Blink twice if you are being held hostage
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- Date published:
10:48 am, March 5th, 2025 - 27 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, Free Trade, Peace, trade, us politics, war, Zelensky -
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Volodymyr Zelensky, faced with the prospect of no further US aid and his country being overrun by Russian forces, has done the only thing he can.
He has apologised for being treated so abominably by Trump and Vance last weekend and asked for forgiveness.
From Radio New Zealand:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he regretted last week’s Oval Office clash with Donald Trump and wanted to “make things right”, in a fulsome statement on Tuesday issued a day after Trump halted military aid to Kyiv.
In his statement, Zelensky said he supported peace negotiations and was ready to sign a deal giving the United States access to Ukrainian minerals, which he had left on the table when he abandoned a visit to Washington after an Oval Office argument with Trump on Friday.
“My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” Zelensky said in his statement on X.
“We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence,” Zelensky wrote. “Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right.”
He has proposed a partial ceasefire relating to air and sea attacks and the release of prisoners.
At one level this is the only thing he could do given America’s position. But being forced to open up Ukranie’s material wealth to the United States should not be the way that sovereign nations conduct themselves.
And on this point have you noticed Trump’s fascination with mineral wealth? It is the one factor common to Greenland, Canada and the Ukraine.
Meanwhile Trump has thrown markets into turmoil by confirming tarriffs on Canada and Mexico.
Events and negotiations from a month ago show how much Trump can be trusted.
Justin Trudeau has responded by imposing countertarriffs on the US. Of Trump he said “[e]ven though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.”
Trump has responded by threatening further tarriffs against Canada.
It is difficult to know how to respond to this sort of behaviour by a man-child.
Trump has again claimed that the actions are necessary to “combat the extraordinary threat to U.S. national security, including our public health posed by unchecked drug trafficking”.
As far as Canada is concerned this is clearly not true.
Stockmarkets are in decline. Unemployment rates and inflation rates are anticiated to surge.
Vladimir Putin must be grinning from ear to ear. Who would have thought that all you had to do to to bring the United States and the world’s economy into turmoil was to install a highly compromised and deficient leader.
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I feel sorry for Zelensky.
Caught between a rock and a hard place. Doing a job nobody would envy.
Being played like a chess piece by both a brutal dictator and an egomaniac narcissistic Benedict Arnold simultaneously.
I suppose the best he can do now is try to come out of it with some shred of his country intact and independent
What a terrible situation for Zelensky. That unhinged, bullying, delusional egomaniac now in the White House is causing immeasurable harm, chaos and turmoil – after only a few weeks. Trump and Vance are in their own horror movie while the world watches, helplessly.
I don't know how Zelensky kept from laughing in Vance's face. He's there to sign away mineral rights in his country because the new administration's decided the aid provided so far was actually just a loan Ukraine has to pay back with interest, and Vance complains "You haven't said thank you." It's something an abuser would say to his victim, not one ally to another.
You can 'regret' what happened without it being an apology. The more we see of Zelenskyy, the more I admire his nous.
Trump was always going this path with Ukraine. It’s Europe that is crucial to Ukraine’s future, and Europe is swinging behind Zelenskyy.
Always remember that John Key, that sensible moderate guy with a great grasp of economics, endorsed Trump in 2024. Next time he does another jokey blokey photo-op, perhaps a reporter could ask why he wanted a global trade war. (And if his answer is "Oh, I didn't know that would happen", then never ask him about anything again).
I feel for Zelensky, but more so for the Ukraine people, still living in uncertainty and war after an illegal occupation by Russia. Then there's Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and all the other countries bordering on Ukraine. This is serious, but meanwhile, all our PM can talk about is marmite sandwiches and pretend we won't be impacted by Trumps's tariffs – keeping his head down saying he trusts him.
It's not like the EU can protect Ukraine or broker a Russian peace deal.
Only the US has a shot at bringing Russia to a ceasefire negotiation.
And NZ contribution is near lowest possible.
EU+Starmer morality concerns are just irreconcilable with their actual power to make peace.
Zelenskyy is simply acknowledging that reality.
A ceasefire without security guarantees (genuine ones rather than the fake guarantees Ukraine received in 1994) would benefit only Russia. And there's certainly no "peace deal" to be had – the illusion of one maybe, but not a real one. Trump going on about "peace" is like a guy painting over rust and hoping the car will pass its WoF. Zelensky was right to say this war will be a long one.
The best to aim for now is the Korean border, frozen war.
Probably, but keeping it frozen would be a hell of a job. The Ukrainians wouldn't stop wanting their lost territory back and Putin wouldn't stop wanting the rest of Ukraine.
As I said before Trump is demented, he has a loss of executive and an inability to control the on-off button.
It is horrifying to watch and I commend those leaders who are seeking new ways that mean not having to deal with a leader whose graps on reality is slipping and for whom capricious decsions will be the norm ….
Excellent speech from Trudeau
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/04/world/video/justin-trudeau-tariffs-trump-speech-digvid
Even if you don't like Trudeau look at how non demented people talk and phrase and emphasise. Then look at Trump, with his now pinched mouth, trite-isms and now squeaky voice…when did this happen?
I am grateful for Trump speaking out and legislating …..My post just fled away. I am grateful for Trump for ending the anti women, protrans madness especially in women’s sport.
But that is the only thing.
There are two people in particular id like to see thrown into a garbage dumster and have lots of ickey stuff thrown in after them that would be Zelensky and Starmer the former for haveing so much blood on his hands being britain's special little puppet and Starmer for being so stupid im supprized he can stand up
I cant beleive that supposedly intelligent people wring on this blog could carry on repeating the same crap about the same topic for so long without seeming learning a damn thing in the interval stupid stuff like referring to Ukraine as a sovereign country !!??whf how can it be sovereign if other goverments pay for everything an even pick your representatives as Victoria Newland revealed in 2014 ?
How can Ukraine be called a democracy when it employs gangs of utterly ruthless thugs called " Recruiters " despised by local populations who roam freely through towns and villages pressganging men to feed Zelenskys meatgrinda an they dont give a fuck who you are or what you might have been doing and unless you can come up with a substantial bribe you are set to be at the front with a few weeks training if your lucky !!! Democracy what a joke idiot i cant think of another country in the world that does this .Thats one example an i can think of many .
This proxy war has gone on and on far far too long already and far far to many men have died for fuck all reason yet still the voices that call for the wars continuation rise and fall and hum like a cloud of blowflies over a corpse .I,d have thought that in these three years at least the most ignorent here might have grown to toddlers metaphorically speaking instead i think maybe you,ve reverted to infants . !!
Are you on the left or the right of the horseshoe? I really can't tell any more.
Your silo is the one where Ukraine exists as an area of land where Russia does what it wants.
There are those who see the river to the sea land as where Israel does what it wants.
And there are those who support the Iranian Revolution elite that reign supreme over the Iranian state as the Shia Moslem sword against a non Moslem state in the region.
There were once supporters of an American led Cold War effort against anything left wing (including the left in western democracies), now into 2 streams
1.neo liberal libertarians at war with the concept of society commons/governance for the people.
2.social conservative, Christian dominionists at war with liberal democracy and secular society inclusion.
The American GOP includes both, and has allied with Russia to war on the EU to bring it to a right wing authoritarian heel.
It is the biggest threat to the free world that has existed since 1945. And it is totally corrupt.
I have been discussing this concept with friends recently. How can you tell someone has taken the bait and swallowed the progaganda hook, with all its nasty mess? Because, like Weston, they use pre-manufactured propaganda phrases and slogans, and don’t even bother to use their own words to describe their position, or events.
Called ‘toeing the Party line’. And I have used this decsription, too, in organisations I worked for when they trotted out ‘management speak’ phrases and lies while screwing over workers.
Bullshit detection is the one single critical faculty that needs to be taught to everyone for a secure political future.
And I don’t claim myself immune to swallowing slogans when under-informed.
Weston, the "supposedly intelligent people writing on this blog" picked up so many spelling and wordsmithing errors they lost count.
Your piece wouldn't get a pass at primary school grade, speaking of infants.
Gosh, if your criteria is that States who are in receipt of foreign aid have no right to exist – there's going to be a very long tail of them. Beginning with Gaza, and continuing through Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan (as well as Ukraine).
Notably, Russia appears nowhere on the top aid donors list. Surprising… Not.
https://fts.unocha.org/global-funding/overview/2024
@Mickey, is the final sentence implying Putin decided the latest US election outcome?
There is stuff going around that Trump is a Russian asset, recruited in 1987.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-recruited-kgb-codename-180759277.html?guccounter=1
Who knows how much is true.
You do realise that Trump being a Russian asset doesn't in any way suggest how he then became installed as US president at Putin's whim?
Wikipedia may be a useful reference.
Russia and social media propoganda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_propaganda_in_the_Russian_Federation
Russian interference in the 2024 American elections (with links to separate pages for previous elections).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections
And you are definitely claiming this switched the election result from Biden, then Harris to Trump?
I don't know. All we know is that Russia has interfered in the electoral processes of multiple countries for the side that benefited them. If Cambridge Analytica can do it, why not Russia?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-how-turn-clicks-into-votes-christopher-wylie
So, your argument is that Russia swung the election (using essentially legal means) with an extremely successful targeted advertising campaign.
There are however a few issues with this,
a) Both Republican and Democrat (and others) already do this advertising at scale for the US election, it's part of billions of dollars advertising campaigns. In fact, the Democrats spent more than Republicans on this.
b) We have an idea of the scale of this via Russia due to the 2016 election investigation, it was at most a few 100K spent in total, probably less. This miniscule amount was still implausibly claimed to have swung that election, really discrediting the whole idea.
c) Its political advertising, if it happened, we would have seen it directly, or at least it would have been reported that Russia was spending millions of dollars on election advertising for Republicans, in some way.
d) There were around 4.5 million votes not counted in the latest US election with a large democratic party bias. That should form a base line for how many votes Russia's advertising campaign needs to have swung for significance in actually changing the result.
In summary, Russian interference was not significantly visible during the election campaign and was not consistent with the final voting pattern (turnout was low, rather than with a lot of people changing candidates). The election was likely swung by good old fashioned Jim Crow era vote suppression implemented by Republican party members.
Trump Lost. Vote Suppression Won. – Greg Palast
A contract handing over minerals to another nation under duress is not valid.
Such a shakedown is a criminal act.