Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦

Loving Himalayan trekking while I hack living on this planet

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

@AdrianP_doc What awesome people. Thank you for reminding me/us of your dedication and ethics. Wishing Ukraine wins SOON, and the war ends. We are indebted to Ukraine forces. Thank you for all you do.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

@kimberrry @Billbrowder Yep, and I hope the trump crime family lose far more than their shirts. Putin will fuck them over, and they fully deserve this ...

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

@mhmck NATO should threaten Belarus then destroy the repeaters as the first baby step (do Ukrainians press the missile button?). A few permutations but a way to begin less directly...

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

This is the only real solution. Imperialist russia must be destroyed.

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

All empires eventually fall. And so will the russian empire.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

Agreed. russian imperialism must be smashed to pieces, the country broken up.

[Dr. Alice Frost @PoliSciChick84]

It is utter nonsense to equate a sensible outcome for Ukraine with a maximalist set of demands. The terms follow logically from the objective.

We start with the question of what we want for Ukraine: a sovereign state that is free to develop on its own and strong enough that Russia cannot credibly threaten it again.

1. Ukraine cannot be required to surrender territory as the price of peace. Territorial gains would give Russia defensible forward positions from which to rebuild, rearm, and potentially attempt the remainder later. More importantly, if military aggression produces durable territorial gains, it changes the expected payoff from trying again. If Russia instead emerges from the war having gained nothing territorially despite enormous costs, the incentive structure is very different.

2. Political security assurances are insufficient. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum provided Ukraine with American, British, and Russian security assurances, but those assurances plainly did not deter Russia. Nor can Ukraine reasonably assume that political promises made by one government will necessarily bind its successors. A credible settlement therefore requires something much closer to NATO: binding commitments backed by integrated military planning, substantial capabilities, and preferably forces whose presence makes intervention in another Russian attack effectively unavoidable. Ukraine must also retain the ability to defend itself rather than making its survival dependent entirely upon foreign political decisions.

3. There is also a precedent problem. If Russia concludes that coercive force produced a positive return, that experience will enter its calculations in any future confrontation with Ukraine or even Europe. Any settlement must therefore make the expected cost of renewed aggression substantially greater than its expected benefit.

That rules out any settlement requiring Ukraine to surrender territory or military strength in exchange for political security assurances.

It also implies several things:

1. Russia should withdraw from all internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, restoring Ukraine's 1991 borders.

2. Ukraine must be permitted to maintain a large, technologically advanced military, with future NATO membership remaining available to it.

3. Russia should be required to pay reparations for the immense destruction caused by its war of aggression. Apart from compensating Ukraine, imposing those costs changes the prospective price of future aggression.

4. There must be accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including cooperation with competent international tribunals, and Russia must return Ukrainian children who were unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred.

Whether Russia's present leadership would accept such terms is another question entirely. It probably will not do so while it believes continued war offers a better expected payoff. The purpose of sustained military, economic, and diplomatic pressure is to change that calculation until ending the war becomes preferable to continuing it.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration appears to be operating under the delusion that it can force Ukraine into accepting a terrible deal simply for the sake of achieving one. It cannot (quite apart from the fact that it has lost much of its leverage by largely ending direct American military aid to Ukraine). Worse, its continued pressure on Ukraine gives Moscow reason to believe that prolonging the war may eventually produce concessions that Russia cannot win on the battlefield. As long as Russia believes that continued fighting may be rewarded in this way, it has an incentive to continue.

A future American administration must understand that any viable settlement has to leave Ukraine militarily strong and capable of deterring another Russian attack.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

Agreed

[The Shallow State @OurShallowState]

