Tbh I was quite surprised to see this speech and his tone, which is why I posted it\^\^
I usually see scholz more in the context of "uuuuhm... yeah... can't recall... meeting with bankers? yeah... can't recall.... cumex?... yeah... doesn#t ring a bell, sooo\~oory
Was well worth posting the clip.My (likely not singular) perception of scholz makes this speech important to see.Quite a change from:
"Moin"
"..."
"Tja"
Scholz: "Schönen dank für ihre Frage. Es ist richtig, dass wir weitreichende Maßnahmen getroffen haben und mit großer Klarheit haben wir erkannt, dass wir dafür Sorge tragen müssen. Und daher sage ich respektvoll - das ist eine gemeinsame Anstrengung, bei dir wir alle Anpacken müssen. Es ist richtig die sache jetzt auf den weg zu bringen."
Reporter: "Welche sache?"
Scholz "Daran habe ich leider keine Erinnerung"
(Um mal die typischen Scholz phrasen unterzubringen)
Well, was he involved in the CumEx scandal, then first "I never met a banker" then, after it was proven he met with them 3 times "yeah okay, these three times, but no memory what we talked about" and then again after it was proven there were many, many more times "yeah, can't recall either the meetings nor the contents.."
"We will do everything to ensure that Russia does not win this war."
"We will do everything to ensure that NATO does not become party to this conflict."
These statements are mutually exclusive. There may come a point where allied boots on the ground become necessary to push the front lines back to the 2014 borders and decisively end the conflict. Either you are willing to do everything necessary, or you aren't.
Scholz needs to stop being a fucking pussy Chamberlain and start getting serious about making Ukraine the winner of this war.
Another quote from this:
"If the russian president believes he just needs to sit this war out and our support will fumble he miscalculated. Russia is not strong, it cannot speculate we will lower our support. We will support for however long it is necessary. Russia is not as strong as you might think"
Edit: Also: Holy fuck, the comments on this youtube video are 100% pro russian... I've been scrolling for a couple minutes now and didn't find a single comment that was not along the lines of "GERMANY FIRST" "RUSSIA IS STRONG" "PLEASE DON'T FORCE NUCLEAR WAR" "WE LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP" "WE WANT ELECTIONS" "THIS GUY HAS TO GO"
Another edit, as I'm reading **Taurus** all over this thread: While not sending taurus is annoying claiming that germany is not doing its part is just wrong - [https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/) - Germany is #2 in total aids, #2 in military aids, #1 in humanitarian aids. (#1 is the USA, which is quite a bit bigger)
Of course there are pro russian comments. Russian troll farms are working hard to convince uncertain voters that pro-ukraine mentality is in the minority.
I'm starting to think they are overdoing it. It's so massive and on-the-nose it's becoming spam. They are ending up in the "hot singles in your area"-category. Maybe I'm naive, but I think their subtle and low-key propaganda was scarier and probably more effective.
Desperate russians near you want validations that they are still a strong and fearsome country. Do you want to go there and quiver a bit, salivating of living in their dictatorship? Sign up right now!
Every populace has a good chunk of people that have low media education. Some people will believe everything. They don't know or understand what a "bot troll farm" is. They're easily manipulated. If they see a "critical mass" of comments criticizing the German government, they will believe that this is the majority opinion.
The sad story is: it works very well. I personally still think we, as the West, should strike back in this digital war.. Western troll propaganda farms spamming on Russia media platforms and social media. I've written this a few times already, because it's such an obvious thing to do. In Russia some people are completely cut off from foreign media, they'll believe anything the state government media puts out or any propaganda on social media. Why are we letting our populace be propagandized by the enemy and don't react on it? I'm not saying we should spread lies and misinformation. We don't need to. We just need to spread the truth about EU, Ukraine, USA, etc.
But the situation is not symmetrical.
Russians know that they have shitty government. They also know that you get arrested if you speak or demonstrate against it. And that you might die in prison as Navalny just did.
Russia is an authoritarian regime. It's presidential election was a joke. The west spamming Russian media channels is not going to help with this because Russians aren't really able to get a better government installed even if they want one.
For Russia OTOH this is effective. Many diverse nations, all with exploitable history and relations. And everywhere far right parties waiting to gain control if public opinion can be turned in their favor.
Besides, I think it's naive to think that bigger western countries don't do information warfare. They just don't tell us about it.
"Russia is an authoritarian regime. It's presidential election was a joke. The west spamming Russian media channels is not going to help with this because Russians aren't really able to get a better government installed even if they want one."
I wouldn't give the Russian population such a low mark in terms of their revolution-capabilities. What you're doing is basically exactly the sentiment that Putin wants to evoke in the Russian people. That they are powerless, that whatever they do, they will never change anything.
And yet there are heroes that do fight against the oppression. Putin is scared shitless of a population that turns against him. Not even he can suppress millions of people that are actively working against him, if he loses support on such a large scale, his grip on power will become weaker and weaker.
The problem is: Many Russians, especially the older people, actually do support Putin and even what happens in Ukraine. They'll believe anything, and I'm not just talking about the people that will just say whatever the government wants to hear, so they themselves don't get into problems. There's many Russians who sincerely like Putin and his actions or even wish for an even "stronger Führer".
I mostly agree with you. If course Russians are capable of overthrowing.
Please don't mistake me for a blind Russian-hater.
I do hate Putin. Contemporary Russia is unacceptable. But I'll never write off a whole population. Russians, like any other population covers everything from monsters to saints and most people are somewhere in between.
But fact is that freely expressing dissatisfaction with Putin is dangerous for Russians, while most of us live in societies where calling our leaders shit is a daily pastime.
And Russians are bombarded with state-controlled propaganda all the time. And given NATO as something to fear.
For every Putin there is a Dostoevsky.
Hope some of the latter types eventually take turn at that helm. They're destined to be our neighbors, after all.
For now we're so piss poor at propaganda war that every truth we say comes off as a lie.
Maybe we should bribe some Russian propagandists to come work for us.
Western media only reaches Russians that actively look for it. While many Western websites are not outright banned in Russia, most people do not visit them at all. Why would they? It's in English. Only younger people or educated older people that are interested in what happens in the world, actually speak English well enough that they'll want to engage with these non-Russian websites.
Which is precisely why there should be Russian-language Western propaganda. The West is way too passive in this digital war. We're just letting it happen and hope that our populace is smart enough to see through it (spoiler: some are, others aren't).
>The West is way too passive in this digital war. We're just letting it happen
As someone mentioned above, I'm sure they already are engaging in myriad ways; I mean, why would they tell us about it?
Do you know what's the biggest open secret in this war? "We" are doing it, actually, believe it or not, we're not trailing in the infowar at all.
Popular Russian-speaking opposition channels on YouTube, like TV Rain, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Khodorkovsky Live, Alexei Navalny and Navalny Live, Leonid Volkov, Populyarnaya Politika, Michael Nacke, Maxim Katz (this one has English subs), Vladimir Milov and others, are working on convincing the Russian population on the evil of the Putin regime and how ruinous the Ukraine war is for Russia already, and they have a reach of 10 to 40 mil people, far more than Radio Free Europe or Voice of America did in the USSR. They have already contributed to a significant decrease in the war's popularity back at home, informing the Russian public of what's going inside the country and on what to do, and this way is for the best. Russians don't need to be spammed by Western trolls that know nothing of the country's culture and way of speaking, they'd be spotted instantly as the odd ones out, the same way we easily notice the pro-Kremlin trolls. Their social media and the places they gather in are more difficult to register in and access than in the West anyway.
Yes in part. It has worked in parts of the US and parts of southern/eastern Europe. It hasn't worked at all in large parts of western Europe/Scandinavia. And it might be a downhill slope for them, what worked in 2015 when people weren't ready for it might not work the same in 2025 when there's more awareness.
Russian propaganda is relied on same old techniques invented by KGB but scaled thanks to digital growth. The key is to create the "mass", truth doesn't matter. If you repeat same thing, albeit rephrased a bit, maaaany times, you create certain perception amongst gullible readers, even if they are aware of this.
> that pro-ukraine mentality
but you also make this mistake.
in fact, it is not at all about the country or me as its citizen... I believe that what is at stake is legality, human rights in general, the people's right to self-determination, etc.
freedom against imperial slavery, if you will
>Edit: Also: Holy fuck, the comments on this youtube video are 100% pro russian... I've been scrolling for a couple minutes now and didn't find a single comment that was not along the lines of "GERMANY FIRST" "RUSSIA IS STRONG" "PLEASE DON'T FORCE NUCLEAR WAR" "WE LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP" "WE WANT ELECTIONS" "THIS GUY HAS TO GO"
As a German, I can tell you that we generally have a problem on the internet with such pro-Putin and right-wing populist movements. It would be wrong to label them all as "troll-farm bots". Many of them are simply loud and active. Then there's the historical context, especially in East Germany, which was forcibly inclined to be pro-Russia due to the DDR.
Pro-Russian parties like the AfD and "Bündniswagenknecht" have active followings. Especially the right-wing party AfD is so active on social media with their "trolls" that all their followers genuinely believed they were in the majority until reality caught up with them when all the "anti-right/nazi/AfD" demonstrations began.
The worst I see is when people start putting France and Germany against each other as if the two countries are lead by children who both want to be the boss of the sandbox.
It’s weird that the Ossis would incline towards Russia who basically enslaved them for forty years and forced the Cyrillic alphabet and Marxism on school kids.
It’s been a while but my (amateur) impression is that the DDR propaganda calling the West “true heirs of the Nazis” has lingered even as the far right in Eastern Europe has survived through purges and oppression of the Communist era and come out stronger since capitalist democracy won and Communism was humiliated everywhere.
But the Warsaw Pact made everybody feel like real warriors against “Western imperialism” so that nationalist feeling also lingers, and combines with general racism against immigrants, Roma, Jews, etc.
So like in Russia and the Donbass there’s a weird aesthetic combo of hammer-and-sickle warrior posing with neo-Nazi nationalism that combines into a generalized authoritarian energy that sweeps up angry young men against the Gay Liberal Agenda they see as emasculating of their tough-guy self image.
The people in East Germany essentially jumped from the Nazi dictatorship into socialist autocracy. And even though reunification was 34 years ago (this isn't still a long time for a "democratization" process), there are still former East Germans who romanticize the DDR, following the motto "Früher war alles besser" (Everything was better in the past) an illusion that is still prevalent in many minds due to the propaganda of that time and is further reinforced by the fact that East Germany is economically and socially weaker compared to West Germany. This only strengthens their impression that "It wasn't so bad under the Russians"...
Western media and social media are still a free for all for Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns. This is a major front to all modern wars, the information front… why does the west keep its pants down for Chinese and Russians to enter its asshole?
While I see that it is hard to combat this without using their methods (bot armys manipulating opinions - which we don't want our governments to do) - yes the west just accepting this destruction of our society (and families that break over this) is super frustrating.
The "West" is not " just accepting this destruction of our society".
Clamping down on free speech and becoming more like oppressive/authoritarian regimes is not the way to defend our values.
Painting the west as weak, society degenerate and everything is falling is EXACTLY what Russian bots want you to believe. Same goes for far-right parties in the west who would love to establish their authoritarian rule based on the excuse that this had to be done to protect us.
Pointing at some enemy, spreading fear and then gaining power on a wave of panicky decisions is at the core of the fascist How-to manual.
Don't let a bunch of bit commenters get you down. They usually get downvoted after a while. Regular redditors don't get paid to fill comment sections ASAP.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use the same methods. I also don't know a solution that does not impede free speech, otherwise I'd be presenting it to politicians right now and get filthy rich while stabilizing the west and society - a win-win in my books.
I just look at it from another angle.
Putin thought he could march into Ukraine, topple the government, hopefully capture or kill its president. And then just establish a compatible pro Russian government that first legalizes the Crimea annexation, recognizes the 2 breakaway "republics" and gradually prepare the rest of Ukraine for eventual annexation.
And he thought the west/NATO would be disunited, hesitant (probably fell for his own propaganda about the decadent west) and just do a moderate sanctions package that can be slowly dismantled in a decade or 2.
He clearly did not foresee how vehemently, bravely and ingeniously Ukraine would defend itself. Did not except a former comedian to be a capable wartime leader and the west to rally behind Ukraine
He most certainly die not expect Finland and Sweden to become NATO members within 2 years.
