There’s a reason that the recruitment quotas from districts that are more remote or less politically visible are higher than from, say Moscow or St. Petersburg.
I have to admit I laughed aloud when I got to this part.
Yeah. I should have used red font.
I am struggling to understand why the media think Starmer may be able to influence Trump?
It is the UK media, well known for elevating the UK’s position in the world well beyond its current circumstances.
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At least the Canadian media long ago realized that Canada has no international influence.
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They are also terrified of being targeted by Trump with tariffs because of the current fragility of the UK Economy.
Personally, I would not project weakness with Trump.
Trump always has a visceral response to it.
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One piece of good news,
Initial results project Merz being elected with 30% of the vote in Germany.
This means a much more hardball policy in relation to Russia and defense.
This was Merz on German TV today:
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It’s the reverse Marshall Plan
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There is also no real guarantee that the US will not magically turn around and simply let Russia in on the bounty.
There won’t be anything Ukraine could do to stop them once they had US and Russian troops on the ground.
EU is definitely the better option for Ukraine.
That twitter post is incredible. This is US imperialism in a nutshell. “Take our precious capital or else we will not defend you.”. I want to puke.
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It gets worse.
I have run out of free links this month but here is his FT article on the same subject.
Bessent wrote an Op-Ed in the FT that was just incredible.
The AfD is getting about 20% of the vote but no one will partner with them. The Social Democrats really getting hammered. Trump will probably be ok dealing with a right wing party like the CDU.
Hoping Trump interferes with our Federal election by supporting Poilievre and the Conservatives. Nothing would hurt their chances more than a Trump endorsement!
I really hope the Estonians and Latvians are armed to the teeth. If we give up on Ukraine, they’re next.
IFYP
They’re NATO members. That means nothing to Trump but it means something to the remaining members, and maybe even some of Trump’s generals/admirals although possibly any such persons have already been replaced.
I do believe that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are spending the requisite 2% of GDP on defense but obviously that’s still small compared to Russia.
I doubt they’re next, actually, due to being NATO members. I would think Georgia and Belarus might be at greater risk.
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The hypothesis, which I read elsewhere is that they might be invaded despite being NATO members because Putin might believe that the rest of NATO won’t come to their aid and will invade them to test the strength of the alliance.
We will know the direction of travel if Trump and his cronies replace the US NATO military heads with sycophants.
A lot is going to depend on Merz.
Scholz was always a bit weak when it came to the military so if Germany starts re-arming (in a serious way) due to Merz because of the US and Trump it could stop them in their tracks.
It would be a real disaster if that happened. I think there is more wisdom in the rest of the NATO members. Hopefully someone remembers the Cold War.
Belarus is a key Russia lackey. Russia won’t be going there.
Next up would be Georgia and Moldova, while Putin would continue the attacks on the Baltics (not military but their infrastructure like electricity and communications cables)