Ukraine? Try all of Europe.
Head magat has gone from lying, to asleep at the wheel, to distracted, to now actually trying to use Ukraine as leverage for a deal the Ukrainians and orcs won’t follow. Art of the steal.
They already have sold Ukraine out, multiple times.
WTF is this again. The US just can not sign a peace deal for Ukraine. It is really not that hard to understand, that Ukraine has to sign that deal. At the same time US leverage is at this point Starshield and Patriot interceptors. We have seen Ukraine do without them. Ukraine requires support, but that is coming from Europe right now. Hell the US Congress has been talking about sending aid to Ukraine and although Starshield is controlled by Musk, Patriot is not and Lockheed is very willing to sell to Ukraine.
The thing is, Russia can claim it has a deal with ‘the West’. If Europe and Ukraine don’t comply, they’ll simply paint them as warmongering fascists.
Putin will turn back on Trump and demand the US act to reign in the Europeans. He’ll also use it to lobby his case in international bodies like the UN and maybe use it as a pretext for further mobilization and maybe even aggression against NATO countries.
Trump gets a huge ego win at the cost of nothing at all, while dramatically increasing the chances of a war between Russia and NATO as soon as 2-3 years from now.
While true he also thinks he can pivot to being supportive of Russia (remove sanctions, start trading with them etc) and putting tariffs / sanctions on Ukraine.
Now I believe none of that is legal without congress approval but he seems to regularly get away with breaking the law, so who knows ?
He can get away with it. However it is somewhat likely that companies trading with Russia, will get into serious trouble for breaking sanctions.
I sincerely hope they do indeed get into serious trouble. I won’t hold my breath though.
Starshield is only being controlled by Musk because Trump allows it. Paul Krugman explains it best, citing the case of Montgomery Ward during WW2. The US government can and should seize control of Starshield
They could invoke the defence production act at any point and SpaceX would just have to comply. Nothing in the US aerospace sector happens without control of the US government.
Trump could just pardon Musk and his guys, if he wanted to.
…about to?
Last gasp effort before the new congress is sworn in and he can’t enact most of the policies he’d need to pressure Ukraine.
Is*
The guy would sell his own mother for bus fare then catch a ride home.
