# What now for Ukraine **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion, trump\ **Created:** [February 14, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302 "2025-02-14T12:49:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/21 "2025-02-19T00:23:20Z")
Now Trump has even explicitly blamed Ukraine for _starting_ the war: > [@The fucking president of the USA](#): > > Well, you [Zelenskyy] have been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/trump-blames-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-020517/](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/trump-blames-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-020517/) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/22 "2025-02-19T00:33:05Z")
I missed also that Trump [criticized Ukraine for not holding elections](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/breaking-donald-trump-tells-ukraine-34705362). How Putin avoided bursting out laughing at that point, I’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/23 "2025-02-19T02:06:52Z")
> [@The fucking president of the USA](#): > > You should have never started it. This is an example of the Trump magic. How TF can he say something so incredibly factually wrong and bankrupt? And we all know that his base will magically believe him. This is why the Democrats could not have possibly won this time, because half of the electorate has chosen to believe wrong stuff - in this case appallingly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/24 "2025-02-19T10:36:49Z")
The MAGA response to this last Ukraine statement from Trump was to shriek that the statement is taken out of context. Here’s the context to which they refer: > **[Trump says Ukraine 'never should have started' war with Russia](https://www.euronews.com/2025/02/19/trump-says-ukraine-never-should-have-started-war-with-russia-following-us-russia-talks-in-)** > > Top US and Russian officials met for four hours Tuesday before US President Donald Trump suggested that Kyiv was to blame for the conflict. > “A half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives,” Trump said, echoing his frequent claim that he could have prevented the Russian invasion. Roughly equivalent to a sexual assault victim being told she ‘could have simply made out with the guy for a half-hour and he probably would have gone away.’ The disconnect between the pro- and the anti-Trump factions in this country never ceases to shock and astound me. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/25 "2025-02-19T17:54:09Z")
It’s just got a hell of a lot worse with Trump’s latest tweet, including what I would take as a veiled threat that Zelenskyy “is not going to have a country left”: > I’m going to stop posting Trump’s madness to this thread, because it’s clearly not going to end. I think we can all safely say he’s deep in Putin’s pocket, and Putin can literally say anything and Trump will believe it. Which is pretty scary, given that Putin won’t want to stop here. (Also…do I need to debunk everything Trump has said in this tweet? On other platforms it’s necessary, as you get a torrent of apologists (whether rube or russian, it’s hard to say). But for the Dope, I don’t think anyone’s on the kool aid, so it’s sufficient to point that even the ancillary stuff you might not know off the top of your head, like the European money given to Ukraine or Zelenskyy’s approval ratings, are _also_ “pants on fire” false.) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/26 "2025-02-19T18:31:56Z")
That fucker is crazy. Everyone agrees that only he can bring peace? What an egomaniac. Putin will give him a good performance rating at his next review. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/27 "2025-02-19T18:42:54Z")
Just in terms of the “MISSING” [sic] money, what most of us already know: > **[Where Is the Missing $100 Billion in U.S. Aid for Ukraine?](https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-missing-100-billion-us-aid-ukraine)** > > “I don’t know where all the money is"—CSIS expert Mark Cancian covers the facts behind Ukraine’s “missing” $100 billion. > [@](#): > > On February 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said he had only received $75 billion of the $175 billion the United States had spent on Ukraine. The cry went up, what happened to the other $100 billion? Was it lost or stolen? The answer is no. Only part of the aid goes through Ukrainian control. A large part pays for activities as a result of the war but not to Ukraine directly. These include the United States training of Ukrainian forces, global humanitarian assistance, additional costs of U.S. surge forces in Europe, and intelligence support for both NATO and Ukraine. > > As CSIS has reported before, “aid to Ukraine” is a misnomer because 90 percent of military aid is spent in the United States. Of aid overall, 60 percent is spent in the United States, about 25 percent is spent in Ukraine, and the final 15 percent is spent globally. And he and Elmo are effectively the Controllers of the United States of America. It’s so hard to really pinpoint where stupid ends and evil starts on this shit. ---
