Cutting off imagery and Starlink are going to seriously ream the performance of the Ukrainian front, which is arguably even more heavily dependent on that than on US military hardware. Ukraine has used these advantages over Russia to exceed all expectations; I've heard things like a 3:1 RU:UKR casualty rate on lines where Ukraine is outnumbered 5:1, with 80% of casualties caused by drones and most of the rest by artillery. Much of that is informed by fast-cadence imagery and organized by Starlink.
Europe and Ukraine possess only very limited ways to mitigate those losses.
The US offered them an agreement and Zelensky refused, the consequence is zelensky now has the freedom to operate without the hindrance of the partnership of the devilish Americans. That is their right. They are an independent nation. Their blood lies squarely on the hands of the Russian murderers.
>"One of those contracts is GEGD (the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery program), a U.S. government program that provides access to commercial satellite imagery that has been tasked and collected by the U.S. government," Maxar said in an emailed statement. "The U.S. government has decided to temporarily suspend Ukrainian accounts in GEGD," it said.
>"There is no change to other Maxar customer programs," the company said.
We're talking about a public program, publicly funded, serviced by a private company.
The agreement was essentially "You promise to give us 50% of the proceeds of any new mines you open. We promise you absolutely nothing, but maybe we'll try and negotiate a ceasefire."
This was revealed to be the formal agreement precisely 1 hour before the planned meeting.
Russian state media were invited into the Oval Office for the meeting.
Then Trump set about lying to Zelensky's face about how Zelensky started this war, about how much aid had been granted, and about other things. He appeared to be attempting to ritualistically humiliate Zelensky and Ukraine, demanding that he kowtow and suggesting that Ukraine owed Trump half a trillion dollars.
Zelensky was very upfront about needing security guarantees from the US and a permanent brokered peace to sign anything, not just the idea of seeking a ceasefire.
He didn't get that far. Because he refused to cry on camera and essentially offer an unconditional surrender to Trump, he was driven out of the White House. Trump then proceeded to comment about how this was all a set up, that he needed to illustrate to the world how terribly ungrateful Ukraine was, that "That's why I kept this going so long".
If US offered nothing I suppose there is no sense of loss then. What are people upset about if Ukraine lost nothing?
Do you think some mining rights are a fair trade for 'security guarentees' of us going to war with Russia? I think Zelensky is way overplaying his hand. I'm not sending our kids to die in defense of Ukraine because of a 3rd party to the deal.
The US' whole negotiating position was, "I don't like the status quo so you need to offer more." Sure, you can say that there was an offer to keep the status quo, but it's hard to argue that this isn't a betrayal. Nothing changed diplomatically between the nations before the US decided that Ukraine doesn't deserve their help anymore.
It was Russia who betrayed Ukraine. Not giving more aid, there is a reasonable argument is not betrayal. It's more if a movement from temporary charity to negotiations on a sustainable resolution. Getting Zelensky to take the ego blow needed to end the war is going to be painful, because there is no easy way out.
> Not giving more aid, there is a reasonable argument is not betrayal.
Not donating more stuff maybe.
But cutting off targeting, intelligence, satellites, and other enablers is pretty much betrayal!
Other countries have bought US equipment with certain capabilities and donated that stuff to Ukraine.
This makes the US an unreliable provider of military equipment.
Yes, of course the US has the ability to cut of things like this, but I doubt people buying HIMARS every feared they'd cutoff from enablers by the US as a negotiation tactic.
The US probably also has backdoors in some of the stuff, but using such backdoors is a one time event. Nobody will trust you afterwards.
A very valid point, although my perspective is destruction of the market for US arms is another healthy prospect in the pursuit of peace. That sweetens the deal for much of the antiwar crowd.
It was also the US who betrayed Ukraine. These events are not mutually exclusive.
Refusing to continue aid for no reason other than the US realized they might be able to get more out of it, there is a reasonable argument is betrayal.
