Today's YouTube short video is this:
You can watch it here.
The transcript is:
It's quite likely that Trump will be re-elected as President of the USA this November. And it's as likely that if he is re-elected he will cut off all funding to support Ukraine in managing the invasion by Putin of that country.
What will we do if Trump decides to do that?
Will we decide to continue to support Ukraine?
Will Europe decide to continue to support Ukraine?
Or will we let Putin annex part of that country and claim that it is Russian?
I don't know. I really haven't got an answer. But I very much doubt that Kier Starmer has an answer either. I think he's winging it and I think that's dangerous because this is a massive issue.
Will he appease Russia?
Or will he join with others to say, no, we'll support Ukraine?
If you don't know, ask your candidates in this election. Ask Keir Starmer if you can.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
What would you do?
Fior the record – and I think you’re trolling – I’d be working with NATO to support Ukraine and democracy
Starmer appease Putler? probably not.
The US & UK military regard Ukraine as a useful development/testing ground for drone warfare & from their point of view, it would be unfortunate if the development process ground to a halt (which it would do if the war ended – “too soon”). Starmer will probably continue to supply weapons to Ukraine. Obviously not too many, given the desire to press forward with drone development. I understand from contacts, that US companies are buying real-estate in Ukraine – probably in anticipation of the war ending, a boom in all sorts of business opportunities and thus the rape of Ukraine will continue – albeit peacefully and via US corporations with assorted Euros hanging on their coat tails.
The only fly in this ointment being a very large number of combat trained Ukrainian soldiers (and their families) that might have a slightly different view of the shape of Ukrainian society (& business) in the future.
The EU Parliament’s elections are being disrupted by cyber attacks originating from Russia.
Russia is not going to invade Europe. It doesn’t have the capacity but it could take the Baltic states and dare us to do something about it. Putin’s aim-reading Fiona Hill and Tim Snyder- is a moral dominance over the West.
Europe needs a sense of common purpose. Putin was almost certainly involved in promoting Brexit. There are many demands we need to meet, climate change, investment in the NHS, schools, housing and so. But we can’t ignore the threat. The best defence is the military capacity to defeat any such action. Europe has the population and resources to match any threat in the long run. We are more vulnerable in the short run, It doesn’t need to be the scale of the Cold War.
Much as we would like it to be otherwise, that is the situation. Part of our defence is healthy democracy in Europe to be an alternative to the mystic nationalism of Putin.
It is daunting but I think it can be done. It must be done.
Agree 100% Ian. The west needs to do much more to oppose Putin. Given his interference in our admittedly highly imperfect democracies via cyber attacks, we need to do the same to him. The same applies to supplying and allowing the use of long range weapons into Russia against the Russian war machine.
We’ve been too pusillanimous so far. Putin, like Hitler, is an aggressive, aggrieved right wing nationalist. He only and respects the will of an opponent to fight back.
Richard,
I have no problem with the content of this video, but it really is most unfortunate that the first 3 words of the first sentence (“It’s quite likely that Trump will be re-elected…”) appear at the top of the announcement as “it’s quite likely”, making it appear to be your answer to the question asked underneath (“Will Starmer appease Russia”).
Sorry…
I’d support any anti-war candidate.
Starmer is going to escalate war/s.
He hasn’t and won’t ever do anything about the war on civilians in Gaza and is happy to let that escalate. (Btw more bombs dropped on them than in the blitz in WW2, or Dresden..)
Starmer has said he is prepared to use nukes and hasn’t objected on the ever more lethal weapons escalation which requires more undeclared command and mission planning personnel from the U.K.
Will Starmer join the Germans and other nato partners in forcefully sending back young men to be conscripted in the latest rounds?
They are even considering reducing the age to 18.
Are We supposed to support that?
I’d let the Ukrainian people decide what they want to do via referendums.
Zelensky cancelled the presidential elections and is therefore now beyond his term.
So it’s a bit difficult for sure for democracy in the Ukraine, as political parties have been curtailed and media controlled. Examples emerge of even longstanding Ukrainian journalists who are being hounded.
Trying to stop the war by calling peace talks without the main belligerents is probably not the way to do it.
Even The USA had talks with Vietcong to bring that to a humiliating end for them.
I think that he will continue the current policy. Trying to contain the war to only Ukrainian soil, having no political strategy towards Russia, winging sanctions in response to what Russia does rather than acting in accordance with a goal. Trying not to make Russia too weak to prevent a dominant china. Saying very little because we are divided.
I profoundly disagree with the “blame everything on Russia” attitude. As I have pointed out previously anti Russian propaganda was poured into my ears and eyes from the start of the last Cold War. We were told the Soviets were about to invade the West time and time again. They were way ahead in the arms race. None of it was true. Logic dictated it could never happen. The Soviet economy was not big enough. Nye Bevan constantly asked how many tons of steel did Soviet industry produce. Incidentally, Bevan was opposed to Britain becoming so close to America. His opinions are there for all to read. The Soviets never possessed the military might to attack the West. To say that Ukraine has the right to station nuclear missiles right on the Russian border is to concede that the Soviets had the right to station missiles on Cuban soil .The Cubans gave permission to install them there. Compare the Russian record on armed invasion ,the mass slaughter of innocents and destruction of self determination because those countries desired a different economic system conducted by the USA it is obvious where criminality lies. The USA are responsible for this truly evil slaughter in Palestine. it is a genocide to compare with anything in human history. Students will learn about it centuries from now. The truth has been revealed by the horrific deaths of Palestinians. When will American leaders be charged with war crimes. There are innumerable incidents serious enough get them tried,
I think it beyond discourse that Putin is a tyrant
I am nit stung the west is innocent
But let’s recognise his right wing, populist, murderous, extremism for what it is.
In trying to understand geopolitical matters an emphasis on the personalities of leaders can be unhelpful, even misleading. Events tend to be much clearer to understand when we shift our focus to consider interests, especially national security interests.
But our western governments and media are now more propagandised than ever and the public is kept in a state of ignorance or is deliberately misinformed about such matters. For example, we are encouraged to believe that it was as if Vladimir Putin woke up one morning in 2014 and thought: “I know, today I’m going to annex Crimea”.
The real story is rather different (for more detailed analysis and background, the book Frontline Ukraine: crisis in the borderlands by Professor Richard Sakwa (2015) can be recommended.
Russia was largely content with the arrangements made when Ukraine left the USSR, as there was every indication that the two countries would continue to have reasonably good relations and close economic ties. But then the USA-NATO started meddling. On 25 April 2014 US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland gave a speech at the National Press Club, Washington DC in which she stated that the USA had spent $5 billion ‘promoting democracy’ in Ukraine. What this meant in reality was the use of the same regime-change methodology earlier tried with great success in Belgrade – pour in NGOs, finance so-called ‘civil society’ groups, buy up or set up radio and TV stations and newspapers, bribe opposition figures, use the burgeoning new social media – culminating in the events in Kiev of February 2014, for which there is now ample evidence that it was essentially a US-engineered coup d’état – to which the Russian annexation of Crimea shortly after was a reaction.
The USA had been looking forward to taking over the long-standing Russian naval base in Sebastopol, which would have effectively given the USA control of the Black Sea; no Russian government worth its salt could possibly allow that.
For further reading, bringing the story more up to date and encouraging a diplomatic solution: article: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace, by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/wgtgma5kj69pbpndjr4wf6aayhrszm