Summary

A senior White House team, led by Steve Witkoff and Mike Waltz, is traveling to Saudi Arabia to set up Ukraine peace talks, excluding both Ukraine and Europe from negotiations.

This move raises concerns about sidelining key stakeholders while favoring direct U.S.-Russia discussions. European leaders, including Macron and Starmer, are meeting in Paris to respond.

Trump’s team has hinted at lifting Russian sanctions, a stance welcomed by the Kremlin.

NATO allies are wary of U.S. inquiries on security guarantees for Ukraine, fearing strategic leaks.

  • @[email protected]
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    1263 days ago

    EU needs to just say fuck it at this point and give the ultimatum that unless they and Ukraine are included with the talks, they are sending troops into Ukraine. The Polish have been itching to kill Russians for decades and to be honest, 80% of the EU has well. When that first underwater cable was cut, it should have been game on.

      • @[email protected]
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        483 days ago

        Just FYI to other readers, this is just made up. Like not even “did a search and is being a little hyperbolic”, just not even in the vague realm of reality.

        • @[email protected]
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          423 days ago

          Plus calling the Russian army a "peer military " is fucking hilarious after the display in Ukraine. I’m sure the asshole you’re responding to in St. Petersburg is desperately trying to avoid being sent there.

            • @[email protected]
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              103 days ago

              Just one fucked their shit up with a bolt action M28-30 and a submachine gun.

              Imagine with all the gear they have now lol.

              Dead orks. Far as the eye can see and hip deep.

              • @PetteriPano
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                103 days ago

                A large group of Russian soldiers in the border area in 1939 are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a small hill: “One Finnish soldier is better than ten Russian”.

                The Russian commander quickly orders 10 of his best men over the hill where Upon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence. The voice once again calls out: “One Finn is better than one hundred Russian.”

                Furious, the Russian commander sends his next best 100 troops over the hill and instantly a huge gun fight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again Silence. The calm Finnish voice calls out again: “One Finn is better than one thousand Russians!”

                The enraged Russian commander musters 1000 fighters and sends them to the other side of the hill. Rifle fire, machine guns, grenades, rockets and cannon fire ring out as a terrible battle is fought…

                Then silence.

                Eventually one badly wounded Russian fighter crawls back over the hill and with his dying words tells his commander, “Don’t send any more men…it’s a trap. There’s two of them.”

          • @[email protected]
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            283 days ago

            No you didn’t. Every major country has standing armies well over 100k. The entire EU has ~1.3M active duty troops.

          • @[email protected]
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            153 days ago

            Uh no. I’ve done my research, now do some yourself. Learn to fish grasshopper.

            You seemed to have misspelt “circle jerk”.

          • @[email protected]
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            73 days ago

            Did you also meticulously research how to close your comment with the lamest fucking sentence possible?

          • @marcos
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            83 days ago

            The EU has some negotiations going badly on finding 100k people to keep permanently stationed in Ukraine from now on. And it’s not even a failure, it’s just that some people disagree… what never happens on the EU…

            Way to turn a non-news into the weirdest false fact you can get.

      • @Buffalox
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        3 days ago

        Funny, I recently spoke with a guy from Finland, who basically claimed they could take Russia on their own.
        That’s probably overstating it a bit, but in the 40’s Germany took a pretty huge chunk of the Soviet Union alone.
        Only with help from USA was the Soviet Union able to resist the Germans.

        Russia is thoroughly corrupt and incompetent, and even the Soviet era of willingness to die for nothing, will not help them if Europe joins in helping Ukraine in a full scale military effort.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel

        France alone has 270000 troops! Just including Germany makes it almost ½ a million! Adding Italy, Spain, Poland and Greece we are easily at a full million!

        This is even without counting about 20 smaller countries, and UK which is not in the EU, but would absolutely help too I’m sure.

        • @[email protected]
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          173 days ago

          The Finns could probably take Russia on their own. They have been continuously preparing since the winter war. Everything is build around it, everyone has trained for it, they even test moving their entire economy to war economy on a regular basis.

          • @Buffalox
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            93 days ago

            And there’s the infamous Finish trap, where they hide an extra troop so they are 2 in a place where the Russians think there is only 1.
            The Russians simply have no counter for that!

        • badwetter
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          -393 days ago

          Son/kid That’s not all combat troops. I’m referring to boots on the ground, combat troops. How many rear soldiers do you think it takes to support 100 k soldiers? I bet you have no Fricken clue … Look deeper.

          • @Buffalox
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            3 days ago

            OK first you are moving the goal post, you merely wrote troops originally, now you change it to combat troops.
            But yes I know the ratio is usually 1:4, meaning about 250K European COMBAT troops.

            This is still way more than the 100K you claimed above.

