- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a suspension of all military aid to Ukraine, escalating pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky mere days after a heated exchange in the Oval Office cast doubt on U.S. support for Kyiv.
A senior Defense Department official told Bloomberg that all U.S. military assistance to Ukraine is on hold until Trump determines that Ukrainian leaders are making a genuine effort toward peace.
The pause affects not only future aid but also weapons already in transit, including shipments on aircraft and ships, as well as equipment awaiting transfer in Poland.
Edit: changed source from Bloomberg to Kyiv Independent b/c there’s no paywall and more detail in the story.
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The US wouldn’t stop military aid to Israel while the IDF destroyed hospitals and killed children and journalists among many other war crimes. They will freeze aid to Ukraine as it defends itself in a war of conquest. Evidence suggests the USA would rather align with criminals like Putin and Netanyahu than war victims.
That really is a stark contrast. What do the apologetics say about this?
Probably “we won, you lost, get over it” as if that’s how any of this works.
In my limited exposure to the ramblings of conservative acquaintances, they now consider Zelensky to be a “little dictator” who was rude to their favorite douches.
Regarding Israel, I think it’s something along the lines of “judeo-christian values” good, brown savages bad, and OH LOOK SOMETHING SHINY!! Sorry, you were saying?
So the record currently stands at…
Zelensky - Let’s try a deal, we just need security guarantees
Trump - Why are you so Disrespectful?
Zelensky - Let’s try a deal, we just need security guarantees
Trump - Putin is a victim we’re undoing sanctions
Zelensky - Let’s try a deal, we just need security guarantees
Trump - Why won’t Zelensky do a deal?
Zelensky - Let’s try a deal, we just need security guarantees
Trump - We’re stopping Aid.
Yep. That pretty much summarizes it.
The US won’t provide the security guarantees Zelenskyy is asking for. He can try getting them from European countries though, but they do not seem willing to provide them either.
At least count I’m pretty sure the UK, Sweden, and Australia have all said they’d be willing to put troops into Ukraine for peacekeeping.
UK has stated in no uncertain terms that they require US involvement in order to put troops into Ukraine for peacekeeping. I’m not sure about Sweden & Australia.
I hadn’t heard that. Nice to know we can still count on the UK to follow us down the rabbit hole of insanity.
😂
The U.S. Military and the CIA must know what a threat to the country Trump is, right?
…right?
The military that he just dismissed the leadership of and replaced with his own people, and the CIA that’s directed by his people?
his own people,
of which are wildly incompetent
And the competent ones (as in the ones with experience at creation local militias and terrorist organizations) are gonna be out there creating the resistance.
Here’s the pickle though. Wouldn’t it be reasonable if another administration get in power and then need to purge all these positions of pro trump people?
Like what happens next? it’s such a bleak world now.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable if another administration get in power and then need to purge all these positions of pro trump people?
Oh no! You have a great point for horror fans there.
I’d even say, it probably is somewhat necessary in order to resume administration. What a beautiful, postfactual dilemma:
The Reps fear an ideological, systemic witch hunt, which they use as an excuse to replace government workers. The new workers are ideologically aligned with the Reps, encouraged to assist the dismantling of non-Rep institutions and carry out the King’s will above and beyond the law.
Now when votes swing the other way, the new administration kind of has to revert some of this damage to assume functioning.
Which is where the circle closes; the prophecy fulfills itself. Now the Reps have evidence for their previously baseless claims. The whole system is locked in a back-and-forth mud wrestling of replacing workers based on ideology.
That’s the problem with the two-party system in the USA, in a full democracy this dynamic wouldn’t happen. This is the achilles heel of american democracy and the downfall seems to have begun.
We really needed something more akin to coalitions
They don’t intend for there to be a “next” administration.
But the deep state!
“Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ;that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter: So help you God?”
As far as I’m aware, the military, in the best case, will simply refuse to follow unlawful orders. There are formal processes to do so. That’s part of military culture and law. Whether that system will hold up to Trump is unknown. When he issues unlawful orders, will soldiers simply refuse to comply? Unknown.
But one thing is for sure. It’s not part of military culture to actively resist. There is no formal process for that to be protected or OK. That’s simply insurrection and rebellion.
I don’t think it’s insurrection when our president is actively selling out our country to a hostile foreign power.
Dictators fear military coups, that’s why people like Putin keeps them weak and fighting themselves
deleted by creator
He’s a threat for the people not for the government or he wouldn’t be the ceo.
How much more do we have to witness before we accept, as a society, that Donald Trump and the GOP are enemies of the United States of America, and act accordingly?
