# Russia invades Ukraine -- The regional situation **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [December 30, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349 "2023-12-30T18:43:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 46
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/902 "2025-03-06T15:41:15Z")
> [@Coriolanus](#): > > Trump needs to resume giving them intelligence. Has he any to spare? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/903 "2025-03-06T17:27:01Z")
It would be enough if he gives them what he does not understand. That covers a lot. Meanwhile, in the French Senate, **[a good speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7q4nBHxWNk)**. So true and necessary (and with subtitles in English, correctly translated). ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/904 "2025-03-06T17:57:43Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Meanwhile, in the French Senate, **[a good speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7q4nBHxWNk)**. Thank you for that! That’s the kind of rallying cry I am still waiting to hear from an American politician. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/905 "2025-03-06T18:58:13Z")
Having shredded the US constitution, the White House regime now conspires with Zelensky’s rivals in Ukraine to shred the Ukrainian constitution. > **[Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents](https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-allies-secret-talks-volodymyr-zelenskyy-opposition-ukraine-elections-yulia-tymoshenko-petro-poroshenko/)** > > As Washington ramps up its pressure on Zelenskyy to step aside, his rivals are talking to Trump’s team. Supposedly, Trump’s people were urging these politicians to push for elections (which, by law, cannot happen in wartime) to get rid of Zelensky. That is bad enough, but… could they have been encouraging a coup? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/906 "2025-03-06T19:08:03Z")
The thing that pisses me off is that everyone in America and Europe knew - years in advance and miles away - that the current administration would sell out Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter. And yet still almost nothing was done. Like someone who sees a train coming from a mile away and keeps standing on the tracks but now whines that the train is hitting him. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/907 "2025-03-06T19:08:27Z")
A Finnish author of Estonian origin [Sofi Oksanen](https://lithub.com/author/sofioksanen1/) reminds us that Russia’s strategy has always been mass murder, mass rape, mass oppression, child abduction, family separation, erasure of memory, denial of the past: > **[What Russia’s Violent History of Occupation Reveals About Its Ongoing War on...](https://lithub.com/what-russias-violent-history-of-occupation-reveals-about-its-ongoing-war-on-ukraine/?utm_source=DamnInteresting)** > > Unless We Stop It Now, It Will Never End My great-aunt was not born mute. At the beginning of the second Soviet occupation of Estonia, she, only a child, was taken from her home for a night of inte… And again sadistic oppression, oppression, oppression. Ceterum censeo: Delenda est Rossia! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/908 "2025-03-07T00:02:57Z")
Now, that’s a good speech. 1: The situation is dire. 2: But there is hope. 3: And here’s the plan of action to make that hope a reality. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/909 "2025-03-07T09:21:25Z")
[The what now (trump bans britain from sharing intelligence)](https://www.thenational.scot/news/24982912.donald-trump-bans-uk-sharing-us-intelligence-ukraine/) I’m not even going to ask, “Can he do that” because in the world I used to live in - and I wasn’t around for Churchill - the UK would tell him to fuck the right off. If the Democrats the other night didn’t mind being pointed at and being called “lunatics” - Trump is deranged. The MI-5 and MI-6 cooperate with the USA’s three-letter-orgs but if you want to start an intelligence war, the USA loses from day one, top down. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/910 "2025-03-08T00:29:05Z")
I keep thinking about all the intelligence professionals in the Five (now Four) Eyes who’ve dedicated their careers to spotting and deflecting threats from Russia, and how betrayed and embittered they must feel. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/911 "2025-03-08T00:53:27Z")
I reckon he can “order” the NSA and CIA to do or not do stuff. These agencies are not run by J. Edgar Hoover (no great man yet any such order would be laughed off and ignored). Keir Starmer should do nothing whatsoever, other than tell Trump he’s followed orders. If and when the USA intelligence agencies discover MI-5/6 are still at it, then the “special relationship” is over and good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/912 "2025-03-08T01:16:40Z")
> [@Coriolanus](#): > > Keir Starmer should do nothing whatsoever, other than tell Trump he’s followed orders. If and when the USA intelligence agencies discover MI-5/6 are still at it, then the “special relationship” is over and good riddance. They can still be “at it” if they can somehow blackbox purely domestically-gathered intel from US-derived intel and share that with Ukraine. The directive was to stop sharing US-derived intel, Trump cannot (and in fact as far as I can tell did not) order UK they can’t share their own intelligence. However how logistically difficult (or even impossible) this may be, I don’t know. Those agencies have been deeply intertwined with each other for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/913 "2025-03-08T01:55:40Z")