I think your characterization shows the true desperation of the war fuel cries.
It's betrayal, ww3, my children marched off to world war, my wife will be raped. I've heard it all. The viciousness against not funding conscripts going into the meat shredder makes me think the war mongers must be desperate their blood sacrifice (and the accompanying money train) is coming to an end.
Ah, I thought it was Russia who betrayed Ukraine, per your words yeah?
But of course, my reading comprehension isn't that bad. You are genuinely trying to argue that the people decrying this betrayal are war mongers, intent on extending this war; never mind who actually instigated the war, there is no reason to call them war mongers. You don't help your argument when you call your opponents names, especially without any merit.
I don't think you understand. This isn't an argument, it's been settled and the aid withdrawn. I'm providing the explanation for all the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Y'all have called me everything imaginable and made up horrible stories about the fate of my family, all the while weeping that people willfully fueling the enslavement of conscripts into cannon fodder would be called war mongers. That's how I know the shut down of the war mongers is actually working.
The more you degrade me, the more it displays the success of the strategy. I revel in it.
I didn't do anything, you degrade and expose yourself.
Meanwhile unlike the grievance in your head actual innocent Ukrainians died today and you revel in it. Russian used cluster bombs on civilians by the way. And Ukraine couldn't prepare because the US denied them access to intel on what areas strikes would hit. But keep whining about 'internet grievances' and how much pleasure you take at the current outcome because the internet was mean.
Those you call 'warmonger' never took the joy that you now claim to have.
Innocent Ukrainians died everyday for years, far before zelensky's funds terminating TV stunt. I'm taking joy that defunding the war will help push zelensky to end this madness to stop the deaths, im taking joy at the lives that will be saved. We've already seen what the blood money bought, and America is finally sending some sense to Ukraine in a language they understand.
SSlow your roll there Neville, how'd that work out the last time 'round in Europe?
At Munich, Chamberlain got an international agreement that Hitler should have the Sudetenland in exchange for Germany making no further demands for land in Europe. Chamberlain said it was 'Peace for our time'. Hitler said he had 'No more territorial demands to make in Europe.
Since Russia started the war, how does it depend on Zelensky "to end this madness"? You'd prefer the Ukrainians roll over and get massacred and genocided?
Is black white, and white black, now? Please explain
No, I'd prefer they sign a cease fire, which is what Trump was trying to get Zelensky to do until Zelensky decided he doesn't need us anymore. The angry teenager has left the house with $5 and will be back when he smokes it all up and gets hungry.
The fact is peace is a negotiation, and Ukraine will have to give up things. It will leave a bad taste in Zelensky's mouth and he will probably look like, for lack of a better word, a bitch, but unfortunately that's what's needed. They're going to have to call uncle on some territory they won't get back anyway, otherwise they have nothing on the table. His legacy will be to tarnish his image to save his countrymen, a tough spot no doubt.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials explicitly rejected making any concessions in future peace negotiations or accepting any US, European, or Ukrainian peace proposals and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire on 6 March.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens...
Here is your success. Putin is unwilling to have a cease fire. To get this you willingly sacrificed how many Ukrainians, and risked how many others by withholding intelligence information (that cost us all of $0 to share about Russian launched attacks and what areas they could be targeting)?
Also, you talk in other posts about assisting in Syria so you obviously have zero actual care about ending violence in long running conflicts and in fact put in great effort/extreme steps towards their continuation.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials explicitly rejected making any concessions in future peace negotiations or accepting any US, European, or Ukrainian peace proposals and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire on 6 March. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens...
Sanctions arguably help Russian mobsters and corrupt officials who proxy money and goods through friendly intermediate to launder their origins. They are bypassed easy enough through these black market connectioms, largely impacting normal citizens who don't have means to bribe or cover the margins to these mobsters (or do, but have to cover costs).
I think the goal is to hurt Russian corrupt officials and mob by taking away these black market margins.