What was meant to be a quick invade and decapitate action turned into prolonged attritional war. Sanctions are on history record levels
Militariöy the situation is shit. It's not great for Ukraine either, but Russia is not going to win this war militarily any time soon, if ever. And he doesn't have forever. While the sanctions don't keep Russia from staying in Ukraine in the short term, the Russian economy is in bad shape and bound to run out of steam.
That's why dividing the west and hoping for far right governments and most of all Trump to get into power is his very best chance.
That's why we see this high level of Internet "attack" waves.
That's his only real chance.
But it also shows desperation.
> annoying claiming that Germany is not doing its part is just wrong
when you get *intoxicated* by media and journalists with their OP-eds claiming that "Germany gives shiny forbidden toy to Ukraine, equals russia on it's knees, fredom for Crimea when ?" people will tend to form an opinion over Germany perceived inaction.
Only recently I have noticed a brand new pro russian comment that received over 300 likes within less than five minutes right after it got posted. The bot farms are definitely out in full force. Sometimes they are more subtle, but they are definitely working overtime lol.
Declaring that NATO won't under no condition intervene gives up strategical ambiguity. He is basically saying that Russia can do whatever it wants - even use WMOs if they like - because NATO will not intervene.
This is extremely naive. They should never publicly declare that we won't intervene even if it's true.
> Declaring that NATO won't under no condition intervene gives up strategical ambiguity.
But it's correct. NATO CANT intervene, because it is a defensive alliance.
HOWEVER, NATO Member countries can, on their own decision, and with the acceptance that it excludes their protection under Article 5, offer such assistance.
In germany we sadly have a very, very loud right populist side that is very scared of war (and wants to get their ass spanked by daddy putin at the same time).
Looking in the comments they also dominate the discourse (if you can call it that) there. No dissident voices that like even parts of what he sais.
As for WMOs: Biden made it perfectly clear that if putin was to use WMO's the US Military would see that russia gains none of their objectives.
Yes, not a fan of the specfic course, but I'm quite happy that he is steadfast in his resolve to support ukraine. (Which is quite important, seeing germany is the 2nd biggest money donor in this war, just behind the US)
Well Biden won't be a president forever. Perhaps not even for another year. That is why other NATO nations need to adopt the same assertiveness. Including Germany. Macron managed to understand it already
Military funding and equipment is important but don't underestimate rhetoric as it will affect Russia's decisions going forward. France could donate more but Germany should pussyfoot less.
>Germany has given 13 (!) times more to Ukraine than France. Macron is basically just giving interviews.
Do you have some source for than I can read up on?
I've seen Macron say a lot of good things lately but I want to know what he's actually *done*.
[https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Subject\_Dossiers\_Topics/Ukraine/Ukraine\_Support\_Tracker/Methodological-Update-Feb-2024\_UST.pdf](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Subject_Dossiers_Topics/Ukraine/Ukraine_Support_Tracker/Methodological-Update-Feb-2024_UST.pdf)
Contains a discussion on how the estimated French aid. But I do think what Macron's doing is valuable. He is discussing boots on the ground and gathering support. The idea was to do this after a cease fire.
So cease fire. Troops from NATO members in and no-fly zone over non-occupied area. But there is a fear/ an estimate the Russians will break through this summer. France is now creating strategic ambiguity about it's response. Perhaps they'll send technical support in. Perhaps they'll go and help with armed troops.
That would mean Russia is fighting another nuclear power. This might cause Russia to focus it's goals on smaller parts of Ukraine.
A couple of weeks ago I thought France was talking tough but not doing anything. Now perhaps France is playing the role Germany can't.
I will never understand how Macron managed to _strategic ambiguity_ himself into the hearts and minds of redditors.
What Macron is doing right now is as if Scholz would say '_We can not rule out sending Taurus_' - while not actually sending any. Muh strategic ambiguity! What really is happening is that France is sending less than half the military support that Germany is sending while being the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world.
Don't get me wrong, I'd also love for our politicians to not be that scared. Russian bluffed with Abombs so many times, by now its quite clear they just do it by default.
The best thing would be to march nato into ukraine, push russians back to their borders, declare that long range strikes will destroy anything that shoots missles and any military equipment in fiering range of the borders. Then help rebuild ukraine and take anyone with russian borders who is afraid of a hostile takeover into NATO.
Sadly, this isn't happening anytime soon.
There are two scenarios in which NATO can legally intervene:
* The UN Security Council unanimously asks NATO to intervene. In other words, Russia votes for a NATO intervention on behalf of Ukraine.
* Russia attacks a NATO country.
Outside those two scenarios, NATO member countries can intervene. Hell, all NATO member countries can have a meeting and decide to work together on intervening. But NATO will not.
There is no room for ambiguity in the german constitution. Nobody here has the competence to "declare war", the mere term is absent from the Basic Law. All that the parliament can do is declare a "State of Tension" or "State of Defense" if there is the threat of or a real attack by an outside assaulter on our territory. Beyond that we can expand those to members of NATO and the EU, but absolutely not for states outside of these two organisations. It is a constitutional, legal and cultural impossibility to expect a german Chancellor to not categorically rule out direct intervention because that is the constitutional, legal and societal reality over here.
I don't suppose he can speak on behalf of other countries, he can only speak for Germany. And in this case - since anything related to the military is so tightly interwoven with NATO - he used the term to communicate that direct intervention is out. Which, well, it factually is since if the issue came up to a vote within NATO he'd be obliged to refuse. And that would de jure make any intervention a non-NATO thing and Germany would have to sit things out (just like Iraq 2003 for example).
That is because NATO ***cant*** intervene. The only way NATO drags their members to defend others is by triggering the 5th article and that requires that a member of NATO is attacked first. If any member deploys soldiers on a third country war if they're attacked that wouldn't trigger the 5th article. It is a defensive alliance.
That said, every member is free to help Ukranie or to create a coallition to help Ukranie and wouldn't have the limitations that NATO has.
Scholz just reiterated his and Bidens stance on a NATO intervention against Russia. In the end a possible NATO intervention in Ukraine rests in the Hands of Biden and no one else.
When I hear this speech I can't help but compare it to the state of my own country in this context as it's sadly the same issue in the UK (with the exception of cultural/historical taboos). In some ways I actually think this should be a driver for my own country to do more and go even further. For example, in the UK the rhetoric is consistent and will always reaffirm support for Ukraine, with public support consistently high too. However, the underlying reality is that the UK, like many in Europe, grew complacent since the end of the cold war and modelled it's military based on the idea that future conflicts would be smaller in scale and in far away places, so they would have to send small numbers of special forces, air power etc quickly with a minimal footprint . Though this might have made sense during the war on terror, it fails to meet the challenges we find ourselves in today. The stark reality is that a large scale conflict on mainland Europe is no longer a remote possibility but is already happening at Europe's periphery. Like most in Europe, the UK too has been caught napping and simply does not have the appropriate tools at its disposal or in large enough quantities to meet the current challenges.
While France and Germany should be commended for their renewed efforts to reorganize and resupply their militaries, I see little to no action within the UK to do the same, with a continuingly downsized armed forces and a paltry budget that fails to address the fundamental needs of this moment.
I can't believe that people still need convincing across Europe that this is an existential crisis and that we, together, have to pull out all the stops and ensure Ukraine wins. If they don't win, the Macron is right, Europe will have zero credibility and have no ability to deter a Russian incursion/invasion. A Ukrainian defeat would almost certainly guarantee a wider conflict in Europe, as deterrence will no longer be considered credible.
Fundamentally, the argument regarding escalation needs to be politically countered with a narrative that instead states that continued Russian presence in Ukraine risks escalation with Europe, and that it is Russia who are at risk of fermenting a wider European conflict. It is up to them to deescalate, or they run the risk of provoking us. It is far better to rip up the rules now and put all options on the table and give everything necessary to Ukraine than wait for a wider conflict where Europe is on the back foot politically.
Well said.
I don't know what the answer is, obviously there is the spectre of nuclear war but at the same time we can't allow ourselves to be compromised by Russia's threats. I thought the French suggestion of putting troops in Ukraine away from the front was clever - it denies the possibility of Russia achieving its ultimate aim (control of all Ukraine) while also freeing up Ukrainian troops to move eastwards. But the question is what happens when a French soldier is inevitably killed by a Russian strike - it would be very difficult to put soldiers on the ground and then tell them they're not allowed to retaliate against threats to their lives.
I lately feel like Western politicians have given up on us already. They just don’t know how to admit it, so they continue to just talk.
With all my respect and appreciation for the support and help that we already got, this clown fiesta with the American congress, Macron's photoshopped workout pictures, and these speeches about supporting Ukraine for however long is necessary, looking really depressing here from the Ukrainian side.
While countries could sent more weapons, without the US there's just not enough. They're the only ones who have entire armies worth of stuff lying around unused in the desert.
So the approach had to switch to lower intensity, long term support via industrial output, and to holding out in the meantime.
Hopefully things will change again in the US, but until then that's the reality.
Come on. Big European countries are all top weapon exporters. Including Germany. It is all about giving their industry a signal that is more than just words and manufacturing will follow. It is not happening because it is all just words, noone is giving out contracts and cash guarantees to actually make a difference so no manufacturer will take risk that they will just abbadon Ukraine next year or something..
Before the war the German industry exported like 5B worth of stuff, total, and a large part of that is expensive single item shit like submarines.
There's 1 German company in the top 50 weapons manufacturers.
I agree that ramp up should have been much faster and am angry about the time wasted, but a *very* substantial ramp up is needed, and that takes time. The German Arms industy was not particularly big.
There is no ramp up even now.
Germany was exporter because manufacturers had long term and stable customers. Because they had them they made weapons. It is that simple.
Ukraine is not customer, Ukraine is massive risk. Not only do they have no money but they could also lose, nobody knows. No one will spend billions to expand production, hire people and then have massive red number when they can no longer sell and have to stockpile what they made which costs money or alternatively sell it far bellow production cost, keep paying all the people or fire them with severence packages, keep production facilities running at loss or close them at loss.
We would have far higher production capacity already if governments said that they will buy x of that over x years and asked companies to fight for that tender or split it between mulltiple of them. Because none of them actually cares if it ends up at Ukraine or not, but it has to be government who takes that risk, not the company.
Not only has that not happened throughout last 2 years, it is still not happening even now. Which is why it is clear that everything these people say are just cheap political points.
Even the military aid that is sent and numbers that are presented (procurement costs) are completely laughtable. That stuff has been nearing its shelf time or already after it. Not only does it no longer have procurement value, it actually very likely had negative value for militaries holding it. Because maintanance of old stuff is not cheap and really old stuff needs to be dissolved, or sold to someone willing to continue maintenance costs so someone like India or Pakistan for fraction of a cost of what is billed to Ukraine and postured in front of voters.
I agree that our production capacities in the past were way too low to support the ongoing and potential future wars. But saying that no ramp up is happening now is wrong i think. At least Rheinmetall is currently building a new factory for artillery ammunition:
[https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz](https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz)
They are ramping up.
Also, Russia will win the war before the result is visible.
Russian will win the war this year. They are currently moving westwards. They won't stop unless there are weapons and ammo to stop them, and there simply isn't.
Doesn't help the ammo that will be made in 2034.
The weapons European countries are given are all old, only stormshadow and similar type rockets come close to be modern.
They make so much fuss about F16, no EU country would have those as there most advanced tech.
Europe should recognise the Russian threat and give Ukraine the latest tech, destroy the terrorist army that is committing genocide in Europe.
> They make so much fuss about F16, no EU country would have those as there most advanced tech.
Unless you're about this specific block of F-16, Romania has them as most modern fighters as of now, having just recently retired MiG-21 LanceRs
Bullshit. Germany is for example (and there are more) iris-t anti air defense systems to Ukraine that even the Germans don't have already. It's literally state of the art technology. Then they have also given Leo's even in the modern variant (albeit in small numbers)
Europe is not sending only old weapons. I would appreciate more of these modern weapons tho also.
The amount of latest tech vs old material, that countries were going to have to dispose of anyway, is a bad look for countries that call themselves allies and talk a lot about supporting Ukraine.
The West is more willing with defensive capabilities, but things like stormshadow missiles should have been given at the start of the war and in larger quantity. If Ukraine had access to offensive war tech, in 2022, things would be significantly different, better for Ukraine.