**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:** [February 19, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/28 "2025-02-19T19:30:55Z")
Anxiously hoping that Ukraine can still count on Germany, Britain, Denmark et al. for the long haul. We need the Coalition of the Sane to hold the line. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/29 "2025-02-20T09:53:51Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > But for a lot of European countries, this is more than just being about Ukraine. Not all of them though. Hungary’s Orban has expectedly come out shilling Russian propaganda: [Hungary Says European Leaders Aim To ‘Prevent’ Ukraine Truce - Barron’s](https://www.barrons.com/news/hungary-says-european-leaders-preventing-ukraine-truce-e6de7d0d) > Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – one of the closest EU partners of Trump and Moscow – has repeatedly called for peace talks and refused to send military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022. > > “Today, in Paris, pro-war, anti-Trump, frustrated European leaders are gathering to prevent a peace agreement in Ukraine,” Peter Szijjarto told a press briefing which was livestreamed on his Facebook page. Since the election of Fico in Slovakia, the country has slipped from being pro-Ukraine to being increasingly pro-Russia. > **[Slovak PM Fico accuses opposition of trying to topple him Ukraine-style](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgr4zrvv4po)** > > The opposition accuses Fico of using the intelligence service to torpedo a vote of no-confidence. [Poll: Slovaks back Russian Victory in Ukraine more than neighbours - Euractiv](https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/poll-slovaks-back-russian-victory-in-ukraine-more-than-neighbours/) > BRATISLAVA - A recent poll shows that 17% of Slovak citizens want Russia to win the ongoing war in Ukraine, a figure far higher than in neighbouring countries. > > The same sentiment was expressed by only 4% of Poles and 7% of Czechs, the researchers at the Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO) [found](https://cedmohub.eu/fact-checking/fact-checking-briefs/#1738666079492-cfa188b2-ced7). > > A third of the Slovak population prefers a temporary peace with no clear winner, and a similar proportion wants Ukraine to win. Notably, Hungary and Slovakia are two of the only four NATO countries bordering Ukraine. Now, Hungary and Slovakia alone aren’t exactly economic and military powerhouses that are going to make or break Ukraine’s chances in this war. The US, on the other hand, very much can be. The danger isn’t that Ukraine will suddenly collapse if US aid is cut off, but that its advantage over Russia in the long haul will be undermined. Halving support for Ukraine along with the possibility of reduced sanctions against Russia could make this into a war that Ukraine simply can’t sustain. I’ve been saying this as a warning for at least the past two years as someone who completely supports Ukraine to people who are overly optimistic about things: Russia is winning the war. Russia physically occupies 20% of Ukraine. A ceasefire in place today or at any time since almost the very beginning of the invasion will leave Russia owning 1/5 of Ukraine. Ukraine’s big advantage over a long enough timeline is that the Russian economy is being damaged by sanctions, and Russia’s stockpile of Soviet-era weaponry is steadily being exhausted, while Ukraine’s economy is being floated by the West, and if it continues to be resupplied by the West it doesn’t have a drop-dead date on its ability to continue to pull weapons from storage. There is a very serious danger that TFG will entirely undermine those advantages while undermining pressure on the Russian economy. And to top it off, at current attrition rates Russia’s stockpiles of tanks, AFVs, and artillery left over from the Cold War would be entirely exhausted in the next four years. Note that this exhaustion wouldn’t lead to a Russian collapse either, but it would progressively and severely restrict their abilities to continue the war at the same tempo. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/30 "2025-02-20T11:22:44Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Russia is winning the war. Sorry but i don’t think you understand what winning a war really means. War is supposed to achieve a political goal. Russia’s been massively diminished. The only good outcome for Putin now is to not lose his head. And if the war stops by the way, the Russian economy will tank. Quickly. War is the only thing propping up their economy right now. Russia’s goal from these talks isn’t to end the war, it’s simply to get Trump to fall out with Ukraine and stop supporting it. Meanwhile, US defence stocks are falling. • Lockheed Martin: -16.41% • Northrop Grumman: -13% • General Dynamics: -10.93% • Raytheon Technologies: -2.66% European defense stocks are rising: 🇩🇪 Rheinmetall: +36.4% 🇫🇷 Thales: +22.66% 🇬🇧 BAE Systems: +10.17% 🇪🇺 Airbus: +5.85% ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/31 "2025-02-20T11:41:31Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Meanwhile, US defence stocks are falling. That’s very interesting. And quite telling. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/32 "2025-02-20T17:35:59Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Sorry but i don’t think you understand what winning a war really means. War is supposed to achieve a political goal. I rather think you’re not understanding what winning a war actually means. Russia has a political goal in this war; it’s the domination and eventual conquest of Ukraine. It has been succeeding in that. That its military has been grossly incompetent, and that it has been taking disproportionate losses are irrelevant to that. It still owns 20% of Ukraine, and despite Ukraine’s best efforts, Ukraine is both in no position to take it back and has been unable to stop the tediously slow, grinding Russian advance. (IMO largely because the US and the West was and has been slow in providing Ukraine with enough aid, but that’s neither here nor there). Those arguing that Russia is losing the war are in much the same position as those who argue that Finland won the Winter War because it inflicted such disproportionate casualties on the USSR. Or for that matter that the US won in Vietnam because it inflicted such disproportionate casualties on the NLF. The facts remain that Finland lost the Winter War, surrendering 9% of its country to the USSR, and the communists won the war in Vietnam. > [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Russia’s been massively diminished. Russia’s what has been massively diminished? It’s political standing in the world? That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. Russia is a permanent member of the UN security council. The USSR’s worldwide opinion fell quite a bit in the free world when it invaded Finland. That didn’t do much to save Finland. You can argue that Russia’s political goal of dominating and eventually annexing Ukraine isn’t worth the cost it will pay elsewhere, but 1) that doesn’t mean that it isn’t succeeding in its political goal in the War and 2) how much does the world care nowadays about Putin taking Chechnya, or invading Georgia, or for that matter that the USSR took Karelia from Finland in 1940? Russia isn’t as isolated, nor its economy as damaged by sanctions as some would like to think. With the West? Sure, mostly, but note countries like Hungary and Slovakia. With the rest of the world? Not so much. > [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Russia’s goal from these talks isn’t to end the war, it’s simply to get Trump to fall out with Ukraine and stop supporting it. Which is going to gut Ukraine’s long-term prospects of a “draw” in this war. Which is both a terrifying and very plausible outcome with TFG at the wheel. I’d like nothing more than for this to actually not matter, for Europe to be able to double its spending in support of Ukraine, and for Europe to use some form of time distortion magic to miracle its Cold War stockpiles of weapons back into existence to be able to give them to Ukraine. That’s not going to happen though. Halving the support that Ukraine is getting is going to devastate its ability to continue to wage war. And how US and European defense stocks are doing, while interesting, are pretty much meaningless. Europe has neither the thousands of armored vehicles, combat aircraft, or hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions in stockpiles that it got rid of when the Cold War ended nor the ability to produce them in meaningful amounts in any timescale helpful for Ukraine. The US still has thousands of Bradley IFVs, Abrams tanks, M113 APCs and other such military material sitting in storage. There are no thousands of Marder IFVs, Leopard 2 tanks or YPR-765s sitting in storage in Europe. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/33 "2025-02-20T17:57:23Z")
Given that there is zero chance that anyone will mount a ground invasion of western Europe anytime in the near future, I would like to see Spain, France, UK, etc. donate nearly all their tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine. Sure, the loss of this would hamper their ability to project power abroad, but we may be done with Middle Eastern adventures for a few decades to come anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/34 "2025-02-20T19:46:43Z")
