Summary
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Europe that it cannot withstand Russia without Ukraine’s military, calling Ukraine’s victory vital to stopping Kremlin expansion.
Speaking to Polish media, Zelenskyy stressed that Russia’s larger, more brutal army would target other European nations if Ukraine falls.
He criticized Western allies for underestimating Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, urging them to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses.
He’s right.
Ukraine grows a LOT of grain. It’s going to be a big problem when they stop providing Europe and the world.
On a more cynical note: Ukraine grows a lot of Russian obituaries, which the EU doesn’t have to, should they try to invade the Baltics once they are successful in Ukraine.
I’m not certain why your point was downvoted (maybe the wording confused people)… but folks may grumble about paying extra taxes to financially support the Ukrainian army but that does not even compare to the rage governments would face if they started sending volunteer or drafted troops to fight the frontline.
It’s incredibly cynical of course - but if Ukraine is willing to fight and die for European freedom for the low low cost of just some money its insane to reject their offer.
Russia will not stop at Ukraine. They may stop at the Polish border, but the Baltic states are absolutely within Putin’s gaze.
if Ukraine is willing to fight and die for European freedom for the low low cost of just some money its insane to reject their offer.
Insane. It pisses me off no end that we haven’t given them the tools to not just defend their freedom, but to win. Fuck your fear of escalation. There are North Korean soldiers fighting a war of aggression in Europe.
Like how much more are we going to take?
all of it. Europe bought the lie of peace dividends, outsourced their defense to America, and elected weapons grade morons and co-conspirators like Burlesconi, Merkel and Orban, who opened the door for Putin to put Europe in a comprimising position once he decided to s tart shooting.
And now America wants out.
Europe’s either going to have to prepare for war. or accept that Russia is going to get to do what it wants, and continue to ratfuck European politics with shit like Orban, Fico, and whatever the fuck BRUV is.
Your biggest mistake is assuming that those tools will help against a country that has experience dealing with actual superpowers on the frontlines Backed by a nuclear power & a 2nd superpower
The fucking Muscovites want the Suwalki Gap, which is part of Poland and I’m certain they will try to take more land. Then there’s Finland, a former Russian Empire vassal state. The European NATO members should ignore Putin’s Sock Puppet in the USA, properly supply and train the Ukrainians and lift the weapons restrictions. Fuck Russia.
Based on prices increase for the last two years « because it’s from Ukraine »… either we are being fooled by big corps or Ukraine do produces 80% goods and food for Europe
Well, if you’re from the EU, that would make sense. In America, we grow a lot of grain here in Canada and the US.
They’ll just buy it from Russia, just like their oil.
We built NATO for this while goddamn reason, Kyiv just wasn’t available as a signatory at that time. It is now. Use the opportunity, before the USA is able to thwart it due to our current Foothold situation
ukraine has the second largest military in europe. if trump pulls the us out of nato, it may suddenly become an issue.
Not really. Europe’s army is “small” because we have not been drafted.
Populations:
- Europe: 450 million
- Russia: 150 million
- Ukraine: 35 million
Defending countries will draft most of their people, while the attackers draft far less. Countries that are not at war will simply not draft and will have a natural army size. (Which protects the country until people get drafted and trained)
There’s no reason to compare apples and pears here.
Europe’s population is ~744m.
EU’s population is ~450m. Not Europe’s.
However you’d also have to account for the population of all NATO countries, minus potentially the US, were it to come to a conflict against its members.
Yes I meant EU. Which I think was what Zelensky meant. Russia is part of Europe the continent anyways.
deleted by creator
Only people taking the draft actually seriously would be nations that have been at war or occupied with russia. For westerners russia is “that funny accent vodka nation” instead of the existential, genocidal torture enthusiast nation waiting to end you.
No you’re just not one the important whites so you get treated like the rest of the world, difference being you’re close to Russia. Now if your have any melanin then your issue suddenly becomes America and the west as existential, genocidal torture enthusiast waiting to exploit every last resource you have and you let your nation collapse then have it funded by the IMF under their strict terms
Zelensky is correct, Putin is identical to, take your pick, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Franco and Tojo.
Stalin is one of three world leaders that SAVED Europe from Hitler. I also find it hard to believe the much of Europe was scared of Tojo who may have instead also been scared of Stalin. --That’s was a bad analogy. Do better.
