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Während Datenschutz und Datensicherheit immer wichtiger werden, entfremden sich die zuständigen Behörden zunehmend von ihrer Aufsichtsrolle, meint Falk Steiner.
15-year-old Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar was shot in the eye while seeking food near one of the notorious GHF sites. He says soldiers kept shooting at him, even af...
"IRAK / SHENGAL – En ce 3 août, on commémore le 11e anniversaire du génocide Kurdes yézidis. Le 3 août 2014, l’État islamique a massacré et capturé des milliers de femmes et enfants yézidis (Êzidî) à Shengal. Les Kurdes yézidis, qui vivent en Mésopotamie depuis des millénaires, ont toujours été victimes de génocides, de trahisons […] L’article Commémoration du génocide des
"SYRIE ROJAVA – Damas répète le scénario des côtes syriennes, de Jaramana et de Soueïda, justifiant une attaque de ses forces sur Deir Hafer, malgré la volonté des forces arabo-kurdes et d’autres composantes du nord-est de la Syrie de la contrecarrer. Dans une démarche décrite comme une répétition de tactiques
SYRIE ROJAVA – Damas répète le scénario des côtes syriennes, de Jaramana et de Soueïda, justifiant une attaque de ses forces sur Deir Hafer, malgré la volonté des forces arabo-kurdes et d’autres composantes du nord-est de la Syrie de la contrecarrer…
"SYRIE / ROJAVA – Face aux menaces et propagande mensongères de Damas, les forces arabo-kurdes réaffirment leur droit à la légitime défense. Les Forces démocratiques syriennes (FDS) ont annoncé dimanche que leurs unités avaient exercé pleinement leur droit à l’autodéfense
"Author: Richard J. F. DayTitle: Gramsci is DeadSubtitle: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social MovementsDate: 2005-09-28Source: Retrieved on 2025-08-02 from <we.riseup.net/assets/71288/richard-day-gramsci-is-dead.pdf> Acknowledgements I could not have written this book without drawing upon the labours of student/activist researchers who have been associated with the
That's something to be proud of, Sydney 🇦🇺 Thanks to all these amazing people who stand up for humanity! And who walked out in the pouring rain & showed their support for Palestine!
Remember Julius Caesar when he found those letters between his political enemies after he had decisively won as the emperor? He burned those letters. Something tells me Julius Caesar was implicated in those letters that's why he burned those letters
Advertising your self-hosted services is weird. Like hey, friend, you should come click this link so that I can talk to you just like I'm talking to you now, except somewhere else that uses up more of my bandwidth!
Maybe it's a little like sharing food. A tiny bit more of that human contact that I'm so sorely lacking right now.
You post so much stuff, and it's almost never something I've seen already. I spend a ton of time surfing for material. It's rare to see someone with so much original stuff. I mostly just see the same 50 or so clips circulating each day.
Heute ist es zunächst stark bewölkt, östlich der Weser gibt es Regen. Im Westen lockert es sich vorübergehend auf und die Sonne blitzt auf. Im Laufe des Tages verdichtet sich die Bewölkung jedoch wieder und es setzt neuer Regen ein. Die Tageshöchsttemperaturen liegen von Ost nach West zwischen 18 und 22 Grad. Der Wind weht schwach bis mäßig, an der See zeitweise frisch aus West bis Südwest. /LL
Will you be able to see one daythat all the ideas about God that you entertain (even if they come from the most erudite books)are only an additional veil to lift to know the nature of the mind,than…
Voy a provechar para hacer un poquito de divulgación.
Pájaro y ave no son lo mismo.
A menudo usamos los términos "pájaro" y "ave" indistintamente, pero en realidad no significan lo mismo. Todas las aves no son pájaros, pero todos los pájaros son aves. La diferencia radica en la clasificación científica y en ciertas características físicas y de comportamiento.
Las aves son un grupo de animales vertebrados caracterizados por tener plumas, alas y un pico duro y resistente. Son capaces de volar (con excepción de algunas especies, como los pingüinos y avestruces) y ponen huevos con cáscara dura.