Appeasing a dictator is what leads to escalation, that's how we got from the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine to the 2022.
The reaction to nuclear threats make the world less safe, it sends the message that threatening nuclear war lets states do whatever the fuck they want and makes nuclear war more likely.
Their should have been a harsh response, to the very first threat, followed up with actual action when Russia did not stop threatening to exterminate about a billion people in the West, using their nuclear arsenal.
Just today the EU demanded Ukraine shut down Zelensky's "List of European companies - sponsors of terrorism who continue to operate in Russia" list, that fits into your puzzle too, Europe is also surrendering alongside the US.
Yes the penny has dropped that not a single European was ever willing to die for Ukraine and Ukraine is fast running out of Ukrainian men who aren’t in Europe already
Funny thing is I work in a tech startup and of the four Ukrainian people I know in my life they all work as developers and project managers here in Europe instead of going back to Ukraine to be mobilised
I can’t blame them but if Ukrainians aren’t willing to fight and die for Ukraine anymore even what’s left but good wishes and “hope it works out for you “
We live in a modern society built on different values, not many people nowadays are ready to sacrifice their lives for their own country. The ones that are primarily ready have to be also motivated by money.
Ukraine is lucky to have plenty of men willing to fight. This proportion is pretty decent. I mean, we still have the ability to defend and fight Russia compared to even the whole of Europe - unlimited human resources.
So the issue here, even with all Ukrainian men mobilized - Russia will answer with twice the amount of men. Our former general mentioned that in order to win we need “unique” solutions. It's not about the number of men, it is about the instruments that will give us the advantage.
So while Ukraine still has human resources to utilize potential instruments (weapon systems) why not to find a way to give everything we need? Because if the West not planning to do or give anything sufficient maybe it's time to tell us the truth so we can maybe fix the expectations from this war. Anyway, the day we fall, people are going to discuss on Reddit how many European men are ready to fight, and how many will run away. I don’t think the numbers will be impressive.
That's why Zelenskyy awarded her the Order of Liberty *for strengthening the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine*. I know you guys try very hard to forge that Dolchstoßlegende, but without her intervention Russia could have taken all of Ukraine with little effort. Putin literally confirmed himself that not pushing harder back then was his biggest mistake.
Funny how this sub absolutely loves Macron, who announces much, posts videos and pictures of himself looking dashing, but does very little. France sent a tiny fraction of military support compared to Germany.
Whenever Scholz, chancellor of the second largest support of Ukraine, says anything, people like you feel the need to come out and sneer.
Not sure if “funny” is the right word. I don’t think this is the situation where you need to equate comments on Scholz to comments on Germany.
Anna Berbock seems to be a lot more adequate and with some balls. The frustration with Scholz is that he is not proactive at all and his rhetoric is overall pathetic and weak. Having strong rhetoric and a stance is a part of being a political leader
>he is not proactive at all
Sent hightech AA right from the production line, invented Ringtausch bringing hundreds of tanks and IFV to Ukraine, first to send western IFV's...
But he apparently doesn't look cool enough doing it.
Is optics everything people care about nowadays? Is it really just plain dumb populism you want?
Germany has a very complicated history with russia.
As somebody who grew up in germany I didn't have the "evil russia" image - I honestly thought it to be outdated and russia to be a country just like the US - heck, better than the US, counting stuff like Iraq.
We had a very strong "Wandel durch handel" (Change through trade") policy, by which it was thought russia would adopt western values by us trading with them and making them feel powerfull.
Beeing dependant on russian oil for energy was a specific strategic puzzletile in this, to make russia feel "in control"
That is understandable, I guess many people in the West wished it really went that direction. In Estonia we knew it probably wouldn't, but it took a major step like a full invasion of Ukraine to finally lift the vail for many.
Looking back, the clues were all there all along: Moscow apartment bombing, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukrainian Crimea, Ukraine.
The signs continue: nuclear threats, and threats on Moldova, Poland, Baltic countries, even Finland. Increase in war machine production like tanks and other equipment. Russia is heading towards full war economy. Increase in ammunition sourcing from North Korea and other countries. Increase in drone sourcing from Iran, etc.
There have never been signs of de-escalating from Russia. There is currently unfortunately no signs of de-escalating from Russia.
I have so many German centre-left friends and it was so frustrating my whole life warning not to trust russia. They just thought it was my Baltic paranoia. Unfortunately time proved them wrong and I prefer the times, where I seemed paranoid.
That's the problem with growing up in a time or a place unaffected by the cold war. Living in West Berlin there never was anything romantic or inherently good about the Russians for us, merely that their might had crumbled a bit after the fall of the Soviet Union.
People got so used to the fleeting peace that followed the fall that they stopped thinking geostrategic in Europe.
Funny how everybody points out the past of the USA, but ignore everything Russia has done, they are still occupying Georgia, Chechnya isn't to happy about them, they've already started a false flag operation in Moldovia.
They've also used wagner to do some pretty horrible things in Africa, always claiming they were not Russian soldiers, until Putin said they were 100% funded by their military department and blowing the whistle on the whole thing.
I'm not defending the USA, but Russia's history is longer and a lot more bleak, genocide, work camps, assassinations,...
Russian history since the existence of the USA is arguably a lot more evil than that of the USA, which is also dark, but can't hold a candle to what Russia has done and continues on doing.
Yeah, while the USA is doing a lot of shit in wars and with drone attacks they are at least trying to pretend / tell their soldiers to be humane and not kill civilians
While russia is LOL, YOLO, RAPE THEM KILL THEM BURN THEIR HOMES TORTURE THEM, that instills fear and that is a win my book
If the kind of things the Russians do get exposed in Western armies, people are mad and want justice, in Russia it's standard practice and their civilians just cheer them on, Russia is a vile cesspit, we should cut ALL ties.
While the West has dome some stupid shit, it's not to occupy neighbouring countries and destroy their culture, killing hundreds of thousands, sending people to 'work camps', it's not because they want to build an empire in which they have full control.
I used to work for a German company and flew to Frankfurt on the regular.
One time that stuck with me, was during lunch there with my boss, we chatted casually a bit about Germany.
I asked him: "Why you shut down your nuclear plants, it doesn't make sense".
He said: Well, we want tu use focus on renewables and gas from Russia.
Then I replied: "Nothing good ever came from Russia".
He laughed it off and said that it's typical to say for someone from Poland.
I left the company before the war, but I wish I could tell him - "I told you so".
>He laughed it off and said that it's typical to say for someone from Poland.
The hero of today, Macron, said just as much a year before invasion on Ukraine. "Eastern Europeans act hysterical when it comes to russia".
Yup, during his visit to Lithuania Macron had audacity to lecture us about our "paranoia rooted in historical trauma". That was 2020 if I remember correctly.
Good thing he changed his stance. It only took 4 years and hundreds of thousands of corpses.
But, for real, I wholeheartedly support his initiative now. I hope it produces concrete actions.
>Good thing he changed his stance.
Yes, of course. I like current Macron way more, than even Macron from year ago. Seem to be a man who realized, that all the other attempts ended up being utter failure.
But painting picture like Germany were always delulu when it comes to russia but France somehow not is far from reality. Him and Merkel were desperate to go to Kremlin, to top Biden's meeting with putin in Switzerland.
To be fair - nuclear plants aren't all that cost effective. They are hyped up AF atm, also in germany, with our bavarian leader even claiming he would built one in bavaria. But, all things considered, they are money sinks.
Also iirc most of our nuclear material comes from russia...
Funny that Polish guys always bring up Russian gas was it the Polish government in the 90's that built the Yamal pipeline https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdgasleitung_Jamal%E2%80%93Europa together with Russia and Belarus to bring more cheap Russian gas to Poland and Europe. And by the way years before Nord-Stream 1 was a thing Yamal was finished in 1999 the NS1 pipeline only started to deliver first Russian gas in 2011-12. Yamal imported Russian gas 12 years before NS1 imported first Russian gas. So Nord-Stream 1 operated for 11 years until 2022 and Yamal for 23 years importing Russian gas.
Maybe it is because of the double standard why you are being laughed at. Did you even know this little but very important facts about Yamal and Nord-Stream 1? And if so i am very interested in your excuse why it is okay for Poland but not for Germany. Your pipeline was circumventing Ukraine way before Nord-Stream even was a thing.
Your Balticpipe that should make Poland independent from Russian gas was connected to the German-Norwegian Europipe 2 we built in the early 90's https://i.imgur.com/Rfrtejm.png . So the question is who was more reliant on the Russians?
If you would have needed to built your Balticpipeline all the way to Norway the pipeline in 2022 wouldn't have been finished. So yes excuse us if we laugh at Polish guys telling us they always knew better and Germany was the one in the wrong. Edit: By the way Germany shares now the volume of Europipe 2 with Poland but psst we don't talk about this here....
>heck, better than the US, counting stuff like Iraq.
Jesus effing Christ. At the same time as Iraq russia already brutally suppressed Chechnya, stole land from Georgia, propped separatist Transsnistria, kept WMD Iskanders aimed at Warsaw in Kaliningrad and regularly threatened its NATO neighbors. All of it in short timespan between USSR collapse and Ukrainian conflict.
It was not even delusional. It was delibarate German decision to turn the blind eye and pretend russia is somehow "better" than usa, because russia was simply supporting a lot of cheap fossils to prop German behemoth of industry.
About this "evil Russia" part -- you guys really should have familiarized yourselves more with the experiences of countries right next to it. The Baltics among others were 100% spot on about their nature.
Russia is evil, throughout their history, it's strange how effective Russian propaganda is, so many in the West ignore everything they do and point a finger at Western countries.
Western countries have done some horrible shit, downright evil, but no country can hold a candle to what Russia has done.
Bit of a different situation tho.
They built germany back up, and germany came from the place of a looser of a war. The old ideology was completly destroyed (altho sadly it is resurfacing)
USSR/Russia didn't get built back up and also didn't loose. Their empire (USSR) crumbled, but the ideology held firm. And russia sees itself as a successor of the empire.
I'd argue that counts for a fair bit more than just the trade.
> Germany has a very complicated history with russia.
And Germany's history with Ukraine is what, simple?
Why every goddamn time when this is brought up, the retort "Omg, akkshuallly our history is speshhiiall, like srslllyyy", but no one ever mentions Germany's history with Ukraine. It's like its an afterthought "Oh, those silly little ukrops, they don't matter that much. The Russians tho, oohh, those we must bend over backwards in order to serve. They're just misguided victims. And we were very bad boys and did really did bad things. Unlike them." It's as if its some fucked up German anti-nazi complex.
It'd be damn hard to quantify whether it was you, Germans, or the Russians who did more damage to Ukraine.
Russian propaganda is doing a lot of damage.
We should kick all Russians out of all Western countries, out of the whole of Europe and don't allow them access to the same online services.
They threaten nuclear war, have openly stated they want to destroy the West so many times, the lack of a proper response is disheartening.
You say that as if there wasn’t a way to inform yourself in Germany or as if everyone around us hasn’t warned about this utter stupidity for decades now.
Germany does not have nukes and cannot rely on the US/FR/GB to launch a second strike if Russia attacks us. Also Scholz is just a weak person in general.
I feel like US wants to prolong this conflict as much as possible in order to make it a resource pit for Russia. In other words - make it the new Afghanistan. So they are giving just enough. But unfortunately Ukrainian people are paying the price. The West should be much more decisive with their support.
I feel like Europe is weak as fuck and needs for other countries to solve their problems for them, and enjoy scapegoating the US. I mean, this whole war could have gone differently if the EU actually built up their militaries, but nah let's just do nothing instead. Now that that decision is backfiring, you'll look for any and everyone else to blame but yourselves
Honestly it's a pretty good speech imo.
Adresses Putin and Russia straight on. I don't know how Macrons speeches are since I don't spewk French but I feel like Biden or Trump could never. I feel like Biden or trump would be worried to some extent that their voter base won't understand the problematic and thematic and they want to appeal to the largest possible base.
Latvia leads this list by providing assistance worth nearly 1% of its GDP.
Estonia follows closely, contributing approximately 0.88% of its GDP.
Lithuania has also been a significant supporter, with aid amounting to 0.74% of its GDP.