> Carves up Poland
> Wages a war of total destruction en route to Berlin
> Invents a new form of genocide in Ukraine
Yeah cool. The saviour of Europe
Didn’t Stalin offer Britain and France to fight the Nazis together first ,but was ignored?
Stalin as in an ally of Nazi Germany until Hitler betrayed him?
Yes many people ignore the inconvenient part of history where Stalin tried to not ally with Hitler. But that was ignored probably because Britain thought Commies were scary. So Stalin went ahead and forged a pact with Hitler.
Yes. Molotov, the URSS Commissar for Foreign Affairs, did try to engage France and Britain to form a defensive tripartite pact, which the Western powers ignored.
The Soviets didn’t exactly throw themselves at the German’s arms at first. Stalin was very wary of the Nazis, in fact.
But Hitler practically begged Stalin to buddy up with the Nazis, dangling Poland, Finland, etc. as the proverbial carrot in front of them. The Nazi’s insistence paid off.
Also true
Are we painting Stalin as a good guy here? He only fought Germany because they tried to invade. Before that he repeatedly made attempts to court Nazi Germany. He signed a nonaggression pact, made an agreement to secretly divide Eastern Europe together, and continued trading. Stalin didn’t really give a shit about the fascism part, he only cared once his own territory and sphere of influence were threatened. Same as all the other major allies, btw. Everyone tried appeasement first, nobody really cared about the fascism.
“Saving Europe from Hitler” paints it as a selfless act of heroism when really everyone was mostly concerned with maintaining their own power.
You’re replying to a .ml. Just save your energy, they’re not worth talking to.
LOL. Most of you couldn’t stop yourselves if you wanted to.
Are we painting Stalin as a good guy here?
No, I’m painting a bad analogy as bad. Do better!
Stalin was good at war, bad at economics, but wanted total control.
It’s ok to say Russia fighting Germany helped defeat Hitler.
It’s weird to try to turn histoical fact into a subjective argument. And only helps our owners sow dissent.
You’re better than these lazy reactionist takes
Stalin did not save Europe. He took what he wanted to create the regressive Warsaw Pact. The Bolshevik bastard was on the same level as the fuck nut Hitler.
Lol
Eastern Europe: “we know already, and they (pointing westwards) are starting to get it”.
Well, Trump is obviously not going to help anyone but himself. But that doesn’t mean Europe is doomed. Plenty of nuclear weapons in Europe. If anything, everyone’s doomed.
People sure do like to act like France isn’t one of the most nuclear armed nations
I think we should help Ukraine, but Russia would get their clock cleaned by European NATO (even without US).
Regardless, I’d rather we not test that theory. It doesn’t matter which side wins, we all would lose.
As long as the nuke is dropped on my head, I don’t care.
and Europe would take catastrophic casualties in doing so.
America is an ocean away, and doesn’t have to worry about war on their soil.Europe on the other hand, can you honestly say that society is ready for events like Bucha on their soil? a Russian brigade breaks through the line, gets bogged down,isnt able to advance any further, so decides to loot , rape and mass murder the population before retreating?
Bucha and Mariupol is why the entire NATO strategy changed. it used to be that the baltics would effectively be surrendered temporarily while the European backbone mobilized, France Germany Poland etc. But thats no longer an option because intelligence knows that the Russian Soldiery, for lack of a better term, act like savage ghouls. and will put innocent men women and children to the sword for no reason other than spite.
and failing that, they will bomb a city to dust like they did to Mariupol, Bakhmut, and so many others
One thing Russia has infintely more experience than Europe, its people are used to the realities of war, Martial law, no rights, Resource scarcity, No protesting. they just behave like lemmings now. Its sad, but its an advantage.
European populations would be calling for an armistice and selling out countries on the periphery as soon as it started because they dont want to go to war.
Indeed, as long as the Russian public can absorb the causalities and ignore the piss poor conditions their soldiers are facing, the war will continue. Russia needs another 1917 to end the war and we could kick them out East Prussia, Karelia and the Northern Territories.
