Western officials say possible Anglo-French force would also not rely on US systems or technology such as Starlink

British troops and their European allies would be allowed to fire back if attacked by Russians when potentially stationed as peacekeepers in Ukraine after a ceasefire, western officials said.

The Anglo-French led stabilisation force would also not rely on US systems or technology, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, and is expected to be almost exclusively European if deployed.

“Clearly we will protect our forces against any aggression,” an official familiar with the plans said, though they emphasised that western troops in Ukraine would engage in a manner that was “defensive in nature”.

Details emerged as the UK and France set out Exercise Koalicja, which will take place later this month in Poland. It is an 11-country rehearsal of how European militaries could deploy rapidly to Ukraine if the war comes to an end.

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[–] 17 points 4 days ago (13 children)
  • [+] -28 points 4 days ago (12 children)

    Why would Russia agree to this when the entire purpose of the conflict is to keep NATO out of Ukraine after the 2014 coup?

    NATO has been arming Ukraine as a proxy this entire time. They're not a third party in any sense.

    It's going to be Turkey or some other second rate power.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 days ago (10 children)

    You obviously have not been paying attention to the war in Ukraine the last year or so. Russia is having a bad time out there, there is no way to dress up Russia's awful performance on the battlefield over the last 18 months. The conflict has been at a stalemate for the last 3 years or so with neither country able to make decisive gains on the battlefield.

    Russia has been financing the war using a sovereign wealth fund that amounted to around 300 billion dollars before the war and a similar amount of debt in preferential loans to the MIC. This wealth fund is now dry and the debt burden at high interest rates are seeing increasing rates of default. Russia's only real source of income is from selling oil and gas which has gotten a lot harder with all of the sanctions and secondary sanctions leveled against the country. Ukraine has been damaging the large oil refineries at increasing frequency harming Russia's ability to produce the oil it desperately needs to sell.

    This war has been incredibly expensive for Russia, if we add up the 300 billion sovereign wealth fund, the 300billion in bank debt to the 300 billion confiscated by the west to the budgetary spending we are at well over a trillion dollars. Using Mediazonas conservative estimate of confirmed Russian deaths on the front line we are now at 282,993 dead Russian soldiers, of which 7,920 are officers, this has been a massive waste of time and money to take control over slightly more of Ukraine than Russia already had control of at the beginning of 2022.

    In short, winners dictate the terms of victory and it would be laughable to suggest that what Russia is currently doing in Ukraine resembles anything close to winning. Russia should take what it can get as soon as possible because as Russia's economy continues its slide down the toilet there is no guarantee that the terms offered in a years time or two will be anywhere near as good as they are being offered at present. I have been following the war since the very beginning and have seen Russia's ability on the battlefield decline sharply over the last few years. They currently have no conceivable path to victory, I don't even know what victory at this stage would look like for them.

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  • [+] -14 points 3 days ago (9 children)

    Seeing your wall of TL;DR neoliberal text makes me cringe.

    Are you really trying to depress Russia into surrendering? Seriously? Good luck with that.

    The reason we are in a proxy war with Russia is the same reason you don't need to worry about them.

    I'm sure they appreciate your concern, however.

    How's the West's imperialist stranglehold on a unipolar world order going?

    checks notes.... 😬

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    Your tankienomics chart means nothing, resources in the ground do not equal money in the bank, which is what Russia is actually running out of.

    You should put a larger Chinese flag next to a smaller Russian flag on that picture to more accurately depict who will own Russia after the war is over. I'm eagerly awaiting China announcing that they have to go into Russian Manchuria to protect the persecuted ethnic Chinese living there. 6 million Russians looking nervously at 100 million Chinese just over the border. Russia should probably just give the region to China, at least China knows what to do with resources once they have been pulled out of the ground. The orcs can't do anything other than extract and steal.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    I don't disagree that it's undeveloped natural resources at all. Russia has the same GDP as South Korea. What's your point?

    I'm saying that the artic thaw is opening up vast troves of natural resources which the West is intent on coveting instead of living sustainably. Capitalism is cancer that way. It grows and consumes all. It will kill us all.

    I'm saying that the natural resources is behind the West's adversarial relationship with Russia, why Putin wants NATO to back the fuck off. The idea that Russia is the threat to Europe or anyone else is rather ridiculous.

    The Rand Corporation wrote a whitepaper that basically translates to "how to fuck up Russia and take all their shit"

    And yeah, China is the future. Get used to it. The unipolar world order is over, and I think it couldn't have come soon enough. 👍

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    My point is that a Russia with resources is like a mule with a spinning wheel, no one knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it.

    Capitalism is cancer that way. It grows and consumes all. It will kill us all

    I'm not fan of capitalism myself but prefer it to the Fascist authoritarian klepto-shitocracy that Russia presents to the world.

    I'm saying that the natural resources is behind the West's adversarial relationship with Russia,

    Oh yea, the adversarial relationship where the west spent over €150 billion per annum buying these natural resources from Russia.