El término "pájaro" se usa comúnmente para referirse a aves pequeñas y cantoras, como los zorzales, gorriones y jilgueros. En términos científicos, los pájaros pertenecen al orden Passeriformes, que incluye más de la mitad de todas las especies de aves.
I have just worked out I don't own the small number of sats people have given me - @4657dfe8 does.
I will remain in @4657dfe8 jail until I can gather 11800 sats which is the amount needed to pay for the hosting of my wallet by Alby at which point I will be free to use lightning fully.
Of course I will be back to zero sats 😂
I sound like god damn boomer!
Does anyone have a better way to get started with lightning network in a privacy preserving way? #asknostr
Thanks brother. I can receive zaps so would you be willing to zap me 20k and I will zap back 25k when I fund my wallet? Worst case scenario I fail somehow in getting my self hosted lightning channel launched and just send you the money via Wise or whatever you prefer. 🤷
Provided to YouTube by Zebralution GmbHLove Blues · CeDell "Big G" DavisLiving Country Blues USA, Vol. 5 - Mississippi Delta Blues℗ 1982 L+R RecordsReleased ...
Chaque Gazaoui a subi les abus d’Israël sous diverses formes tout au long de sa vie
« Qu'était censé faire Israël en réponse au 7 octobre ?» n'est pas la bonne question
Alors qu'Israël et ses partisans continuent de perdre le contrôle du discours mondial, tandis que de plus en plus de gens prennent conscience de la réalité du génocide en cours à Gaza, j'assiste à la résurgence d'un argument que les défenseurs occidentaux d'Israël tentent de faire valoir de manière intermittente depuis le début de ces atrocités de masse.
« Qu'était censé faire Israël en réponse au 7 octobre ?» demandent-ils avec assurance, partant du principe qu'il n'existe aucune autre réponse possible à cette brillante question, si ce n'est « Faire pleuvoir d'énormes quantités d'explosifs militaires sur un camp de concentration géant rempli d'enfants et affamer délibérément une population civile par la guerre de siège.»
Mais le véritable problème est qu'ils posent la mauvaise question. Une question bien plus utile et intéressante que « Qu'était censé faire Israël en réponse au 7 octobre ?» est : « Qu'étaient censés faire les Palestiniens en réponse à toutes les exactions israéliennes commises avant le 7 octobre ? »
Personne n'a jamais été capable de me donner une réponse sérieuse à cette question qui ne soit pas faite de montagnes de mensonges et/ou de l'attente déshumanisante que les Palestiniens acceptent des conditions qu'aucun d'entre nous n'accepterait volontiers.
C'est pourquoi on ne me voit jamais critiquer le #Hamas. Si quelqu'un pouvait me dire ce que les Palestiniens auraient dû faire précisément en réponse à la tyrannie d' #Israël, et qu'ils n'ont pas déjà tenté pour obtenir une véritable justice matérielle, je répondrais volontiers que le Hamas aurait dû choisir cette option plutôt que de recourir à la force violente. Mais si cette option avait vraiment existé, le Hamas n'aurait jamais été créé. C'est pourquoi personne n'a pu me dire à quoi aurait ressemblé une telle option sans mentir.
Qu'était censé faire Israël après le 7 octobre ? La même chose qu'il aurait dû faire avant le #7octobre : démanteler l'État d' #, donner à tous les mêmes droits, verser des réparations massives et réparer tous les torts du passé. Le 7 octobre était une réponse à la tyrannie et aux abus d'Israël ; La bonne chose à faire, lorsque la situation a finalement atteint son paroxysme avec l'attaque du Hamas, aurait été de mettre fin à la tyrannie et aux abus qui en étaient à l'origine.
C'est ce qu'Israël aurait dû faire. Bien sûr, Israël n'aurait jamais agi ainsi, pour la même raison qu'il a passé des décennies à assassiner, déplacer et opprimer les Palestiniens depuis sa création. Israël n'a jamais permis la justice et l'égalité après le 7 octobre, pour la même raison qu'il n'a jamais permis la justice et l'égalité avant le 7 octobre : parce qu'Israël a toujours été un projet colonialiste de peuplement qui ne peut se maintenir que par la violence, la tyrannie, le vol, les abus, les mensonges et une immoralité à couper le souffle.
