(Europe must Rise) - '..the debasement of the USA is clear. The USA is basically telling Ukraine to give up..'

'The moment of decision for Europe is approaching. As I tried to say on Thursday, the decision is not about whether to maintain the post 1945/1989 European world. That world is over, and if you did not believe it on Thursday you better have started on Friday when the US and Russia started normalizing.

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..will Europe start clearly, aggressively and with purpose, to take responsibility for its own future?

..

The Baltic 8 (which includes Iceland as well as the four Nordic states and three Baltic states) released a very skeptical comment in which they accused, entirely truthfully, Putin of lying and said Ukraine’s pathway to NATO had to stay open. Here is the text from the Swedish Foreign Ministry.'

'Well, Its been fewer than 48 hours since the Trump-Putin love and respect fest in Anchorage, and the analysis is finally catching up to the reality. This meeting has brought about arguably the most dangerous moment of the war for Ukraine and the rest of Europe. They have been put in a situation soon where Donald Trump might urge upon them a very Putin-friendly “peace” plan and they reject it and the US basically leaves and even ends sanctions on Russia, or they, God forbid, agree to Putin and Trump’s terms and leave themselves both in a state of permanent instability.

..

..The Anchorage meeting, as I wrote yesterday, was a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe for a number of reasons—it normalized relations between the US and Russia, it destroyed fully (for the hopelessly naive) that Trump would ever put sanctions on Russia and it established clearly that the US was now saying Ukraine had to give up land to Russia for any “peace” deal.

..

Even writing these words, the debasement of the USA is clear. The USA is basically telling Ukraine to give up one part of its unseized land so that Russia wont take another part which Russia cannot take.

In other words the US is not only validating Russian illegal conquest, its now arguing that these conquest needs to be extended..

Now what would Ukraine get in exchange for this sacrifice of its own people and territory to Russia. Well two things were mooted—the first, which I cannot believe was said with a straight face, was that Putin would offer a “written guarantee” to not go back to war with Ukraine. Wow,! Where have we seen those used to keep the peace before? I think I remember something..

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..What happens to abducted Ukrainian children, accused Russian war criminals, etc, etc—that would be irrelevant to Trump.

..

The moment of decision for Europe is approaching. As I tried to say on Thursday, the decision is not about whether to maintain the post 1945/1989 European world. That world is over, and if you did not believe it on Thursday you better have started on Friday when the US and Russia started normalizing.

The “deal” being proposed for Ukraine could very well be the pivot which decides what the new Europe will be. Will it be one of validated conquest, of war crimes covered up, of abducted children and normalization with butchers? And more, will it be one in which European states basically continue to outsource their security to a completely unreliable USA—a USA which made all the above possible.

Or will Europe start clearly, aggressively and with purpose, to take responsibility for its own future?

..

The Baltic 8 (which includes Iceland as well as the four Nordic states and three Baltic states) released a very skeptical comment in which they accused, entirely truthfully, Putin of lying and said Ukraine’s pathway to NATO had to stay open. Here is the text from the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

..

The Pokrovsk "Collapse" Was Nothing Of The Sort

What do you do if you’ve been constantly prophesying about a Ukrainian collapse around Pokrovsk and it stubbornly keeps from happening? If you are the Washington Post or a well known military analyst, you simply write that the collapse is about to happen the next time.

Now, the Post is truly remarkable in this regard. It has published stories of Ukraine being on the verge of collapse since early 2024. Six months ago I put together a summary of some of these.

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.. The Russian operation has been quickly countered by the Ukrainians who have counterattacked effectively (amazing that considering all their faults). Indeed, the Russian operation seems to be turning into a bit of a fiasco..

So, what does the Post do? Well, clearly they had been planning to write a dooming piece about how the Russian infiltration was a sign of Ukrainian collapse. However when that did not happen, they decided to press on anyway and write this piece about how it was really a disaster anyway. Guess what—even though the Ukrainians successfully cut up the Russian infiltration—it was really a “calamity” for Ukraine.

That this story could have been written after this last week is a sign that military analysis is getting worse, not better. Its been well over a year and a half that Ukraine was on the verge of collapse, that Pokrovsk was about to fall, that the world was ending. And yet time and again the analytical community pushing this narrative is proven wrong and wrong again. And amazingly, that community almost always errs in one way—in favor of the idea that Ukraine is close to collapse and Russia is a steamroller.

I say this now without hesitation. We have the worst military analysis community in the history of military analysis.',

- Prof. Phillips P. O’Brien, Weekend Update #146: A Deal To Destroy Ukraine, August 17, 2025



Context

'Trump and Putin are of course expecting European states to be weak and fold.'

(Russia, a fascist imperialist regime, must lose) - 'It is normal for Russia to lose wars.'

'What are Ukraine's borders? .. they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991.' - Navalny