I don't know if i've mentioned it before but it seems that Ukraine actually has the momentum in a number of ways. They are constantly destroying things like anti-air sytems and radar. They have the momentum with drones and have more high tech capabilities than the russians. Ukraine is still building up its air force, and in a year from now, this will surely have grown.

They also have aid from Europe that will be there as long as it is needed.

Russia on the other hand is running out of artillery tubes, tanks, APCs, IFVs, etc etc etc. Their wealth fund is about to dry up...... and putin will have some hard choices to make. In short, the economic choices will hurt either way. It's like choosing whether to have that biker go in dry on you, or be forced to jump in a lion cage for 5 minutes and u get to live if can fight the lions off. Either way, you'd hate to be in that position.

Ukraine is using actual strategy. Russia is playing the game stupid because they know that they are bigger and everything done is at a low-brow kind of level. But ukraine knows that they can let the russians get so far and then surround them like what just happened in the pokrovosk region. About 200 russians that broke through were all surrounded and taken out. It surpisingly turned into a victory for ukraine after everyone was very worried.

Things are looking up, even if ukraine is slowing ceding land because they have almost every reason to think that they can outlast their opponent.

The Deal That Trump Supports

Putin’s peace plan per Reuters:
– No ceasefire before full deal
– Ukraine out of Donetsk/Luhansk, Russia returns parts of Sumy/Kharkiv
– Russia keeps lines in Kherson/Zaporizhzhia
– Crimea recognized as Russian
– Partial sanctions relief
– No NATO for Ukraine
– Russian language & church protections

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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) 17 August 2025 at 07:16

🇺🇸❗️Trump supports Putin's proposal that Russia establish full control over Donbas and freeze the front line elsewhere to conclude an agreement with Ukraine, - Fox News, citing an unnamed European diplomat

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— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) 17 August 2025 at 10:24

Ukraine out of Donetsk/Luhansk which would be surrendering a huge amount of territory still available, in exchange for Russia leaving the tiny parts of Sumy and Kharkiv they currently occupy which are basically just steps over the border, a totally fair exchange /s.

Ukraine leaving Donetsk/Luhansk also means Russia will jump over Ukraine's heavily fortified lines which Trump is too stupid to understand would be a massive strategic mistake because it gives Russia opportunity to then break their bullshit promise immediately and launch a new invasion from beyond Ukraine's fortification lines in another rush style attack.

Russia keeps Kherson and half of Zaporizhzhia and Crimea is officially recognised as Russian so Ukraine can never retake it, Ukraine only gets back the tiny parts of Sumy/Kharkiv that Russia currently occupies. Basically Russia gets 20%+ of Ukraine and Ukraine in returns gets back less than 1%.

Russia gets sanctions relief.

Ukraine gets no security agreements except a vague promise from Russia to not attack again in the future despite the fact they already had that in writing and Russia ignored it. If Russia truly has no intention of attacking again in the future then they should have no issue with Ukraine joining NATO but they do, so they don't want Ukraine in NATO.

Russia Church protections, the Russian Church is well known as just a cover up for Russia's Government.

There is not a single thing in this agreement that is beneficial to Ukraine, it's a total American enforced surrender to Russia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni will travel to Washington on Monday to join President Zelensky for his meeting with Donald Trump at the White House.

Should swap Ursula von der Leyen with Kaja Kallas. Would have liked to see a Baltic leader and Polish leader too, as Keir Starmer, Mark Rutte and Giorgia Meloni will be busy with their noses up Trump's ass. It's good that they're all heading to the meeting with Zelenskyy but if shit goes down again, I wonder who will actually stand up against Trump's bullshit. It needs to be a united front.

Alternatively they should make it a meeting between leaders only; USA, EC, Finland, France, Britain, NATO, Germany, Italy, Ukraine so nobody else is allowed in the meeting, no extra help or staff, Trump would be completely lost because of how fucking stupid he is, it would be a good way to kick that Couch Fucker out of the room before he attacks Zelenskyy again. Keep Vance and Witkoff out of the room, isolate Trump.

