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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023
  • HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.comtopolitics @lemmy.world•Bill Browder - Despite his best efforts, Trump may just have won the war for Kyiv
    1·
    14 days ago

    Go back to Joe Biden. He promised that America would stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, and he sent more than $66bn in military aid. That was welcome. But it came with a crippling condition. In return for American weapons, Washington demanded that Ukraine do nothing to “escalate”. The Biden administration had swallowed Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling whole, and it forced an impossible position on Kyiv.

    In practice it meant Ukraine could only strike Russian forces once they had crossed into Ukraine. Think about how absurd that was. Russia could mass its troops on the border in complete safety. Ukraine had to wait until those troops invaded before it was allowed to fire back. So the war dragged on. Russia took staggering losses, and still time was on its side.

    Then Trump arrived. One of his first moves was to choke off American money and weapons. He demanded that Ukraine pay America back for Biden’s aid through a one-sided minerals deal. And he humiliated Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the world in that Oval Office meeting, telling him, “You don’t have any cards.”

    It was demoralising for Ukraine and for everyone who wants Russia to lose. But it opened a door. Once Washington no longer bankrolled Ukraine, Washington could no longer give Ukraine orders. The leash was off. The United States could no longer demand that Ukraine spare targets inside Russia. That single change has altered the course of the war.

    Haha suck it pootles.

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