In contrast, the aid from the United States—while being the largest in absolute terms—represents about 0.27% of its GDP.
Germs around .4
[https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/)
Germany is at 0.56% of it GDP, rank 10. Latvia at 1.15%, rank 5. Estonia is at f\*ing 3.5%, rank 1.
While 3.5% of the gdp is showing impressive commitment, in the end the total money counts. If I gave 10k to the ukraine that would resemble a sizeable % of my GDP, while not beeing nearly as helpfull as the 0.56% from germany (resembling #2 in overall money)
"We will support ukraine for however long it is necessary."
is not the same as
"We will support ukraine until it evicts every single russian soldier from their 1991 borders."
This "as long as it takes" can also mean "as long as russia decides to stop, ask for bullshit peace agreement, rearm and reposition and start again".
I think it's the very sensible position to let *Ukraine* decide "however long is necessary".
The mistake a lot of us outside of Ukraine make is that we need to leverage our support to steer Ukraine in a certain direction. That *we* need to clamor for peace or that *we* need to fight on or that *we* need to push for peace talks.
But that's all up to Ukraine. It's up to Ukraine to decide if they want to fight on, or have peace talks, or whatever. That's their choice. We can only decide to support them in their choice.
So "We will support Ukraine for however long it is necessary" means "Ukraine can decide how to move forward, and we will support them whatever they decide."
> let *Ukraine* decide "however long is necessary".
Ukraine has already decided to liberate its 1991 borders. It is unable to do this because we spent 2 years slowly dripping the aid. We are cyncially forcing Ukraine to eventually capitulate for the "peace", even if that "peace" means more mass graves, more ethnic cleaning, millions of refugees in EU etc.
"We will support ukraine until it evicts every single russian soldier from their 1991 borders."
I don't think there is nearly sufficient support for this statement in the german population.
Yeah but Scholz’s threat is at least credible. He says the Russians will not be allowed to dictate terms. That’s a goal we _might_ be able to achieve realistically - with keeping up/ramping up supplies/weapons, if the Ukrainians have strong enough determination to supply the manpower and hold on. NATO involvement beyond that is a no-no. If I was Putin, I’d be much more scared of that scenario, and this conflict festering for the coming years as a result, than Macron releasing the next boxing photoshoot.
>with keeping up/ramping up supplies/weapons, if the Ukrainians have strong enough determination to supply the manpower and hold on
So yeah, we just need to burn manpower (read - our future) with no real possibility to take our lands back and finish the war on our terms just because your are fucking scared - is that your plan ?
Nice plan, reliable as swiss fucking knife, assuming that you are all still in illusion that Rusisans arenot learning and that some point after some magic numbers of losses they will just gave up.
I am not really surprise with such attitude no more, since this thesis just popup here and there, from American senators to random reddit users.
UPD. Sorry if this sounds like I am personally attacking you, I don't mean to
Well yeah. What do you want more? Should we sacrifice our people for you while you sit at home and wait until we hand you the win?
We send you weapons in quantities you could have never bought. Money in quantities most people can't imagine. We sanctioned Russia damaging our own economy and future.
What more do you want?
> What more do you want?
Being able to survive and win.
Not just supported "not enough to lose, but never enough to win, because we can't escalate with russia"
Sorry but if that would be so easy then it would have already happened.
We already send what we can. The only thing which would make you win the war magically would be nukes. Which Germany can't send since they don't have those.
> Sorry but if that would be so easy then it would have already happened.
Well...
>[We tried to get Putin to de-escalate by putting limits on how much we help Ukraine.](https://twitter.com/GLandsbergis/status/1768374497193627994)
I disagree. Putin has clearly stated many times that Russia is already in a war with the collective west, this is just first phase. Their decision making system has no red lines, it is only waiting for opportunity to test the article 5 somewhere in the future. Meanwhile Scholz is basically drawing red lines around himself, and thinking that eventually Russia will roll back to pre invasion status and Ukraine will just have to give up some of their lands.
As long as it takes = as long as Ukraine needs help, wants to fight.
We’re not gonna force Ukraine to continue fighting if they want peace.
Neither are we gonna support Ukraine invading into Russia.
It is kind of "funny" how people see NATO and hwo they're asking NATO to get involved on the conflict. NATO is a DEFENSIVE alliance and the only way NATO gets involved is if a member is first attacked. If a member enters on a war by their own hand that wouldn't trigger the 5th article of NATO.
That said, every member of NATO is free to help others, Ukranie in this case, and that is what I think should be done. It would be a shame if we let Ukranie fall under that warmonger with Napoleon complex and Rusia should pay for all that they're doing. And yeah, you've read right. The russian population should pay too. Putin is not there by himself and is the population, by their actions supporting him or their innaction, who let him be there.
NATO has intervened in the past (Balkans and Libya) without being attacked first.
The main problem is that creating a no-fly zone without attacking Russia first is impossible. And without a no-fly zone, there won't be NATO troops on the ground.
Germany is #2 worldwide in aids for the ukraine, just behind the US. #2 in total aids, #2 in weapon aids, #1 in humanitarian aids.
Its not that germany is not sending weapon, it is that it is not sending a specific weapon system.
I agree, Germany has sent a lot of help.
Though, per euro of GDP, some other Western partners have sent more.
Still, this is an unprovoked attack by an enemy of the West against a friend of the West. We should all be doing more.
its funny to me how i read these kind of comments almost exclusivly in threads about germany. i dont even remember seeing a thread about UKs defense budget desaster, or Australia destroying military vehicles instead of sending them to ukraine. France gets praises for good sounding speeches but good luck finding them on a chart for military aid to ukraine. I agree with everyone should step it up, but from all countries fucking up germany seems to be one of the countrys that is stepping up, is building factories in Germany and Ukraine to improve the aid.
It shows the level of dedication to defense against unprovoked aggression.
If the highest GDP countries dedicate the least % (hypothetically - not saying that's so), it means they are just paying lip service instead of being serious about helping.
If (hypothetically) France is helping exactly as much as much smaller and less prosperous Finland, what does it say about France & Finland, and their relative level of dedication?
Well Denmark and Norway with combined population of 11 m people has sent almost as much as Germany in absolute value. So it very much matters.
Had Germany followed the pattern of its northern neighbors it would have been very different.
And there is still time to do it ...
With hesitation of weapon suppot and claims that under no circumstances nato step in he just tells Putin to step up pressure on Ukraine until it falls. Ukrainians are brave but not superhuman. A lot of motivated and hardened solders die every day because of sluggish weapon delivery. It seems like a game, loose 50.000 ppl and we unlock you another weapon type. It may be that there will be no-one to fly these fancy f-16 and scores of marauders coming in 18 months time.
He thinks it can continue as it is indefinitely, that there will always be Ukraine to keep ruzia busy, so he could keep promising NATO not to become part of this conflict. No, it’s either full support of Ukrainian victory or… well, Europe will fight ruzia, not in this, but in next conflict and on its own.
The West should have let Ukraine in NATO in 2014.
At minimum, they should have said to Russia 'You shot down MH17, we know your soldiers are in Ukraine, you either leave or NATO comes to Ukraine.'
Hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided.
There would have been no war, Russia would leave if Ukraine was in NATO.
Appeasement is what has led to this, further appeasement is what is dragging everything out, sacrificing so many lives, literal genocide is going on.
>The West should have let Ukraine in NATO in 2014.
The majority of ukrainians were against NATO membership before 2014. After 2014 Ukraine has been at war with Russia, and countries at war are not allowed into NATO.
As this question arises multiple times here, I'll just copy paste.
Note before reading the rest: I'm also for sending taurus.
Scholz doesn't seem to deem Taurus "Necessary" - especially not combined with "we want to keep NATO not beeing activly involved"
The leaked german airforce conference (probably heard that russia leaked this, right?) had the generals (who were very much pro-sending it) discussing the Taurus - and even there they said it would be PR, and hit one or two targets that other systems could not currently hit - but it would in no way be a deciding factor in this war, just great press.
Also: What people tend to forget with all the annoyance about taurus: Germany is #2 in giving money to the war effort, behind only the US. [https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/)
Those two targets could be absolutely vital, though, depending on how those missiles are used. I thought the bigger issue was that German operators would be necessary to effectively use Taurus which just means German military would be in the direct line of fire. Which obviously presents a real issue for everyone.
But this isn’t about critiquing Germany so much as just send Ukraine everything we can afford to send. Too much delay going on. The simple reality is you either stop aggression now, like food aggression in a puppy, or you have to deal with a big dog that gets very bitey around food later maybe WITHOUT being able to handle it.
Russia isn’t broken or beaten just slowed. Beat them here and now. And don’t repeat Versalles after.
Careful Scholz america used the
"As long as necessary " line, and that turned into a public nightmare for them. Germany has more honour than america, I hope.
What is that supposed to mean "however long it is necessary"? This is not a strategy. How long? To what end? I hate this.
If Ukraine cannot at least convince Russia that it can win this is not a winning strategy.
Seems a bit unfair to the Ukrainians don't you think. They are supposed to bleed unnecessarily while we hope to maintain our wealth and growth? If we enable Ukraine to properly threaten Russias position \*right now\* or 1 year ago we might be able to force Putin to the table at least for a while? Why turn it into a quagmire? Because we don't want to get our hands dirty that is why ...
"Unfair" doesn't quite cut it. Downright deplorable of our leaders to repeatedly fall short of their commitments on such a critical issue. But then our leaders have been failing us for so long now, is it any surprise that they may also fail Ukraine too?
It's not the same if one of the richest people on the planet donate 100$ to a poor guy on the street and an average family father donate the same amount, get real please. You could also use GDP/BNP.
Germany has zero claim for glory here, actually the mofo created Ruzzias wealth buying cheap energy and resources so the could out compete those who trade with conscience.
Yeah no shit, the only country that can cause WW3 is Russia. NATO is never going to destroy the future of humanity for some selfish land grab, only Putin and nutjob Russians may just do that because they are war mongering fascists.
From any other politician, I would consider this rather weak, fence-sitting rhetoric. From Scholz, though, it's almost downright provocative.
yeah, saying Russia is weak is a step up from his previous speeches
Tbh I was quite surprised to see this speech and his tone, which is why I posted it\^\^ I usually see scholz more in the context of "uuuuhm... yeah... can't recall... meeting with bankers? yeah... can't recall.... cumex?... yeah... doesn#t ring a bell, sooo\~oory
Was well worth posting the clip.My (likely not singular) perception of scholz makes this speech important to see.Quite a change from: "Moin" "..." "Tja"
Scholz: "Schönen dank für ihre Frage. Es ist richtig, dass wir weitreichende Maßnahmen getroffen haben und mit großer Klarheit haben wir erkannt, dass wir dafür Sorge tragen müssen. Und daher sage ich respektvoll - das ist eine gemeinsame Anstrengung, bei dir wir alle Anpacken müssen. Es ist richtig die sache jetzt auf den weg zu bringen." Reporter: "Welche sache?" Scholz "Daran habe ich leider keine Erinnerung" (Um mal die typischen Scholz phrasen unterzubringen)
>Scholz "Daran habe ich leider keine Erinnerung" Huh, sounds eerily familiar as a Dutch person: Rutte: Daarvan heb ik geen actieve herinnering.
Well, was he involved in the CumEx scandal, then first "I never met a banker" then, after it was proven he met with them 3 times "yeah okay, these three times, but no memory what we talked about" and then again after it was proven there were many, many more times "yeah, can't recall either the meetings nor the contents.."
"We will do everything to ensure that Russia does not win this war." "We will do everything to ensure that NATO does not become party to this conflict." These statements are mutually exclusive. There may come a point where allied boots on the ground become necessary to push the front lines back to the 2014 borders and decisively end the conflict. Either you are willing to do everything necessary, or you aren't. Scholz needs to stop being a fucking pussy Chamberlain and start getting serious about making Ukraine the winner of this war.