Oh, so you are in agreement that genuine Russia officials, who decided to start this murderous war, are not supposed to be hurt, right? Only the "corrupt" ones?
Ukraine began the day expecting Trump to seriously attempt a settlement of the conflict by signing an agreement; Security guarantees were discussed before the agreement was formulated.
1 hour before, they learned they had nothing to gain because there were no security guarantees, and that they would need to establish formal changes to the agreement during the meeting.
During the meeting, they learned that politely asking for formal changes to the agreement would trigger performative anger, denial, and insults. That Trump would get self-righteous about his extortion attempt, and that it wasn't "Your money or or life!", but "Your money, now!"
A mostly worthless and symbolic agreement that primarily served to fluff certain egos.
>and Zelensky refused
He didn't refuse! He was there at the White House to sign the agreement! Then Trump and Vance kicked him out without offering him the chance to sign it!
There was a recent comment on HN where someone threatened my wife would be raped, my cell phone would stop working, modern society would fall apart, and my children would all be marched off to war if I don't pay taxes to fund Ukraine. Unlike my own greyed comments, those were vetted.
Now maybe this is all true. But if it is, knowing how transactional international politics is, why not just sign the fluff agreement and take the bruised ego? It's their right either way. I just find it interesting and a bit bizarre.
I think the HN crowd is missing a bit of the more democratic sentiment here, that after years of support we can't keep fueling foreign nations based on blame for others' murder, there needs to be movement towards resolution and if not, Ukraine can shine and show us their independence they're proud of. Personally I don't see this ending unless Zelensky is willing to take a bruised ego.
> There was a recent comment on HN where someone threatened my wife would be raped, my cell phone would stop working, modern society would fall apart, and my children would all be marched off to war if I don't pay taxes to fund Ukraine. Unlike my own greyed comments, those were vetted
I know the thread you are talking about and this is a very hyperbolic misrepresentation of that exchange. Anyone reading this would be free to check your comment history and understand why "the HN crowd" responded in the way they did.
Sure and it isn't hyperbolic to force down the rabbit hole that not paying Ukraine brings us straight into whatever anarcho dystopia is believed to come down as soon as grey area executive military impoundment happens. That's the way it always is, certain sentiment are just accepted while others go straight into wife raping -- but how dare _you_ be hyperbolic!
If you're tired of giving a foreign nation the support they bought from you for the price of their nuclear arsenal then give them back what they paid and walk away.
>He didn't refuse! He was there at the White House to sign the agreement! Then Trump and Vance kicked him out without offering him the chance to sign it!
We all saw what happened. The man was shaking his head long before the departure. He "didn't refuse" except by all communication and body language. If a man argued "she didn't refuse" after signaling in every way she wasn't interested, no one would buy your absurd and farcical assertion. They're only accepting it now because it suits their fictional premise. Even an autist can clearly see the disinterest.
"He didn't refuse" is the new propaganda to cover up how badly Zelensky fucked up in diplomacy. They sat the man down to sign it, then what we witnessed happened instead.
Lol, what. You're right, we all saw what happened.
Trump was calling Zelenskiy a "dictator with a 4% approval rating" (it was 52%, now 68%) the week before! He and all his cabinet appointees keep equivocating on who started the war. He keeps lying about how much value has been given to Ukraine (it's less than half of the 350b he claims). He went on a tirade about how he and Putin "went through the Russia hoax together". Vance has leaked text messages from months go saying he "won't even take calls from Ukraine".
>“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” he told Johnson in October, about three weeks after House Republicans blocked additional aid to help Kyiv repel the Russian invasion. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”
Trump was never truly interested in a fair deal. He wants an arrangement that will let him suck up to Putin while quickly claiming success no matter how dogshit the terms are, and Zelenskiy isn't enough of a pushover to give him that.
