re: Why is Trump playing hardball with Z but not Putin?

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If we go into business with the Russians and are both making money, my guess is we'll continue to get along.

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That was the Europeans strategy for dealing with Russia since the end of the Cold War and we can see how that's working out for them.

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Has been my experience that strong people respect strong people and they do not respect weak people. Could be why Putin invaded Crimea under obama and Ukraine under biden.

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My assertion is that the textual evidence suggests Putin made the decision to start this phase of the war after his first meeting with Zelensky. It is likely that during that meeting, Zelensky stated Ukraine's desire to see the return of Crimea, which the Ukrainians put to paper in their strategic white paper in 2020. That showed Putin that he would likely have to build his own land bridge to Transnistria and the Carpathians, as the main interest has been securing the Western frontier of Russia from possible invasion, which is a very old war aim consistent across Russian politics, from Imperial Russia to the Soviets to now.

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Why do they need to be an enemy? I see the elitists in Europe and what mass muslim immigration has done as much more of an enemy to my way of life than the Russians.

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That may be how you feel, but the Russians might feel differently. They have a different relationship to Muslim migration from Central Asia, using it to avoid their own demographic crisis they are currently experiencing. There is certainly no one in the West who has Muslim allies who will yell out their name like they yell out Putin's here. LINK

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If we go into business with the Russians and are both making money, my guess is we'll continue to get along

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What if they don't want the Americans to make money, and are driven by revanchist claims, wanting everything or as much for themselves?

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That was the Europeans strategy for dealing with Russia since the end of the Cold War and we can see how that's working out for them.

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How is it working out?

They've spent more on Russian fossil fuel than they have on funding Ukraine.

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Key word here is "might". Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Seems like it would be better to ask and/or try before we assume them to be our enemy.

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Their position to make a multipolar world by definition makes us adversarial.

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My point was that I don't those global elitists doing to America what they have done to Europe

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I don't understand your point here. Moscow has more Muslims by itself than several Western European countries. It's far more likely that Russia could turn Islamist than the UK, just going by percentages of population and with current demographic trends.

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What if they do? We won't know until we ask.

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What if they have already said as much?

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How is it working out?

They've spent more on Russian fossil fuel than they have on funding Ukraine

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Blame Merkel, Change Through Trade and the German Greens.

Yeah. We've all but telegraphed to him that we are not going to make him face any consequences for invading Ukraine territory and we are not going to put any obstacles on the ground. Where's a framework for his compliance? What's to stop him if ge wakes up in August and decides he really like Kharkiv and he's going to make it his?

OK, what is Vlad offering? Where's his guarantee? What's our guarantee to Ukraine and what about Europe's place at the table and involvement. They've put a lot of money up and invested as well. Trump is not the only player in the game. What's the penalty we are promising if this deal goes south.

Trump puts a lot of trust in Putin . Trust that he has demonstrated that he's not necessarily owed.

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His own words are that he doesn’t believe Ukraine is really an independent country.

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Should they be independent if they can’t defend themselves?

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My assertion is that the textual evidence suggests Putin made the decision to start this phase of the war after his first meeting with Zelensky.

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That is not borne out in fact.

What is borne out is Putin realizing he'd been played by the EU in Minsk, Ukraine then elected a man whose chief claim to fame was playing piano with his schlong. Putin had no reason to respect the guy. In 2019 Zelenskyy, the Schlong Virtuoso, met with Putin. He agreed to allow independent elections in the breakaway oblasts.

However, when he began to catch domestic grief for Russian "concessions," he waffled on the Putin deal. That is when Putin sought out military options in the event of continued Ukrainian noncompliance. It was not a plan
to start war per se, nor was invasion apparently assured until Feb 2022.

As Zelenskyy continued to shirk concessions for Donbas autonomy Putin was more bellicose. That in turn spurned the horrendously inexperienced Zelenskyy to ramp up Ukraine to NATO talks. The Ukraine to NATO talks were the spark in the kindling. The Potatobrain Admin fanned the spark then stoked the flames.

None of that excuses fairly predictable Russian actions. In the end, Putin's complete disrespect for Zelenskyy led to a general underestimation of Ukrainian defense capacity. Russia got its butt kicked in the Kyiv offensive. But that is why we are where we are.

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It’s going to be fun watching y’all cry

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This is one of my main beefs with Trump supporters, they seem to take pleasure in watching other people cry and be miserable. What kind of person does that? They just come off as cruel and just not good, decent people.