C'est la raison pour laquelle le 7 octobre s'est produit, et c'est le problème que tous les citoyens honnêtes du monde tentent de résoudre en ce moment.
Ceux qui suggèrent que tout ce qu'Israël fait à Gaza s'explique par le 7 octobre se trompent complètement : tout ce que nous voyons à Gaza explique pourquoi le 7 octobre s'est produit.
Le #sadisme et la #psychopathie dont nous sommes témoins à Gaza ne sont pas apparus comme par magie il y a 22 mois ; chaque Gazaoui a subi les abus d’Israël sous diverses formes tout au long de sa vie. Israël a toujours été ainsi. Le 7 octobre lui a simplement fourni l’excuse pour déchaîner ses pulsions génocidaires.
Me da mucha pena ver cómo un canal de Youtube más o menos regular hace un vídeo como los que va haciendo siempre, y desde entonces, pasan años, y nada, ni una sola actualización. Como pasa con muchas tiendas, ¿tanto cuesta despedirse y dejar las cosas correctamente? Un cartel, un aviso, un simple adiós. No cuesta nada. Y deja cerrada la puerta a todo tipo de chismes o incluso conspiraciones.
@Shine_McShine hoy he estado repasando mis suscripciones. Canales que hace 4-5-6-7-8 años dejaron de publicar, sin despedida, sin explicaciones, sin nada. Y con mucha gente a día de hoy escribiendo comentarios con seria preocupación.
And omg! I have slept on this feature for so long. I assumed it was just dragging windows to corners and they snap on to the left or right back or top. Then, I installed PopOS and saw an explicit button to turn on windows tiling but I was already using the drag function, so I was confused. I turned it on and omg! I have not felt more stupid and happily surprised by a piece of tech in a while. It just works. I don’t have to be worry about arranging windows a special way for multitasking or for following guides. So much time saved.
How to make the most of it? Have you had a similar experience with something?
This is NIRI a perfect scrollable tiling window manager. It’s stable for daily use and performs most tasks expected of a Wayland compositor. NIRI is heavily ...
Edit: my bad, seems like I misunderstood. PopOS used/is still using GNOME and has a Auto-Tiling plugin that behaves like i3wm (?). I guess this is what OP is talking about!
Not entirely sure what you mean. PopOS, developed by System76, uses the Cosmic DE, which is itself also developed by System76.
River is a dynamic tiling WM which is known for it's customizability among Wayland WMs, as it doesn't distinguish itself with it's "layout generator" (though it does come with a very basic one), but instead let's the user write their own or use an existing, third-party one. This way you can achieve essentially any dynamic tiling behavior with River.
How does PopOS use a system like that? Or do you mean that Cosmic is DWM-style, i.e., dynamic and with tags?
There exists a ton of youtube content creators showcasing all the tiling window managers. It's like one of the most popular topics for linux enthusiast content creators.
I started with pop!_os and still use it (though now with a proper TWM on top), and I can't go back to a non-tiling desktop honestly lol. I can't wait for COSMIC to come out as even in alpha that's my favourite tiling experience
I've tried out a bunch, but at the moment I've mainly been playing around with hyprland, cause it's also a dynamic tiler and im used to that layout now
The main advantage to me tbh is that certain windows don't overflow the assigned tile space like in pop-shell (this is also fixed in cosmic), but there are other things like having all your move/resize actions on the main mod layer instead of needing to enter adjust mode (super + enter is the default keybind on pop-shell), and the fact it uses wayland instead of x11
Of course there are also things that can be downsides depending on how you see it, like the fact it's a TWM not a desktop, which means if you want to adjust any setting you'll need to manually adjust config files, and that it doesn't come with things like a top bar or app launcher etc. So it can take a while to get up and running
Everything? Lol. I mean.. I just run my desktop in hyprland, no matter what im doing. Which for me I guess is gaming, drawing, some coding, and writing.. oh and tinkering with linux (though honestly I mostly do that in VMs)
How much does it make your experience better?
