Hegseth finally pops bubble of illusion: 'No NATO for Ukraine'

Europe is rapidly entering the finding out stages of fucking around.

Any nato member can prevent anyone from joining.

Level of Permenant Member with Veto Status (I don't know if they could block them joining, but I imagine they could)

I appreciate the change in direction with the correction, regardless of the circumstances 👁️

Sorry, you’re right. I was thinking of Kaliningrad.

>Transnistria is a thousand miles from Odessa, twice as far as St. Petersberg, and Pskov is about 400 miles away.

>

>Vibes, vibes, vibes.

No. The material reality is that Transnistria is roughly 100–150 km from Odessa and not the thousand miles being claimed.

Pskov is near the Estonian border, and St. Petersburg is on the Baltic Sea. Neither of these cities is close to Moldova, so they are largely irrelevant to any invasion plans in that region.

It's important to rely on concrete conditions and verifiable data rather than hyperbolic claims and vibing.

Transnistria is a thousand miles from Odessa, twice as far as St. Petersberg, and Pskov is about 400 miles away.

Vibes, vibes, vibes.

voting is the only way libs know how to engage politically after all

Why stop now: they’ve been downvoting us for saying these same things for years.

I love how you get downvoted for stating the obvious.

Liberals *still* seem to think the war can be ended if the US asks Russia politely to retreat and gain nothing.

War is a racket

Everyone making decisions in either country for decades has been gunning for a war in Europe or actively profiting off of this one. The war will continue as long as it can by throwing money at it unless there's simply more to be made buying up the aftermath and installing collaborators to impose World Bank/IMF austerity for generations, or the bottom is rising up.

Europe's gamble isn't just hilarious; it's tragicomic. Hitching your entire geopolitical wagon to a nation that treats foreign policy like a reality TV show is less strategy and more roulette. Every election cycle, Europe braces for the next wildcard—will it be isolationism or interventionism? Nobody knows, least of all the Americans.

Meanwhile, the EU's "unity" is a patchwork quilt of conflicting interests, stitched together with bureaucratic duct tape. Betting on stability from across the Atlantic while your own house is on fire? That’s not foresight; it’s delusion.

The real punchline? Europe bankrolls this circus while Washington reaps the dividends. At this rate, they might as well start paying for campaign ads in Iowa.

The fact that Europeans bet their whole future on a politically unstable country that can completely change its entire policy every four years will never stop being hilarious.

Pretty sure Europe would require basic things like industry and energy production to fight a large scale war.

Keep in mind that state intel is as much or more in the job of *disinformation* as in *information*.

TBF the compradors get money & power, and if they’re really lucky they don’t get whacked.

What a fucking great deal!

Somehow it's always like that when some country get to serve as US proxy.

have you heard of this little thing called geography? Like mountains and stuff? Have you ever actually looked at a map of the region?

Totally disingenuous understanding of what's happening in this thread. There is no blind trust for the Russian government.

You have to understand one thing to unlock the perspective you need. It underpins both the reason MLs resist the official narrative of the empire and also why MLs accept certain narratives from other global actors. And that thing is an understanding of, and engagement with, history. It is our understanding of history that allows us to do readily understand when the empire is lying. It is also our understanding of history that allows us to readily understand when other states are saying something worth listening to. And it is our engagement with history that allows us to continue evaluating new statements from any sources.

In the case of Russia invading Ukraine, history is critical in understanding what's going on. And the relevant history extends all the way back to Napoleon. Napoleon invaded Russia once. He fielded the French national military forces, along with some international forces, and marched literally all the way across Europe to invade Russia to enact discipline for Russia continuing to trade with England despite Napoleon declaring a unilateral universal blockade. It was on of the bloodiest campaigns in history and millions of Russians died.

Napoleon invaded Russia via the border that is Ukraine.

Another invasion killed millions of Russians, too. That was the Third Reich. They fielded their national military and they took marched across Europe to invade Russia. They also had international forces. They killed so many Russians.

The Third Reich invaded Russia via Ukraine.

The Ukraine border with Russia has been demonstrated to be impossible to secure without sacrificing millions of Russians lives. The solution, therefore, for Ukraine to be devoid of military threats against Russia - enough military to defend itself against European meddling, not so much that it could threaten millions of Russians lives.