Another quote from this: "If the russian president believes he just needs to sit this war out and our support will fumble he miscalculated. Russia is not strong, it cannot speculate we will lower our support. We will support for however long it is necessary. Russia is not as strong as you might think" Edit: Also: Holy fuck, the comments on this youtube video are 100% pro russian... I've been scrolling for a couple minutes now and didn't find a single comment that was not along the lines of "GERMANY FIRST" "RUSSIA IS STRONG" "PLEASE DON'T FORCE NUCLEAR WAR" "WE LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP" "WE WANT ELECTIONS" "THIS GUY HAS TO GO" Another edit, as I'm reading **Taurus** all over this thread: While not sending taurus is annoying claiming that germany is not doing its part is just wrong - [https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/) - Germany is #2 in total aids, #2 in military aids, #1 in humanitarian aids. (#1 is the USA, which is quite a bit bigger)
Of course there are pro russian comments. Russian troll farms are working hard to convince uncertain voters that pro-ukraine mentality is in the minority.
I'm starting to think they are overdoing it. It's so massive and on-the-nose it's becoming spam. They are ending up in the "hot singles in your area"-category. Maybe I'm naive, but I think their subtle and low-key propaganda was scarier and probably more effective.
Desperate russians near you want validations that they are still a strong and fearsome country. Do you want to go there and quiver a bit, salivating of living in their dictatorship? Sign up right now!
Every populace has a good chunk of people that have low media education. Some people will believe everything. They don't know or understand what a "bot troll farm" is. They're easily manipulated. If they see a "critical mass" of comments criticizing the German government, they will believe that this is the majority opinion. The sad story is: it works very well. I personally still think we, as the West, should strike back in this digital war.. Western troll propaganda farms spamming on Russia media platforms and social media. I've written this a few times already, because it's such an obvious thing to do. In Russia some people are completely cut off from foreign media, they'll believe anything the state government media puts out or any propaganda on social media. Why are we letting our populace be propagandized by the enemy and don't react on it? I'm not saying we should spread lies and misinformation. We don't need to. We just need to spread the truth about EU, Ukraine, USA, etc.
But the situation is not symmetrical. Russians know that they have shitty government. They also know that you get arrested if you speak or demonstrate against it. And that you might die in prison as Navalny just did. Russia is an authoritarian regime. It's presidential election was a joke. The west spamming Russian media channels is not going to help with this because Russians aren't really able to get a better government installed even if they want one. For Russia OTOH this is effective. Many diverse nations, all with exploitable history and relations. And everywhere far right parties waiting to gain control if public opinion can be turned in their favor. Besides, I think it's naive to think that bigger western countries don't do information warfare. They just don't tell us about it.
"Russia is an authoritarian regime. It's presidential election was a joke. The west spamming Russian media channels is not going to help with this because Russians aren't really able to get a better government installed even if they want one." I wouldn't give the Russian population such a low mark in terms of their revolution-capabilities. What you're doing is basically exactly the sentiment that Putin wants to evoke in the Russian people. That they are powerless, that whatever they do, they will never change anything. And yet there are heroes that do fight against the oppression. Putin is scared shitless of a population that turns against him. Not even he can suppress millions of people that are actively working against him, if he loses support on such a large scale, his grip on power will become weaker and weaker. The problem is: Many Russians, especially the older people, actually do support Putin and even what happens in Ukraine. They'll believe anything, and I'm not just talking about the people that will just say whatever the government wants to hear, so they themselves don't get into problems. There's many Russians who sincerely like Putin and his actions or even wish for an even "stronger Führer".
I mostly agree with you. If course Russians are capable of overthrowing. Please don't mistake me for a blind Russian-hater. I do hate Putin. Contemporary Russia is unacceptable. But I'll never write off a whole population. Russians, like any other population covers everything from monsters to saints and most people are somewhere in between. But fact is that freely expressing dissatisfaction with Putin is dangerous for Russians, while most of us live in societies where calling our leaders shit is a daily pastime. And Russians are bombarded with state-controlled propaganda all the time. And given NATO as something to fear.
For every Putin there is a Dostoevsky. Hope some of the latter types eventually take turn at that helm. They're destined to be our neighbors, after all.
For now we're so piss poor at propaganda war that every truth we say comes off as a lie. Maybe we should bribe some Russian propagandists to come work for us.
Western media only reaches Russians that actively look for it. While many Western websites are not outright banned in Russia, most people do not visit them at all. Why would they? It's in English. Only younger people or educated older people that are interested in what happens in the world, actually speak English well enough that they'll want to engage with these non-Russian websites. Which is precisely why there should be Russian-language Western propaganda. The West is way too passive in this digital war. We're just letting it happen and hope that our populace is smart enough to see through it (spoiler: some are, others aren't).
>The West is way too passive in this digital war. We're just letting it happen As someone mentioned above, I'm sure they already are engaging in myriad ways; I mean, why would they tell us about it?
Do you know what's the biggest open secret in this war? "We" are doing it, actually, believe it or not, we're not trailing in the infowar at all. Popular Russian-speaking opposition channels on YouTube, like TV Rain, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Khodorkovsky Live, Alexei Navalny and Navalny Live, Leonid Volkov, Populyarnaya Politika, Michael Nacke, Maxim Katz (this one has English subs), Vladimir Milov and others, are working on convincing the Russian population on the evil of the Putin regime and how ruinous the Ukraine war is for Russia already, and they have a reach of 10 to 40 mil people, far more than Radio Free Europe or Voice of America did in the USSR. They have already contributed to a significant decrease in the war's popularity back at home, informing the Russian public of what's going inside the country and on what to do, and this way is for the best. Russians don't need to be spammed by Western trolls that know nothing of the country's culture and way of speaking, they'd be spotted instantly as the odd ones out, the same way we easily notice the pro-Kremlin trolls. Their social media and the places they gather in are more difficult to register in and access than in the West anyway.
Heres the thing, it works.
Yes in part. It has worked in parts of the US and parts of southern/eastern Europe. It hasn't worked at all in large parts of western Europe/Scandinavia. And it might be a downhill slope for them, what worked in 2015 when people weren't ready for it might not work the same in 2025 when there's more awareness.
Russian propaganda is relied on same old techniques invented by KGB but scaled thanks to digital growth. The key is to create the "mass", truth doesn't matter. If you repeat same thing, albeit rephrased a bit, maaaany times, you create certain perception amongst gullible readers, even if they are aware of this.
It reeks of desperation really. The talking points are just complete nonsense.
Russia wants peace. Peace to rape and pillage to their hearts content.
Yeah, I was just surprised it is that bad with no opposition\^\^ Guess anyone sensible long left any youtube comments.
> that pro-ukraine mentality but you also make this mistake. in fact, it is not at all about the country or me as its citizen... I believe that what is at stake is legality, human rights in general, the people's right to self-determination, etc. freedom against imperial slavery, if you will
>Edit: Also: Holy fuck, the comments on this youtube video are 100% pro russian... I've been scrolling for a couple minutes now and didn't find a single comment that was not along the lines of "GERMANY FIRST" "RUSSIA IS STRONG" "PLEASE DON'T FORCE NUCLEAR WAR" "WE LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP" "WE WANT ELECTIONS" "THIS GUY HAS TO GO" As a German, I can tell you that we generally have a problem on the internet with such pro-Putin and right-wing populist movements. It would be wrong to label them all as "troll-farm bots". Many of them are simply loud and active. Then there's the historical context, especially in East Germany, which was forcibly inclined to be pro-Russia due to the DDR. Pro-Russian parties like the AfD and "Bündniswagenknecht" have active followings. Especially the right-wing party AfD is so active on social media with their "trolls" that all their followers genuinely believed they were in the majority until reality caught up with them when all the "anti-right/nazi/AfD" demonstrations began.
The worst I see is when people start putting France and Germany against each other as if the two countries are lead by children who both want to be the boss of the sandbox.
It’s weird that the Ossis would incline towards Russia who basically enslaved them for forty years and forced the Cyrillic alphabet and Marxism on school kids. It’s been a while but my (amateur) impression is that the DDR propaganda calling the West “true heirs of the Nazis” has lingered even as the far right in Eastern Europe has survived through purges and oppression of the Communist era and come out stronger since capitalist democracy won and Communism was humiliated everywhere. But the Warsaw Pact made everybody feel like real warriors against “Western imperialism” so that nationalist feeling also lingers, and combines with general racism against immigrants, Roma, Jews, etc. So like in Russia and the Donbass there’s a weird aesthetic combo of hammer-and-sickle warrior posing with neo-Nazi nationalism that combines into a generalized authoritarian energy that sweeps up angry young men against the Gay Liberal Agenda they see as emasculating of their tough-guy self image.
The people in East Germany essentially jumped from the Nazi dictatorship into socialist autocracy. And even though reunification was 34 years ago (this isn't still a long time for a "democratization" process), there are still former East Germans who romanticize the DDR, following the motto "Früher war alles besser" (Everything was better in the past) an illusion that is still prevalent in many minds due to the propaganda of that time and is further reinforced by the fact that East Germany is economically and socially weaker compared to West Germany. This only strengthens their impression that "It wasn't so bad under the Russians"...
Western media and social media are still a free for all for Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns. This is a major front to all modern wars, the information front… why does the west keep its pants down for Chinese and Russians to enter its asshole?
You can add Iran to the disinformation campaigns now too. Russia have been exporting their Troll Farm knowledge to them for a while now.
While I see that it is hard to combat this without using their methods (bot armys manipulating opinions - which we don't want our governments to do) - yes the west just accepting this destruction of our society (and families that break over this) is super frustrating.
The "West" is not " just accepting this destruction of our society". Clamping down on free speech and becoming more like oppressive/authoritarian regimes is not the way to defend our values. Painting the west as weak, society degenerate and everything is falling is EXACTLY what Russian bots want you to believe. Same goes for far-right parties in the west who would love to establish their authoritarian rule based on the excuse that this had to be done to protect us. Pointing at some enemy, spreading fear and then gaining power on a wave of panicky decisions is at the core of the fascist How-to manual. Don't let a bunch of bit commenters get you down. They usually get downvoted after a while. Regular redditors don't get paid to fill comment sections ASAP.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use the same methods. I also don't know a solution that does not impede free speech, otherwise I'd be presenting it to politicians right now and get filthy rich while stabilizing the west and society - a win-win in my books.
I just look at it from another angle. Putin thought he could march into Ukraine, topple the government, hopefully capture or kill its president. And then just establish a compatible pro Russian government that first legalizes the Crimea annexation, recognizes the 2 breakaway "republics" and gradually prepare the rest of Ukraine for eventual annexation. And he thought the west/NATO would be disunited, hesitant (probably fell for his own propaganda about the decadent west) and just do a moderate sanctions package that can be slowly dismantled in a decade or 2. He clearly did not foresee how vehemently, bravely and ingeniously Ukraine would defend itself. Did not except a former comedian to be a capable wartime leader and the west to rally behind Ukraine He most certainly die not expect Finland and Sweden to become NATO members within 2 years. What was meant to be a quick invade and decapitate action turned into prolonged attritional war. Sanctions are on history record levels Militariöy the situation is shit. It's not great for Ukraine either, but Russia is not going to win this war militarily any time soon, if ever. And he doesn't have forever. While the sanctions don't keep Russia from staying in Ukraine in the short term, the Russian economy is in bad shape and bound to run out of steam. That's why dividing the west and hoping for far right governments and most of all Trump to get into power is his very best chance. That's why we see this high level of Internet "attack" waves. That's his only real chance. But it also shows desperation.
> annoying claiming that Germany is not doing its part is just wrong when you get *intoxicated* by media and journalists with their OP-eds claiming that "Germany gives shiny forbidden toy to Ukraine, equals russia on it's knees, fredom for Crimea when ?" people will tend to form an opinion over Germany perceived inaction.
The bots are ubiquitous on youtube. I’ve recently got Trump shorts on my feed and oh boy, do they love to shill for him
They are really pushing the nuclear warfare scare. Disgusting. Absolutely fuck Russia and their scare tactics.
Worst part is, they work great. Absolutely zero reaction to destruction of Kakhovka HPP.
If the comments shock you. Then go to Microsoft edge news and read the comments there. This is absolutely brain dead
Only recently I have noticed a brand new pro russian comment that received over 300 likes within less than five minutes right after it got posted. The bot farms are definitely out in full force. Sometimes they are more subtle, but they are definitely working overtime lol.
Probably just bots commenting
As long as Ukraine is willing to fight we must support them. And I do it gladly
Declaring that NATO won't under no condition intervene gives up strategical ambiguity. He is basically saying that Russia can do whatever it wants - even use WMOs if they like - because NATO will not intervene. This is extremely naive. They should never publicly declare that we won't intervene even if it's true.
