Roderick Rittmaier

...

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

In no other situation would relatively intelligent populations believe the insane fraud peddled about Ukraine.

When you step back and examine the reality, its impossible to accept the ludicrous idiocy the corrupt War machine has sold you.

[Alexander Mercouris @AMercouris]

The disturbing truth about Iuliia Mendel's interview with Tucker Carlson is that the media, certainly in the UK, but I suspect across Europe, has mostly ignored it.

This is terrible. In any sane world Mendel, who is a Ukrainian patriot and a stern critic of Russia, and who knows ZELENSKY and the inner workings of the system he operates, is someone who the media should want to interview, and whose articles they should want to publish.

This is all the more extraordinary as the various legal moves which have been playing out in Kiev over the last few days corroborate what she is saying.

Perhaps there are political motivations behind NABU's anti-corruption actions and the steps taken against YERMAK. For the record, I believe there are. That however is not the most important fact about these actions. What is important is the extent of the corruption they expose.

Corruption, as is clear at least to me, is today the organising principle of Ukrainian politics, and will remain so whilst ZELENSKY continues in charge.

Every European citizen is required to accept a reduction in standard of living because of the support our governments give to Ukraine. We pay for this support through higher taxes, higher food and energy bills, higher interest payments, and through funds spent to support Ukraine, which are not spent on domestic needs. We see the results of this all around us. Our governments and media however want us to know as little as possible about the true nature of the political system in Kiev we are supporting. Witnesses, such as Iuliia Mendel, must not be heard. In the meantime ZELENSKY gets hosted by our King.

This does not help Ukraine or its people. It corrodes our democracy and impoverishes us. It is immoral and wrong.

https://t.co/5881tkLnU1

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

The bigger question here 👇 (https://t.co/4WfJSeqQsZ) is if the Americans are as strategically stupid as Merz is saying, why do Germany and the rest of the European leadership insist on tying their future to them?

Where is Germany or Europe's independent strategy on Iran? Didn't Merz issue, together with Macron and Starmer, a joint statement at the beginning of the war condemning... Iran for the war (https://t.co/nKNwDUxiZ7)?

Doesn't that make them even more strategically inept, when your own - public - diagnosis is that the ship is sinking, and your response is to stay aboard? 🤷‍♂️

This is just vassalage with editorial commentary, which is even more strategically stupid than whatever Trump is doing.

[The Sirius Report @thesiriusreport]

If Trump pulls the US out of NATO, Europe will quickly realise that they never needed the US in the first place.

As we have said for years, the US was never going to defend Europe. It was and will always be an utter myth.

They just want Europe to buy their useless military hardware and munitions and so they can seek to control Europe and prevent it's rotation to Russia and Eurasia.

Europe has a choice, die defending its pointless relationship with the US or embrace Eurasia including Russia

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

One down. 3 to go.

[Zlatti71 @Zlatti_71]

Today is a good day to say:

“F U C K N A T O !!!”

[Kim Dotcom @KimDotcom]

The EU is being played
It's obvious now
Here is what needs be done:

1. Restore NordStream
2. Give Russia its assets back
3. Re-establish business ties with Russia
4. Take the L, cut Ukraine and Zelenskyy
5. Send Ursula and Kaja packing
6. Stop being US vassals
7. Reform EU media

[Michael Tracey @mtracey]

Calling this "Trump Derangement Syndrome" wouldn't be quite right.

It's more like a sub-species, "Permanent 2017 Syndrome" -- where the TDS variant you were suffering from then never resolves, and the premise never changes.

Trump is currently sanctioning the Russian oil sector more aggressively than Biden did, with the express intent to "degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine" and further "weaken" its economy.

He has also authorized US intelligence to be used in long-range Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory. Following this directive, major Russian infrastructure has been repeatedly bombed.

He's continued to arm Ukraine -- albeit with a modified funding structure that conveniently allows him to bypass the Congressional appropriations process and keep the floodgates open.

He's now trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela, partly on the ground that Venezuela has unacceptably close ties with Russia.

And on, and on, and on.

But none of the actual policy has ever mattered to Rachel Maddow.

According to her, these are all policies that Russia would for some reason choose to inflict on itself -- because in December 2025, she says, "the Kremlin is actually running US foreign policy." Exactly what she would've said in December 2017. Classic unfalsifiable belief.

The US is "working for Vladimir Putin" by bombing and sanctioning Russia. OK.

