Ukraine vs Russia IV - The Betrayal

Looks like Putin made it in front of cameras before Trump did.. I'm sure Trump will claim some variety of progress, but, based on Putin's comments, all that was agreed to was that Russia is interested in restarting the 2022 Istanbul peace negotiations.

https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.com/post/3lpk2qa4n522n

 

From Axios' Barak Ravid:

Putin said after his call with Trump that Russia is "ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on a future peace treaty, which may also include a ceasefire and principles for resolving the conflict”
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In plain English, more talks about talks and when to talk about where to talk about holding those important talks about talks. It's the usual stalling tactics.

I do note that the Russians were the first to give a statement and they normally let the Westerners go first. Perhaps Donnie wasn't too happy with the results and is deciding how to frame his reaction.

The pressure for sanctions will increase and there'll be another nail in the coffin of Trump's authority for the simple reason that leaders have to lead and walking away is not leading. Since nature abhors a vacuum, the world will look for other leaders - and find them

 

IOW More Songs About Destroying Buildings and Limiting Food

 

Russia's trade surplus went down 40% from March to April. That sharp a drop should have had an effect on the exchange rate, but it didn't. Russia is putting their thumb on the scale to keep the ruble strong, which goes against what many observers were expecting. There's no good choice, but it looks like Putin fears high food prices more than not paying the governments bills on time / at all.

 

What do you think Vance means when he says the US will walk away from the war?

 

In Europe weapon donation news, Italy is giving Ukraine all their recently retired 400 M113 APCs and another new SAMP/T SAM system. Last week Germany said they were giving another large weapon package (including 125 missiles for the GMLRS and 100 Patriot missiles) and this is the last we are going to hear about them because Germany has also said they would stop publicly reporting what they give for security purposes. Originally people thought that that was a good sign Germany was going to finally hand over Taurus missiles, but that still looks iffy.

 

Keeping the rubble strong means spending hard currency reserves that he needs for the war: the Chinese and the Koreans aren't supplying artillery, munitions and components out of charity.

He's seriously worried about the population. Not critically IMO but still worried about their resolve

 

Say "your problem. You sort it out." and walk off while still allowing weapons sales because if he doesn't, he'll have to watch everyone else's sales soar. If the intel keeps coming and Starlink keeps operating, that will be enough to keep Ukraine in the fight.

Behind the scenes, Trump is quite conflict-averse. Sulking off is bad for his image but keeping the $$$ flowing into America to buy weapons for Ukraine won't precipitate a crisis. Cutting Ukraine off won't either, for the simple reason that "shitstorm" is not a synonym for "crisis"

 

From Barak Ravid:

Ukraine, the US European allies and Trump himself have demanded that Russia agrees to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Trump's statement suggests that Putin convinced him of the need for negotiations over the ceasefire.
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IOW Putin is tapping him along but that's manageable. As long as the Rube-in-Chief thinks he's making progress, he won't take decisive action. That's not great but Ukraine and Europe can keep going for a while yet.

 

From Michael Weiss:

Talks about talks about talks about talks. If Trump’s capacity to be baited by Putin is endless (which it looks to be), then the only things that matter are weapons/ammunition flows to Ukraine, intel sharing and sanctions.
Are we selling to Kyiv or allowing allies to donate purchased kit? Are we cutting targeting assistance? Is the GOP in Congress prepared to lift heavy sanctions for nothing more than kabuki theatre in Turkey and continued war?
Pay attention to the substance beyond the tweets.​

 

I would also caution anyone to take anything JD Vance says as actual Trump policy or predictive of what Trump will do. Trump has repeatedly undercut or ignored most of what JDVance has said in public.

Most recently, JD Vance said we wouldn’t get involved with India v. Pakistan. Not so!

 

What involvement the US had between India and Pakistan?

 

If the US walks away from Ukraine, why do you think intel would keep coming? Based on what Vance said, the implication is that the US would no longer be involved in the war. So no intel, no hardware transfers, no US funds to buy munitions, etc, etc.

