Russia has invaded Ukraine

Originally Posted by Pierre

Sorry, I suggested a negotiated settlement and you called it appeasement.

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...&postcount=827

in any event, you've been consistently against a negotiated peace from the outset.

You suggested a negotiated settlement that would give away land from two NATO members, Poland and Lithuania, to Russia, and I called that appeasement…

Re "against a negotiated peace" - I’m against doing deals with regimes/people who have consistently broken agreements every time they initially invaded a country in the last thirty years - see Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and who (repeatedly) give speeches stating that they wish to bring back the "Greater Rus", restoring the Soviet Territories to be under Russian rule.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Maya Angelou

What makes you believe Russia/Putin wouldn’t repeat their previous behaviours?



---------- Post added at 15:46 ---------- Previous post was at 15:42 ----------

Originally Posted by jfman

Majorities in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria opposed this to the extent that they thought it was a bad idea to increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine.

Seemed like an odd bit to leave out when you selectively chose your sentences to put in bold.

Unless they’re the “wrong type” of Europeans.

The political consensus fragments as alternate minority positions in more places rise of course, and there’s more nuance within those majority positions - as Pierre correctly notes above to strengthen the negotiating hand is significantly different from a return to either 2022 or 2014 borders.

If I meant to say “a majority of people in the majority of countries” I’d have said that - I don’t believe that so I didn’t say it.

Three countries citizens, out of fourteen countries surveyed, who think it may be a bad idea to increase the supply of arms to Ukraine (not stop, not lessen, just not increase), is not, by any stretch of the imagination, "political consensus fragmenting in Europe"…

[jfman]

Yet majorities for the opposite in just two countries were worth calling out.

Fair enough, when it fragments further and they tell Zelensky to get his pen out I’ll remind you of your comprehensive assessment.

Almost all of the figures are deteriorating for Ukraine if you compared it like for like with attitudes in 2022 and 2023. Every other day the media has an article to nudge the average person into thinking it’s a futile exercise.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Hugh

What makes you believe Russia/Putin wouldn’t repeat their previous behaviours?

Nothing.

But it would stop the fighting.

The US election will be pivotal. If Trump decides to support Ukraine. Putin will have to think whether he wants to carry on for four more years.

If Trump looks to end it, he’ll just threaten to turn off the money tap. Europe can’t finance it on their own.