on this is Ukraine thinks this is a global conflict and US thinks it’s a regional one.
I don’t agree with the shite and tangents trump goes on, but for Zelensky to start shouting the odds and lecturing the people paying for his entire government (not just the war they also funding Ukrainians pensions etc..) was just bizarre
It’s a new world in the US and he didn’t get the memo

Zelensky wants US troops in to support any ceasefire , US made that clear it’s not happening and they aren’t funding this forever, either Europe puts their hands in their pockets, Everyone here ok with a few % tax rise on top of changing their Facebook profiles to blue and gold? Or Zelensky listens to what US are offering

Yeah straight down the middle is our Vlad

That's their perogative, absolutely. But they DID make assurances and that IS why Ukraine are relatively unarmed.

Zelensky did listen but there were no offers only demands. Trump wants all the money back PLUS more he's just added off the top of his head and that's not taking into consideration that most of the money just went back into US arms firms and not into the ether.

I'm happy for the defence budget to go up. Poland managed it.

Fair enough if you’re happy to pay more and have less to pay for a forever war.

In practical terms Vance was right (not about the say thank you nonsense) people been talking a good game last 3 years while working class kids on both sides get killed

If Europe really believe this is existenstial then time to step up and fund this with money and people….i suspect that won’t be a popular position when it gets real and it’s European and British soldiers getting killed or in harms way

See this is a good example of us all having a different perspective on this war. My opinion is Putin had no alternative but to move into Ukraine. I have spent more than 12 yrs studying the Russian Ukraine UN & USA situation and it's my firm opinion this could have and should have been avoided. You disagree which is your perogative and maybe you have also spent time on the history etc. It's only my opinion and in no way do I want to convince anyone just putting the other side of a very complicated coin.

Security, safety, peace, it has all been bought and maintained by violence or the usually unstated threat of it. Liberalism has helped but it's not perfect and sooner or later the price becomes due. It's nice in a way that we have had a bigger dollop of peace since 1945 and that people have been able to forget how it is won and maintained but nevertheless freedom is not free.

Fair enough as I say when push comes to shove and this means uk soldiers and more cuts in public’s services and tax rises I suspect you will be in a minority position that this is a price worth paying so Ukrainians and Russians (and now maybe Brit’s) can kill each other into a stalemate

Why do you think he could not have done something else? It was quite drastic and has been a real disaster for Russia?

Why do you think his justification is so vague and unbelievable? Why did he not start an SMO in Finland when they indicated they wished to join NATO? Not asked in a dismissive way, just asked for pure discussion. Honest this time.

Trump keeps stressing to Zelensky that he has no cards to play.

My opinion is that in essence Donald Trump is correct - and he is taking maximum advantage of that to get what he wants.

If anyone can educate me as to any cards the Ukrainians do have up their sleeves I'd be very interested to hear what they are.

In a nut shell it's the American banks ( World Gangsters) wanting to take over Russia for mega huge financial gain. NATO a toy designed to force that to happen by hook line or sinker. In my humble opinion greed has taken over the World in a huge way like never before it's always about the money. Virtually every war has been forced and financed by these people for huge profits. The very same is happening now with high energy / food prices etc. Money more and more money and the power it supplies.

The scariest part for me is people still believe prices will come tumbling down when things improve. That will NEVER happen in a million years the devide now between the wealthy and the rest is enormous so much so it's the wealthy verses the poor with the middle class soon to be a distant memory.

I would agree with you but that relies on being able to imagine governments as evil genius schemers when in reality most struggle to organise a proper bin collection.

I've studied Marx a bit. That ain't the answer either unfortunately.

It's not the goverments who make wars it's the bankers. No one will agree but it's my opinion the so called governments and so called leaders are nothing but puppets on strings held by the bankers. Look over there not over here policy that has worked wonders for them for well over 100 years now. One of the Mayor Amschel Rothchilds once said and I quote " give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes it's laws " think that tells its own story.

Answer to what

"If anyone can educate me as to any cards the Ukrainians do have up their sleeves I'd be very interested to hear what they are."

Apart from being bloody brave and bloody ingenious.... I dunno sadly. They gave away their cards years ago, thinking it was done in good faith.

An equitable system for all.

No I get this. Unelected power, like Musk, not real democracy. If you think about it, there isn't a conversation about the UK economy without reference to the influence of 'business' or 'the markets'.

Exactly Imp My thoughts are always that these people " get off " on us lot disagreeing on governments / wars / price hikes etc because that's what they intended when they started this control system . To be honest you really have to give them a lot of credit for playing a blinder for over 100 years. Also worth bearing in mind these people plan many years in advance to get the result they want. I used to date a girl in London back in the 80s and her dad was fairly high up in government ( I am not going to name him that would be out of order ) and once over lunch at his luxury Chelsea apartment he told me its all a game and planned out to happen upto 50 yrs in advance. I asked what happens if things are not going perfectly and he laughed and said they constantly adjust their plan to suit ( he was not talking about the government but the bankers ) Nice bloke easy to get along with but deep n dark inside I suspect.

Yeah, it certainly looks that way.

I am surprised that the Americans put the boot into Zelensky quite as hard as they did, but I guess that's the world we now inhabit.

I would've at least had the decency to give him some fancy scran and a few glasses of expensive whisky before butt-fucking him.

Bad form displayed by the Donald for not even giving the poor bastard a reach-around...

Good relevant believable stuff.

However regardless of how the war started, it has started and Russians and Ukrainians are suffering. There is no good way in which it could end but there is a least bad way. This involves Ukraine staying free (sustainably). For this to happen, Russia has to be made to accept that it's nowhere near getting all of its demands. The alternative is, sorry Ukrainians, guess you better hand in your passports, take a Russian one instead and by the way, don't get rid of the uniforms, you're in the red army now and we've heard Russian speakers in Estonia are being oppressed.

A date hasn’t been confirmed so the U.K. could just keep putting the date back.

Don’t the States want access to $500 billion of Ukraines minerals basically for ‘free’ ?

More takes of the meeting, it would appear Vance not as popular as he thinks.
https://youtu.be/2buQ5kmABto?si=PEf0iIcP5WaXwRhs

There is also a podcast with Rory Stewart and Campbell in The Rest Is Politics on YouTube.
I know it might be difficult tfor some to reserve your comments about the people in the comments but they both talk sense
https://www.youtube.com/live/P07-8ZLiCh ... vzie01pOvx

Fact is ..Zelensky will eventually fall into line and Starmer will be Trumps butler quietly delivering Zelensky’s options available.
Good cop, bad cop, but both cops wanting the same end result.
Realpolitik in action.



Realpolitik in action triumphs again.

Realpolitik triumphs again …..

Yeah I agree...bullied by a gang of maniac bullies who've exerted extortion on the bullied and his Democratic Country.

That’s the nature of realpolitik….power triumphs….this time you saw what normally goes on behind closed doors and they all come out smiling.
The meek might inherit the Earth, but see how long they hang onto it.
Politics are nasty….nothing surprises me.

Think he means the bad guys won cos they've got guns n that. What a wonderful world.

The bad guy is in Moscow.
It’s the world we’ve always lived in…as Stalin said when someone said the Pope was powerful…he asked how many divisions the Pope had….and smiled.
It’s the way of the world, I’m past losing sleep or my temper over it.

You said Churchill said that last time!

No I didn’t…. it was always Stalin…google it.

I've just Googled it and Google said....Snowy.