            All in all you are literally full of shit.

            • badwetter
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              -303 days ago

              I’m not moving the goalposts. I forget that I’m talking to civilians. It takes more soldiers in the rear to support soldiers in the front. So the % of combat troops is the tip of the spear. The total number of troops means little, it’s the number of troops that are the tip of the spear. The EU has little in combat capacity, and most of the equipment has been destroyed in Ukraine. So what are they going to fight with?

          • @Buffalox
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            3 days ago

            Oh boy, so Ukraine is most corrupt? And only a 4th the population and military of Russia, Still Ukraine has very successfully fought against Russia. So Russia in 3 years has only been able to achieve a fraction of what they claimed could be done in 3 weeks, or maybe even 3 days!
            And you claim Europe combined wouldn’t do any better?!
            You are a very special kind of delusional.

        • badwetter
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          -333 days ago

          I don’t agree with that number.

          EU Combat Troop Numbers The European Union has established EU Battlegroups, which consist of battalion-sized forces reinforced with combat support elements, typically comprising 1,500 troops each. As of 2023, eighteen battlegroups were operational, with two being ready for deployment at any given time. Additionally, a permanent European Union Rapid Deployment Capacity (EU RDC) consisting of up to 5,000 troops (the size of a brigade) is to be operational by 2025. These forces are under the direct control of the Council of the European Union. 🌐 en.wikipedia.org Defence forces of the European Union - Wikipedia 🌐 en.wikipedia.org EU Battlegroup - Wikipedia 🌐 boell.de The never-ending debate of the European Army and why it is unhelpful | Heinrich Böll Stiftung 🌐 en.wikipedia.org United States military deployments - Wikipedia 🌐 en.wikipedia.org European army - Wikipedia 🌐 eeas.europa.eu EU Battlegroups |

          OK, do you math at any one time 2 battlegroups are ready to go, that’s 27,000 and not all combat troops. LOL

          • @[email protected]
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            233 days ago

            Maybe you should read that article you linked completely. EU battle groups are multinational rapid response forces, and merely a subset of troops the EU can muster. Germany alone has 180k active service personnel.

              • @CeeBee_Eh
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                12 days ago

                It’s time that Europe remembers what war is

                You mean the place that’s still finding mines from WW2 in farmers fields?

          • Skua
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            113 days ago

            The EU Battlegroups are not the combined militaries of the member states. They are a specific group that works directly under the EU. The vast majority of the militaries of the EU member states are not in EU Battlegroups.

            Did you not actually link of of your sources because you were concerned someone might actually read them?

            • badwetter
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              -233 days ago

              That’s correct, and they’re the active brigades available. I’m a soldier, it takes months to have troops ready for combat, at a minimum 6 months of training. Just because one has a relatively large military means squat. What counts is how many can go to war immediately.

              • Skua
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                153 days ago

                Why do you equate “not in an EU Battlegroup” to “not able to go to war immediately”? Every EU member retains independent control of their militaries. They do not need to use the EU Battlegroup command structure. In fact they never have, and yet they have still regularly deployed troops.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 days ago

        You sound like you’d be interested in this piece of waterfront property I happen to have for sale! It is on the moon, but that just makes the views amazing, right??

        Did it ever cross your mind that if there was any truth to your statement, Russia would’ve easily invaded every country in Europe by now? Oh, but I suppose facts and logic are just fancy words for lies - I mean, not like your feelings would lie to you, right???

        ಠ_ಠ

        • badwetter
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          -313 days ago

          Why would Russia want to invade? If NATO stays out of adjoining countries they won’t need to. Imagine if Russia or the Chinese put troops in Mexico or Canada, what do you think the US would do? Get a damn clue, you’re extremely naive.

      • @Blumpkinhead
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        73 days ago

        What about against the Russian military?

    • @Jhex
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      273 days ago

      Or the east, or the north, or the south

      • @[email protected]
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        113 days ago

        Seems like they are getting close and closer to admitting to the love affair they have with Russia and getting married.

        • @teamevil
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          103 days ago

          Trump is definitely Putin’s bitch

      • @uienia
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        43 days ago

        They are a Russian ally, so that is not quite correct.

    • FenrirIII
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      32 days ago

      I hate that our leaders are wannabe Imperialist swine.

    • Dojan
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      63 days ago

      They never have been.

  • @orclev
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    3 days ago

    The rest of NATO needs to call Trump’s bluff and just start acting without the US. Hold a vote to induct Ukraine into NATO without giving the US a chance to vote on it and then deploy NATO troops into Ukraine. Russia has already been claiming that there are NATO troops there for a while now, should show him what an actual NATO defense looks like instead of a bunch of desperate Ukrainians with hand me down surplus weaponry.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 days ago

      since russia has claimed there are nato troops in ukraine, what is actually preventing nato from sending the troops? Russia is going to invade eu anyway after awhile when kremlin feels more secure about it. By lying, didnt they blow their ultimatum regarding nato intervention too?

  • @WHARRGARBL
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    313 days ago

    Honest question to someone who is a legit expert on … international treaties? geopolitics?

    How the fuck can an uninvolved and uninvited country declare itself a party to negotiations for peace? Does anyone even think the US is authorized to offer concessions on behalf of an absent nation? Isn’t this entire disgusting spectacle unenforceable?

    • @[email protected]
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      293 days ago

      There’s no such thing as “authorization”. The US can make whatever deals it likes, it doesn’t mean Ukraine has to listen. There’s no such thing as “international enforcement” in the first place, just individual nations flexing power on other nations.

      US weapons are important to Ukraine, so the US could flex that power and try to make Ukraine do what it says by withholding them, but if they think they can go it alone or Europe steps up, they don’t need to listen.

    • @PugJesus
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      123 days ago

      Isn’t this entire disgusting spectacle unenforceable?

      Yes, but Trump is far too stupid to realize that.

    • @[email protected]
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      103 days ago

      Yes, it’s completely unenforceable.

      However, Ukraine depends on US aid and if they reject the deal they’ll have to keep fighting without it.

      So they’re fucked either way.

  • @Buffalox
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    193 days ago

    The main thing I got from this is that Saudi Arabia doesn’t respect an international arrest warrant on Putin.
    Trump and Putin can talk all they want, without Ukraine it means nothing.

    • Don Antonio Magino
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      3 days ago

      Saudi Arabia isn’t an ICC member state, though, so they don’t have to comply with the warrant (probably part of why they picked Saudi Arabia).

      If they want Europe to enforce the peace in Ukraine, a ‘deal’ without Europe is meaningless as well (you’d hope, anyway. Otherwise the European establishment would agree with America treating Europe like their bitch).

  • @gsfraley
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    163 days ago

    Wtf are we even doing there? Even if we’re trying to sell out Ukraine, I don’t see much happening without Ukraine at the table. The motivators are going to be sticks and carrots. The best carrot I can see the US getting Ukraine is peace or ceasefire alongside the cessation of some of their land. But that ignores that Russia broached peace agreements twice in this mess. So it’s not possible to trust anything Russia offers (kudos on that 4D chess, Putin, you pathetic slobdog).

    That leaves leaning on the rest of Europe and continuing the resistance as the only viable option. Unless we give them sticks, which would be insane and fully exile the US as a pariah state from the rest of the free world. It would kill trade and drop us into an instant depression. Which they might think they’re fine with, but that’s quite a shortcut to the guillotine.

    • @[email protected]
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      233 days ago

      The billionaire class are all done with us. They have their private bunkers with hired goons to protect them, and WANT a depression. Chaos, millions killed, bird flu unleashed, all that and more they want so they can carve out kingdoms from the ruined democracies they are targeting. That’s what they want, and Putin is more than happy to help them do it

      • suoko
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        3 days ago

        I’m waiting for an AI edited version of everyday news where current “people in charge” discuss using wise and sensible words.

        Let’s use modern tools with some grain of salt

          • suoko
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            3 days ago

            You could still create fake nuclear attacks and sell some useless fallout shelters to some kind of people…

    • badwetter
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      -403 days ago

      What evidence do you have to prove that Russia broke 2 peace agreements? If you’re referring to Minsk 1 and 2 that wasn’t Russia who broke them. It was France and Germany, both leaders of those countries at the time, are on record indicating that The West never intended to honour those agreements. It’s hard to find the evidence in Western media as it’s been scrubbed (this alone should alert folks) but I found a reference in Ukrainian Pravada via Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-disappointed-merkels-words-minsk-140859136.html

      • Skua
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        123 days ago
        • France and Germany weren’t even signatories to the treaties save for as members of the OSCE. Their only responsibilities in the treaty were to, as part of OSCE, monitor and verify the ceasefire.
        • Nothing about either treaty says that Ukraine can’t re-arm during the ceasefire, and literally the only thing Merkel said is that Ukraine used the time to re-arm.
        • Minsk I collapsed because nobody even implemented the ceasefire and then Russia launched a new offensive to take Donetsk airport. That is an explicit violation of the treaty, unlike Ukraine re-arming.
        • Minsk II collapsed when Russia launched its 2022 invasion.

        Ukraine preparing for a Russian invasion is not a ceasefire violation. The leader of a country that’s not even a party to the conflict saying that “it’s good that Ukraine prepared” is even more thoroughly not a violation. You know what is a violation? An invasion.