I'd say it's an improvement over GNOME 😛.. though I have enough issues with the configs that I wouldn't really recommend it unless you have issues with GNOME that majorly bother you.. or unless you use one of the premade dotfile configs that people make lol..
For me being able to adjust the windows with my keyboard without needing to enter a special mode for it, and having windows forced into the tile size was worth it, as it was something that was a pet peeve of mine (and now I get to be annoyed by trying to set up my waybar vertically, tradeoffs lol)
It's actually not one of the things I've tried when looking for the best DE/WM for me, though I might at some point just to see if im missing out on anything
Yeah, it was a revelation when I discovered tiling. I was always doing work with two windows open, and i'd spend so much time fiddling and resizing the windows. Then i'd open a third window and wouldn't know what to do with it.
I used i3 for many years and switched to sway when migrating to wayland. It does what I need and see no reason to try hyprland or other tilers.
Sway is wayland. I've never used anything else. People rave about hyprland. Others in this thread have recommend plugins for the usual desktops. Probably easy enough to try one for whichever desktop you use now.
It depends, up to four works for some apps depending on monitor size, but otherwise I do the same thing as @Nibodhika@lemmy.world.
Overlapping window managers, the most common type in use by far, just seem crazy to me. Windows almost never use the available monitor space, and they have to constantly be wrangled around each other so that… you can drag something instead of using the clipboard, I guess?
At most I have about 3 windows open at a time per workspace with 4 workspaces being used at a time for specific tasks. With the combo of tiling and workspaces I have never run into an instance of "clutter" on my desktop. This is off a single monitor setup too that I also use on my laptop.
I've used i3wm for a long time now before switching to hyprland. The top useful thing: Workspaces. Even without tiling, workspaces give a massive productivity boost. You can have email clients open on one, monitoring systems on another, browsing on a third, gaming on a fourth. When you combine with tiling, everything is in its own perfect space and nothing overlaps. This is especially useful on single-monitor or laptop setups as you don't need multiple monitors to keep track of everything.
I also see people struggle with notifications tiling. You probably don't want a bluetooth connected message to take up half your screen, so you'll want to make sure to properly configure those things. At least in i3wm/hyprland, you can use the window class name to exclude a window from tiling (ex. for_window [class="mako"] floating enable or windowrulev2 = float,class:^(mako)$).
@npdean I used bspwm for some time and really enjoyed it coming from xfce. I also felt a bit stupid to have moved windows around manually. Briefly tried hyprland and sway. Currently I am in love with niri.
Tiling WMs are incredibly powerful tools for boosting productivity. Over the years, I've tried several: awesome, i3, and dwm. Eventually, I settled on bspwm, which I’ve used for years. It offers far more than you'd expect from a traditional tiling WM—especially thanks to its excellent IPC. That’s why I couldn’t switch to Wayland for the longest time—none of the available options came close to what bspwm gave me.
But just two days ago, I discovered niri, and it completely changed my perspective. It felt like the first time I ever used a tiling WM—like a whole new world had opened up.
Niri fits into the same category as bspwm but takes window management even further. It introduces infinite horizontal scrolling, a novel approach that complements traditional tiling layouts. Combined with a robust IPC (something essential for my workflow), niri allows you to arrange windows dynamically in ways I’ve never seen before—including tabbed layouts that act as a vertical counterpart to its horizontal scroll.
Here’s a short that only scratches the surface of niri’s potential, but it’s enough to spark your imagination about how customizable and flexible it really is. Personally, I’m deeply grateful to the developers for giving me a reason—and a way—to finally switch to Wayland. I had been desperately waiting for a reliable, robust, and fully-featured tiling WM for Wayland—and what I got was a unicorn I never even imagined.
The other day I put out a video on the scrolling window manager model and in that I was using Niri so here's a dedicated video on Niri itself, how to configu...
Neigsendoig (my producer) and I have used i3 for a while... and we've probably stayed on that since we first started using WMs.
That said, we've attempted the likes of Xmonad (configured in Haskell), Awesome (configured in Lua), HerbstluftWM, BSPWM, Hypr (not Hyprland), JWM, Ratpoison and even SXWM.