We are suffering and losing our position as a world leader because of a felon rapist traitor. When are we going to stop this?
When are we going to stop this?
When congress starts impeachment proceedings. Call your representatives. Listening you complain is their job.
Didn’t you guys try that before?
You can be impeached more than once. I think this would be his third time.
Yep that’s my point
It sounded like you were saying “You already impeached him, and he’s still president (so impeaching him again is a waste of time)”, but I could’ve misread you.
That is also my point. Don’t worry though, you keep impeaching him until he dissolves congress.
You’re response being ‘yeah but you can be impeached multiple times’ exactly demonstrates the weakness of that action.
What do you think “impeachment” is? That’s like saying “You can’t sue him a third time. You already sued him twice, and nothing happened.”
- Joining and organizing within your local community to create connections with others is incredibly powerful, will lay the groundwork for effective resistance.
- We can effect things drastically with a general strike. This can massively impact their income streams, and can bring a government to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
- Join the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective.
If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Join up with allies while we still can easily!
I have not a lot of knowledge how American politics work, but isn’t this for congress to decide? how is Trump so powerful? (sorry for my daft question)
It’s very illegal. He has already been impeached once for withdrawing military aid to Ukraine in his first term.
And you see where that got us.
Yeah indeed, but now he has got the full backing and more Trump tronies?!
It isn’t daft. The Republicans since Reagan have pushed a fringe legal theory called the Unitary Executive Theory. Basically, they want the president to fully control the executive branch and military such that theirs is the only voice that matters for much of the government. Not unlike a king, but partially checked by congress and the courts. They have been taking (illegal) actions to try to get sued, and also have been suing others/other branches of government, to try to get the Supreme Court to hear cases that will support this fringe legal theory so that it becomes the law of the land.
I am not a lawyer, but this is possibly something Trump can legally do since he is Commander in Chief of the armed forces. However, this seems more like an apportionment thing, which is Congress’ responsibility. Congress has allocated funds to send military aid to Ukraine. So, even if Trump as Commander in Chief could say “no more weapons to ukraine”, it seems doubtful to me that he could (legally) stop weapons shipments currently en route.
But, by the time whatever government office sues the office of the president to get a judge to enjoin them to send the agreed upon weapons that were already apportioned, it will already have hurt Ukraine somewhat. Trump often weaponizes inefficiency. And these sort of illegal acts aren’t crimes per se - they’re just procedural breaches - the legal remedy is just to reverse the action.
So, probably not legal. But Trump gets to weaponize his administration’s incompetence (or feigned incompetence) to at least delay aid. More competent people may support these actions, knowing they’re illegal, to try and strengthen the president’s role even further.
Wow! Thanks so much for this reply! this is very helpful, thnx a lot
It is for Congress to decide such matters. It says so right in our constitution, but our Legislative branch has been ceding their ability to check Executive overreach for decades. Now, with a complicit Congress as the majority, they will never challenge Trump on anything he does, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal it might be. Same goes for the Judiciary as well, chock full of partisan hacks who bend and twist their interpretation of the language of the constitution to cherry pick a favorable ruling for anything that Trump does.
Basically, our system of checks and balances that are meant to keep one aspect of the government from becoming too powerful has been completely subsumed by ideologues who prefer monarchy to democracy. The executive now essentially has unchecked authority and is in full control of the government apparatus.
how is Trump so powerful?
The Republican party controls Congress and they have abdicated their responsibilities to our Constitution and, by extension, the American people in favor of an authoritarian because they have accepted him as their leader, thus giving away their own power.
Our forefathers never expected Congress to give away its own power. Because it doesn’t really make any sense in the long term for them to do so.
We are experiencing a coup. Most Americans are too uneducated to understand this.
We are entering a “yeah and who’s going to stop me era of US politics”
The president was always able to stop aid under certain conditions. Trump is just going to certify that one of those conditions exist no matter how ridiculous it is.
The only remedy for abuse of power is impeachment, and that requires 50% +1 of the House of Representatives and 2/3 of the Senate. No president was ever convicted of impeachment charges. Democracy was only upheld by “norms and traditions” and with trump’s disrespect for that, this is where we are… Checks and Balances only works against a corrupt individual, doesn’t work against an entire party working together to destroy democracy.
Traitor
Each time I read “Trump orders”, “Trump does X”, I always ask myself: “Wait, can he do that? Congress? House? Judiciary? Cheks? Balances? Hellooooooooooo…?”…
… but this is still the first few months of his second term. At this pace, he will be a literal king in a few more months.
A scary prospect to say the least, and I hope it’s not too late for America to do something about this. This should not be normalized. This cannot be normalized.
