Tim Rider

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@splendid_pete "NATO spending" is really just the combined defense budgets of its members, along with some administrative costs. This is confusing for some.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@splendid_pete NATO was specifically set up by the US as a defense umbrella to provide a long list of advantages to the US. We have at various times discouraged Europeans from military buildups for that very reason.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@RannXerox @JAL1988196662 @splendid_pete NATO is needed now more than ever.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@JAL1988196662 @EtelaSzabo @splendid_pete America does not pay $1 trillion per year to NATO. "NATO spending" is what each member budgets for its own defense, since it is the sum total of these that would be drawn upon in a NATO conflict.

The US has reaped a long list of advantages from NATO.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@HormuzLetter This post seems to have been intended to manipulate weak minded gullible readers into piling onto the President of Ukraine. It doesn't seem to be working.

Anyone with at least half a brain knows that Ukraine must continue to kick Putin's ass.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@TigerIronClock @Megatron_ron There are 13 historical facts above that you are in denial of, each one proving that NATO protection from Russian aggression is needed now more than ever.

And the protection provided by the 750 bases around the world is more than welcomed by their hosts.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@ginamilan_ So how would you suggest Zelensky defend his country, since eliminating Russia's ability to fund & fuel its genocide doesn't meet your approval?

It's obvious that you don't want Ukraine to defend itself, because you support Russia's bloody conquest.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@Gianl1974 Seems a bit ironic when Putin is stepping up his hybrid warfare attacks on her own country.

She would lead her own sheep to the slaughter.

[Babylon Slim @babylon_slim]

@JohnCornyn @POTUS Please, read and decide for yourself. If we’d just import 10% more diesel from our friend & next door neighbor Canada (for less $ than Russia’s), prices would plummet & we wouldn’t betray Ukraine by empowering Putin’s regime- who hate America
You decide:

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Russians have recently been complaining en masse about poor-quality diesel fuel and equipment breakdowns. Diesel fuel is being diluted and quality standards are not being met.

Diesel fuel standards in Russia and the United States are not identical. Russian diesel is not certified to meet U.S. standards and is unlikely to undergo certification.

If Russian diesel ever makes its way to the United States, good luck to anyone who puts it in their vehicles.

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Yesterday, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by David Ignatius It is essentially being called a leak of the American negotiating team's "peace plan." If that is true, I'm having a sense of déjà vu. It feels as though President Trump’s negotiators didn't even bother to come up with anything on their own and simply asked Russians to bail them out with ideas for the peace plan.

I tried to find at least some differences from what Russia has been demanding for years, but I couldn't find any.

President Trump's team is proposing that Ukraine give up the territories seized by Moscow. From Kushner and Witkoff's perspective, this is what a compromise looks like. The only thing that's hard to understand is where exactly the compromise is.

The EU is in shock over how two negotiating geniuses agreed to reshape the European security architecture as if they are the ones actually calling the shots there.

In 2008-2009, Moscow was pushing for a treaty that would allow it to control the security decisions of European states. In 2021, it demanded a limit on NATO expansion and a rollback of the Alliance's military presence to its 1997 levels.

Now the American team is including agreements between Europe and Russia on Russia's "security concerns" in its proposals to end the war. Truly, why didn't anyone think of this before?!

Now, about guarantees... I’m just tired... This is like an endless Budapest Memorandum...

But I think I’ve figured out where Russia's compromise is: in exchange for territorial concessions from Ukraine and the restructuring of European security, Russia will generously agree to Ukraine stopping its strikes on Russian oil refineries, while Europe gets hooked on gas again.

And Russia still needs to be persuaded to agree to all this. Here, Kushner and Witkoff propose appeasing Putin by lifting sanctions. I think that’s not enough. They should have also offered Moscow compensation for losses.

Ukraine's reconstruction is being used as an argument in favor of territorial concessions. Investment, along with the participation of the World Bank and BlackRock, is supposed to make the deal more attractive to Kyiv. Seems like someone is missing here - Gazprom, the Rotenberg brothers... Who else?

Seriously, though, it’s all depressing. It’s clear that Ukraine and Europe are being treated here not just as fools, but as some kind of pie that it’s time to divide.

If we're going to be this cynical, I'd like to ask the brilliant American team - what part of this pie is left for the United States? Right now it looks like just the wrapper.

Reports about the possible sale of Lukoil's international assets, worth approximately $20 billion, mention investors linked to business partners of Kushner and Witkoff.

Russian television is filled with such loud laughter and mockery of the American president that only someone completely isolated from reality could fail to hear it.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@TexasPirate88 @TheAngrySaxon22 @Gerashchenko_en Ukraine is in the process of defeating Russia on the battlefield, so obviously that's not true.