I think it’s also worth saying at this point that _this is not peace_. I’m just throwing this out there because most of the Trump supporters that I have spoken to, even those who consider themselves sympathetic to Ukraine, have said that it is worth whatever deal to achieve peace. But Trump’s version of peace means emboldening Russia to replenish its armory and then go further, and virtually all European nations are talking about hugely increasing their military spend. On this latter point, some will say “about time”, and indeed I agree completely that Europe should be taking greater responsibility for its own defence. But, right now, this spending is not a deterrent, it’s getting ready for a likely war. I feel history was trying to tell us something just now but we seem to have forgotten. Ah, it couldn’t have been important. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/35 "2025-02-20T22:30:42Z")
Ukraine’s rare earth metals are something America wants. That puts Ukraine in a stronger bargaining position. As long as America plays the “rational” actor beloved of economic theorists, there’s a limit to how badly America can cut off Ukraine. European countries are already giving more aid to Ukraine than America is. The rare earth metals mean that America needs Ukraine more than Ukraine needs America. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/cRUp5HUjr7s/maxresdefault.jpg "What everyone is getting wrong about Trump’s Ukraine peace talks") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRUp5HUjr7s) ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/36 "2025-02-20T22:40:24Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > As long as America plays the “rational” actor Sadly, and with all due respect, I believe that that role of the US is rapidly coming to an end, if not finished. And, bearing in mind that: > [@Johanna](#): > > Ukraine’s rare earth metals are something America wants I fear that Ukraine, rather than being in a stronger position, will, instead, be a target of the US. What, exactly, that means for Ukraine I have no idea but I believe that Trump has rendered Ukraine extremely vulnerable to the US and/or Russia. And this, I think will put Europe in a very delicate and dangerous position. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/37 "2025-02-20T22:52:47Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > I fear that Ukraine, rather than being in a stronger position, will, instead, be a target of the US. Indeed. I have a hard time believing this administration will allow anyone to negotiate with them from a position of strength. Especially if they have the ability to force them to negotiate from a weaker position, or even a place of desperation. “Fire sale” comes to mind. I’m a little surprised we haven’t seen musings about annexing Ukraine as a US territory, but I suppose Trump respects Putin “prior claim” too much. Maybe they think that we’ll get access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth at cut rate prices after betraying them to Putin. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/38 "2025-02-20T23:07:33Z")
Two things frequently occur to me: - The innumerable classified documents at Mar-A-Lago, coupled with the numerous calls – reported by Bob Woodward – between Trump and Putin during the Trump interregnum (ie, when he was a private citizen); - The perverse incentive of coveting [**Ukraine’s mineral wealth**](https://theconversation.com/ukraines-natural-resources-are-at-centre-stage-in-the-ongoing-war-and-will-likely-remain-there-249254) to a predatory mercantilist like The Donald You’re not quite as likely to keep grandma on the ventilator when you know you’re the sole heir to her ample estate. It’s what reasonable people call a “conflict of interest.” Remember those? Yeah. Me, too. Splitting it all up w/Vlad? Could you imagine? Didn’t ‘**[we all](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace)**’ take a Sharpie to the map post WW1?? It’s not that Trump has the benefit of historical knowledge. It’s just that he thinks like every madman who came before him. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2025, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/39 "2025-02-21T02:35:41Z")
How long till Bernie “falls” out of a window? > **[A Sad Moment in American History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKBM2kS6B8o%2F)** > > We are witnessing a very sad moment in American history.The President of the United States is aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, t... ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2025, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302/40 "2025-02-21T03:01:05Z")
Or Trump allies with Russia and sends _Russia_ military aid, with the understanding that Ukraine’s rare earth metals get divided equally between Russia and the U.S. once Russia takes them. In other words, I would agree with you if we had any president other than Trump, who’d have either a sense of decency or an understanding that he has to fake a minimal sense of decency. But I wouldn’t put such a naked support of aggression past Trump, who’d be proud of the deal he made for the U.S. if he carved up Ukraine’s assets with Russia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-now-for-ukraine/1014302.md?page=3)