The average us citizen doesn’t have a solid grasps of how our government actually works.
Defunding education and gutting curriculum and removing civics education has … been impactful.
Laws only have value as long as someone is willing to enforce them. It’s all a social construct.
I’m not from the US and am far from being a legal expert, but your country appears to be close to being lawless (or is getting there at an accelerated pace).
I mean it’s really not close to lawless, it’s just we’ve decided one man is king and can’t do anything illegal
This just proves that american gloating over their “checks and balances” was bullshit all along. US will never live this down.
The shitty thing is, the checks and balances kind of still exist but the people in charge of them approve everything Trump is doing.
And then the constituents who are in charge of voting those people out ALSO approve of what they are doing and/or are too ignorant to notice. (Any illegal tampering with voter rolls and ballots notwithstanding)
How does one fix the culture of an entire nation? Ugh.
I’m not an American but considering only 22% or so of population actually voted for trump I’m not sure you’re right that entire US culture is just broken. Maybe the attack is just so effective that even with 80% resistance it’s successful. I mean dudes wrote an entire plan book on in.
Maybe it’s time to come to terms that the system is simply vulnerable. I come from infosec background and it seems quite clear to me that US democracy is just incredibly vulnerable to attacks despite the “checks and balances” memes.
Oh yeah, I think it’s both, to be sure.
I would love to see everyone just start ignoring Trump and everything he says and just keeps doing their job.
I kinda wonder what people in the 3 letter agencies are thinking right now. I would hope that enough of these agencies actually view Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, because he actually is. People have warned for this to happen, for a while now, even though many are surprised at the speed at which it happens. But still, you would kind of hope for some of these agencies to actually stand for the constitution, instead of for the ruling party and his current president.
The US is so much more than just the current political ruling class. It’s sad that there seems at least, to be so little visible opposition to their efforts to derail the US geopolitical power and to overthrow the system of law and order. One who the Republicans should hold deep, and definitely the people who pledge their allegiance to the constitution. I wonder if it would have gone different if someone like Saunders or Obama would have tried a similar play.
the modern cia couldnt assassinate their way out of a cardboard bag
The three letter agencies haven’t ever really been known for their respect of the constitution 😅…
Derailing US political power is a good thing. Not good for the US, but good for the world.
Are we also derailing Chinese and Russian power, and magically disarming all the nukes? Or are we just shitting on America and hoping nobody realizes that means there’s going to be a power vacuum?
Giving russia more power won’t be any better for the world at large.
We will see. Pax Americana has been a hugely stabilizing force in many regions around the world. If an empire falls, fighting over the power vacuum commences. Empires get replaced by chaos and eventually other empires.
Who had ‘Trump Picks a Fight With Zelenskyy In Order To Justify Pulling out Of Aid Agreements- Thereby Allowing Russia To Walk On In And Take What They Want’ on their bingo card?
We all saw this coming, right? The whole bullshit forced argument he created… Tell me I’m not the only one that knew this was set-up to justify withdrawing all support and letting Russia have Ukraine.
Isn’t this more or less what T-bag said he would do?
You don’t know that, and I’m skeptical that Trump would go to that much trouble to come up with an excuse. He hasn’t needed an excuse to do anything else he’s been doing.
What I would expect Trump to do is just pull support and if anybody asks him why, say loudly “America First!!!”
This is what I hope happens next: Ukraine wins anyway. European politicians that still weren’t sure about defending themselves without the US will be emboldened not to rely on America anymore. Europe as a whole becomes stronger and much less willing to tolerate Trump’s obnoxious demands, and see him as the weak puppet that he is.
At some point, Europe has to start wondering whether it’s really such a good thing to have US military bases all over their continent.
Build up the EU military. Kick the US out. Free airbases.
Weak puppet with strong army. What makes anyone think stopping aid to Ukraine is all he can do. The sanctions against Russia are going to be lifted next, and if necessary, the aid is going to Russia. Europe has enough power against Russia, but not against Russia + the US.
Can we, as a society, label anyone who things otherwise as a traitor? Any politician against, or even dragging their feet, immediately written off, perhaps even deported from yhe continent?
Please?
Look, stranger things have happened but I get the sense it’s more likely Putin dies and the whole thing kind of crumbles. That’s the likelier, although still entirely unlikely scenario.
It’d still be pretty nice to see less reliance on the US except global peace relies on more trust, not less. The US might need systemic reforms to get there, but even Russia looked like it could be an ally to EU prior to Putin, just all countries need better safeguards to avoid backsliding into authoritarianism. I’m not sure what those would be, but you can’t have global peace without addressing these countries.
Since he can’t do this and needs congress’ help, why aren’t they stopping him? Why are they all bending over backwards to please Putin?
Because the only meaningful political move for Republicans today is to follow Trump. If they push back they get cut from the pack and lose support.
Because congress is dominated by the oligarch sycophants as well.
Just as his master told him.
The US media still does not dare to call Trump a Russian agent, despite him showing all symptoms.
There has been no single Russian attempt to destroy the US being as successful as putting their own agent into the White House, right into the Oval Office.
The US media still does not dare to call Trump a Russian agent, despite him showing all symptoms.
US operation in the black sea today
https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/03/04/look-who-we-have-here/
Who’s to say that data is for Ukraine?
I’m gonna guess it’s for russia then
Best case they will still share data, they could also just be gathering it up for themselves, worst case is sending it to russia
worst case is sending it to russia
It was a joke it’s not for russia…
It could very well be
It could very well be
🤦
That may be because Trump doesn’t know about it. May stop anytime, just like “cyberwar”. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2er34w0jgdo
They are not going to stop that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disclosures
https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/03/04/look-who-we-have-here/
“The ambiguous American behavior continues: on the one hand, they (verbally) threaten to withdraw support for Ukraine, including intelligence assistance, while on the other hand, they are increasing SIGINT flights over the Black Sea.”
Who says those SIGNT flights are for Ukraine anymore?
At best they won’t share, at worst it’s for russia
How do we know they were for ukraine to begin with? One thing is clear: they aren’t for russia so the narrative that USA is helping russia or halting operations against them doesn’t old much against the evidence.
What narrative about helping russia? If they stop supporting Ukraine, they are helping russia…
they are helping russia…
this one
It’s not a narrative though
“Narrative” has been an american conservative dog whistle for a while now, as far as I can tell.
It translates roughly to “the reported facts which should not be believed because they don’t work for MY narrative.” So basically just the usual projection. And it’s even a smart-sounding word which really helps it carry weight with dummies.
They ARE halting operations against Russia. Factual and official. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/02/politics/us-cyber-operations-russia-suspend/index.html
And now, after stopping military aid, they’ve announced they would no longer provide Ukraine with intel. So these patrol are no longer an action against Russia, given they won’t be used in military operations. Another big win for Russia. Again factual and official.
Next step is apparently lifting sanctions against Russia https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-seeks-plan-possible-russia-sanctions-relief-sources-say-2025-03-03/ This would provide Russia with a desperately needed source of income while economists were speculating that its economy was at risk of a complete collapse in 2025. So Trump is hurrying a relief there.
Do they need to send military aid to Russia directly before we can claim they switched side?
To me it looks like they didn’t stop shit
index
Ok, let’s make sense out of this
- The US gov announced very officially they stopped providing military aid to Ukraine.
- The US gov announced very officially they stop provivding intelligence to Ukraine.
- Trump asked very openly for a draft on lifting sanctions on Russia.
But they got some planes flying over the black sea, that collect intel, the same intel they said won’t be shared with Ukraine therefore will not be used against Russia interests whatsoever, and that’s your evidence to claim their actions are ambiguous?
I was wrong. They CAN supply Russia with weapons and you’ll claim it’s still ambiguous. Actually, they can probably bomb Ukraine themselves as much as a certain individual can shoot someone on the 5th avenue without losing a single supporter.-
How many times US government announced they were working to stop the genocide in gaza but were actually fueling it?
But they got some planes flying over the black sea
They have been flying fleets of planes near russia since the war started, probably even before that but not many were watching.
Gaza and Ukraine are 2 totally different cases, using one to assess the other makes no sense. In Gaza, under Biden, they barely announced they would hold on deliveries to Israel, and they did to a bare minimum. There was no secret hidden delivery, it was in plain sight for all to see. One of the reasons is some high profile donors of the Dems are supporting Netanyahu.
Under Trump, the position has changed for a full support of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and they resumed the delivery of larger bombs, that Biden had indeed been withholding.
The US collect intelligence in many different places worldwide. They didn’t say they would stop collecting intelligence, they said they would stop sharing it with Ukraine. The goal is not hidden, it’s been announced and the acts are consistent: it’s to force Zelensky to surrender to Russia, what Trump calls a “peace plan” in exchange of… well nothing, really. Ukraine loses, as simple as that.
There is no secret chess play here. If you ask why Trump supports Russia against pretty much all of the US (former?) allies now, then we venture into speculation, though many of us have an idea. But is he supporting Russia? Yes, definitely, the evidences are compelling. That’s no longer a question. It’s more than time to accept it.
He’s a Russian asset. How is this a surprise?