My good friend Dave in the UK, a longtime Republican when he lived here, tells me that Trump's erratic behavior, ill health, grift, threats, and ultimatums, disturbing as they are, are less disturbing than the continued enablement of him by the GOP.
He says he and his friends represent the global mindset among many politically astute pro-democracy world citizens, and they conclude that it's the GOP that is killing America.
Nobody would weep for the Iranian regime, Dave says, but the world still sees the Iranian people as real flesh and blood with families and dreams and emotions. Same as they see Israelis and Palestinians, and immigrants, legal or otherwise - these are people, they are not purely their governments.
But - he concludes - the GOP has become barren of humanity and make no distinction for it. They are about pure politics and political gain.
And when he considers how obvious it is that Trump and his cabinet are unchecked sociopaths, he concludes that the GOP chooses to imitate Trump's sociopathy for grift and gain, and he hates the shallowness of that. And the fact that it's not the exception but the norm within the GOP, is why he and his friends conclude: the GOP is killing America.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

I will forever blame the US for all of the disastrous events of 2025-2028+.
trump is a criminal who should have been locked up years ago, an insurrectionist who should have been struck off the ballot, and he is a malignant narcissist, and an idiot. America, your systems failed.

[Anonymous @YourAnonCentral]

The world is getting US fatigue, how can one country do so much crime and damage by itself to the entire global economy and all of our collective national securities? the bright side is, it'll smarten up a lot of democracies not to let their guard down. Never again, never forget.

[Glenn Tunes @glenn_tunes]

ALL OF THIS MADNESS IN THE WORLD BECAUSE A SMALL GROUP IN AMERICA CHOOSE TO PROTECT A DERANGED PEDOPHILE INSTEAD OF DOING THE RIGHT THING 🙄

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

russian imperialism must be broken. That will be the best result when Ukraine wins.

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

Russia is an empire that needs liberation.

Many people don’t realize that russia is still an empire. In fact, russia fits perfectly the definition of an empire: an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority. Also, the war against Ukraine is a direct result of russia's deep-seated imperialism and sense of superiority.

Russia is home to over 270 languages and dialects spoken by 193 ethnic groups, including more than 100 minority languages. Yet, russian is the only official language. The languages of oppressed minorities are often belittled, while russian is upheld as the language of intelligence, science, and education.

Minorities in russia are marginalized. They face constant bullying and are paid much less. Furthermore, it is primarily russian minorities who are used as cannon fodder in the war against Ukraine. This marginalization partly explains why many russians were so reluctant to defend their own country in battles like Kursk.

If the russian empire were to be liberated, it would likely split into at least a dozen smaller republics, each ruled by its indigenous population.

All empires fall, it is only the matter of time when the russian empire falls.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

@WXWatcher07 Please do update; we are planning to hike from Bolzano on the 25th ...

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

Someone needs to speak the uncomfortable truth that most European leaders prefer to ignore:

Countries bordering Russia are under way greater threat today than at any point since the Cold War.

Governments are trying to preserve foreign investment by downplaying the danger, but keeping quiet about our lack of readiness only increases our vulnerability. It even invites Russian aggression.

The best way to protect long-term foreign investment and prevent panic is not downplaying the threat, but building a force strong enough to deter and stop an invasion.

Russia has lost a lot of long-term economic potential because of its failed war in Ukraine, but it has turned into an ever more aggressive and militarized imperial state with a war economy.

Moscow outproduces the EU in essential munitions and maintains a dominant edge in unmanned warfare. With less to lose and far greater combat experience, Russia poses an almost immediate threat to its neighbors. It wants to invade and dominate us.

Russia can and will still mobilize and create enough units to threaten its neighbors even while at war with Ukraine. Also, if the war in Ukraine freezes or concludes, Moscow can quickly redirect some of its forces toward Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, or Poland. If Russia were to launch an invasion of a Baltic nation, Europe would likely fail to hold the line without US help, constrained by a severe lack of munitions and wartime logistics.

Can we really trust Trump to save us from Russia? Can our existence rely on this corrupt and unstable, pathetic traitor who sees Putin as his idol? Will Trump risk it all and go to war with Russia over Zilupe, Narva, Svalbard, some uninhabited island near Åland, Gotland, or some piece of forest in Lapland?

We face a moment of truth. We can continue looking away to safeguard short-term foreign investment and accept a higher risk of eventual Russian domination over us, or we can have tough discussions, face our unreadiness head-on, invest heavily in defense, and safeguard our independence, even if it costs us some foreign investment. The clock is ticking

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

The rise of Trump and American fascism could never have taken root without a mass base of people who are simultaneously stupid enough to believe the lies, hateful enough to cheer the cruelty, and ignorant enough to never notice the pattern. Add the billionaire class's pure transactional greed, and the result is not an accident — it is the deliberate Nazification of America, cheered on by the very people it will eventually discard.