We know this history. So when NATO does it's first ever joint exercise with Ukraine in 2013, it raises a lot of eyebrows. NATO is a transnational nuclear military. It expands not by violence but by economic and political dominance. It is a standing army all over Europe but not controlled by European democracy. It has been demonstrated that NATO is controlled by the USA - again, a matter of history.

When Euromaidan happened in 2014, that was concerning to us because it was a movement that was aligned with European interests and explicitly a NATO-aligned movement. It got more worrying when we realized the US had top state actors on the ground including John McCain and Victoria Nuland. Russia choosing to annex Crimea was a clear message that Russia saw this particular movement as a threat, which we understand in the historical context of previous invasions.

After Euromaidan the NATO exercises got more numerous and more dangerous including flying B-52 nuclear-capable bombers in the region and simulating an invasion of Kaliningrad. Remember that military exercises and simulations are indistinguishable from real events until the last second when forces do not violate international law. That means the simulated invasion of Kaliningrad included the creation of supply chains and the mobilization of units and then moving them in formation to their target and turning away only when they reach the border.

This is a real and present danger to Russian security. If NATO establishes full capabilities in Ukraine, the only way for Russia to survive would be to lose millions of lives during an invasion over the border.

All of this comes from our understanding of history and our engagement with it to evaluate event and statements. So when Putin says NATO activity on Russia's border is why he acted, we acknowledge the congruence with the historical reality. But when he says Ukraine should never have been granted independence, we understand the errors in reasoning while also acknowledging the strategic military perspective it comes from.

When Russia says they are de-nazifying Ukraine, we understand the historical context of why that statement can be made. But we are also materialists and we understand to what degree the statement is incongruous with reality and history.

This understanding and engagement with history is what liberals lack and it's why those aligned with the empire can't properly criticize the propaganda and it's also why they are unequipprd to evaluate statements from other states, like Russia. It's why counter-cultural liberals just blanket deny what empire says and then get confused why MLs are willing to support narratives that match Russian or Chinese talking points.

Unless you engage with history and dig in, your resistance to empire will always be shallow and your understanding of what the rest of the world is doing will be purely vibes based.

NATO expansion:

• George Washington Univ., 2017: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard *Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner*

- Orinoco Tribune, 2022: Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia

• Al Mayadeen, 2023: Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements

• Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace

• Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: NATO Chief Admits NATO Expansion Was Key to Russian Invasion of Ukraine

\.

NATO in general:

• The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World

• CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance

• Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”

• Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism

• Gabriel Rockhill, 2020: The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It

\.

Maidan coup & fascist attacks on Eastern Ukraine:

• Reuters, 2014: Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU

• Leaked recording between Nuland and Pyatt: audio | transcript

• Counterpunch, 2014: US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup

• BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict

• Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians

• Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland Made *Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.*

• The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda

• The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video

• WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know

• Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

• The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine

• openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences

• Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?

• Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War

• Consortium News, 2023: The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine *Former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett’s recent comments about getting his mediation efforts squashed in the early days of the war adds more to the growing pile of evidence that Western powers are intent on regime change in Russia.*

• NYT, 2024: U.N. Court to Rule on Whether Ukraine Committed Genocide

NATO encirclement implies *encirclement.* Why do you think Russia is going to war in the first place? I don't trust everything Russia says, I think de-Nazification is a convenient narrative given the presence of Azov and other groups, but isn't the driving factor of the war (though is part of it). NATO encirclement is a known tactic, as NATO has origins as an anti-Communist, pro-Imperialist group that was formed to attack the USSR, and had Nazis such as Adolf Heusinger in charge. This is readily available information, from Operation GLADIO to Heusinger's Nazi past.

Why do you think Russia is going to war? What do they gain at the costs associated with the war?

Why do you assume sincerity from Russian talking points? Russia already has borders with NATO and didn't go to war to prevent them. The war pushed Finland to join, which is not exactly a surprising result from renewed Russian invasions of conquest.

The whole reason I subscribe to ml politics is because commenters here are less blindly credulous about the disconnect between the statements of American political actors and their actions, but then you just trade it for an infinite well of trust for foreign regimes that at least until recently were blatantly worse.

Just because Russia says something doesn’t mean it’s false. Calling something a “Russian talking point,” is not an argument, it’s a thought-terminating cliché.

What part of NATO encirclement is "ridiculous?" Even if I agreed with you that it is "ridiculous," clearly Russia thinks it isn't, which means the motives are still there for Russia to continue pursuing its goals until Ukraine gives in.

This feels more like you dodging having to grapple with that reality than anything else.

Ohhh, gotcha. I thought this was a real conversation, not just blindly repeating ridiculous Russian talking points about NATO aggression.

There's also the factor of the Euromaidan coup, NATO encirclement of Russia, and the Ukranian shelling of Donetsk and Luhansk at play. Russia, more than anything, wants Ukraine to either be fully demillitarized or forced into NATO neutrality, and has the means to continue whether Ukraine wants it to or not. If Russia genuinely wanted to, it could keep going until Ukraine is just Russian territory, but I doubt that will end up being the case.

It isn't a moral problem, but a question of who holds the cards. Ukraine can make its loss more devastating for both sides, but has no real path to victory. It is better to sue for peace before more damage is done and lives are lost, clearly Russia is fine to continue as long as it needs to in order to secure its interests.

If Ukraine doesn't get any security assurances, then they're effectively still at war. This war started after supposedly getting promises of security for ceding Crimea.

They're not the ones pushing this negotiation. If they just wanted to stop the war and give Putin everything he wanted with no guarantees he won't just regroup and invade again they could have done that at any time.

Because Ukraine doesn't really have much of a choice in the matter, the entire point of the war was to get to a point where that could be certified. If Ukraine refuses any peace deals, Russia will just continue the war.


Nuclear war helps nobody. Hegseth doesn't have an option here, nor does anyone in the West. They tried to push their nuclear capabilities to the last border and Russia stopped them. When the only further option is escalating towards nuclear war, then you really don't have options. Hegseth, the media talking head that he is, has been tasked with communicating the reality on the ground, not making any real decisions here

My guess is that this was Putin's requirement to even discuss terms. Besides, Trump already secured rights to their REM, what more could we even get from Ukraine joining NATO?

Russia is simultaneously two weeks away from running out of soldiers and sending toddlers to the frontline and about to march through Berlin.

They're only divided by a small strait, why can't we just stop all of the comical geopolitical attention grabs and just watch the US and Russia kiss,m

Russia does not have the ability to invade Europe and everyone knows it except liberals in America

Only a matter of time before they fabricate a reason for the public to believe and then they will invade.

And they will believe it. He’s already saying “matter of national security”. Americans have truly abandoned us. Half of them are still just waiting for the eggs while they prepare to invade other countries to play three player RISK before they die and leave the remainder for the climate.

are they going to be able to refederate?

WatchMojo's Top 10 Pranks Gone Too Far

Let the domain name expire as a bit. 😞

To add on, it's going to get a new domain and new name but the instance is going to stay the same.

You can also browse Hex with a Hex account, still.

that's why hexbear was awesome, they provided needful levity/distraction from the liberal shit takes on .ml and the ultra heavy content of 'grad; now you can only get that from all.

like why is my front page full of femboy selfies? I'm not hating just used to the no self doxxing rule.

Sorting by All is like opening the Hellraiser puzzle box.

Yep, it's grim out here.

What happaned with Hexbear?

The whole hexbear situation caused me to make a lemmygrad account and now when I sort by all rather than local it's a constant stream of posts that are just :jesse-wtf:

I can push them left* lmao


>Because… no, Trump is not Putin’s puppet. He’s something even worse - a cringing sycophant, desperate for affirmation from his strongman idol.

If you keep analyzing the current administration through the lens of Jungian analysis of Trump, you’ll keep being wrong. Great man theory is no way to go about analyzing geopolitics.

Which is why it's the only one that isn't massively downvoted lmao. Libs ask for sources and downvote them to avoid reading.

Lemmy.world has defederated lemmygrad, so Irish_link can't see your comment.