Okay, so the NSA/CIA can still share Ukraine intel with the MI-6, yet Trump has “banned” that intel from getting to Ukraine. Or else. Or else what? Does Trump think the the MI-6 are imbeciles who rely on USA intel? It would be nice to cooperate yet not necessary. And besides, I reckon there is enough camaraderie between the “Five Eyes” that they too will not follow this lunatic’s “orders” ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/914 "2025-03-08T17:05:15Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Meanwhile, in the French Senate, **[a good speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7q4nBHxWNk)**. So true and necessary (and with subtitles in English, correctly translated). And now published in _**[The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/03/claude-malheuret-speech/681947/?gift=cU4WmXraWG3WoSDDx6g_kd50o4lmtSXcptEHn9x3Hyk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)**_ in English. You can see the translation was already not bad at all, now at professional level. I find reading mostly more satisfying than seeing a video, though in this case I am not so sure. Senator Claude Malhuret knows how to speak in public. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/915 "2025-03-08T23:59:54Z")
Were the surveillance satellites put into orbit by a wide variety of countries? I remember NASA used to put payloads into orbit for other countries. It seems like Ukraine could have other intelligence sources without using the US assets. It is still a setback in briefings. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/916 "2025-03-09T07:03:43Z")
Eutelsat is there but expensive > **[Eutelsat looms large to boot Starlink out of Ukraine](https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/07/eutelsat_starlink_ukraine/)** > > Increasingly shaky relationship with the States has Europe considering options ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/917 "2025-03-09T12:40:03Z")
Apparently the weak, timid Joe Biden’s really to blame for the war in Ukraine. At least, according to the GOP’s Tom Cotton. He says that Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan was a sign to Putin to invade. And that Putin “respects and in some ways fears Trump.” > **[Tom Cotton, once a hawk on Russia, now says Biden 'tempted' Putin into...](https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2025/02/20/tom-cotton-once-a-hawk-on-russia-now-says-biden-tempted-putin-into-invading-ukraine)** > > "Joe Biden tempted Putin to invade ... Ukraine in the first place," Sen. Tom Cotton declared on CNN. "This is a mess that we've all been handed." ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/918 "2025-03-09T16:13:56Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > . At least, according to the GOP’s Tom Cotton. He says that Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan was a sign to Putin to invade. And that Putin “respects and in some ways fears Trump.” And who agreed to a withdrawal from Afghanistan in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/919 "2025-03-09T19:15:40Z")
The entire world fears Trump. The same way you would fear an angry toddler with a locked and loaded gun. A gun the toddler does not know how to use, but is in their hands. The toddler see’s this as respect and control. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/920 "2025-03-11T05:24:28Z")
UK, France and other countries pledge to provide Ukraine with intelligence briefings. It won’t include anything from the US. I think this can be a long term advantage for Europe. They have some dependency on US briefing. That needs to change. As it becomes more obvious the US is no longer a dependable ally. I think the long term damage to America’s reputation could take many years to recover. Europe will be stronger if they stop relying as heavily on the US for leadership and military support. > **[UK to continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine after US cutoff](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/06/uk-to-continue-to-supply-intelligence-to-ukraine-after-us-cutoff)** > > Britain will also continue to supply analysis of raw data but will not pass on shared US information, sources say ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349/921 "2025-03-11T23:58:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > UK, France and other countries pledge to provide Ukraine with intelligence briefings. It won’t include anything from the US. > > I think this can be a long term advantage for Europe. They have some dependency on US briefing. That needs to change. As it becomes more obvious the US is no longer a dependable ally. Indeed. Given how things are going, if I were in a European intelligence agency, I’d be wary of being fed unreliable intelligence from the US that was tainted by Russian influences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-the-regional-situation/995349.md?page=47)