[Andrew Moore @MooreIAm]

1. Expel all Russian diplomats. If they want to talk, pick up a phone in the Kremlin.

2. Ban all travel into Europe by Russians. They have the biggest country on earth. Maybe they should take a road trip. Watch out for long-range sanctions. Remember to fill up the tank.

3. Deport all Russians from Europe. They can vacation on the Black Sea by Putin's Dacha.

4. Designate Russia a terrorist state.

5. Challenge Russia's seat on the UN Security Council. The Soviet Union is dead. The Russian Federation is illegally on the Security Council.

[medoyid_ua @LetsArmUKR]

Putin isn’t looking for an off-ramp. War is the point. For the Russian state, conflict isn’t a tragedy. It’s the default operating system. An empire that can’t sustain itself without constant expansion and fresh corpses has no peaceful future by design. Moscow needs enemies the way a junkie needs a fix. Strip that away and the entire imperial project collapses.

That's why every Kremlin signal about negotiations is pure fakery. They will talk happily while grinding forward meter by meter. They trade their cheapest resource, Russian lives, for ruined Ukrainian villages that cost them more soldiers than civilians ever lived there. Four and a half years later, with half a million dead Russians and another million maimed, the propaganda still insists that fuel shortages and empty shelves are somehow noble. The goalposts keep shrinking until the only stated purpose left is to please Putin by capturing another couple of dots on a map.

No one can simply pause this country. It must be broken. The imperial structure itself is the threat. Until it is dismantled, Europe will never know stable peace. Ukraine needs help. It is doing the brutal, expensive work of containing and degrading the continental menace that Western capitals spent decades pretending was manageable. The math is simple. Either we finish the job of destroying Moscow’s ability to wage war, or we accept permanent war on European soil. There is no third option.

[Matthew Todd 🌏🔥 @MrMatthewTodd]

Be aware: They’re going to try to convince the public that the shocking weather disasters well see over the next 18 months are just because of the El Niño - and not explain it’s on the back of record global warming.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

There is something deeply sick about the fact that Russia’s elites at their own “economic forum” talk about anything and everything -- decades of total war, territorial conquests, annexations, the dismemberment of neighboring countries, nuclear strikes, world domination, the subjugation and absorption of other nations -- anything at all except a thing called "economy" as well as life in Russia itself.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

The systematic destruction of Ukraine by Russia is a genocide.

It is a deliberate effort to wipe out a people.

Looking away is an act of complicity. Words are cheap.

The current level of aid and action is nowhere near what is required to stop this tragedy

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

I have zero respect left for any Republican voter

[Michael MacKay @mhmck]

Americans allowed Trump – a child rapist and child torturer – to become their supreme leader twice. They will never be forgiven for this. The United States will never fully recover.

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

A war of orders: Russia, Ukraine, and the future of Europe in three texts.

My attention was drawn to three recent texts that read like a single argument. Duncan Allan explains why Russia is destroying the European order built after 1991. Olena Snigyr shows what kind of order Russia is building in its place. The SWP study describes what is emerging in response: European security with Ukraine inside it and Russia outside it.

The shared conclusion is clear. The war against Ukraine is not a war over territory. It is a war over how Europe is structured: who has the right to sovereignty, and who gets to write the rules of security.

Duncan Allan identifies the root cause. Russia acts according to the logic of a great power - and this is not merely about strength or influence, but about special rights: to rule at home without outside criticism, to maintain a sphere of influence, to limit the choices of its neighbors, and to demand recognition as an equal. This leads to a conclusion that many avoid: the issue is not NATO. What Moscow cannot tolerate is the very idea that neighboring states can choose their own course independently. That destroys the Russian hierarchy in which states are not equal.