I didn't know about these JD texts, but it checks out. It has seemed to me that:
* Trump has a chip on his shoulder over this first impeachment and the Muller investigation
* He sees this whole thing as a bother, and Zelensky a nuisance
That oval office "mean girls" meeting makes total sense now; both Trump and Vance feel the above. They just want quick credit for a quick end and care about nothing else.
I hope the families of the dead ask Zelensky these important questions. My conjecture is he was unwilling to take an ego bruise for the sake of his country.
His approval rating went up afterwards. He's representing his country.
Ukrainians have a very bad history with "politicians that bend the knee when the screws are turned on them".
There's only so much lying you should expect the Ukrainians to sit there and take. Trump going on and on about how much Putin wants peace in front of him is just fucking absurd.
Polls are weird. In 2016, the polls strongly suggested Trump would not win.
Ukraine is a war zone under martial law. Informal ratings are likely even less reliable than in more stable place.
Properly administered democratic elections can capture approval. But those were canceled in Ukraine (constitutionally) due to the war and martial law. Their most reliable capture of approval, was canceled!
The 2016 polling margin was off by about 2%. Mattered immensely for who won, but it's a myth that the polls were massively wrong about public opinion. They were highly accurate!
>Polls are weird. In 2016, the polls strongly suggested Trump would not win.
None of the polling suggested that. They suggested Clinton had a 2-3 point popular vote lead. She did in fact have a 2-3 point popular vote lead. It's not the polling's fault that it's measuring something that the US doesn't actually use to select the President.
Outlets that did take state polls into consideration and tried to simulate the electoral vote, namely 538, gave Trump a basically 1/3 chance to win.
> The US offered them an agreement and Zelensky refused
Would you say this regardless of what the deal was? Am curious if there is some line that could be crossed that would make the deal unreasonable. The argument as it stands sounds like the logic of an abuser to those of us who felt the deal that was offered was in itself a slap in the face.
I would say either party has the right to consent or not to an agreement. Zelensky as I said exercised his right not to sign it and the US exercised their right to go their separate ways in regards to sharing of certain resources.
If a party doesn't consent to the agreement, they would not say be obligated to provide military aid against their will.
To follow your analogy. Your employer changes the terms, you refuse. Then a judge jails you for non payment of child support. What would be insane is if you turn around and blame the employer for going to jail. It wasn't the employer that put you in jail, they just helped keep you out of it for awhile but then decided they weren't happy with the continued arrangement.
- "The Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs (CRSRA) directorate at NOAA is the licensing body in the US for remote sensing space platforms. I interact with this office as part of my job in the industry, and we received notice that everyone in the office was fire this week as part of the ongoing gutting of the federal government."
Then the EU needs to refocus from assisting defending on the front line and switch to sabotaging Russia's critical petroleum infra, refineries, pipelines, storage facilities. Success won't be had until they are kneecapped economically (and time is paramount, as you mention). It is known where these facilities are, no spy satellites are needed.
Well, basically every nation with large enough budget has one set up (US, Russia, EU, China, Japan, and India has them). More directly to the point, I won't be shocked if Airbus (which also operates satellite imagery services) steps up, although that would open a very big hole since, uhm, Airbus makes civilian planes too.
(Something to think: European governments have large stakes in Airbus, plus Airbus' history as an intergovernmental consortium might factor in favor here.)
What do you mean by a very big hole? That it would damage the brand and its civilian sales?
Airbus is known for civilian airliners, but it has been a major stakeholder in many military projects for decades. Airbus has a 46% (largest) stake in Eurofighter Typoon, 37.5% in MBDA that builds all kinds of missiles, etc:
C'mon, US could sanction Airbus as a whole if Trump (or whoever actually manages these things) decides to. This was inconceivable back then, but everything is off the tables now.
My only guess is satellites and their data export might be covered by ITAR when used as military tactical tools for foreign militaries? Can anyone chime in on whether these satellites are limited by ITAR or something similar?
Europe and Ukraine possess only very limited ways to mitigate those losses.
This betrayal is going to kill a lot of people.