Ukraine plans to establish maintenance facilities for CV90 IFVs
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-plans-to-establish-maintenance-facilities-for-cv90-ifvs/

I think his current stance could be to not look so much like a Russian puppet as accusations have been thrown at him in the past, in that sense he would threaten further sanctions towards Russia, allowing Russia to pretend to come to the table, then Trump turns his attention to Ukraine and demands they make a concession as well, when Ukraine refuses to budge on joining NATO or surrendering territory, Trump turns around and says it's Ukraine who is being unreasonable and thus pulls back support to force Ukraine to accept a shitty deal.

He already noted recently that he "understands" Russia's position on Ukraine joining NATO so I feel like that is going to be the thing he tries to demand Ukraine accept, no NATO membership. Then there's the question of territory, Trump has said both sides will have to make compromises. Now there is a scenario where perhaps Trump feels like he doesn't need Putin anymore and there is a scenario where Putin's complete refusal to negotiate pisses off Trump and hurts his ego, thus pushing him to support Ukraine further, which needs to be militarily too.

There's also the scenario where Russia pretends to be acting in good faith on negotiations and Trump is too stupid to see through it.

This isn't helping things on my feeling that Trump is going to force Ukraine to accept a bad deal.

❗️Trump warns Russia of the toughest sanctions and tariffs if it doesn’t end the war quickly. He stated that Zelensky is “not an angel” and should have prevented the war, adding that Ukraine is fighting a much larger army but has received billions in aid. Trump insists the war must end immediately.

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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) 24 January 2025 at 07:54

I do not believe Zelenskyy would give up the 20% in exchange for joining NATO TBH. I believe Ukrainians would hate that even more than the option of joining NATO. The issue is joining NATO won't be a thing that happens over night even if the war ended tomorrow because of cowardly countries like America, Germany and Russian puppets like Slovakia and Hungary. Ukrainians have had their land stolen, their people slaughtered, a promise they can join NATO 5+ years from now and their land remains stolen would likely make Zelenskyy a hated President.

I do believe there is more likely (but not that likely) a scenario where NATO aspirations are surrendered in exchange for their territory back, but such a scenario would have to come with security commitments from individual countries that are equal to NATO and the issue with that is, outside of NATO, we have seen repeatedly how weak and bullshit security commitments are, what is stopping a country which has made a security commitment to Ukraine from retreating the moment Russia attacks again?

Ukraine could build itself up like a fortress with continued massive EU/American investment into their military even without NATO but they'd still be on their own and Russia likewise would rebuild itself. Which would likely cripple Ukraine's population as nobody would return to the country with knowledge that Russia WILL attack again in the future once they've repaired themselves, thus that would also cripple Ukraine's economy.

The only way Ukraine's safety is ensured in the future is either immediate ascension into NATO after the war is over or security commitments so fucking ironclad that they might as well be NATO but call me pessimistic, I don't believe individual country security commitments anymore; They've already been proven to be bullshit, the only security commitment that has proven itself to be real is NATO.

The problem with Trump promising Ukraine won't join NATO in his term is that favours Russia, as they would just rebuild and then attack again as soon as the next President is sworn in before they can ascend Ukraine into NATO unless Trump offers Ukraine some ironclad security commitments which won't result in America just running away but fighting Russia next time they attack. Stalemates favour Russia too; Russia needs to fuck off out of Ukraine and Ukraine needs immediate security commitments, that has to be NATO and it has to happen within a year.

I don't want to see Ukraine have to give up any land in exchange for peace with Russia.  But let's be honest, Putin is not gonna give up the 20% he controls of Ukraine.  He has lost too much blood to give any of that land back, and Ukraine is in no way strong enough to reclaim that land on their own - at least not anytime soon.

I believe Ukraine will have to surrender the land controlled by Russia today.  After a peace deal is reached, a peacekeeping force of 50,000+ foreign soldiers (Americans, British, French, Germans, Polish, etc.) should be stationed along the "new" border until Ukraine is accepted into NATO.

Then I see Zelenskyy being booted out of office by a lot of angry Ukrainians. I'm aware Ukraine isn't in the position right now to retake land (though they would have been, if the West pulled their fingers out their ass) and they could be in the future, if the West pulls its finger out its ass, but objectively, Russia keeping the land they've stolen is a Russian win, alongside that, they've claimed pretty much the whole of the coastline and vital Ukrainian resources in heavy metals, etc. Which is going to hurt Ukraine's economy post-war. It wouldn't be a total victory for Russia but it would lean more towards a Russian win than a Russian loss and send signals to other countries. Take some land, hunker down, and you'll eventually be rewarded with it. Losing 20% of your land forever is a high price to pay.

Funnily, despite what Russia claims, it's against the law (Ukraine's Constitution) for foreign military bases to operate within Ukraine. Article 17 of the Ukrainian Constitution states that "foreign military bases shall not be permitted on the territory of Ukraine." So they need to change that but I think before we speak about Ukraine surrendering, we have many other options to explore, we're not even doing the bare minimum before demanding Ukraine surrenders. We can't even put troops into Western Ukraine but I am meant to believe that we'll put Western Troops along the frontline? Even if frozen I have my doubts, like I said, any security commitment needs to be iron clad to the point it's basically NATO.

I'd say something like, "An attack on Ukraine is an attack on UK and in the event of such scenario, UK will respond with military force" and not some vague bullshit about "support" open to interpretation, it needs to be very clear that "Yes, we will kill Russian troops if they invade Ukraine again" The UK (for example) in such a security pact should consider Ukraine to be like what the Falklands is to UK or even a step further, what Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland is to England. I don't want no vague bullshit, I want the best of the military stationed in Ukraine.

Who knows, then there's Putin and what that nutjob demands, Ukraine needs immediate security otherwise Putin will just refresh his military and attack again later. You'd need NATO troops across the Russian border, Belarus border and Black Sea. If Ukraine does surrender land then that's their choice but I think it sets a horrible precedence worldwide, a very dangerous one, and will leave many Ukrainians enraged at not only Zelenskyy but Europe/America as well for pushing them into that and not helping them enough when they needed it.

I do feel that NATO is the only security agreement that is worth a damn and the only way to truly, 100% guarantee Ukraine's security in the future but the problem is how fucking slow the ascension will be and then countries like America, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary blocking it anyway. If it's just NATO then there's nothing stopping Russia taking a few years to recover and then attacking Ukraine again JUST before they're about to join NATO.

I really have zero faith it would be enforced but I would fully support UK military in Ukraine and Ukraine being treated like a British territory in a military sense that if Ukraine were to be attacked, it would be an attack on Britain, but no country will make that commitment alone and I don't blame Ukraine for thinking the commitment wouldn't be worth shit considering similar commitments in the past have been worth shit. UK/France/America already had security commitments to Ukraine and they amounted to fuck all, Ukraine still got invaded, twice.

In the Ukrainian version of Braveheart, Trump is playing the role of this guy: