Империи чаще разваливаются изнутри, вследствии накопившихся проблем.
Poll Time !!! Trump-Putin Summit: Result ???
- Thread starter Killjoy
- Start date
Wizard of Whatever
Valued Senior Member
Tired of going to google translate. If you want any more responses try English
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
You do not need to go to Google translate. Just click your three dot menu (usually top right) and the drop-down will have a "translate page" option to click. Takes about three to five seconds. Most browsers have something similar. If not, see if your device has a Chrome browser option, and switch.
Olga wrote:
Empires often collapse from within, due to accumulated problems.
Wizard of Whatever
Valued Senior Member
Not on my older Mac. Tried Chrome but trouble both times with download. Thanks anyway.
Several European leaders gathering around Zelenskyy on Monday, to give him moral support. But what he needs is security guarantees after a peace deal. If he gets that, maybe he might cease the futility of trying to reclaim the captured territory. Otherwise, the war continues and Ukraine eventually loses from attrition, and the whole country is acquired by Russia.
Europe might deter that fate by offering its own troops to Zelenskyy as part of the body count in this conflict. But that's not going to happen. Big difference between providing personnel for a defense measure that might never be required, and sacrificing them to a live battlefield.
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Europe might deter that fate by offering its own troops to Zelenskyy as part of the body count in this conflict. But that's not going to happen. Big difference between providing personnel for a defense measure that might never be required, and sacrificing them to a live battlefield.
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Вам рассказать что вас ждёт? Вам об этом уже рассказал министр иностранных дел своей майкой. Вас ждёт возвращение к границам СССР, в том числе к границам стран варшавского договора. Вас ждёт тандем Россия -Китай, и падение Америки, а вместе с ней и Европы. Вас ждёт новый миропорядок. И не надо говорить, что вы этого не хотели. Не хотели бы, не выкармливали бы Китай. Не позволяли бы семьям российских чиновников жить на Западе. Но жадность, и погоня за сиюминутной выгодой, сыграла с вами злую шутку. Вас поймали, как ту обезьяну в кувшин.
The United States has done its part to undermine globalization dependent trade. It no longer has the naval ships and devoted interest to patrol the shipping lanes. And yet somehow the predicted rise in piracy and predatory state activity has not been enough to bring international commerce to a halt.
So don't blame "feeding China" and lackluster attempts to bring manufacturing back home on a lack of effort in that area (both unintentional as much as deliberate).
- (2023) Deglobalization - there's no stopping it now: If anything, the Biden administration is far more anti-globalization than the Trump administration was, or at a minimum, it’s actually putting in the long term policy.
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(2023) The age of American naval dominance Is over: Then the Cold War ended. The administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton slashed troops, ships, aircraft, and shore-based infrastructure. During the Obama administration, the Navy’s battle force bottomed out at 271 ships.
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(2023) What happens when America no longer protects the sea lanes: For several decades, global trade has remained robust and free of major interference. Under the post Cold War unipolar order of Pax Americana, the United States has served as the de facto guarantor of open sea lanes, embracing the duty as an acceptable cost of responsibility for being the world’s hegemonic power.
However, as the world enters an increasingly multipolar geopolitical environment, the Pentagon’s priorities (at the direction of the White House) have shifted all over the place, seemingly forgoing this unwritten social contract in the process. Not so long ago, it was commonly understood that [...] the U.S. Navy must be structured both for command of the seas and the duty of keeping the sea lanes open. But today, the Biden Administration wants to have its World Police cake and eat it too, without committing to maintaining the necessary presence in the seas to keep order.
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Wizard of Whatever
Valued Senior Member
It seems to boil down this way.
Give into Putin and what he wants to stop the death and destruction.
Or continue to support Ukraine even more and risk a widening of the war.
Give into Putin and what he wants to stop the death and destruction.
Or continue to support Ukraine even more and risk a widening of the war.
Apparently nothing more recent than the 16th. Probably a new assessment released tomorrow.
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 16, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-16-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 16, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-16-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Various US officials indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be willing to compromise on some war termination demands, but Putin's own statements and Russian official statements contradict these claims.
- It is unclear what Putin offered in his meeting with Trump beyond reiterating his demand for Donetsk Oblast and offering a limited ceasefire with no known timeframe in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts.
- Putin’s demand for all of Donetsk Oblast is the most clear and consistent demand coming out of the Alaska Summit.
- Ukrainian forces would not be able to conduct a safe and orderly withdrawal from unoccupied Donetsk Oblast in accordance with Putin's demand without a full ceasefire across the entire theater, however
- ISW continues to assess that a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk Oblast would degrade Ukraine's defensive capabilities and defense industrial base (DIB) and put hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian civilians under Russian occupation. Ukraine would require robust international security guarantees and the immediate deployment of an international peacekeeping contingent to deter future Russian aggression.
- Seizing the remainder of Donetsk Oblast would likely be a difficult and years-long effort for Russian forces rather than a quick effort as Putin likely aims to portray, as Russian forces remain unable to secure operationally significant advances or advance faster than foot pace.
- Putin's reported rejection of a full ceasefire in Ukraine and the ongoing Russian offensives in Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts indicate that Putin intends to continue his war in Ukraine while negotiations are ongoing — a point that Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev welcomed.
- The Kremlin reportedly instructed Russian media outlets to present the Alaska summit as a meeting between two superpowers and to prepare Russian society for the possibility of a protracted war in Ukraine.
