It’s sad to see these final betrayals from Trump and Musk, but hardly surprising. Even now, there’s room for optimism though. These are desperate measures from Putin’s goon squad of supervillains. That isn’t even hyperbole, and it’s really shocking that we barely blink an eye that the president of the US and the richest man in the world are so obviously in cahoots with the Demon King of Moscow.

But - this is supposed to be optimistic. And here’s why: This is ALL they can do, and Ukraine still has the capability to say “Fuck Off”.

And also an upside - their masks are fully off. You can see who the teams are and what they care about.

This is not going to change the battlefield dynamics in a time frame where both Trump and Putin are alive and in power. It will force Ukraine to find some workarounds, and may reduce their capabilities, but does nothing to improve Russia’s in the near term.

There are more threats from the populists on putin’s payroll in Europe - but Ukraine doesn’t have to accept a bad peace just yet. There’s even cause for optimism that Trump and Musk have to do these things at all - it means that Russia is at a late stage of desperation and wants them to get Russia peace it doesn’t deserve on military basis.

  • TwinkleToes@lemmy.caOP
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    2 days ago

    Exactly. If you ever trusted Trump and Mush, you have borscht for brains.

    Europe is led by very smart people who have better proof of Trump’s devotion to Russia than us internet muggles. They have plans within plans. Part of what I’m trying to say is that TrumPutin and Mush are just so transparent and, frankly, bad at this. It’s cluminess and desperation highlights how stupid they are. They have very little leverage over Ukraine anymore because they already pissed it all away in ham-fisted extortion attempts before.

    Russia is pleading with Trump and Mush to get them something worthwhile out of this stupid invasion because:

    • a) they know what they’ve done is a desperately failing project b) they can’t get a better outcome on the battlefield by themselves. c) Trump is going to have his legislative balls cut off in a couple of weeks. Everything he wants to do will be harder going forward

    Trump may well just flip the table in America and cause a violent crisis by interfering with the election and refusing to honor any defeat, but that too will end up making him both distracted and weaker. He will spend all his remaining days figuring out how to avoid being thrown into prison or liquidated. Point being - he won’t be very useful to Russia to try and strong arm Ukraine into a bad peace. If there is any justice in this universe, the remaining months of his truly vile lifetime will be spent in rage and impotent paranoia.

    All that to say - what Ukraine probably should do is endure for a while longer - their enemies are in very VERY precarious situations. Even Mush could find his outlook very different with Trump dead and Putin more focused on quelling coup plotting at home.

    Besides - nobody expects this malignant form of Russia to honor any peace. The best strategy for Ukraine might be to keep bleeding the Russian army until they REALLY learn their lesson and are incapable of doing this again in the future. Russia ONLY understands pain, after all. Let them squeal for a peace they don’t deserve.–