    Putin wants NATO to back the fuck off

    NATO presents no threat to Russia, as Russia in its weakened state keeps reminding us, they have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons to keep themselves safe. MAD makes a NATO attack an impossibility. What you really mean is back the fuck of Ukraine, it belongs to Russia. Russia is currently in the finding out phase that Ukraine is a sovereign nation of bad ass motherfuckers who will bleed you dry.

    The idea that Russia is the threat to Europe or anyone else is rather ridiculous.

    Ukraine and Georgia would say otherwise, your point is ridiculous.

    The Rand Corporation wrote a whitepaper that basically translates to "how to fuck up Russia and take all their shit"

    How is a war mongering conservative think tank talking about doing something as bad as Russia literally doing the same thing to Ukraine? I don't have any tears for you crybaby.

    And yeah, China is the future. Get used to it. The unipolar world order is over

    I'm pretty chill about that, not a fan of America hegemony myself. Russia has fallen so far from one of two superpowers in the world to China's yappy little lap dog who shits oil for it's master. Every day this stupid war continues weakens Russia's position in this new world order. Lenin, Stalin and the boys would be pissed at how the toxic troll in the Kremlin has reduced Russia's standing.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I don't know how to describe this imperialist condescension as anything less than racist? They don't know what to do with it? Are you serious?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

    Who is the imperialist in this? I'm from Ireland buddy. Russia is currently the one partaking in imperial land and resource theft in Ukraine. I don't think you understand the meaning of the words you use.

    The quote was from the Simpsons, the monorail episode to be precise. I was referencing the fact that for all of Russia's resource wealth they are useless at turning this into finished products the world wants to buy, moving up the value chain and creating more wealth for the Russian people. Instead your leaders, much like in third world nations, extract resources and sell them. I can't believe I had to spell that out for you, you're welcome.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Defending democracy on your border from an actual empire on the other side of the world is hardly "imperialist". Russian imperialists are the fascist opposition to Putin, people like Navalny. Rest In Piss.

    As it was laid out for you in a graph a child could understand, Russia has far more natural resources than anyone, especially per capita. It's the developing nations fault they're not consuming all the world's resources??? WTF? "All pipelines lead to Rome "

    Every accusation is confession.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago

    Defending democracy by attacking your peaceful neighbour and stealing their land and resources? I'm sure it makes sense in your head but the rest of us are laughing at you. Putin's rule over Russia ticks all of the boxes on the fascist checklist yet somehow the weak controlled Russian opposition are the imperialists?

    As it was laid out for you in a graph a child could understand,

    Nobody misunderstood the simple graph, don't know who you are arguing with here, your fighting shadows dude.

    It's the developing nations fault they're not consuming all the world's resources??? WTF?

    Those resources in your graph are still underground. Russia used to be a superpower with capable industry and manufacturing, they were the nation that built all of the weapons Putin has wasted in his stupid war in Ukraine. Under Putin Russia builds nothing, adds no value to the simple resources it pulls from the ground and sells. Putin and his buddy's get rich and the Russian people get shafted.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago

    A license to kill... as it were.

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  • [–] -2 points 3 days ago

    As the article said, this is completely hypothetical. This is concrete. Europe should propose this to Putin. Russia will withdraw from all land it seized from Ukraine after the 2022 invasion. NATO would be dissolved and replaced with a European alliance. Ukraine and Canada would be permitted to join but not the US. All sanctions against Russia will be lifted. Russia will not be required to pay reparations. If Putin doesn't accept the proposal, the UK and France would send troops to Ukraine.

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  • 14 comments in c/world view that post
    [–] 16 points 3 days ago

    Do the same un Lebanon

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    moth has always thought it was really weird that UN peacekeepers never actually kept the peace because they couldn't even defend themselves, let alone innocent civilians around them.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (4 children)
  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    tell that to the people of Rwanda and Srebrenica, and that's just to start. they can protect civilians if it doesn't jeopardize the mandate they have. the problem with that is the UN security council has five members with veto power and a global interest in maintaining many conflicts for the purposes of imperialism. historically, there have been a lot of times when protecting civilians from being brutally murdered wasn't politically convenient.

    having the legal authority to intervene or even protect yourself doesn't mean shit if you don't have the ability or political power to do so. russia is a member of the security council with veto power. the security council oversees UN peacekeepers. the very people the peacekeepers would be protecting civilians from are the people who can veto their ability to protect civilians. which is why, if you carefully read that article, the official never once says they would be allowed to protect civilians, and specifically mentions that any engagements would be “defensive in nature”.

    the UN is a absolutely worthless organization when it comes to stopping powerful countries from doing terrible things. it has absolutely zero ability to protect the civilians in Ukraine from further russian imperialism or ethnic cleansing.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    They are always defensive in nature.

    The idea that the UN hasn't kept peace is pretty laughable. I'm not sure what you expect it to do - membership is voluntary, and it is 100% better to have a belligerent, antagonist, bad faith enemy sitting at a table with you than not.

    As a citizen and resident of a small nation living beside an antagonist, militant, imperial nation on the security council, the UN is not there to make sure they don't do anything bad. It's there so that when they do, they and their citizens hear the consequences.