Olena Snigyr shows what exactly Russia is building in place of what it has destroyed. The Russian international order is a system of unequal circles. At the center is Russia itself and the space of its direct control. Further out are neighbors held in place through force, dependency, intimidation, and bought elites. Further still are partners tied by benefit, anti-Western solidarity, and a shared interest in weakening the West. The tools vary - violence, gas, debt, corruption, information campaigns. The principle is the same: the world is divided into zones of influence among several powers, and Russia is among those that decide for others.

Here, both authors converge: Russia’s foreign policy is the export of its domestic order. Allan describes the current system as wartime Putinism resting on three pillars: repression, anti-Western mobilization, and a militarized economy. Snigyr shows that the same logic is projected outward. Russia does not simply want influence - it reproduces around itself its own model of power: coercion, control, dependency, and managed approval.

That is why not only tanks and gas contracts matter, but narratives as well. The Russian order rests on stories: the external enemy, “traditional values,” a special path, the cult of Victory, the “historical unity” of peoples. These stories turn violence into “protection,” dependency into “brotherhood,” and the seizure of another country’s sovereignty into “historical justice.”

Ukraine and Belarus occupy a special place. Control over them is not a trophy, but part of the answer to the question of what Russia itself is. If Ukraine consolidates itself as a sovereign European state, it is not only Russia’s plan of influence that collapses - the very story through which the Kremlin justifies itself collapses as well. That is why the war is not instrumental for the regime, but existential. At stake is Moscow’s right to decide the fate of its neighbors - and its demand that the West recognize this right.

SWP adds a third dimension: Europe’s response. The old model, in which Russia was treated as a partner or at least a necessary interlocutor, can no longer be restored. The question is now different: how to build European security with Ukraine inside the system - and without Russia among those who write its rules. Russia is not going anywhere; it remains the main military threat. But from a co-creator of the order, it has turned into a state from which that order must be defended. Ukraine, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction - from a “security problem” into one of its supporting pillars. The former buffer and object of other people’s agreements has become a condition of a stable European order: one guaranteed by the Ukrainian army, resilience, and political choice.

This is where the three texts come together. Allan explains why compromise with Russia is so difficult: its demands are not about concessions, but about the very principle of order. Snigyr explains why Russia will not back down: the project is embedded in the way the regime holds power and sees itself. SWP explains why the response is becoming a restructuring of European security around Ukraine and against the Russian threat.

The same framework also exposes the weak point. From the outside, Russia looks invulnerable: it adapts to sanctions, shifts the economy onto a war footing, applies pressure through repression, and maintains support through fear and control of information. But endurance is not stability. Snigyr shows where the limit lies: the system can absorb gradual pressure, but not simultaneous pressure. Economic collapse can be absorbed.

Military defeat can be rewritten by propaganda. Political crisis can be suppressed. But when the pillars weaken together, rather than one by one, the regime loses its ability to adapt.

Snigyr also points to the paradox: the regime’s greatest strength is also its point of fragility. All the legitimacy of power is concentrated in one figure - this provides control, but it also makes the system hostage to one person. Once that center disappears, the regime begins to disintegrate from within until it finds a replacement.

The conclusion for Europe is direct. If the challenge is not only military, then the response cannot be only military either. Defense, support for Ukraine, sanctions, technological containment, and strategic clarity are necessary - but not sufficient. Russia is fighting over how people see reality, history, and justice. Therefore, Europe must defend not only borders, but also the ability to call things by their names. Aggression is not a “conflict of interests.” A sphere of influence is not a “security guarantee.” Conquest is not “historical justice.” And peace is not a return to an order in which the aggressor dictates rules to the victim.

Together, these texts show one thing: Russia’s war against Ukraine is the front line of a wider war of orders. Russia is destroying a model in which states choose their own path. Ukraine is defending not only its territory, but that principle itself. And Europe is reaching the conclusion it avoided for a long time: its security cannot be built by appeasing Russia - only by including Ukraine, containing Russia, and defending the rules without which Europe ceases to be itself.

[Jamie8848 🇳🇿 🙏 🇺🇦 @Jamie8848m]

@mhmck Agreed. Imperialist russia must be destroyed, broken up. Europe should be doing more. Slava Ukraine