Summary

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the U.S., its primary military supporter, cuts funding.

Speaking to Fox News, he stressed the importance of unity between the U.S. and Ukraine as Russia accelerates its territorial gains.

Zelensky acknowledged Ukraine’s challenges on the battlefield, despite new U.S. weapon supplies, including long-range missiles and anti-personnel land mines.

He criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for engaging with Putin, calling it a risky move.

Trump has pledged to end the war quickly but offered no specifics.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Give em full air support. If it causes world war 3, it causes world war 3. Fuck it. Avoiding that isn’t worth letting Russia just consume its neighbors on a whim - that shit certainly won’t stop with Ukraine.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      59 minutes ago

      Maybe if WW3 breaks out, Biden won’t hand over power to the literal fascists that are already making decisions to cause our demise.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        9 minutes ago

        I’ve already got my DD-214 but sure I’ll go back in to fight invasion of allies

    • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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      49 minutes ago

      Russia is also already instigating it with having North Korean troops in the combat zone. It’ll just be a tit-for-tat response.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        4 minutes ago

        Up to 100k North Koreans. I don’t care how inept they are, 100k dudes with guns will utterly wreck Ukraine.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          3 minutes ago

          I heard rumors of South Korea sending troops to counter. I don’t want world war but that seems fair to me.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I’m all for America funding as much as possible, but FFS Europe, the monster is ringing your doorbell.

    • r00ty@kbin.life
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      1 hour ago

      Europe ARE doing a lot. We just don’t have as much of an aging stockpile of weapons as the US does. Also when turned into financial contribution you need to convert it to a percentage of GDP.

      Well, turns out someone made that data available.

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303450/bilateral-aid-to-ukraine-in-a-percent-of-donor-gdp/
      https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

      Europe most certainly are doing their part.

      However, that’s not the real fear. The USA is going into a new presidential term, a term where the house, senate and the supreme court are going to likely side with the president on most things.

      The USA can put significant pressure on European countries. If we’re to believe Trump is really working in Putin’s favour then, as well as stopping US aid, there’s not too much stopping the US pressuring Europe from doing the same. That is my real fear. I think without US support this is hard, very hard for Europe to fill that gap. But, we certainly can still try.

    • RunningInRVA@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Right? Before the election I had a political conversation with a coworker who leans more conservative and she was excited about Trump “making peace with Putin”. It was a serious wtf moment for me. “Peace” with Putin means pulling funding for Ukraine and letting Russia roll over it.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        I had an argument on here with a supposed green party voter who “hated trump”, but admired him for his sincere efforts to end wars…

        I reminded them about ending the nuclear deal with Iran and then assassinating their most idolized military commander. He just went on to admit he didn’t care about a war with Iran.

        There are so many “green voters” who are just trump supporters turfing as leftist on this site.

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Love the Pax MAGA:

          1. Russia moves west until Putin doesn’t need to drum up nationalist fervor back home;

          2. Israel gets all the weapons it needs to control every inch of the Mediterranean coast from the Suez to Turkey;

          3. All US troops out of South Korea and IDK probably an arms sale to the DPRK;

          4. The Seventh Fleet gets permanently reassigned to patrol the California coast as some immigration stunt and to make Pooh happy;

          5. Probably a tactical nuke dropped on Tehran.

          Seems awesome, right?

  • hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl
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    1 hour ago

    Sadly there is no if. To me it looks like the EU and US want to make the war as expensive as possible for Russia. Their aim is not to strengthen Ukraine to the point where they can win. (I don’t know if out of fear from russia’s nuclear weapons or if there simply isn’t enough political support for more help.)

    Ukraine losing, is also exactly the story which Russia wants the world to see and believe in. Hence their inhumane warfare.

    That must be hard for the people in Ukraine. I wouldn’t be very grateful for this kind of support if I were in their position. Rn it just prolongs the war.

  • krashmo@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    This issue is a great example of the insane double think that most of Europe has about the US. We are too involved in world affairs until someone needs to take military action and then all of a sudden we’re the only ones who can address it. Ukraine is your neighbor, not ours. You should be the ones funding Ukraine’s defense because if you don’t Russia is on your doorstep. Ukraine should have so much money that it doesn’t matter what the US does but instead all of Europe is looking on like “it’s a shame a country on the other side of the world isn’t doing enough to stop this”.

