Are they? Ukraine had many years to implement the Minsk agreement, Instead, Ukraine proceeded to implement new language laws which discriminated against the Russian language (going against the agreement), continued to imprison and torture political dissidents after the agreement was made as per Amnesty International which was also in violation of the Minsk Agreement which explicity stated that Ukraine was not allowed to imprison or punish people due to events related to the war in Donbas. Ukraine also refused to allow local elections.

"Ukraine insists that local elections can take place only after a complete ceasefire and withdrawal of all Russian troops and weapons.

Clear violation of spirit of agreement as such Russian forces were necessary for protecting the autonomy of the people in the Donbas until Minsk implementation.

Migrated here from Reddit. Also spouting anti-Trump statements.

It was not “explicitly prohibited” by the agreement. Stop spreading misinformation. This is a quick read to find out how obviously wrong you are.

Yes it was,

“Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.”

Try again.

Meanwhile, “One can argue that Russian actions (passive language) on 2014” for something that was EXPLICITLY forbidden.

It depends if you consider it null and void due to 2014 coup. If you don’t, it was in violation of that agreement.

Oh you mean the one where Ukraine disarmed itself in exchange for sovereignty and protection and Russia armed up and got sanctioned for breaking the agreement. What a dumb fucking example.

No it isn’t, US sanctioned Belarus in 2013 in violation of the agreement and America’s only response was that the Memorandum is “not legally binding” and this action made it null and void in its entirety.

One can argue? No Russia broke this agreement too.

It depends if you consider null and void due to 2014 coup or not.

Minsk Agreements had already been violated by Russian troops more than 4000 times, as noted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense during a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Inter-Parliamentary Council. Ukrainians were shelled both from the temporarily occupied territories and from across the Russian border.

No Russian action undertaken under the Minsk II agreements ever violated the SPIRIT of the agreement. There were ceasefire violations but Russia never violated the spirit of the agreement.

It is for example, true that Russian-backed forces launched an offensive to capture a strategically important area but the fighting died down after 5 days when Minsk II came into effect when the area was captured and Russia also claimed that Minsk II did not apply to Debaltseve and Ukraine used similar arguments when launching their own operations into grey zones as you can see here:

“Yuriy Biriukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, says that almost the entire “grey” zone in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, has been liberated from Russian-led forces without breaching the Minsk peace agreements and is under control of the Ukrainian army.”

Zelenskyy on the other hand, refused to federalize the country despite Ukraine having the obligation to give eastern territories autonomy through federalizing the country because of the Minsk Agreements. Ukraine also had the obligation to uphold linguistic rights to ethnic minorities but violated the Minsk Agreements with the 2019 language law which didn’t outright ban the Russian language but did discriminate against those who did not speak Ukrainian or an EU language.

Fuck off.

Rude.

I mean not really but Russia did violate some agreements but so did Ukraine.

Budapest Memorandum was made null and void when the US sanctioned Belarus which is explicitly prohibited in the agreement.

One can argue that Russian actions in 2014 violated the 1997 treaty on friendship.

Minsk II was made null and void after Ukraine not only refused to implement them but created laws that violated the spirit of the agreement and this is more or less the main reason 2022 invasion happened.

All the treaties except for the Minsk Agreements were basically made null and void following the 2014 coup.

Minsk I was violated by Russia almost immediately after it was made.

2003 treaty on Russian-Ukrainian border really only gave “legal basis for initiating the process of marking the Russia–Ukraine state border on the ground.”

I’d be more worried about the Suwałki Gap than the Arctic.

Most respondents oppose Kyiv’s exclusion from U.S.-Russia peace talks and doubt Europe alone could support Ukraine

I mean not only did Kyiv host peace talks that excluded Russia (thus came to nothing), but Zelenskyy outlawed talks with Putin so why is he complaining?

And yeah, Europe can’t defend Ukraine alone. The UK for example already sent basically their entire SPG fleet to Ukraine. 7 months ago, Poland had sent basically half of their SPGs to Ukraine. NATO‘s artillery fleet outside of the US is already gutted despite not being at war. France only have enough ammunition to last a few weeks in a bitter fight against Russia per France’s own calculations.