Trump could nuke Moscow tomorrow (which he's already semi-threatened to do in the past) and as everyone's being incinerated in the ensuing radiation inferno, Rachel would use her dying breath to snidely assert that Trump obviously did this in collusion with Putin.

[Péter Szijjártó @FM_Szijjarto]

Reading the frustrated statements of the pro-war European politicians about our meeting in Moscow yesterday, I believe a serious misunderstanding needs to be addressed.

We Hungarians do not need permission or a mandate from Brussels, Berlin or anywhere else for any foreign negotiation.

We follow a sovereign foreign policy and our decisions are determined by our national interest. Whether they like it in Brussels or not.

[Roderick Rittmaier @RodRittmaier]

@StevieVanZandt In 2017 I was at 4 of the Steve & Disciples concerts in Germany, and then again in Milano in 2019 - those shows were GREAT! Small clubs made them even more memorable.

[-- GEROMAN -- time will tell - 👀 -- @GeromanAT]

Imagine a Europe with a good relationship to the largest European country - Russia...
Cheap energy
no need of "5% for NATO"
independent from US braindead policy...
-
But we are sadly ruled by idiots.

[Ted Rall, America's BS Detector @TedRall]

Not that I need to choose a side, but if I were: Russia has elections, Ukraine does not. Russia does not allow Nazis in its military, Ukraine does. Russia does not have memorials to Nazis, Ukraine does. Russia is not stealing US tax dollars...

[George Galloway @georgegalloway]

Don't allow TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome to lead you into support for an EU war against Russia. You may die to regret it. #Starmer #Zelensky #Ukraine @realDonaldTrump

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is beyond insane: Keith Kellog, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, confirms that Europe will NOT have a seat at the table in the negotiations to end the war.

When asked at the Munich Security Conference “Can you assure this audience that Ukrainians will be at the table and Europeans will be at the table?”, his response was: “the answer to that last question is no.” By “last question”, he meant whether Europeans will be at the table.

Later on in the conversation, he was asked to confirm this: “So the Europeans [...] you don't think should be at the table directly?”. His answer again was “I’m from the school of realism, I think that’s not going to happen”, and that he understood hearing this might be “like fingers on a chalkboard, may grate a little bit but I'm telling you something that's really quite honest.”

He was very clear though that he still expected Europeans to provide security guarantees and abide by the deal: “you have to understand, when you sign up for these security guarantees, that is an obligation and the reason I say that and I challenge many people that are out there, right now, 2014 Wales declaration, all the NATO allies, 2% of GDP, 20% of that was modernization, there are still 8 nations who've not even gotten to that number, okay? So when we get to it make sure you check your 6 as they say that the obligation is upon YOU when WE make these commitments.”

So to sum up, the US position is that Europe should stay out of negotiations that will fundamentally affect their security architecture - yet bear the primary responsibility and cost for the negotiations' outcome.

And on top of that, it’s quite clear from previous Trump declarations (like here: https://t.co/xGWeOLdUug) that the U.S. will be looking in the deal to take control of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as payment for the military aid it has provided, leaving presumably nothing to Europe.

I’ve repeatedly warned that Europe was fast walking towards its own century of humiliation if it continued on its current path. I think it’s now pretty damn clear that we’re very much there already.

If this goes through, this would possibly be unprecedented in European history - never before, to my knowledge, has Europe's security architecture been redrawn without any European power at the table. Even during Europe's darkest moments - including the Mongol invasions, the Ottoman expansions, or the Yalta Conference - European powers always had some voice in negotiations affecting their future.

To be clear, the primary culprit here isn’t the U.S. or Trump: any student of history knows that we live in a deeply unfair world where, as ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote 2,500 years ago, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." As such the blame lies almost entirely on us Europeans, or more precisely on our immensely incompetent leaders. And I want to stress this last point: they are literally incompetent on a millennia scale, given that they've managed to reduce Europe to a position that lacks any historical parallel, where it's expected to simply accept and implement whatever security arrangements others decide for it.

Trump himself does what’s best for the U.S. - “America first”, remember? - and to be fair to him the Biden administration left him with a pretty bad hand. It’s crystal clear that Russia won in Ukraine, despite all of NATO’s efforts, and as such the U.S. very much risked coming out of it looking like the loser that it objectively is.

Faced with this, Trump’s strategy clearly is to reframe this defeat into an “art of the deal” victory by securing U.S. access to Ukraine's natural resources while offloading the costs and responsibilities of the post-war security arrangement onto Europe. Meanwhile Europe, which has failed to develop any meaningful strategic autonomy over the past decades (in fact it’s moved in the opposite direction), finds itself with little leverage to prevent this.

In fact, European “leaders”, in their treasonous meekness, are already signaling that they’ll resign themselves to their fate. Mark Rutte, NATO’s Secretary General, for instance enticed Europeans not to complain about the situation ("to my European friends, I would say, get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up (defense) spending", https://t.co/pyq2FVdzxr).

And Keir Starmer, invited by Macron at a “crisis summit” in Paris to discuss the situation, said that his primary goal in the meeting would be “to ensure we keep the US and Europe together. We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.” (https://t.co/unTj7aHGd6).

I let you appreciate the perfect illustration this provides of the very mindset that has led Europe to this unprecedented position of weakness - responding to diplomatic humiliation with calls for even more subservience.

So what could Europe do? After all, it is true that they have very little leverage, mainly due to the fact that they are “protected” by the very power that decided to put them on the menu instead of at the table.

One idea could be to out-Trump Trump, and to angle for a deal where the U.S., not Europe, ends up the loser. They could for instance finally tell the truth about what led to the war in the first place, namely NATO expansion pushed by the U.S., as well as the U.S.-led coup in Ukraine in 2014, and dissociate themselves from this, just the way Trump is very conveniently trying to dissociate himself from his own country’s previous policies.

They could make it clear that they reject any deal that gives the U.S. access to any of Ukraine's resources, and signal to Russia that they're open to a different kind of security architecture in Europe - one that doesn't rely on U.S. leadership or NATO. After all, if Trump can say he'll make deals with Putin, why couldn't Europe do the same?

They could also reach out to China, which has already made it very clear that it opposed a deal in Ukraine without Europe at the table (https://t.co/LKJUyqsWO5) and which is anyhow much better positioned to negotiate with Russia than Trump is.

We could end up with a Europe freed from American tutelage for the first time since 1945, establishing a new multipolar equilibrium with China and Russia - turning Trump's attempt to exclude Europe into the very catalyst that finally enables European strategic autonomy.

But this would require a level of strategic thinking that current European leaders have consistently shown themselves incapable of. Instead I’m afraid they'll continue their current path of attempting to maintain the façade of transatlantic unity even as they're being openly humiliated.

[Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal]

My final words for Tony Blinken, Secretary of Genocide, and his smirking press secretary, Matt Miller

[Clandestine @WarClandestine]

NATO was created in 1949 to stand up to the Soviet Union.

If the West would just make peace with Russia, which Putin is willing to do, then there would be zero need for NATO.

The only people who don’t want this, are NATO weapons manufacturers, and their bought politicians. NATO exists solely to enrich itself. Their business model is war, and our tax dollars are their life source.

The best solution for humanity is to disband NATO, for Trump to make peace with Russia/China, then build a multipolar world, in which every country has a fair say. The days of the US/NATO waging war without consequence, must come to an end.

Russia and China just want a seat at the table, and want the West to stop waging wars all over the globe for financial and geopolitical gain. They just want us to stop building our military bases around their civilizations.

Peace is possible with diplomacy.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

Every day the Democratic leadership of the US chooses war with the world's other greatest nuclear power, you and your family wake up at their mercy. And it is a choice they're making. For you. For me. For us all. They were thrown out of power recently. But they go on.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

We are scampering down a rat hole to hell led by no one identifiable, probably some whiz kid, wasting our future on a war that makes WW1 trench warfare look almost glorious, and the party of "social justice" and "activism" is off somewhere taking selfies of its shaved heads.

[Roderick Rittmaier @RodRittmaier]

@elonmusk Jill Stein

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

That's a bit rich: he and his ilk in the wider French political class are the primary reason for this... THEY wrecked Europe and France, demagogues are just feasting on the corpses.

When for decades you don't act for the people, neglect their will, and enact policies in favor of a neoliberal ideology that destroys the fabric of society and France & Europe's independence... don't act all surprised if the people are utterly disillusioned. It's a consequence of your dilettantism and incompetence. As the saying goes "weak men create hard times"...

The fact that he shows no self-reflection and doesn't take accountability confirms this: the courageous, strong thing to do is to first and foremost look in the mirror.