Yeah. You put about 3 times the effort on your first point but have a shit ton of sources for your second. Doesn’t add up.

I didn’t put any effort in. I happened to have those articles on hand already.

>Why the heck would the US government do a 180 on our stance of helping Ukraine after President Trump was elected.

There hasn't been a 180 degree shift. Under the Biden admin, the Ukrainian government was mass privatising state assets to raise funds for the war. In fact, you can still go to the privatisation website and loot Ukraine with your own hands.

Furthermore, a not insignificant part of the aid is loans (the eu has for instance provided at least one 18 billion loan package, leading to a dramatic increase in ukraine's external debt. The policy towards Ukraine was *never* generous.

The good old "I wasn't taught and never in my life been interested to learn how to read sources, so I'll pretend they're crackpot so I don't have to read".

Yeah. You put about 3 times the effort on your first point but have a shit ton of sources for your second. Doesn’t add up.

Also Robert Mueller was prevented from looking into the money trail during the investigation that’s why he found nothing. Puppet.. maybe not but influenced absolutely. Why the heck would the US government do a 180 on our stance of helping Ukraine after President Trump was elected. “We will still maybe kinda possibly help you but you have to give us your rare minerals and be willing to lose land”

This guy doesn’t want to help Americans. Only those who have tons of money. Anything to help line his pockets and his friends.

He has shut down all information flow for health and scientific research. This means we’re sitting in the dark about potential pandemics and deadly diseases. Mpox and the strain of bird flue being the top two at the moment of many people’s list. This doesn’t even touch the measles outbreak in Texas. Measles had essentially been eradicated, but thanks for the anti-VAX push from the right We’re now dealing with something that the prior generations had worked very hard to eliminate.

Ahhh, the old "Do your own research" strategy, always a classic!

You want some kind of *evidence* that the USA was never going to permit the Ukraine to join NATO? What would this look like?

They dangled this carrot to start their proxy war and once it got going immediately recanted.

Biden says it 'remains to be seen' whether Ukraine will be admitted to NATO

Biden 'looks forward' to Ukraine NATO membership, just not now

Russia has been consistent that NATO membership would be a declaration of war by the US/NATO, so it would mean the end of civilisation. It's an absurd idea. As much as Russia forming a military alliance with Cuba and Mexico.

The Hill yesterday: Zelensky: US ‘didn’t want us in NATO’ even before Trump

The comment you missed two days ago due to defederation: <https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/5979621>

>You want some kind of *evidence* that the USA was never going to permit the Ukraine to join NATO? What would this look like?

>

>They dangled this carrot to start their proxy war and once it got going immediately recanted.

>

>Biden says it 'remains to be seen' whether Ukraine will be admitted to NATO

>

>Biden 'looks forward' to Ukraine NATO membership, just not now

>

>Russia has been consistent that NATO membership would be a declaration of war by the US/NATO, so it would mean the end of civilisation. It's an absurd idea. As much as Russia forming a military alliance with Cuba and Mexico.

No kidding?

I don’t have sources on hand for the the first point, but I do for the second.

>As for the first point, it’s been covered by the likes of John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, Noam Chomsky, Michael Hudson, and Glenn Diesen. Some political figures have admitted as much, but unfortunately I don’t recall who off the top of my head.

That’s a lot of stuff about President Trump and the elections but nothing as far as I see about the bipartisan stance that Ukraine isn’t going to join NATO.

I don’t have sources on hand for the the first point, but I do for the second.

• Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia

• Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets

• Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters

• Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election

• Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud *The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork*

• Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal *On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.*

• MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes

• Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away

As for the first point, it’s been covered by the likes of John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, Noam Chomsky, Michael Hudson, and Glenn Diesen. Some political figures have admitted as much, but unfortunately I don’t recall who off the top of my head.

You are screaming into the void. The people downvoting you think Butcher Biden is a good person, they are a lost cause.

Source for any of this? Would be interested to know more about these points.

Behind closed doors, the consensus has been that other countries don't want to get dragged into the current war in accordance with NATO mutual defense agreements.

But since Trump insists that he can end the war, that's obviously not a consideration for him - by his claims, there will be nothing more standing in the way of Ukraine membership in NATO.