Hitler was appeased with territory in 1938. That led to WWII & 65 million deaths, 465,000 of whom were Americans.

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Russia continues to bring death, destruction, and terror to Ukraine.

Today, a Russian drone attack killed six people in Lutsk and injured 13 more, including a two-year-old child. Two people are in serious condition in hospital.

Civilian facilities were hit, including a wholesale store, a book warehouse, a residential building, and a cultural and entertainment center.

📹: SESU / Radio Liberty / Suspilne

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@ginamilan_ "Helped him more than any other country?!?" Trump cut off aid shortly after taking office & has functioned as an advocate for Putin ever since, all while Putin wages hybrid warfare against the US.

Now Trump is funding Putin's genocide.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@Neekholio @OleBeeM @ginamilan_ Trump cut off all aid to Ukraine shortly after taking office, including aid appropriated by Congress but not sent yet. The PURL program is strictly a business deal we profit from.

Trump has functioned as an advocate of Russia more than anything.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@NatalkaKyiv He has no capacity for empathy. And that is the definition of a psychopath.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@ChrisLancasterX @NatalkaKyiv The problem with that is that we'll get stuck with Vance who is just as bad or worse.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@ryanmauro Has she ever read Trump's posts on Truth Social? He evicerates anyone who says something he doesn't like. It's why so many commentators are petrified of saying what they really think because of how they'll get shredded on the platform.

[Pete @splendid_pete]

So much bullshit.

Russia didn't "voluntarily surrender" an empire in 1991. The Soviet Union collapsed, and its republics bolted for the exit. Moscow didn't graciously free twenty nations in exchange for a NATO promise. That's fairy-tale nonsense.

Baker's "not one inch eastward" line came up in talks over German reunification. Wider assurances were floated, but no binding agreement ever barred NATO from admitting Eastern European countries. And nobody dragged those countries in. They begged to join, and after decades under Moscow's boot, who can blame them?

Russia has no empire? Then what the fuck do you call a country that already rules over dozens of ethnic groups, then swallows Crimea in 2014, invades Ukraine in 2022, and claims four more Ukrainian regions on top? Apparently gobbling up your neighbours doesn't count as imperialism anymore.

Ukraine wasn't in NATO in 2022. The 2021 US-Ukraine partnership agreements didn't change that, however hard you squint.

Putin didn't leave Kyiv because he'd suddenly found a love of peace. His offensive fell flat on its face, Ukrainian resistance tore through his forces, and his troops ran. The Istanbul "deal" Zelenskyy supposedly tore up? Never signed. Drafts, not a settlement. The claim that Zelenskyy sacrificed over a million Ukrainian soldiers is a pure fabrication, plucked from thin air. And the Canada-Mexico analogy conveniently ignores that sovereign countries get to choose their own alliances. Shocking, I know.

Trump leaning on Ukraine over refinery strikes doesn't retroactively justify the invasion. Neither does claiming to oppose it while parroting the Kremlin's excuses for launching it.

Strip away the spin and here's what's left: Russia invaded a sovereign neighbour, grabbed its land, and demanded a veto over its political and security future. Call that "defensive" all you like. It's imperialism, plain and simple.

And Sachs's spectacular U-turn? Absolutely stomach-turning. I wouldn't be surprised if Russian money were sloshing around somewhere.

In March 2014, he called Yanukovych's overthrow a mass uprising against a corrupt, incompetent regime. He called Russia's move into Crimea a military occupation and ridiculed Moscow's hysterical claims about fascists taking over Ukraine. On 5 March, he told Die Zeit that Russia's military response was dangerous, that unilateral military action was illegal, and that he would not excuse it. No wriggle room, no "both sides."

Then on 7 April 2014, there he was in Kyiv, sitting down with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. At a press briefing, he talked about Ukraine's economic struggles under Russian hostility, naming the occupation of Crimea and the Russian troops massing at the border. Occupation. His word.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the same man calls Maidan a Western-backed coup instead of a popular revolution, and paints Russia's war as a defensive reaction to NATO expansion.

So what the fuck changed, Jeffrey? Not the facts. In 2014 you saw a popular uprising, a Russian occupation, and Russian aggression. Now you serve up the same events wrapped in a story that conveniently pins the blame on the West.

Criticise American foreign policy all you want. That's fair game. But rewriting your own record to make the invader look like the victim? That's something else entirely, and frankly, it's shameful.

[Tim Rider @TimRider13373]

@splendid_pete David Pyne & Jeffery Sachs are so horribly confused on this its mind boggling. I've tangled with Pyne on here before. He's really messed up.

Sachs is now part of a media group based in Moscow that promotes Russian false narratives in Western social media.