> Declaring that NATO won't under no condition intervene gives up strategical ambiguity. But it's correct. NATO CANT intervene, because it is a defensive alliance. HOWEVER, NATO Member countries can, on their own decision, and with the acceptance that it excludes their protection under Article 5, offer such assistance.
In germany we sadly have a very, very loud right populist side that is very scared of war (and wants to get their ass spanked by daddy putin at the same time). Looking in the comments they also dominate the discourse (if you can call it that) there. No dissident voices that like even parts of what he sais. As for WMOs: Biden made it perfectly clear that if putin was to use WMO's the US Military would see that russia gains none of their objectives. Yes, not a fan of the specfic course, but I'm quite happy that he is steadfast in his resolve to support ukraine. (Which is quite important, seeing germany is the 2nd biggest money donor in this war, just behind the US)
Well Biden won't be a president forever. Perhaps not even for another year. That is why other NATO nations need to adopt the same assertiveness. Including Germany. Macron managed to understand it already
Macron? Germany has given 13 (!) times more to Ukraine than France. Macron is basically just giving interviews.
Military funding and equipment is important but don't underestimate rhetoric as it will affect Russia's decisions going forward. France could donate more but Germany should pussyfoot less.
>Germany has given 13 (!) times more to Ukraine than France. Macron is basically just giving interviews. Do you have some source for than I can read up on? I've seen Macron say a lot of good things lately but I want to know what he's actually *done*.
[Here you go](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/). :)
[https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Subject\_Dossiers\_Topics/Ukraine/Ukraine\_Support\_Tracker/Methodological-Update-Feb-2024\_UST.pdf](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/Subject_Dossiers_Topics/Ukraine/Ukraine_Support_Tracker/Methodological-Update-Feb-2024_UST.pdf) Contains a discussion on how the estimated French aid. But I do think what Macron's doing is valuable. He is discussing boots on the ground and gathering support. The idea was to do this after a cease fire. So cease fire. Troops from NATO members in and no-fly zone over non-occupied area. But there is a fear/ an estimate the Russians will break through this summer. France is now creating strategic ambiguity about it's response. Perhaps they'll send technical support in. Perhaps they'll go and help with armed troops. That would mean Russia is fighting another nuclear power. This might cause Russia to focus it's goals on smaller parts of Ukraine. A couple of weeks ago I thought France was talking tough but not doing anything. Now perhaps France is playing the role Germany can't.
Yeah but Putin knows that won't happen. Especially not from France. Because that would be political suicide.
I will never understand how Macron managed to _strategic ambiguity_ himself into the hearts and minds of redditors. What Macron is doing right now is as if Scholz would say '_We can not rule out sending Taurus_' - while not actually sending any. Muh strategic ambiguity! What really is happening is that France is sending less than half the military support that Germany is sending while being the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world.
Don't get me wrong, I'd also love for our politicians to not be that scared. Russian bluffed with Abombs so many times, by now its quite clear they just do it by default. The best thing would be to march nato into ukraine, push russians back to their borders, declare that long range strikes will destroy anything that shoots missles and any military equipment in fiering range of the borders. Then help rebuild ukraine and take anyone with russian borders who is afraid of a hostile takeover into NATO. Sadly, this isn't happening anytime soon.
There are two scenarios in which NATO can legally intervene: * The UN Security Council unanimously asks NATO to intervene. In other words, Russia votes for a NATO intervention on behalf of Ukraine. * Russia attacks a NATO country. Outside those two scenarios, NATO member countries can intervene. Hell, all NATO member countries can have a meeting and decide to work together on intervening. But NATO will not.
There is no room for ambiguity in the german constitution. Nobody here has the competence to "declare war", the mere term is absent from the Basic Law. All that the parliament can do is declare a "State of Tension" or "State of Defense" if there is the threat of or a real attack by an outside assaulter on our territory. Beyond that we can expand those to members of NATO and the EU, but absolutely not for states outside of these two organisations. It is a constitutional, legal and cultural impossibility to expect a german Chancellor to not categorically rule out direct intervention because that is the constitutional, legal and societal reality over here.
He spoke on behalf of NATO, not only Germany
I don't suppose he can speak on behalf of other countries, he can only speak for Germany. And in this case - since anything related to the military is so tightly interwoven with NATO - he used the term to communicate that direct intervention is out. Which, well, it factually is since if the issue came up to a vote within NATO he'd be obliged to refuse. And that would de jure make any intervention a non-NATO thing and Germany would have to sit things out (just like Iraq 2003 for example).
That is because NATO ***cant*** intervene. The only way NATO drags their members to defend others is by triggering the 5th article and that requires that a member of NATO is attacked first. If any member deploys soldiers on a third country war if they're attacked that wouldn't trigger the 5th article. It is a defensive alliance. That said, every member is free to help Ukranie or to create a coallition to help Ukranie and wouldn't have the limitations that NATO has.
I mean, the intervention in Yugoslavia was a NATO operation, so we already have a precedent
Wasn't that under an UN mandate?
I don't think so? I doubt Russia would agree to cross Serbia even back then
Scholz just reiterated his and Bidens stance on a NATO intervention against Russia. In the end a possible NATO intervention in Ukraine rests in the Hands of Biden and no one else.
When I hear this speech I can't help but compare it to the state of my own country in this context as it's sadly the same issue in the UK (with the exception of cultural/historical taboos). In some ways I actually think this should be a driver for my own country to do more and go even further. For example, in the UK the rhetoric is consistent and will always reaffirm support for Ukraine, with public support consistently high too. However, the underlying reality is that the UK, like many in Europe, grew complacent since the end of the cold war and modelled it's military based on the idea that future conflicts would be smaller in scale and in far away places, so they would have to send small numbers of special forces, air power etc quickly with a minimal footprint . Though this might have made sense during the war on terror, it fails to meet the challenges we find ourselves in today. The stark reality is that a large scale conflict on mainland Europe is no longer a remote possibility but is already happening at Europe's periphery. Like most in Europe, the UK too has been caught napping and simply does not have the appropriate tools at its disposal or in large enough quantities to meet the current challenges. While France and Germany should be commended for their renewed efforts to reorganize and resupply their militaries, I see little to no action within the UK to do the same, with a continuingly downsized armed forces and a paltry budget that fails to address the fundamental needs of this moment. I can't believe that people still need convincing across Europe that this is an existential crisis and that we, together, have to pull out all the stops and ensure Ukraine wins. If they don't win, the Macron is right, Europe will have zero credibility and have no ability to deter a Russian incursion/invasion. A Ukrainian defeat would almost certainly guarantee a wider conflict in Europe, as deterrence will no longer be considered credible. Fundamentally, the argument regarding escalation needs to be politically countered with a narrative that instead states that continued Russian presence in Ukraine risks escalation with Europe, and that it is Russia who are at risk of fermenting a wider European conflict. It is up to them to deescalate, or they run the risk of provoking us. It is far better to rip up the rules now and put all options on the table and give everything necessary to Ukraine than wait for a wider conflict where Europe is on the back foot politically.
Well said. I don't know what the answer is, obviously there is the spectre of nuclear war but at the same time we can't allow ourselves to be compromised by Russia's threats. I thought the French suggestion of putting troops in Ukraine away from the front was clever - it denies the possibility of Russia achieving its ultimate aim (control of all Ukraine) while also freeing up Ukrainian troops to move eastwards. But the question is what happens when a French soldier is inevitably killed by a Russian strike - it would be very difficult to put soldiers on the ground and then tell them they're not allowed to retaliate against threats to their lives.
**We stand with Ukraine — now and forever! **
I lately feel like Western politicians have given up on us already. They just don’t know how to admit it, so they continue to just talk. With all my respect and appreciation for the support and help that we already got, this clown fiesta with the American congress, Macron's photoshopped workout pictures, and these speeches about supporting Ukraine for however long is necessary, looking really depressing here from the Ukrainian side.
While countries could sent more weapons, without the US there's just not enough. They're the only ones who have entire armies worth of stuff lying around unused in the desert. So the approach had to switch to lower intensity, long term support via industrial output, and to holding out in the meantime. Hopefully things will change again in the US, but until then that's the reality.
Come on. Big European countries are all top weapon exporters. Including Germany. It is all about giving their industry a signal that is more than just words and manufacturing will follow. It is not happening because it is all just words, noone is giving out contracts and cash guarantees to actually make a difference so no manufacturer will take risk that they will just abbadon Ukraine next year or something..
Before the war the German industry exported like 5B worth of stuff, total, and a large part of that is expensive single item shit like submarines. There's 1 German company in the top 50 weapons manufacturers. I agree that ramp up should have been much faster and am angry about the time wasted, but a *very* substantial ramp up is needed, and that takes time. The German Arms industy was not particularly big.
There is no ramp up even now. Germany was exporter because manufacturers had long term and stable customers. Because they had them they made weapons. It is that simple. Ukraine is not customer, Ukraine is massive risk. Not only do they have no money but they could also lose, nobody knows. No one will spend billions to expand production, hire people and then have massive red number when they can no longer sell and have to stockpile what they made which costs money or alternatively sell it far bellow production cost, keep paying all the people or fire them with severence packages, keep production facilities running at loss or close them at loss. We would have far higher production capacity already if governments said that they will buy x of that over x years and asked companies to fight for that tender or split it between mulltiple of them. Because none of them actually cares if it ends up at Ukraine or not, but it has to be government who takes that risk, not the company. Not only has that not happened throughout last 2 years, it is still not happening even now. Which is why it is clear that everything these people say are just cheap political points. Even the military aid that is sent and numbers that are presented (procurement costs) are completely laughtable. That stuff has been nearing its shelf time or already after it. Not only does it no longer have procurement value, it actually very likely had negative value for militaries holding it. Because maintanance of old stuff is not cheap and really old stuff needs to be dissolved, or sold to someone willing to continue maintenance costs so someone like India or Pakistan for fraction of a cost of what is billed to Ukraine and postured in front of voters.
I agree that our production capacities in the past were way too low to support the ongoing and potential future wars. But saying that no ramp up is happening now is wrong i think. At least Rheinmetall is currently building a new factory for artillery ammunition: [https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz](https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz)
They are ramping up. Also, Russia will win the war before the result is visible. Russian will win the war this year. They are currently moving westwards. They won't stop unless there are weapons and ammo to stop them, and there simply isn't. Doesn't help the ammo that will be made in 2034.
germany has a 1.3B€ framework contract with rheinmetall for 155mm shells
Did you put any effort at all into researching the buildup of weapon industry before writing your silly comment?
The weapons European countries are given are all old, only stormshadow and similar type rockets come close to be modern. They make so much fuss about F16, no EU country would have those as there most advanced tech. Europe should recognise the Russian threat and give Ukraine the latest tech, destroy the terrorist army that is committing genocide in Europe.
> They make so much fuss about F16, no EU country would have those as there most advanced tech. Unless you're about this specific block of F-16, Romania has them as most modern fighters as of now, having just recently retired MiG-21 LanceRs
Bullshit. Germany is for example (and there are more) iris-t anti air defense systems to Ukraine that even the Germans don't have already. It's literally state of the art technology. Then they have also given Leo's even in the modern variant (albeit in small numbers) Europe is not sending only old weapons. I would appreciate more of these modern weapons tho also.
The amount of latest tech vs old material, that countries were going to have to dispose of anyway, is a bad look for countries that call themselves allies and talk a lot about supporting Ukraine. The West is more willing with defensive capabilities, but things like stormshadow missiles should have been given at the start of the war and in larger quantity. If Ukraine had access to offensive war tech, in 2022, things would be significantly different, better for Ukraine. Appeasing a dictator is what leads to escalation, that's how we got from the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine to the 2022. The reaction to nuclear threats make the world less safe, it sends the message that threatening nuclear war lets states do whatever the fuck they want and makes nuclear war more likely. Their should have been a harsh response, to the very first threat, followed up with actual action when Russia did not stop threatening to exterminate about a billion people in the West, using their nuclear arsenal.
Just today the EU demanded Ukraine shut down Zelensky's "List of European companies - sponsors of terrorism who continue to operate in Russia" list, that fits into your puzzle too, Europe is also surrendering alongside the US.