That or use his Sovereign Wealth Fund* idea similar to how Alaska uses theirs and make it a basic UBI program. Unfortunately, this is Trump we are speaking of so he will just pocket everything instead.

*Sovereign Wealth Fund in a country with significant debt? Very interesting, lets see how it plays out

They cut spending on actually useful things but their tax cuts for the rich always overpower the cut in spending meaning that they only add to the debt.

It sure are growing pains, the thing that is growing however isn’t the economy but inequality.

Disposed? They were going to be refurbished as ATACMS isn’t being produced anymore since 2007. For now, current stockpile are needed for refurbishments until its successor, PrSM can actually get out in actual numbers which takes time and is unlikely to outpace Russian Iskander production which has already at least 7 months ago, almost reached peak ATACMS production and probably has by now if not surpassed.

But because of the US sending them into Ukraine, they don’t have these ATACMS that would be very useful to equip NATO or US forces in Europe with at least until PrSM becomes available in large numbers and knowing US production tendencies, will be quite some years away.

(Doubt the ATACMS problem is as bad as the Stinger problem, they had to get retired employees whom are in their 70s to teach new employees because some smart person decided to cancel stinger production, retire the Stinger and give them to the national guard til Ukraine).

It’s going to be the modern day missile gap.

Personally, I think it would be better to keep Amtrak majority state owned and throw billions of dollars at it. In fact, why not send out a $3 trillion stimulus package to get some Jobs going?

While I would not mind increased automation and use of AI in workplaces, using them in call centers for social security is beyond stupid.

Edit: unpopular opinion I guess, fair enough.

The foolish orangutan wants to have Iraq on America’s doorstep.

As Critical Magazine states

“Invading Mexico to wipe out the cartels would effectively jettison everything America learned from our mistakes in the War on Terror. It would be costly, both in lives and treasure. It would be deeply unpopular — and it would fail.”

“For starters, the cartels are not mere gangs. The cartels effectively control chunks of Mexico and are in many ways ingrained into society there. They are not a separate external growth which can be lasered off with a well-aimed cruise missile: the infection has spread throughout the body. Wiping out the cartels would require our soldiers going door to door, house to house, waging war. This is not to even mention the massive cost of such an attack. A Harvard study found that the total cost of the Iraq War was about $3 trillion; we have no reason to think Mexico would be cheaper.”

As some guy on the internet stated:

“There are mountains in Mexico as tough as Afghanistan. Mexicans taking to the hills, like the Afghans, would give the US a constant headache until the Americans are thrown out. Remember, like the US, Mexico started as an insurgency. Every. Single. Mexican conflict has been asymmetrical guerilla warfare (heck, that’s what the drug war is in the first place, that’s why it’s so hard - now we’ve just multiplied the problem by sending the entire Mexican Army packing to the forests and mountains). That’s what Mexico knows best. And that’s a nightmare scenario for the US.”

The Mexican military has RPG-29s and the RPG-29 was considered so dangerous that the US refused to give M1 tanks to Iraqi security forces until years later and when they did, Iraqi M1s started to drop like flies.

America should double down support for the Ukrainian regime that shot and killed unarmed pro-separatist protestors on film with some of those being shot at, having their hands up with this occurring even before Russian war criminal Igor Girkin ignited everything further? A strange albeit sadly common take.

Yes, I am quite aware. US cut off intelligence to Ukraine and are planning to end sanctions with Russia which is as if the Americans stop cooperation with the Soviets completely during WW2 and gave lend-lease to the Nazis instead.

I personally see Russian conflict with Ukraine to be more grey vs grey considering that there is footage of Ukrainian troops mowing down pro-Russian protesters with guns in post-Maidan Mariupol (not as bad as Russia’s Bucha atrocity I admit) but to each their own.

Think of it however you want, someone else here stated that freezing it is just means that all that aid goes into Trump’s pockets instead which is certainly a good argument for unfreezing this aid and sending it into Ukraine anyways even if it won’t achieve much in the end.

Personally I think it is smarter if Europe keeps their stockpiles in country and prepare for a future war with Russia and the American aid gets sent to NATO allies instead.

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The US did halt lend lease shipments to the USSR in the middle of Stalingrad in order to support actions in Tunisia.