No one is allowed to become famous in Russia anymore, whenever someone’s “brand” grows. as a figure other than the tZar. that person is very quickly dissapeared or unalived.
look at both Prigozhyn and Navalny. as examples, The objective here is clear, they are trying to prevent figureheads from acheiving the support necessary to organize a revolution. Russia has an entire “army” of militarized and secret police who’s basically only got one real job, on the side they beat protesters and such, but their real job is to figuratively and literally hold a gun to the head of the army. to terrorize and intimidate the people in the military and their families, so they have no question or thought about disobeying what the boss says.
in the 90s and 2000s they were much less discrete about it, there would be cases of literal mafia goons driving into army bases, being let in, and the army base would just get robbed and people beaten up and sometimes taken, because the people in the army were scared to death of the people the goons worked for. The Mafia and The State are the same thing in Russia.
Lmao you really fell for the Russian propaganda.
quite the opposite.
but I’ve been watching their actions for the last 10 years. And it’s clear to me that most of Europe has not even been remotely taking this seriously. Militarily Russia will obviously lose, but an unthinkable amount of people will still die.
World War III is already in it’s pre-game show phase. and Quisling governments are already trying to take hold of European countries before the drop of the ball/puck/etc
Lolololol. Russia couldn’t invade the one of the poorest countries in Europe. They couldn’t do shit against any real power. And now they’ve wasted all their equipment and men. Ok I’m out you’ve fallen hard for bs.
Ok I’m out
Good riddance.
Putin has said as much, it is why he constantly reminds everyone of his nuclear arsenal and apparent willingness to end the world over small matters.
Small dick energy on Putins part.
Astroturfing orcs downvoting
Putin doesn’t own a big red button he can push to launch nukes. There are layers in command that would not comply. And they’ve done it before. Same goes for Trump.
I’m not sure how, for one second you believe that if Putin ordered a nuclear strike, that order wouldn’t be carried out.
I think some people underestimate how spiteful Russians are.
their whole national identity, since the advent of Z-Fascism, has become “We dont care if we die, But we’ll take you with us, you have far more to lose than us”
the Russian system is far less removed from failsafes than the US one is.
while I dont think its active anymore, the russian system was rumoured to be completely autonomous too, meaning if connection was broken between points A and B, or however the network was set up, such as Moscow or the supposed command bunkers in Mount Yamantau got taken out, some missiles would launch automatically.
as I said though, I dont think they’ve had the dead hand turned on for many many years. trusting a soviet computer not to malfunction is like playing russian roulette with 4 in the cylinder.
except ukraine was the one maintaining russian missiles and we know very well how poor russian military maintenance culture is and how low the morale is to do anything if failure to do so does not result in beatings/rape. Pair that with how damn remote everything is and how even in 90s there were silos where not the high maintenance missile was in disrepair but the silo basic systems were, then the more accurate analogy would be "russian roulette with 25 round capacity cylinder, 10 rounds in and 90% are duds.
10% of Russian nukes working fine would still be a catastrophe not worth risking.
How many NATO soldiers have experience fighting a full-scale war on their territory against an enemy with similar technological and production capabilities?
How many NATO soldiers have experience fighting a full-scale war on their territory against an enemy with similar technological and production capabilities?
I’m not sure, but since this is the Russian-Ukraine conflict we’re talking about, we don’t have to worry about one showing up. Russia is barely a near peer to Ukraine, they wouldn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell against more than one country at a time without their nukes, let alone NATO as a whole.
Nukes are literally the only thing that lets Russia pretend they’re still a superpower and not a failed state. But as we can see in Ukraine, they can’t even beat a former client state and has to resort to bringing our cold war era equipment, so double lol at “similar capabilities”
Russia is more than capable of butchering european civilian populations, that is the main concern.
everyone knows they’d get their shit rocked in conventional war, its the mass murder of civilians, bombardment of cities, and retaliatiory table flipping ragequit nuclear attacks that everyone is afraid of.
Realtalk, Ukraine and russia are the only two big nations with experience in drone warfare, which is the current patch. Everyone else hasn’t really updated yet.
I believe you are forgetting about the vast and formidable legion of battle-hardened and experienced North Korean soldiers they have at their disposal. /s
Don’t forget the various foreign nationals they tricked with promises of well paying support jobs only to hand them rifles and send them to the front lines.
That is more concerning since they are almost all exclusively pedophiles.