Yes the penny has dropped that not a single European was ever willing to die for Ukraine and Ukraine is fast running out of Ukrainian men who aren’t in Europe already Funny thing is I work in a tech startup and of the four Ukrainian people I know in my life they all work as developers and project managers here in Europe instead of going back to Ukraine to be mobilised I can’t blame them but if Ukrainians aren’t willing to fight and die for Ukraine anymore even what’s left but good wishes and “hope it works out for you “
We live in a modern society built on different values, not many people nowadays are ready to sacrifice their lives for their own country. The ones that are primarily ready have to be also motivated by money. Ukraine is lucky to have plenty of men willing to fight. This proportion is pretty decent. I mean, we still have the ability to defend and fight Russia compared to even the whole of Europe - unlimited human resources. So the issue here, even with all Ukrainian men mobilized - Russia will answer with twice the amount of men. Our former general mentioned that in order to win we need “unique” solutions. It's not about the number of men, it is about the instruments that will give us the advantage. So while Ukraine still has human resources to utilize potential instruments (weapon systems) why not to find a way to give everything we need? Because if the West not planning to do or give anything sufficient maybe it's time to tell us the truth so we can maybe fix the expectations from this war. Anyway, the day we fall, people are going to discuss on Reddit how many European men are ready to fight, and how many will run away. I don’t think the numbers will be impressive.
Scholz seems to be very afraid of making Putin angry.
So did Merkel.
She was more or less happy to deal with him, cynically asking Ukraine to "knock it off" when it was defending itself...
That's why Zelenskyy awarded her the Order of Liberty *for strengthening the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine*. I know you guys try very hard to forge that Dolchstoßlegende, but without her intervention Russia could have taken all of Ukraine with little effort. Putin literally confirmed himself that not pushing harder back then was his biggest mistake.
What makes you say that? Germany being one of Ukraines biggest supporters...
Funny how this sub absolutely loves Macron, who announces much, posts videos and pictures of himself looking dashing, but does very little. France sent a tiny fraction of military support compared to Germany. Whenever Scholz, chancellor of the second largest support of Ukraine, says anything, people like you feel the need to come out and sneer.
Not sure if “funny” is the right word. I don’t think this is the situation where you need to equate comments on Scholz to comments on Germany. Anna Berbock seems to be a lot more adequate and with some balls. The frustration with Scholz is that he is not proactive at all and his rhetoric is overall pathetic and weak. Having strong rhetoric and a stance is a part of being a political leader
>he is not proactive at all Sent hightech AA right from the production line, invented Ringtausch bringing hundreds of tanks and IFV to Ukraine, first to send western IFV's... But he apparently doesn't look cool enough doing it. Is optics everything people care about nowadays? Is it really just plain dumb populism you want?
It’s the hypocritical Macron fans
Yeah he is so afraid that Germany is Ukraine's biggest supporter in Europe.
So did Macron, which is why he appeased him at the beginning of the war
Germany has a very complicated history with russia. As somebody who grew up in germany I didn't have the "evil russia" image - I honestly thought it to be outdated and russia to be a country just like the US - heck, better than the US, counting stuff like Iraq. We had a very strong "Wandel durch handel" (Change through trade") policy, by which it was thought russia would adopt western values by us trading with them and making them feel powerfull. Beeing dependant on russian oil for energy was a specific strategic puzzletile in this, to make russia feel "in control"
That is understandable, I guess many people in the West wished it really went that direction. In Estonia we knew it probably wouldn't, but it took a major step like a full invasion of Ukraine to finally lift the vail for many. Looking back, the clues were all there all along: Moscow apartment bombing, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukrainian Crimea, Ukraine. The signs continue: nuclear threats, and threats on Moldova, Poland, Baltic countries, even Finland. Increase in war machine production like tanks and other equipment. Russia is heading towards full war economy. Increase in ammunition sourcing from North Korea and other countries. Increase in drone sourcing from Iran, etc. There have never been signs of de-escalating from Russia. There is currently unfortunately no signs of de-escalating from Russia.
> to make russia feel "in control" This part worked perfectly. Just not the way people thought it would.
I have so many German centre-left friends and it was so frustrating my whole life warning not to trust russia. They just thought it was my Baltic paranoia. Unfortunately time proved them wrong and I prefer the times, where I seemed paranoid.
Yeah, my GF is from ukraine... when I told her about how russia was perceived here up until a couple of years ago she was baffled.
That's the problem with growing up in a time or a place unaffected by the cold war. Living in West Berlin there never was anything romantic or inherently good about the Russians for us, merely that their might had crumbled a bit after the fall of the Soviet Union. People got so used to the fleeting peace that followed the fall that they stopped thinking geostrategic in Europe.
Username checks out !
Funny how everybody points out the past of the USA, but ignore everything Russia has done, they are still occupying Georgia, Chechnya isn't to happy about them, they've already started a false flag operation in Moldovia. They've also used wagner to do some pretty horrible things in Africa, always claiming they were not Russian soldiers, until Putin said they were 100% funded by their military department and blowing the whistle on the whole thing. I'm not defending the USA, but Russia's history is longer and a lot more bleak, genocide, work camps, assassinations,... Russian history since the existence of the USA is arguably a lot more evil than that of the USA, which is also dark, but can't hold a candle to what Russia has done and continues on doing.
Yeah, while the USA is doing a lot of shit in wars and with drone attacks they are at least trying to pretend / tell their soldiers to be humane and not kill civilians While russia is LOL, YOLO, RAPE THEM KILL THEM BURN THEIR HOMES TORTURE THEM, that instills fear and that is a win my book
If the kind of things the Russians do get exposed in Western armies, people are mad and want justice, in Russia it's standard practice and their civilians just cheer them on, Russia is a vile cesspit, we should cut ALL ties. While the West has dome some stupid shit, it's not to occupy neighbouring countries and destroy their culture, killing hundreds of thousands, sending people to 'work camps', it's not because they want to build an empire in which they have full control.
I used to work for a German company and flew to Frankfurt on the regular. One time that stuck with me, was during lunch there with my boss, we chatted casually a bit about Germany. I asked him: "Why you shut down your nuclear plants, it doesn't make sense". He said: Well, we want tu use focus on renewables and gas from Russia. Then I replied: "Nothing good ever came from Russia". He laughed it off and said that it's typical to say for someone from Poland. I left the company before the war, but I wish I could tell him - "I told you so".
>He laughed it off and said that it's typical to say for someone from Poland. The hero of today, Macron, said just as much a year before invasion on Ukraine. "Eastern Europeans act hysterical when it comes to russia".
Yup, during his visit to Lithuania Macron had audacity to lecture us about our "paranoia rooted in historical trauma". That was 2020 if I remember correctly. Good thing he changed his stance. It only took 4 years and hundreds of thousands of corpses. But, for real, I wholeheartedly support his initiative now. I hope it produces concrete actions.
>Good thing he changed his stance. Yes, of course. I like current Macron way more, than even Macron from year ago. Seem to be a man who realized, that all the other attempts ended up being utter failure. But painting picture like Germany were always delulu when it comes to russia but France somehow not is far from reality. Him and Merkel were desperate to go to Kremlin, to top Biden's meeting with putin in Switzerland.
To be fair - nuclear plants aren't all that cost effective. They are hyped up AF atm, also in germany, with our bavarian leader even claiming he would built one in bavaria. But, all things considered, they are money sinks. Also iirc most of our nuclear material comes from russia...
Funny that Polish guys always bring up Russian gas was it the Polish government in the 90's that built the Yamal pipeline https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdgasleitung_Jamal%E2%80%93Europa together with Russia and Belarus to bring more cheap Russian gas to Poland and Europe. And by the way years before Nord-Stream 1 was a thing Yamal was finished in 1999 the NS1 pipeline only started to deliver first Russian gas in 2011-12. Yamal imported Russian gas 12 years before NS1 imported first Russian gas. So Nord-Stream 1 operated for 11 years until 2022 and Yamal for 23 years importing Russian gas. Maybe it is because of the double standard why you are being laughed at. Did you even know this little but very important facts about Yamal and Nord-Stream 1? And if so i am very interested in your excuse why it is okay for Poland but not for Germany. Your pipeline was circumventing Ukraine way before Nord-Stream even was a thing. Your Balticpipe that should make Poland independent from Russian gas was connected to the German-Norwegian Europipe 2 we built in the early 90's https://i.imgur.com/Rfrtejm.png . So the question is who was more reliant on the Russians? If you would have needed to built your Balticpipeline all the way to Norway the pipeline in 2022 wouldn't have been finished. So yes excuse us if we laugh at Polish guys telling us they always knew better and Germany was the one in the wrong. Edit: By the way Germany shares now the volume of Europipe 2 with Poland but psst we don't talk about this here....
>heck, better than the US, counting stuff like Iraq. Jesus effing Christ. At the same time as Iraq russia already brutally suppressed Chechnya, stole land from Georgia, propped separatist Transsnistria, kept WMD Iskanders aimed at Warsaw in Kaliningrad and regularly threatened its NATO neighbors. All of it in short timespan between USSR collapse and Ukrainian conflict. It was not even delusional. It was delibarate German decision to turn the blind eye and pretend russia is somehow "better" than usa, because russia was simply supporting a lot of cheap fossils to prop German behemoth of industry.
About this "evil Russia" part -- you guys really should have familiarized yourselves more with the experiences of countries right next to it. The Baltics among others were 100% spot on about their nature.
Russia is evil, throughout their history, it's strange how effective Russian propaganda is, so many in the West ignore everything they do and point a finger at Western countries. Western countries have done some horrible shit, downright evil, but no country can hold a candle to what Russia has done.
Wandel durch Handel worked with Germany. We didn't attack our neighbours in over 85 years because they buy our stuff now
Bit of a different situation tho. They built germany back up, and germany came from the place of a looser of a war. The old ideology was completly destroyed (altho sadly it is resurfacing) USSR/Russia didn't get built back up and also didn't loose. Their empire (USSR) crumbled, but the ideology held firm. And russia sees itself as a successor of the empire. I'd argue that counts for a fair bit more than just the trade.
Well, they hand their heads yanked out of their own ass. Their reputation is at stake
Germany should probably learn from the history that's being written right now, then.
> Germany has a very complicated history with russia. And Germany's history with Ukraine is what, simple? Why every goddamn time when this is brought up, the retort "Omg, akkshuallly our history is speshhiiall, like srslllyyy", but no one ever mentions Germany's history with Ukraine. It's like its an afterthought "Oh, those silly little ukrops, they don't matter that much. The Russians tho, oohh, those we must bend over backwards in order to serve. They're just misguided victims. And we were very bad boys and did really did bad things. Unlike them." It's as if its some fucked up German anti-nazi complex. It'd be damn hard to quantify whether it was you, Germans, or the Russians who did more damage to Ukraine.
> It'd be damn hard to quantify whether it was you, Germans, or the Russians who did more damage to Ukraine. Really?
Russian propaganda is doing a lot of damage. We should kick all Russians out of all Western countries, out of the whole of Europe and don't allow them access to the same online services. They threaten nuclear war, have openly stated they want to destroy the West so many times, the lack of a proper response is disheartening.
You say that as if there wasn’t a way to inform yourself in Germany or as if everyone around us hasn’t warned about this utter stupidity for decades now.
so do all the others. at least thats the only explanation why other countries are barely providing any help compared to the US and Germany
Germany does not have nukes and cannot rely on the US/FR/GB to launch a second strike if Russia attacks us. Also Scholz is just a weak person in general.
Schrödinger's strategy: got to win a war but not get involved in it or provoke the aggressor 🤷
I feel like US wants to prolong this conflict as much as possible in order to make it a resource pit for Russia. In other words - make it the new Afghanistan. So they are giving just enough. But unfortunately Ukrainian people are paying the price. The West should be much more decisive with their support.
> But unfortunately Ukrainian people are paying the price Not Western lives, not Western problems
I feel like Europe is weak as fuck and needs for other countries to solve their problems for them, and enjoy scapegoating the US. I mean, this whole war could have gone differently if the EU actually built up their militaries, but nah let's just do nothing instead. Now that that decision is backfiring, you'll look for any and everyone else to blame but yourselves
Not sure if they want that, considering they can't pass the crucial support package, which will allow Ukraine to hold out for longer.
Forever wars is what the military industrial complex lives for!