    • perestroika@lemm.ee
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      5 minutes ago

      “it’s a shame a country on the other side of the world isn’t doing enough to stop this”.

      The US is not a totally random country, but one signatory of the Budapest memorandum (giving Ukraine security guarantees in return for Ukraine giving away nuclear weapons).

      As for levels of support - I advise taking a look at this website. You may notice some surprising patterns.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      That being said, it’s not crazy to ask the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years to donate those weapons to an anti-Russian cause. That’s what they were built for after all.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        More than anything your statement just makes me wonder why the phrase “the country who has been developing anti-Russian weapons for 50 years” does not refer to a European country. They seem to have been content to outsource defense spending for the last half century at least and now are acting surprised that they have to rely on someone else for defense.

        • Gork@lemm.ee
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          3 hours ago

          I guess then America shouldn’t have gotten involved on the European front during WW2. Not our problem, Hitler can run wild, America was only directly attacked by the Japanese so the Pacific front is the only one that matters.

          If the collective West doesn’t stop Putin, what’s to say he can’t follow in Hitler’s footsteps? He’s already shown that he is not above invading sovereign countries.

          • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Bad argument. Japan and Germany were allies. Popular public sentiment to join the war had been growing before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards it would have been political suicide to not join. Moreover, it supercharged factory production and created a patriotic wave that didn’t die down for years.

            But yeah, let’s just ignore all that.

            What the other commenter is saying is that Europe has relied on U.S. intervention. For better or worse (for worse) we are seeing the results of placing so many eggs into what is amounting to an oversized trash bin. While we should provide support across seas, I hope the larger public sentiment shifts hard towards fixing things here. Gaza and Ukraine are big deals. What about the major issues WITHIN our borders?

            Y’know, such as the slow rise of fascism over the years.

            The bad faith war on drugs.

            Rising costs of housing and medical, and living in general.

            The clear and obvious issue with money in politics.

            Homelessness.

            The slow decline in experts staying or immigrating here, and poorer education.

            And possibly the biggest argument for why we should step back military presence and focus inward: The absolute shit show that is support for veterans from a medical and insurance perspective.

            I could keep going. Many of these could be called endemic issues. For a Nation so large we sure as hell see the same problems nearly everywhere.

          • krashmo@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            The collective West hasn’t been stopping Putin, that’s the point. Ukraine has been with primarily American support. It needs to be collective and it isn’t up to this point.

            • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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              2 hours ago

              It is though, UK, Germany, Norway, etc are all also giving supplies and other support.

              US is just so big that our support our lack thereof is very difficult to compensate for.

              • krashmo@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                They’re not doing nothing but they’re not pulling their weight either. If they were then Zelensky’s statement here would not be necessary.

                • r00ty@kbin.life
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                  1 hour ago

                  Yes they are. Check the % of GDP. We’re pulling our weight, pretty much as much as we can. More really considering we mostly don’t prioritise defence as much as the US does.

    • ShadowRam@fedia.io
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      3 hours ago

      It doesn’t help that the US spends an ‘OBSCENE’ amount of money on their military for their own internal workings.

      It’s hard for any NATO member to justify more spending of their GDP.

      When everyone decides to build 2/tanks per cycle… and yet one entity is just pissing out 20/tanks per cycle,

      There’s so much oversupply in general, why would anyone else increase their output to 3/tanks?

      stretch that out over 50 years, and that’s where we are today.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        There’s so much oversupply in general, why would anyone else increase their output to 3/tanks?

        I think the why should be pretty obvious at this point.

    • hanke@feddit.nu
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      3 hours ago

      I’ll give you an angry upvote on this one.

      I agree that the EU should do better and be independent from the US. But I still think the US should keep helping out, or at least present a plan for its decreased support over time so that the EU has time to pick up the slack.

      Just suddenly pulling funding is more supporting Putin than it is “changing to America first interests”.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Absolutely. If I had my way we would be giving Ukraine everything they ask for and more. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. My point is that European apathy is just as much to blame for the situation we find ourselves in as the instability in the US. Europe has allowed, and continues to allow, the situation to become hopeless without US support and that can’t be blamed on the US.