I don't know why people are pretending to be surprised. When the Soviet Union or Uncle Sams props your army up to fight the other you were in for a bad time. There are like books written about events like these.
I don't see how the political establishment was strong enough to do anything but being played, so contemplating whether accepting help or on the contrary playing along with the "special operation" thing seems like counterfactual history to me, even though such discussions usually are quite interesting.
You were told this was something else, and it resonated better because the people involved were culturally close to Europeans. But in reality was the messaging all that different from "Operation Iraqi Freedom"? Both were fights for automotive power sources dressed up as a liberation movement.
You may want to look up something about how Saddam came to power in the early 60s. He had not only the same CIA covert ops backing but even the same kind of TV promotion. That whole army fatigues getup should be familiar by now.
How does it feel when Trump flips the script and outright says: we'll put a "people's leader" in charge of Greenland and then he'll sell it out to us. This is all that your color revolutions were all along, always.
Mineral aquisition is a bit of a furphy here .. in my estimation the more important goals for Russia here were expanded access to Black Sea ports, main land access to Crimea, and water supply security to Crimea ... and a nostalgia for the Olde Russian Empire Made Great Again.
I think it was mainly about not losing face internally when the separatists would have been defeated. Like, there was a bridge. Water can be piped. The port in Sevastopol was big enough. Etc. And there is no way some mines can repay all the costs just as the invasion of Iraq wouldn't be repaid by Iraqi oil ever.
The North Crimean Canal was shut down in 2014 soon after Russia annexed Crimea.
As a water supply it was a greater than a single pipe .. or even ten. Crimea was running critically low on water after a few years and Russia was keen to restore that otherwise the taking of Crimea rang hollow.
No, you underestimate the scale of ecological catastrophe imposed on the Crimea by Ukrainian regime.
" “After five years without water, the population structure of the villages of the steppe regions of Crimea looks depressing. By the end of 2020, 90% of the remaining population will be unemployed. All the rest will leave the region,” concludes Liev.
...
According to Liev, in the last 50 years, when the irrigation functioned, the peninsula received a new layer of fertile land. However, in the last 5 years, this soil has not been moistened enough and is already degraded.
...
As an occupying power, Russia is entirely responsible for the maintenance of the Crimean region according to the Geneva Convention, says Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Crimea Anton Korynevych. Ukraine’s task is to make the occupation as burdensome for Russia as possible. The water supply to Crimea may be effectively used by Ukraine to put additional pressure on Russia so that it returns Crimea." [0]
Note, that the title of this article published by Ukrainian "Euromaidan Press" is "Ukraine’s water blockade of Crimea should stay, because it’s working". Enough said.
No, it's even stupider than that. He thinks the US is backing Ukraine because we want their lithium deposits. This is an idea that the Trump admin has recently floated, but it's not the reason that the US has been supporting Ukraine for the last 4 years.
>This seems less like a country losing a war and more like the US and Russia partnering in an attempt to impose an unfavorable deal on Kyiv.
I dont understand the difference here. Losing a war usually comes with unfavorable terms.
Ukraine is absent from table because durable military power is the table stakes, and they were always a proxy. If the US has decided it is done using Ukraine to bloody Russia's nose and scare Europe into line, then it's basically over.
From the US real politik perspective, it was always a win-win situation going in. The US will walk away with 2 new NATO allies, increased NATO spending, and severed trade with Russia.
they floated treaties and peace offerings... and most of those were like "we get to keep all of Asia that we hold, we just stop shooting, and will throw $$2 billion your way"
the Allies all met together and decided on the course of action on several occasions, like at Yalta
This is more like the US agreeing to end the Lend-Lease program if Hitler promised to stop his conquest of Europe, allowing him to keep his conquered territory while demanding concessions from the rest of Europe.
We have 2025 and there are out there a people who think that can make decisions for you without even being asked. I smell so much troubles that even best class russian propaganda won't handle. :)
A similar debate concerned the shape of the table to be used at the conference. The North favored a circular table, in which all parties, including NLF representatives, would appear to be "equal"' in importance. The South Vietnamese argued that only a rectangular table was acceptable, for only a rectangle could show two distinct sides to the conflict. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which representatives of the northern and southern governments would sit at a circular table, with members representing all other parties sitting at individual square tables around them.
I am trying to allude to historical events in which a super power talked both behind the back of a losing allied government and then forced them into a losing proposition.
It is not like stuff like this is unexpected. I find the general "acted surprisedness" somewhat annoying.
“Programmed” seems like a foolishly reductive (not to mention arrogant) way of describing other countries’ politicians and political decisions, given the hot war happening on EU’s doorstep.
Only if you include refugee aid then the EU amount exceeds the US, but that has no bearing on the outcome of the war (this is where most of the EU funding goes to). What matters to win a war is military aid, and the EU has provided a fraction of what the US has given so far.
I'd say he's trying to pick a fight by saying such inflammatory things.
The Kiel Institute divides aid into three categories: military, financial, humanitarian. By the end of 2024, Europe and the US had delivered roughly the same amount of military aid, and Europe had committed to a lot more in the future:
US Europe
Delivered 64 62
Committed 66 100
Total 130 162
Deliveries of military aid from both sides closely followed the same growth line throughout 2024. In some months, the US was ahead in total delivered military aid; in others, Europe was. See Figure 1 at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Subject_Do...
The second largest category was financial aid, which is also vital for the war effort, because much of it has been provided for rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and ensuring resilience against further attacks:
US Europe
Delivered 47 57
Committed 50 131
Total 97 188
Humanitarian aid was fairly insignificant compared to other categories:
US Europe
Delivered 3 16
Committed 13 13
Total 16 29
All figures in Euros, rounded to the nearest billion.
Administration officials had all sorts of condescending "they did a good job defending themselves but ... " quotes before the election.