Summary
Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that halting U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine could be “worse than Afghanistan.”
He urged continued support until a ceasefire is reached and announced plans for sanctions on Russia’s banking and energy sectors.
The Trump administration paused aid after a heated Oval Office meeting where Trump and JD Vance clashed with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Russia escalated attacks following the fallout.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss a minerals deal and ceasefire, while Trump seeks further concessions from Ukraine.
Because Russia needs a ceasefire “saving face” for its “elite”, in fact it’s, of course, not about saving face, their face is covered with piss, but about persuading themselves. I don’t think there are many war goals to be reached with further fighting. Russian and Ukrainian militaries now have something resembling parity in terms of professionalism and processes. Basically a huge polygon to train two armies. It just doesn’t make sense for them to fight each other IMHO.
Anyway, with what Western-supported jihadist government is now doing in Syria (literally massacring Alawites and Christians on the coast, the EU has literally condemned Alawites for “rebelling”, accused them of massacring themselves and called them Assad supporters, Russia has released something meaningless, France and Greece some good words, but without actions, there’s been a UNSC meeting which ended with nothing ; there are a few thousands of people hiding on the Russian base, but Russia doesn’t have a good history at delivering on at least such expectations ; the last numbers of the dead I’ve seen were 7k-10k, 2 days ago, but nothing has stopped, apparently, and since Syria’s “new authorities” are already trying to persuade those refugees to leave the base, it appears they’ve killed much more), it’s the first time since 2022 that I started doubting that Russia is the bad boy here. Maybe those in Kremlin knew something I didn’t, having intelligence services and all that.
Maybe the West is evil and Russia is virtuous for the sole reason it’s not part of the West.
Russia fights for domestic political reasons. Ukrainians fight to avoid annihilation. If Ukraine stops fighting there will no longer be a meaningful Ukraine. Ukraine doesn’t have the option to stop fighting.
Next for your tangent, that’s a gold medal performance in metal gymnastics to get where you got.
First, we’re talking geopolitics here. There is no single “good” side and no single “evil” side. All sides will do things judged by others as evil. Second, to suggest russia is virtuous even by itself, is insultingly silly.