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Notes -
Zelensky and Trump's arm twisting competition
Ukraine is bombing Russian refineries. Good for them but maybe not so good for the price of diesel and thus for Trump. Trump has been very vocal about how Zelensky needs to stop using the targeting data that the US supplies them. Recently he's stepped up his threats, proclaiming a diesel deal with Russia just a couple months after the Lindsey Graham Memorial Sanctions Bill, and announcing an energy ceasefire that Russia doesn't seem to know about.
Republican congressfolk have been fairly supportive of the Iran conflict but Russia is much more polarizing. Zelensky seems confident we won't see a repeat of the early administration snafu - no need for groveling and thank yous - due to this pressure. On the other hand, another winter without sufficient air defense will prove extremely painful, though we said that last year too.
I don't get why Zelensky doesn't just go easy on the refineries for a few weeks to get some Trump brownie points. It can also get some moral high ground of like "we held the ceasefire but Russia kept attacking" for a renewed massive strike in November or December. I just don't see holding back on energy for a couple weeks making much of a difference for the war effort, the economic shocks will have a delayed effect on putin and the front line, and he has plenty of non-energy targets to hit like datacenters and warehouses.
On another note, I do like how Ukraine is gloves off - many of their attacks on bridges and powerplants and other economic targets would be screeched of as WAR CRIMES if Trump did it. (by the same people who simp for Zelensky of course) I'm sure if Trump really went scorched earth and maximally targeted these types of targets, Iran would actually be brought to its knees, but instead all we get is a bunch of cope strikes on insignificant targets.
Ukraine is fighting an existential, defensive war. The country is being actively invaded and occupied. He gets more leeway than someone fighting an unpopular war halfway around the globe, and he refrained from attacking Russia directly for a long time.
I don't claim to be especially informed here but on the face of it, and from the beginning, it still seems to me like fighting the war is likely to result in vastly worse outcomes than simply accepting Russian rulership.
I’d take the deal the Ukrainians are being offered. The young get to 10x their income and a chunk of the boomers die off fighting it.
Ukraines war fighting ability seems to prove that being in the Russian sphere has greatly retarted economic development plus Polish are Slovaks and have already achieved close to prime Euorpe incomes.
If the war ended today then the fight would have been worth it. But who knows how it ends.
You'd die for being replaced by Indians and line go up? I can understand opting for it in times if peace, because you'll probably enjoy the benefits before the negatives kick in. But what's the point of walking into the meat grinder for it?
Indians don't want to go to Ukraine. They want to go to richer countries which aren't currently on fire and covered in snow at the same time(the US obviously the ideal, but Canada, Australia, the UK, even Russia all rank far above Ukraine). Indians don't want to live in an impoverished shithole which has been wrecked by war and in which the average citizen is incredibly racist.
They might prefer other countries, but they're not going to stay home if Ukraine is the only one on offer, and if Indians are too picky, there's always Africa.
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