Even if Ukraine would be ok to give all that away it would be suicide. Russia can rebuild their military the next years and start a new attack from much closer to as example Zaporizhzhia or Dnipro. They could just build up their next attack and Ukraine couldn't do anything until they would cross the new border.

Russia will be hundreds of miles closer and we shouldn't forget that even Russian equipment on Russian ground isn't safe right now at least some hundred miles into Russia so that the reality is more like Russian equipment can safely be placed like 1000 miles closer to Ukraine.

A new attack in some years would be the end for Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and many other Ukrainian cities

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19Q1aiiWbb/

They'd jump right over Ukraine's fortified lines, they wouldn't even need to wait a few years, they could come up with a bullshit excuse the next week to stop the ceasefire and then rush Ukraine's troops with their typical throwing bodies at the wall approach all the way into Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhia. To let Russia jump over the fortified lines would be a horrific strategic mistake, it sets the stage to allow them to have a new staging ground, one which isn't behind miles of trenches, mines, etc. It really shows how fucking clueless the Trump admin is, they seriously need a military guy in these meetings to tell them how stupid this idea is.

And all Ukraine has is some vague useless piece of paper that promises not to attack them again (Budapest Memorandum) and America vaguely promises they'll help them out if they're attacked again (Budapest Memorandum) because it's not like Ukraine already that exact thing in the past (Budapest Memorandum) /s. The only guarantor of Ukraine's security is either NATO or NATO troops literally sitting on the frontlines, not hundreds of miles in the distance in Western Ukraine but right in the firing line of Russia, anything else is as worthless as Budapest Memorandum.

Also Zelenskyy's political career would be over, he would be overthrown in days, likely a military leadership would take over.

RADDATZ: Can you name any concessions that Putin made during this meeting?

RUBIO: I wouldn't name them on your program

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 17 August 2025 at 16:28

So basically Russia made no concessions. Rubio is such a pathetic man, don't let this idiot in a few years from now try to claim he was the moderate in Trump's admin and held him back from being insane, which he likely will do if MAGA dies without Trump. He will try his "I'm really a moderate!" campaign to try be the next President. Remember this when the snivelling coward hid behind Trump's ever word.

The “concession” Russia agreed to is not to seize all of Ukraine, Witkoff said.

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) 17 August 2025 at 14:40

What a fucking dumbass this real estate investor is.

🤡 Putin demands to "surrender" to him 15 times more territories than he is ready to return to Ukraine, to end the war, — Reuters.

This concerns the unoccupied part of Donbas, which is about 6,600 km²: in return, Russia will give back Sumy and Kharkiv regions, the area of which is ~ 440 km².

— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) 17 August 2025 at 11:27

This is what they think a fair deal is. They couldn't even get a bigger swap, like the rest of Kherson in exchange for Donbas. No, they managed to get a 6,600 km2 in exchange for ~440km2 deal. America is telling Ukraine to effectively officially surrender Crimea (America will recognise as Russian) and surrender the whole of Donbas and leave Kherson/Zaporizhia for another day, half occupied in exchange for less than 0.1% of returned territory. That's officially giving up...I don't know the exact % that Crimea + Donbas make up for Ukraine but I think it's over 10%, in exchange for 0.1%.

Do these dumbasses ever think about why Putin didn't just take all of Ukraine the last 3,5 years if he could but instead he chose to lose thousands of tanks, aircrafts and a million soldiers? So saying "I won't take what I can't take" is enough for USA now. Awesome!

So in reality, this deal only means that Russia can take more of Ukraine easier in some years as they could if the war would just continue now and that is what Trump will call an awesome deal for which he has to win the Nobel Peace Price.

I'm not sure which is worse: that it's plausible that they might actually be that dumb, or that they're bad enough that even if they realize that, they choose to lie about it and disregard it so they can get the whole thing wrapped up sooner.