Re: OT: Ukraine

On 3/31/25 12:16, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
 

Am 31.03.25 um 09:39 schrieb Bill Sloman:
>

Putin does seem to be exploiting Trump's intervention - he has finally
got someone to talk to who doesn't see him as a murderous dictator
intent on territorial expansion. Not that it helps much. Trump isn't
quite idiotic enough to offer him the Ukraine on a plate, though Trump
is stupid enough to think that the Ukraine should be stupid enough to
offer the US it's mineral wealth on a plate without getting any security
guarantees in exchange.

>
The guarantees would not be worth the paper they are are written on.

 As far as I know these were outrageous proposals by Trump that Ukraine
never agreed to.  Does he think he can hold Ukraine to account for
renaging on 'agreements' they never made?
 

Remember the Budapest Memorandum of Dec-5-1994 where Ukraine gave
up their nuclear weapons in exchange for safety guarantees from
US, RU and UK?
They had the 3rd largest arsenal on earth.
>
Foolish in retrospect.

 That's where we went wrong, we should have nipped it in the bud.  We
still haven't learned.   The longer we leave it, the more expensive in
lives and materials it will be to push Putin's Russia back behind its
own borders.
 

I suppose that was their inexperience in international diplomacy:
You should *never* cede anything without an equivalent concession
of the other party(ies). Reciprocity is the name of the game.
That's also why Trump cannot impose any tariffs without getting
tit for tat.
Jeroen Belleman