- Russian officials continue rhetorical campaigns designed to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and peace negotiations and to legitimize Russia's war in Ukraine.
- Ukrainian forces likely cleared several settlements within the Russian penetration northeast of Dobropillya.
- Ukrainian forces advanced near Pokrovsk and Velykomykhailivka. Russian forces advanced near Siversk.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
It seems that Russia/Putin already has all that they want of Ukraine.
They restored the water supply to Crimea on the second day of the special military operation.
And now they have a land corridor to Crimea. (making the sea of Azov a Russian lake).
Winning it is one thing---keeping it is another
(Catherine and Potemkin?)
They restored the water supply to Crimea on the second day of the special military operation.
And now they have a land corridor to Crimea. (making the sea of Azov a Russian lake).
Winning it is one thing---keeping it is another
(Catherine and Potemkin?)
Setting aside Zelenskyy's most recent assertions of never giving up any territory (the ultimate impasse)... Even on the super-optimistic side it's difficult to imagine him withdrawing from what Ukraine still retains of the Donetsk Oblast and two other oblasts until the proposed "Article 5-like protection" security guarantee is actually physically instantiated in some manner. Not just promised.
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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 17, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-17-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 17, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-17-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- US officials acknowledged that Putin has yet to demonstrate a willingness to offer the concessions necessary to reach a peace agreement.
- Russia will be unable to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast rapidly through force, as Russian forces have failed to do for over a decade. Russia could only rapidly seize all of Donetsk Oblast if Ukraine concedes to Putin's demand and withdraws from the remainder of the oblast.
- Russian forces have historically thrown themselves into costly campaigns to seize fortified or urban areas in eastern Ukraine, a reality far from Putin's claims of rapid advances.
- Recent Russian advances northeast of Pokrovsk do not indicate that Russia can rapidly seize fortified or urban areas.
- Russia continues to deny Ukraine's sovereignty and to demand the right to dictate Ukrainian domestic affairs.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin's insistence that any peace agreement must address Russia's perceived "root causes" of the war will make it difficult to reach a peace agreement as rapidly as Trump desires, given the complexity of the "root causes."
- Russia's "root causes" extend beyond Ukraine, and eliminating them would require substantial negotiations with NATO.
- Putin's offer of a Russian law forbidding a future invasion of Ukraine is not credible because Russia has already twice broken previous binding international commitments not to invade and because Putin has shown that he can freely change Russian law as he desires.
- The details about Ukrainian security guarantees to which Putin may have agreed remain unclear at this time, but the Kremlin may be attempting to resurrect its demands about security guarantors from April 2022 that would have neutered such guarantees.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Toretsk. Russian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk.
Wizard of Whatever
Valued Senior Member
At times, Putin reminds me of Hitler.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
The Only Plausible Path to End the War in Ukraine
Has the Trump administration misread Moscow?
www.theatlantic.com
Thoughtful analysis by a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Yep. Britain faced the same dilemma in 1939. Fortunately they decided to fight.
Hell of a sequel they managed to put together to the "Alaskan Farce".
I swear I've read more about Turnip gushing over Zelensky wearing a suit than about any progress toward peace !
Kudos to whoever advised Zelensky to kowtow like some fawning sycophant, though - I guess...
Sickening to think that that's what's required to get through to His Infernal Majesty. Guess it remains to be seen whether it has any positive effect.
I swear I've read more about Turnip gushing over Zelensky wearing a suit than about any progress toward peace !
Kudos to whoever advised Zelensky to kowtow like some fawning sycophant, though - I guess...
Sickening to think that that's what's required to get through to His Infernal Majesty. Guess it remains to be seen whether it has any positive effect.
I have thought that Trump will be judged by history as America's Neville Chamberlain if he persists in appeasing Putin.
I doubt that NATO membership can be achieved for Ukraine. Turkey has too close a relationship to Russia for them to vote Ukraine in.
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 19, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-19-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-19-2025
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accurately stated that the Kremlin's objective in Ukraine is to politically control all of Ukraine rather than to seize select Ukrainian territories such as Donetsk Oblast.
- Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022 after failing to secure control over Ukraine by other means.
- Russia similarly seeks to exert influence over the internal governance of other former Soviet countries, including NATO states, effectively denying their sovereignty and setting conditions to threaten their independent governance.
- Lavrov implicitly rejected suggestions that Russia might accept Western security guarantees for Ukraine.
- Russian forces appear to be attempting to counterattack Ukrainian forces clearing the Russian infiltration near Dobropillya as Ukrainian forces increasingly threaten the base of the penetration.
- Russian infiltration tactics and a low manpower density along the frontline in the Pokrovsk direction have seemingly allowed Russian forces to restore limited, tactical maneuver east and southeast of Dobropillya —at least temporarily.
- Ukraine and Russia conducted another exchange of the bodies of soldiers killed in action (KIA) on August 19.
- Ukrainian authorities implicated a soldier of the Russian 82nd Motorized Rifle Regiment in the executions of two Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast in Summer 2024.
- Ukrainian forces advanced near Pokrovsk and Velykomykhailivka. Russian forces advanced near Chasiv Yar and Toretsk.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian missile slammed into an American electronics factory in a remote corner of far western Ukraine early Thursday, causing extensive damage and more than a dozen injuries, according to Ukrainian officials.
The attack came as Russia carried out one of its largest airstrikes of the war, firing more than 570 drones and 40 missiles in an overnight barrage, according to the officials.