You very well could be correct that the Trump administration would not stop purchases from US manufacturers, but it would not be the US funding those purchases like what happened under Biden. We also know that Europe is adverse to spending their money outside of Europe, so you're not likely to see France buying artillery shells from the plants in the US.

 

Angry fist shakes. The claim is that Trump ordered the State/Defense department to contact Pakistan and India to tell them to knock it off or else the US would cut off funds.

 

He knows even that pathetic lot of people, docile and subservant to the max, rose to overthrow their rulers in October 1917.

 

No, but European artillery shell production is ramping up and, in any case, this is not an artillery war any more. 70% of Russian casualties are are from drones. AS long as Ukraine maintains its drone superiority, Russia will seriously struggle to advance much if at all

 

You say this, but Ukraine fires around 5,000-10,000 155mm shells a day. You aren't wrong that most of Ukraine's casualties are because of drones, but they are still using a large number of shells and the US is responsible for over half of the production rate feeding Ukraine.

 

This is what people that want a business-oriented, quid-pro-quo world don't get about being generous - you can actually get back a lot more being the second verses the first. When we gave Ukraine weapons and munitions, we got back invaluable information on their effectiveness and doctrine related to their use. And now that new forms of war are being invented and evolved, we might be walking away from the nation doing most of the inventing and evolving. We've already seen Ukraine take part in some European nation's war maneuvers demonstrating the tactics of drone warfare. The US might lose its chance to be part of 2030 world because it sought 1980's thinking benefits.

 

Not to mention, the economic boost to the US that were generated by the donations to Ukraine. I can't remember the exact numbers of the percentage the US gave to Ukraine were spent in the US, but the US spent billions building new artillery shell manufacturing sites and billions more paying the manufacturers to make shells. All of that money was in the US, so, yes, the US spent billions sending artillery shells to Ukraine, but that billions went straight into the local economies of those manufacturing sites.

 

We get a certain view of the war because of what things are captured on video and what Ukraine wants to show us all. From some articles interviewing front line soldiers, they tend to say that artillery, and especially mortars, are more important in stopping the Russians. Drones are unevenly utilized along the front.

Even when just talking about drones, we don't get a complete image. An underappreciated part of drone warfare is the placing of mines. Throughout history, land mines served an engineering purpose - just like walls and wire and ditches, they are there to slow the enemy so that they could be dealt with with other weapons. But now they are being used in an offensive ambush sense. In WW II, more Japanese ships were sunk by American submarines using mines than by torpedoes (and that's true even late in the war when the torpedoes actually worked). Drones allow the use of land mines in the same way - spotting paths being used and mining them as needed almost instantly.

 

Worse, China might get info from Putin on how drone warfare is being done etc.
So Xi might be building up an advantage against the USA in the looming Pacific Rim war.

 

Yeah. 100%. Back at the start of war, the claim was that the anti-tank missiles (particularly Javelins) were what broke Russia's back and forced them to withdraw. The reality is that Javelins destroyed only a small percentage of Russian hardware. Artillery was the main reason Russia's advance was stopped and, ultimately, rolled back.

 

If the Europeans aren't able to provide what is needed for Ukraine, they are quite willing to buy it elsewhere. Already happened this war. That won't be a big obstacle in keeping the US supply flowing if it's necessary. Of course they prefer to share the burden if possible because anyone would.

Trump cutting off weapon sales is also my biggest worry, although I don't really believe he would do that. I think this is a case where his businessman self-image would serve a good cause.

 

While Ukraine is the best, Russia is certainly no slouch in development and is close behind. In fact, Russia has just started deploying a new kind of drone. A mothership operated by radio launches FPV drones connected to it by fiber-optic cable, so it gets the best of both worlds of long range and totally clean signal.

North Korea is another beneficiary of this, and just like America, South Korea is sitting on its hands while North Korea's capabilities are in resurgence.