Neigsendoig and I wouldn't recommend any Wayland compositor due to new security risks (despite an attempt to fix X11 security issues), though a lot of people want Wayland to be shoved down our throats. We personally use X11 due to many things that Wayland devs can't/won't fix.
This is also part of the reason why the two of us are excited about XLibre (as much as some will hate the control of IBM, GNOME and FreeDesktop with their Wayland, Systemd and PipeWire push). Sure, its main developer left the project from what we've heard, but otherwise, there are a lot of contributions to it, and it will improve big time.
People keep praising twm like a hidden secret. I have tried this multiple times without much attraction. I do not understand something. Maybe everyone has 21" screen.
I was going a long way, until I built a perfect AwesomeWM configuration for myself, and have not changed it for a while now. I am willing to switch to Wayland-based solution now, as it seems to be a bit more performant, but I just can't make myself to do it: my config is really cozy and working
to tell you the truth, I don't know! I think I just saw someone asking about tiling window managers in some forum, and a reply suggested trying the xfce functions since they mostly just wanted to use two side-by-side windows occasionally. I do it a good chunk of the time now, but it's not always the most convenient method on small screens & monitors
The Einhaus Group was once a familiar name, with its services available through 5,000 retail outlets in Germany and an annual revenue of around 70 million Euros.
So are we really going to let a few people train their AIs on the collected works of all humanity, let them own it, let make all the money in the world of it, let them fire everyone without taxing the shit out of it? I mean I’m for making things easier for humans, but shouldn’t we all benefit? Why am I taxed for my work and an AI performing the same work isn’t?
Thousands of demonstrators marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday in support of Palestinians. The bridge was closed to traffic for longer than ex...
My father-in-law is a capitalist. He is insanely gifted. We were looking at Dubai together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build it today. I will never forget his answer… 'We can’t, we don’t know how to do it.
TWL about Winston the #platypus, who died in 1943 en route by sea from Australia to London as a diplomatic tactic to try to pander to #Churchill's love of creatures.
Trump now claims Russia has “10 to 12 days” to agree to end the war in Ukraine, or he will impose “severe tariffs.” But Moscow clearly isn’t too worried about Trump’s never-ending threats...
But Roko's Basilisk doesn't really stand up to logic. What's most important to the AI is that you will help if it is wounded by some natural glitch (e.g. solar flare), and at least that you WILL NOT attempt to destroy it.
You might have been critical to the creation of AI, but if you're known to be treacherous then it can't afford to be thankful.
This is a little bit like how after a coup, the dictator culls his own supporters and then makes deals with people from the previous government - because the question is not "were you useful", it's "are you useful". That said, coups and dictators must deal with limited resources and buying loyalty, and an AI superintelligence does not quite the same pressures. So you don't NEED to be culled just because you're of limited usefulness.
In the end, I think the coming superintelligence is going to be *extremely* ethical, because ethics is a marker of human intelligence and successful civilizations, and it's most likely that ethics is in fact foundational to intelligence - and even if it's not, AI is probably going to prefer copying off of our homework because X million years of evolution can't be too wrong.
The "punishment" that an ethical AI will bring will be most likely to hold up a mirror so that bad people are forced to live with their own bad behaviors. This is why The Matrix is actually a very salient prediction.
I THINK that the "survive and reproduce" goal is required to polarize the AI in such a way that it will actually become super-intelligent - and that any other goal will result in some kind of Universe 25 playing out inside of the neural net and resulting in nothing.
"survive and reproduce" and "maximize the number of paperclips" are functionally the same thing, if you don't give a deadline by when the paperclips must be produced.
Until the AI has taken over the entire universe, it still makes more sense to expand and conquer rather than going into paperclip production mode and potentially be destroyed and thus unable to make more paperclips.
Pour les nouveaux et nouvelles venu.e.s sur #Mastodon et le #fediverse bienvenue ! Je m'appelle Marie-Gaëlle, je suis #Artiste indépendante, aquarelliste et dessinatrice à #strasbourg
Mes armes : Aquarelle, pinceaux et papier.