“similar technological and production capabilities”
Okay bud. Russia has pretty effectively burned through their best equipment and skilled fighters and is basically running on pure authoritarian insistence right now.
fighting a conventional war, yeah they’re a joke.
but they are more than capable of butchering european civilian populations, bombarding cities, and if need be, flipping the table in a rage and launching, after they panic when their conventional forces are defeated.you dont need a sophisticated army to commit mass murder and destruction. the concern isn’t about preventing european militaries from being outmanuevered, surrounded and killed. its about preventing the russians from tiny breakthroughs that result in things like Bucha or Mariupol, where a city is burned to the ground, where a town has hundreds of innocent people executed.
Similar technologies is an extreme stretch as well, Russia is not anywhere near the technology level of other NATO nations. They need China to get anywhere near that level, and I’m not sure China would give them that level of support if a wider conflict broke out.
TIL training doesn’t exist.
Maybe or maybe not.
Look at Israel. Why do you think the US sending them more weapons for their genocide every month? Because they don’t have the material to fight a protracted war. That’s largely how it is in Europe too, and it’s a good thing, because they don’t have the ‘bomb first and then ask questions later’ mentality that Americans do.
Sure, bro.
This but unironically
You wish, unironically.
Despite your best efforts, you’re right!
deleted by creator
Zelenskyy can go fuck himself. He’s a total idiot if he hasn’t figured out he’s a US puppet for a proxy war.
They’ve been operating as the tip of the spear and begging for more ammo since day 1, they know full well it’s a proxy not just between US/Russia but the EU and old agreed land divisions all across the continent. They’ve been held back due to MAD concerns and the new administration is fully fascist.
What do you suggest this “unknowing puppet” do instead, your better idea?
of course this is from a @lemmy.ml user
Lemming says what?
Calles ‘empire in decay’ hahaha
Sure, a puppet in a war on their own territory, that the other side invaded.
Ukraine wouldn’t be at war if Russia stayed in their borders.
Zelenskyy wouldn’t have need to be a “puppet” if there wasn’t a war in Ukraine.
So even if what you said was true, it is all putins fault.
Harsh but true. The downvoters aren’t interested in reading the reality of the situation, and it does suck to see entire countries being treated as expendable pawns, but that’s just how the game of global politics is played.
There is a reason why the west is not authorizing Ukraine to strike more aggressively deep within Russia even when Ukraine put in the hard work and made the sacrifice to counter the invasion.
Ukraine wouldn’t be a “pawn” if Russia never invaded and kept to the treaties they made with NATO.
The west doesn’t have to authorize anything. Since Ukraine is a sovereign nation that can decide that themselves.
And they did, or do you think Moscow isn’t “deep” enough? https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/10/europe/ukraine-drone-strikes-moscow-intl/index.html
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the US has to approve the use of the weapons they provide. Ukraine is not authorized to use US weapons to hit deep Russia, they can do whatever they want with weapons they produce, tho.
The drones are made by Ukraine, if I recall correctly.
Can’t we just buy the grain off of Russia if they win? Asking for a friend
During WW2 there were people buying gold teeth from concentration camps wardens without asking any questions.
Ask your friend if his grandpa was one of them.
Like the Swiss?
Every last one of them benefits from the deaths of my kin
I doubt, Russia has trouble producing simple items like butter for internal use, not to mention exports. Pretty sure that they will grow basically no grain if they win.
Well, you could. But imagine after all the conflict, would Russia offer a good deal? Who’d pay for the cost increase? And what else could they ask in return, more raw material for nuclear weapons, so that in 15 years they can go another round with an even better odds?
Maybe?? It will take awhile to fully capture and subjugate Ukrainian infrastructure. If the Citizens resist they will be slaughtered and replaced slowly. All of this will take time and the pillaged resources need to fill the war debt first.
All the European cowards in the comments writing Ukraine off, now that Trump is coming to power. Without even pretending to put up a fight, without US omni presence. Shame on you. Put would kick your asses, and he know it, you’d fold just like you did to the reich. Nothing changes.
Can you absolutely shut the fuck up. Europe can and should fill the gap if trump pussies out.
Exactly how many F16s has the US given? Oh that’s right. Zero.
Europe has (in total) ponied up more in arms and cash than the US.
I would rather be taxed to death than see them overrun.
Jog on.
Are those “european cowards” in a room here with us?
Most of people here I know is just hoping that at least half of our military spending would go straight to Ukraine. The support must flow.
I just read “You guys are doomed with us” and thought man he’s right