Which makes this announcement that much more significant - essentially what he's saying is that even after the main obstacle to Ukraine membership has been eliminated, the US will oppose it.

Why?

Because... no, Trump is not Putin's puppet. He's something even worse - a cringing sycophant, desperate for affirmation from his strongman idol.

This is what America wanted. Biden made no effort to provide Ukraine with the weapons to win.

They were never going to get into NATO. Behind closed doors, Ukraine not getting into NATO has been bipartisan consensus for a long time. And Trump is not Putin’s puppet.

That's what Daddy Putin wants, so that's what Daddy Putin gets.

Literally the same words said in December 2021 could possibly prevent:

• invasion of Ukraine;

• death of dozens or hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and turning of millions of Ukrainians to refugees;

• destruction of dozens of Ukrainian cities;

• loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia;

• loss of Ukrainian rare minerals to US.

The Trump administration is just saying loud what all the other NATO governors have been hiding. No one ever planned to fight Russia for Ukraine and the only destiny for Ukrainian aboriginals is to be used as proxy cannon fodder to fight one of NATO's bogeymen.

NATO countries never cared about Ukraine's casualities to the point that they decided that Ukrainian lives were worth less than a signed piece of paper with the aforementioned statement: 'No NATO for Ukraine'. Everything that happens to the people of Ukraine is just collateral damage on the way to the main goal – to harm Russia. The colonizer mentality (so well known to many NATO countries) never changes.

Hope this guy gets hit by a dump truck

Deadbeat dad doesn’t even begin to describe the abandonment.

**Security guarantees? Europe's picking up the tab while Washington cashes out.** Hegseth's "pragmatic evaluation" means funneling Europe's GDP into Lockheed Martin's quarterly reports. NATO's 5% defense spending target? A $2.3 trillion shakedown disguised as collective security. The Continent's industrial base is now a Pentagon subcontractor.

**Crimea's gone.** Zelensky's bargaining chips? A lithium deposit map and a graveyard of Leopard tanks. The "non-NATO peacekeeping mission" is just a rebrand for EU cannon fodder patrols. Von der Leyen's already drafting memos about "volunteer brigades" staffed by unemployed Iberian welders.

**The real "negotiated settlement":** Trump's Mar-a-Lago membership roster now includes Rosneft executives. Europe gets to foot the bill for demining Donbas while Chevron drills the Black Sea.

Wouldn't this have had value as a bargaining chip in peace talks? The fact that they're saying this now suggests that they're about to pressure Ukraine into a truly shitty deal.

a tale as old as time itself


I mean, Russia is winning. What are people here expecting?

I mean fuck hegseth he's a fucking Nazi but NATO is also full of Nazis too so fuck it let them fight

Under this deal, Putin gets to annex key territories while Ukraine is kept out of NATO and left without American peacekeepers, forcing Europe to buy U.S. military gear. Imperialist powers divide and weaken working people by keeping nations in chaos and under constant threat. This brief period of "peace" isn't for long as capitalist interests allow Russia to regroup and rearm. Ukraine remains in a disordered, free-for-all state under imperialist influences. In time, this setup could let Russia launch an invasion through Odessa to connect with Transnistria.

We get:

• Nothing

You get:

• Less than nothing

What a fucking great deal!

Get ready to see a wave of far right terrorist attacks on US/European soil when they realize what we've been ridiculed for saying from day one: they were used as cannon fodder, there was never any intention of NATO membership

What level do you need to be to cast Bubble of Illusion?

I'm surprised a Nazi like Hegseth wants to help Russia so bad.

Russia will eye Europe, and USA will keep eyeing Canada and Greenland.

"He deserves special gratitude from the Ukrainian and European establishments for telling the truth before things go way too far."

Before??

Putin's investments are now paying dividends.

This plus Danish intel means a large scale war in Europe is imminent.

Edit: my point is that Russia will escalate things in Europe as Danish intel has indicated. Donno why I'm getting downvoted.

With no guarantees of safety from future aggression, why on earth would Ukraine accept such a deal? This whole war started with Russia breaking their previous peace agreement.