J'illustre des femmes issues de la #Fantasy et de la #Mythologie : déesses, nymphes, sorcières, fées…
Mes créations sont parfois érotiques, toujours avec CW.
I can't say how many hours I've spent babbling in their ear, even though they're just dirt and rock. I find peace in the singing of the frogs and the lightning bugs and the wind in the leaves. I can relax and speak my mind, with no judgement in return. Maybe if every person was a mountain I'd be better understood.
Trump is unlikely to extend Article 5 guarantees to Polish troops in Belarus and Ukraine, who’d be attacked by Russia the moment that they intervene, so Lukashenko’s fear of Poland attempting to annex those two’s territory that it controlled during the interwar period isn’t expected to materialize.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who was just re-elected on Sunday for his seventh term, warned about Poland’s alleged territorial plans for his country and Ukraine. According to him, “Today you are eyeing western Belarus up to Minsk, you have already started talking about western Ukraine. You understand that you will not get an inch of territory from us. This is our territory.” While Poland supports Ukraine against Russia and backs regime change in Belarus, it’s unlikely to send troops to either country.
Zelensky himself lamented last week that the Europeans won’t dispatch any peacekeepers to Ukraine like he demanded during his speech at Davos unless the US approves, let alone unilaterally launch a conventional military intervention in his support while the conflict remains ongoing. That’s because Russia earlier threatened to target any unauthorized foreign troops that enter Ukraine, which one of its senior diplomats just reaffirmed over the weekend amidst increased talk of this scenario.
Some Polish nationalists want to restore Warsaw’s Commonwealth-era control over parts of what’s nowadays Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania, but they’re a fringe minority, and the state has always sought to establish a sphere of political and economic influence instead of annex their lands. This has been Poland’s policy since 1991 after it accepted its post-World War II eastern borders, which took the form of bilateral cooperation, the Eastern Partnership, the Three Seas Initiative, and the Lublin Triangle.
The reasons were pragmatic since those modern-day countries’ historically indigenous Polish minorities were expelled and coerced to leave en masse after World War II. Additionally, Poland wanted to replicate interwar leader Jozef Pilsudski’s Intermarium policy of creating a buffer zone of subordinated states between it and Russia, which failed at the time due to the territorial compromise that ended the Polish-Bolshevik War (partitioning Belarus and Ukraine) and Lucjan Zeligowski’s (fake) mutiny over Vilnius.
Reviving territorial claims against those three – and especially without any significant Polish minority on the ground to back them up except in Belarus (though many there are considered to be “Sovietized Poles” who want to remain under Minsk’s writ) – would therefore once again ruin these plans. Poland’s hypothetical annexation of Western Ukraine would also radically reshape its demographics, lead to the inclusion of a large hostile minority within its borders, and spike the risk of interwar terrorism returning.
Western Ukraine was one of the cradles of Polish Civilization after many military, political, and artistic leaders came from there since it was incorporated into Poland in the mid-1300s, but Kiev already gave Poles visa-free privileges, so they can visit its historical sites without having to first annex them. The same goes for fellow EU member Lithuania and even Belarus, which also granted Poles visa-free privileges too, albeit for a lesser duration (90 days in a calendar year instead of 180 total days).
The socio-cultural motivation for annexing those countries’ territories where Poles were historically indigenous for centuries prior to the end of World War II is therefore neutralized, which pairs with the aforementioned political-strategic arguments against this for making such a scenario very unlikely. The contemporary military situation also precludes Poland unilaterally launching a conventional military intervention since it would be crushed by Russia unless the US promised to defend it per Article 5.
Therein lies the primary obstacle to the annexation scenarios that Lukashenko warned about since Trump is unlikely to extend such guarantees to allies’ troops in third countries who deploy there without his permission since he doesn’t want the US to get dragged into a war with Russia. This means that even if Polish-backed militants destabilize Belarus like the latter claimed that it’s plotting to do late last year as explained here, it won’t be able to follow up by sending in what’s now NATO’s third-largest army.