    None of which has anything to do with Peacekeepers who once deployed do not have to have "approval" to defend themselves or civilians, per the scary long document you didn't read. Do you want me to find it in a convenient YouTube format for you?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (1 child)

    if you had bothered to look up even the couple of examples moth provided, you would know they do need approval, and that approval has been denied on more than one occasion. in the case of Rwanda, the commanding officer pleaded to be given the resources to defend the civilians. he was denied for political reasons.

    but if your smug ignorance feels more comfortable to you, then by all means, continue. but moth isn't going to waste time arguing with someone simping for a powerless bureaucratic PR agency just because it's controlled by western liberal nations and that makes it above reproach to you. moth supposes your time would be better spent cracking open a history book.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 days ago

    No shit. What else are they going to do, just stand there and get shot? There's also the small matter of getting Russia to agree to a "peacekeeping" force in the first place. Currently that idea remains pure fantasy.

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  • [–] -2 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    Europeans don't/won't seem to understand that 1. they lost their Ukrainian proxy war, 2. there wont be any 'cease-fire' - only unconditional surrender to Russian demands, and 3. if they sneak in anyway, in what's left of Ukraine, and shoot at Russia, they'll be obliterated. EU are done - economically, politically and militarily. The fact that they will only enter when there's 'peace', shows that they can't do sh*t about anything except huffing and puffing.

    NATO - the whole western hemisphere - controlled by US Oligarchs, lost - big - and killed off their Ukrainian proxy warrior/regime. Simple as that.. It's time for people to start investigating how and what really happened, instead of feeding the echo-chamber and urging for more war, and hence killing more Ukrainians and making things worse locally, and in the world.

    What happened ? In short: US instigated a coup + instigated a Ukraine civil war against Russophones. The purpose was to force Russia to react and US would then induce an Ukraine/EU war against Russia. This was done in an global attempt at weakening the energy producers and friends of China. China is the main threat to US dominance/control. Russia + Iran produced oil/energy and needed to be controlled, and Chinas friends and neighbours in general needed to be weakened and threatened to stop trading with China.

    All of this are actually both described in public US think tank papers going back up to 50 years, and also admitted by officials, bc they can't stop bragging when they do these thing. The papers from think tanks function as blueprints for actual US Oligarchy engagement around the world.

    However, they failed at every turn except in convincing the population of the US Oligarchy lead western hemisphere, economically attacking smaller countries to make anti-China deals, and to politically coup several countries especially in south America.

    Thus, the whole world situation right now is nothing but US Oligarchy executing their plans to save their short-lived 'Empire of Lies', but they are clearly failing at all fronts and the global 'south' have risen with China as the new global leader in most areas that matter. In fact, China stands almost unscathed by all the agressive US actions.

    US Oligarchy have spend all their political, military and economic capital, their vassal states in their Empire have been drained (While US sucked up their wealth/ressources) and EU especially are totally f*cked and are entering many many years of economic and social decline, with internal unrest/rebellion which is just starting to show. It will only get worse as resources and rights drain out, and more and more start questiononig the officially induced narrative.

    The only thing left is the US liberal/globalist propaganda apparatus and a deliberately constructed angry western lynch-mob that still believes they know what's happening, that their official information sources cares about truth, and that their cause therefore is righteous - but unfortunately it was all just the Epstein+ class that once again used mass manipulation through standard US 'Manufacturing Consent' methodology (look it up), to manipulate the western population into yet another war fighting for what was essentially just beneficial for the Epstein+ class (Epstein himself was a 'delivery Boy' in that class - same as Trump). They've done this a dusin times already..

    It is worth mentioning that Trump/reps is just the 'bad cop', and obama, biden/dems will be introduced as the 'good cops', but both 'parties' in US follows the same aggressive Oligarch foreign policies without any deviation, and have done so the last 50-75 years. US will try this blame game switcheroo again - as they always do. "We will do better" - but that is never true, or intended.

    There are oc plenty of information available for those that want to know whats really happening around the world, but those following western for profit media, msm, facebook, google search engines, youtube and so on, will have to spend extra time/energy to dig a little deeper bc the truth are censored in the 'US empire of lies'. start listening to those you rejected before. It is time to re-evaluate the situation, and direct your anger towards those that really fucked you up - your globalist elites/Oligarchs - wherever you are in the western hemisphere. Supporting the West, Ukraine, or Israel, supporting western style societies/ideology, and hating the enemies of US Oligarchy is the same as supporting Trump and the Epstein+ class in their world dominating anti-freedom, anti-democratic and violent/oppressive fascist hierarchy.

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  • 4 comments in c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz view that post
    [–] 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    That wasn't our drone.

    That wasn't our drone.

    That wasn't our drone.

    That wasn't our drone.

    That wasn't our drone.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    Remember that time Russia totally didn’t attack a US base in Syria and the US totally didn’t obliterate the attacking force?

    I’d anticipate other NATO equipped and trained troops to similarly totally not destroy a totally not Russian assault.

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