badgerx16

Dictator Zelensky and his corrupt regime will finally pay the price for starting the war against their peaceful neighbours.

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Today's Matt cartoon in the Telegraph

Strange how different owners, decades apart, have all done this.

What I posted is the current situation defined by international treaties..

That may be what you want the reality to be, but it is a fallacy. According to the Refugee Convention a refugee is.... " a person who: owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it." And there is nothging that specifies or relatres to the "first safe country". Whatever causes you to believe you are a refugee when you leave your point of origin is still in effect when you reach your destination.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, ( Republican ), says that Putin is a war criminal and should be jailed, and possibly executed.

I don't know if you have seen the movie "Civil War" that came out last year, but I think we might be living through the prequel.

Trump has signed another Executive Order, this time to take control over quasi-autonomous agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Election Commission, requiring them to refer any intended interpretation of law or statute to the White House for approval. These agencies have, up to now, been open to scrutiny by Congress, but no longer. The order also rules that the President and Attorney General, alone, will interpret the Law in respect of the President's actions, and thereby reducing Congressional powers of oversight of the White House. He is moulding himself into a dictator.

Does this whole thing between Trump and Zelensky have its roots in the bogus claims around Ukraine and the Hunter Biden investigation ? Is this just another Trump hissy fit because he bought into the conspiracy theory and feels he was thwarted ?

"US President Donald Trump's administration is attempting to rehire officials with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) who worked on the government response to bird flu before being fired over the weekend, US media report."

Putin's useful idiot.

How about somebody who still denies the result of the 2020 Presidential election saying that cancelling a result due to strong evidence of Russian interference was anti-democrstic.

Sergei Lavrov has just said that the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO was the "root cause" of the war.

Disagree about NATO, Russia sees NATO expansion as western aggression, and would like the Baltics to have not joined either - though he has now shot himself in the foot through his belligerence, with Finland and Sweden abandoning their neutrality. Why should Ukraine have to give up any territory? The bottom line is Putin does not accept Ukraine as being a legitimate country, and it's annexation would be the first step in restoring Russia to it's Imperial glory - Georgia next ?

"You should have never started it, you could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, no city would have been demolished, .........but they chose not to do it that way". What he missed out was "...and my good friend Vladimir Putin, very smart guy, one of the smartest guys around, would have kept to our agreement, my agreement, the deal I made, an excellent deal, very excellent, and would have been happy, very happy in fact, and would keep to his side of the bargain, our very good deal for Ukraine, my good deal for them, and never threaten to take more territory, at least not much more, just those little bits to tidy up the borders, not much at all really, not really useful land, land Ukraine can afford to give up because it isn't worth much really, not at all, and Putin, smart guy, very smart guy, would stick to our deal, the deal, my very good deal really, and he would not threaten anybody, well not much and the war would never have happened, probably not, not at all,possibly, and nobody would have died, well maybe not, perhaps not died".

Sergei Lavrov tells the Americans that Russia does not target any civilian energy infrastructure. A blatant lie, left unchallenged. This is the level of "negotiation" that has been taking place. Trump tells Ukraine " You could have made a deal 3 years ago" - true, they could just have surrendered. This will not end with a negotiated settlement, or at least it will only have been "negotiated" between the US and Russia. It will end with a settlement imposed on Ukraine that grants Putin most of what he wants.

Trump's team return from talks with the Russians

Buttress

He is probably an ABBA or S Club 7 fan, and has told the manager that Metallica and Megadeth are not real musicians.

Would you go to war in a tank built by pissed Russians ?

Maintaing a 'war economy', especially on top of international sanctions, is severely detrimental to the domestic one. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-economy-putin-ukraine-war-b2699716.html "The result in Russia has been rampant inflation, currently running at over 9 per cent, crippling interest rates of 21 per cent and runaway price hikes on staple goods that far outpace the headline inflation rate and have hit ordinary Russians hard. Last summer the price of eggs jumped by 42 per cent, bananas by 48 per cent, tomatoes by 39.5 per cent and potatoes by 25 per cent. The Russian ruble has lost over half of its value since Putin first invaded Crimea in 2014, and over $600bn of the Kremlin’s foreign currency reserves have been frozen in Western banks. More than 1,000 Western businesses – including Ikea and McDonald’s – pulled out, as did Western car manufacturers. Imports of Western goods – especially technology – are now expensively routed through sanctions-busting neighbours like Kazakhstan and Georgia. And last month Russian utility companies hiked prices for electricity by up to 250 per cent. “Everyone drives Chinese cars these days, but there are no spare parts,” says Alexandra, 39, a former journalist who lives in Moscow and whose ex-husband is fighting in Ukraine. “The only foreign cars you buy are right-hand-drive [from Japan]. Anyone with a mortgage is paying crazy interest. People complain how expensive everything has become.” "The current crazy levels of expenditure are unsustainable, so Putin has a strong economic incentive to bring his war to an end"

They had an even bigger one before the Second World War, having taken much of the remnants of the Spanish Empire in the 1898 war, particularly the Phillipines. That was also the year that they militarily occupied and annexed Hawaii.

Gaza, Panama, Canada, Greenland, Ukraine; it would appear that US foreign policy is built around a series of land grabs. I suppose that is the only language Trump speaks.