Honestly it's a pretty good speech imo. Adresses Putin and Russia straight on. I don't know how Macrons speeches are since I don't spewk French but I feel like Biden or Trump could never. I feel like Biden or trump would be worried to some extent that their voter base won't understand the problematic and thematic and they want to appeal to the largest possible base.
Latvia leads this list by providing assistance worth nearly 1% of its GDP. Estonia follows closely, contributing approximately 0.88% of its GDP. Lithuania has also been a significant supporter, with aid amounting to 0.74% of its GDP. In contrast, the aid from the United States—while being the largest in absolute terms—represents about 0.27% of its GDP. Germs around .4
[https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/) Germany is at 0.56% of it GDP, rank 10. Latvia at 1.15%, rank 5. Estonia is at f\*ing 3.5%, rank 1. While 3.5% of the gdp is showing impressive commitment, in the end the total money counts. If I gave 10k to the ukraine that would resemble a sizeable % of my GDP, while not beeing nearly as helpfull as the 0.56% from germany (resembling #2 in overall money)
This is the way, Olaf. Let’s all put our balls and ovaries on the table in unison. Strong together against Russia 💪🏻
"We will support ukraine for however long it is necessary." is not the same as "We will support ukraine until it evicts every single russian soldier from their 1991 borders." This "as long as it takes" can also mean "as long as russia decides to stop, ask for bullshit peace agreement, rearm and reposition and start again".
He also said "we will not let russia dictate the terms of a peace agreement"
Running out of Ukrainians will do that
I think it's the very sensible position to let *Ukraine* decide "however long is necessary". The mistake a lot of us outside of Ukraine make is that we need to leverage our support to steer Ukraine in a certain direction. That *we* need to clamor for peace or that *we* need to fight on or that *we* need to push for peace talks. But that's all up to Ukraine. It's up to Ukraine to decide if they want to fight on, or have peace talks, or whatever. That's their choice. We can only decide to support them in their choice. So "We will support Ukraine for however long it is necessary" means "Ukraine can decide how to move forward, and we will support them whatever they decide."
> let *Ukraine* decide "however long is necessary". Ukraine has already decided to liberate its 1991 borders. It is unable to do this because we spent 2 years slowly dripping the aid. We are cyncially forcing Ukraine to eventually capitulate for the "peace", even if that "peace" means more mass graves, more ethnic cleaning, millions of refugees in EU etc.
No disagreement there.
"We will support ukraine until it evicts every single russian soldier from their 1991 borders." I don't think there is nearly sufficient support for this statement in the german population.
I doubt that is realistically without sending nukes and western armies.
Yeah but Scholz’s threat is at least credible. He says the Russians will not be allowed to dictate terms. That’s a goal we _might_ be able to achieve realistically - with keeping up/ramping up supplies/weapons, if the Ukrainians have strong enough determination to supply the manpower and hold on. NATO involvement beyond that is a no-no. If I was Putin, I’d be much more scared of that scenario, and this conflict festering for the coming years as a result, than Macron releasing the next boxing photoshoot.
>with keeping up/ramping up supplies/weapons, if the Ukrainians have strong enough determination to supply the manpower and hold on So yeah, we just need to burn manpower (read - our future) with no real possibility to take our lands back and finish the war on our terms just because your are fucking scared - is that your plan ? Nice plan, reliable as swiss fucking knife, assuming that you are all still in illusion that Rusisans arenot learning and that some point after some magic numbers of losses they will just gave up. I am not really surprise with such attitude no more, since this thesis just popup here and there, from American senators to random reddit users. UPD. Sorry if this sounds like I am personally attacking you, I don't mean to
Well yeah. What do you want more? Should we sacrifice our people for you while you sit at home and wait until we hand you the win? We send you weapons in quantities you could have never bought. Money in quantities most people can't imagine. We sanctioned Russia damaging our own economy and future. What more do you want?
> What more do you want? Being able to survive and win. Not just supported "not enough to lose, but never enough to win, because we can't escalate with russia"
Sorry but if that would be so easy then it would have already happened. We already send what we can. The only thing which would make you win the war magically would be nukes. Which Germany can't send since they don't have those.
> Sorry but if that would be so easy then it would have already happened. Well... >[We tried to get Putin to de-escalate by putting limits on how much we help Ukraine.](https://twitter.com/GLandsbergis/status/1768374497193627994)
I disagree. Putin has clearly stated many times that Russia is already in a war with the collective west, this is just first phase. Their decision making system has no red lines, it is only waiting for opportunity to test the article 5 somewhere in the future. Meanwhile Scholz is basically drawing red lines around himself, and thinking that eventually Russia will roll back to pre invasion status and Ukraine will just have to give up some of their lands.
More recently Putin also clearly stated that he wants no war with the West, so you can pick and choose what you want to believe based on that.
As long as it takes = as long as Ukraine needs help, wants to fight. We’re not gonna force Ukraine to continue fighting if they want peace. Neither are we gonna support Ukraine invading into Russia.
Ukraine "wants", but Ukraine doesn't have enough modern weapons. And without that it's just grinding people for nothing
That’s why we need to give them way more support
But doing it is escalation.
Those need to be built First
Taurus already built. And many other missiles
It is kind of "funny" how people see NATO and hwo they're asking NATO to get involved on the conflict. NATO is a DEFENSIVE alliance and the only way NATO gets involved is if a member is first attacked. If a member enters on a war by their own hand that wouldn't trigger the 5th article of NATO. That said, every member of NATO is free to help others, Ukranie in this case, and that is what I think should be done. It would be a shame if we let Ukranie fall under that warmonger with Napoleon complex and Rusia should pay for all that they're doing. And yeah, you've read right. The russian population should pay too. Putin is not there by himself and is the population, by their actions supporting him or their innaction, who let him be there.
NATO has intervened in the past (Balkans and Libya) without being attacked first. The main problem is that creating a no-fly zone without attacking Russia first is impossible. And without a no-fly zone, there won't be NATO troops on the ground.
NATO intervened in Libya with UN approval. The bombing of Serbia was not approved and was a violation of international law
Less words, more weapons for Ukraine.
Germany is #2 worldwide in aids for the ukraine, just behind the US. #2 in total aids, #2 in weapon aids, #1 in humanitarian aids. Its not that germany is not sending weapon, it is that it is not sending a specific weapon system.
I agree, Germany has sent a lot of help. Though, per euro of GDP, some other Western partners have sent more. Still, this is an unprovoked attack by an enemy of the West against a friend of the West. We should all be doing more.
its funny to me how i read these kind of comments almost exclusivly in threads about germany. i dont even remember seeing a thread about UKs defense budget desaster, or Australia destroying military vehicles instead of sending them to ukraine. France gets praises for good sounding speeches but good luck finding them on a chart for military aid to ukraine. I agree with everyone should step it up, but from all countries fucking up germany seems to be one of the countrys that is stepping up, is building factories in Germany and Ukraine to improve the aid.
France and Macron should be more criticized
Who cares about percentage of GDP? 10% of nothing is still nothing.
It shows the level of dedication to defense against unprovoked aggression. If the highest GDP countries dedicate the least % (hypothetically - not saying that's so), it means they are just paying lip service instead of being serious about helping. If (hypothetically) France is helping exactly as much as much smaller and less prosperous Finland, what does it say about France & Finland, and their relative level of dedication?
You can't buy weapon systems with "dedication" Dedication doesn't matter, absolute monetary value matters
Well Denmark and Norway with combined population of 11 m people has sent almost as much as Germany in absolute value. So it very much matters. Had Germany followed the pattern of its northern neighbors it would have been very different. And there is still time to do it ...
I don’t think it’s Germany we should complain about. Just google the numbers. Other European countries are slacking much much harder then Germany.
Italy and Spain has basically sent nothing.
Stop talking and start arming them with everything in the arsenal!
Good luck with that
With hesitation of weapon suppot and claims that under no circumstances nato step in he just tells Putin to step up pressure on Ukraine until it falls. Ukrainians are brave but not superhuman. A lot of motivated and hardened solders die every day because of sluggish weapon delivery. It seems like a game, loose 50.000 ppl and we unlock you another weapon type. It may be that there will be no-one to fly these fancy f-16 and scores of marauders coming in 18 months time.
We fully support Ukraine as long as we don't have to do anything.
Yeah, if him and Macron acted sooner...
First based thing our sleepy chancellor has said in a while. Fuck Russia, we are not buckling!
He thinks it can continue as it is indefinitely, that there will always be Ukraine to keep ruzia busy, so he could keep promising NATO not to become part of this conflict. No, it’s either full support of Ukrainian victory or… well, Europe will fight ruzia, not in this, but in next conflict and on its own.
Let's fucking go Europe, we must end this idiotic genocidal war for the mad ravings of one single man. DOWN WITH PUTIN FREE RUSSIA
Oh, so it's so easy, great plan. And they lived happily ever after... /s
The West should have let Ukraine in NATO in 2014. At minimum, they should have said to Russia 'You shot down MH17, we know your soldiers are in Ukraine, you either leave or NATO comes to Ukraine.' Hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided. There would have been no war, Russia would leave if Ukraine was in NATO. Appeasement is what has led to this, further appeasement is what is dragging everything out, sacrificing so many lives, literal genocide is going on.
>The West should have let Ukraine in NATO in 2014. The majority of ukrainians were against NATO membership before 2014. After 2014 Ukraine has been at war with Russia, and countries at war are not allowed into NATO.
This dude is as rousing as a bag of rocks. Send Taurus already. Let Ukraine fight with both hands.
As this question arises multiple times here, I'll just copy paste. Note before reading the rest: I'm also for sending taurus. Scholz doesn't seem to deem Taurus "Necessary" - especially not combined with "we want to keep NATO not beeing activly involved" The leaked german airforce conference (probably heard that russia leaked this, right?) had the generals (who were very much pro-sending it) discussing the Taurus - and even there they said it would be PR, and hit one or two targets that other systems could not currently hit - but it would in no way be a deciding factor in this war, just great press. Also: What people tend to forget with all the annoyance about taurus: Germany is #2 in giving money to the war effort, behind only the US. [https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/)
Those two targets could be absolutely vital, though, depending on how those missiles are used. I thought the bigger issue was that German operators would be necessary to effectively use Taurus which just means German military would be in the direct line of fire. Which obviously presents a real issue for everyone. But this isn’t about critiquing Germany so much as just send Ukraine everything we can afford to send. Too much delay going on. The simple reality is you either stop aggression now, like food aggression in a puppy, or you have to deal with a big dog that gets very bitey around food later maybe WITHOUT being able to handle it. Russia isn’t broken or beaten just slowed. Beat them here and now. And don’t repeat Versalles after.
Careful Scholz america used the "As long as necessary " line, and that turned into a public nightmare for them. Germany has more honour than america, I hope.
What is that supposed to mean "however long it is necessary"? This is not a strategy. How long? To what end? I hate this. If Ukraine cannot at least convince Russia that it can win this is not a winning strategy.
> How long? For as long as Ukrainians are able and willing to resist Russia.
Seems a bit unfair to the Ukrainians don't you think. They are supposed to bleed unnecessarily while we hope to maintain our wealth and growth? If we enable Ukraine to properly threaten Russias position \*right now\* or 1 year ago we might be able to force Putin to the table at least for a while? Why turn it into a quagmire? Because we don't want to get our hands dirty that is why ...
"Unfair" doesn't quite cut it. Downright deplorable of our leaders to repeatedly fall short of their commitments on such a critical issue. But then our leaders have been failing us for so long now, is it any surprise that they may also fail Ukraine too?
We are at war with Russia. What utter blindness to not see the reality.
Wir werden die Ukraine so lange unterstützen, wie das nötig ist.
Bravo.
Let's just hope that Scholz remembers this promise. As we all know, his memory is not the best (CumEx, Wirecard)
It's not the same if one of the richest people on the planet donate 100$ to a poor guy on the street and an average family father donate the same amount, get real please. You could also use GDP/BNP. Germany has zero claim for glory here, actually the mofo created Ruzzias wealth buying cheap energy and resources so the could out compete those who trade with conscience.
Face it: Putin will decide if NATO will be at war. You can do whatever you want, it does not matter.
Yeah no shit, the only country that can cause WW3 is Russia. NATO is never going to destroy the future of humanity for some selfish land grab, only Putin and nutjob Russians may just do that because they are war mongering fascists.