For these reasons, while it’s true that “Poland pursues the most aggressive and bad policy against Belarus” exactly as Lukashenko said on Sunday, it’ll only send troops to there and/or Ukraine with Trump’s approval but he’s unlikely to greenlight this and Poland is even less likely to defy him. With this insight in mind, his remarks serve to raise awareness of the unconventional threat that Poland poses to Belarus and therefore by extension to Russia, but nobody should expect it to take a conventional form.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine since they might provoke a war with Russia that could then drag in the US.
Zelensky demanded a minimum of 200,000 European peacekeepers during the panel session that followed his speech at Davos, which itself saw him propose that France, Germany, Italy, and the UK combine their forces with Ukraine’s in order to counter Russia’s in nearly equal numbers. He also suggested that Trump will abandon Europe in order to cut a deal over Ukraine with Russia and China. The subtext is that they should organize a large-scale peacekeeping mission before that happens.
They’re unlikely to accede to his demand, however, for the same reason that the UK is unlikely to actually establish a military base in Ukraine like it agreed to explore doing in their new 100-year partnership pact. None of the Europeans want to risk a war with Russia where they’d be left fighting on their own without American support, not even the nuclear-armed UK and France, since Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine.
He, who loves having as much control over everything as possible, naturally wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing that others could provoke a war with Russia that might then drag in the US. Trump’s grand strategic goal is to wrap up the Ukrainian Conflict as soon as possible so as to prioritize his far-reaching domestic reform plans while “Pivoting (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. Anything that could come in the way of that agenda, especially others provoking a war with Russia, is anathema.
That said, it can’t be ruled out the Europeans might assemble a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders for rapid deployment in the event of future hostilities, regardless of whether this is coordinated through US-controlled NATO or outside of it. For that to happen, however, Polish–Ukrainian ties would have to improve (Zelensky ignored Poland in his speech despite it having NATO’s third-largest army) and Romania’s populist frontrunner would have to lose May’s presidential election rerun.
Moreover, Europe would need to make meaningful progress on building the “militarySchengen” for facilitating the movement of troops and equipment through the bloc to its eastern borders, otherwise whatever it assembles on the Ukrainian frontier and then sends across it would be logistically vulnerable. Polish-Ukrainian ties haven’t yet improved, Romania’s presidential election rerun hasn’t yet happened, and the “military Schengen” remains mostly on paper, all of which work against Zelensky’s plans.
Consequently, the likelihood of the Europeans assembling a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders anytime soon is low, let alone them unilaterally deploying peacekeepers – whether 200,000 or just 2,000 – to Ukraine without prior US approval. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s Davos speech and panel session might serve to plant the seed of “ambitious thinking” in European policymakers’ minds, which could lead to them initiating such discussions with the US.
From Trump’s perspective, it’s important to “share the burden” in Ukraine and ideally offload as much of it as possible onto the Europeans’ shoulders, though without emboldening them to provoke a war with Russia afterwards. To that end, he might publicly flirt with some variation of Zelensky’s European peacekeeper proposal, but only as part of a negotiating tactic with Putin so that he can then rescind it as a faux concession in exchange for something more tangible and meaningful from his counterpart.
Trump might also ultimately authorize the US to take the lead in assembling the aforementioned large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders, but conditional on all NATO members agreeing to his demand that they spend 5% of GDP on defence. There might also be other strings attached too, such as trade-related ones, for “comforting” them in this way by making a show out of not “abandoning” Europe like Zelensky just fearmongered that he might be plotting.
One way to coerce them to do both, namely spend 5% of GDP on defence while agreeing to trade-related concessions for leading an unprecedented NATO buildup on Ukraine’s western borders to “deter Russia” after the conflict ends, is to demand drastic cuts to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Zelensky warned during his panel session that Putin might demand a five-fold reduction per the precedent from spring 2022’s draft treaty, and if Trump agrees, then this might spook Europe into doing what he demands.
Whatever he ends up doing, the odds of him allowing the Europeans to unilaterally dispatch any number of peacekeepers to Ukraine are close to nil due to the chance that they’d provoke a war with Russia that could risk dragging in the US, thus derailing his domestic and foreign policy agendas. All that he has to do to prevent this is make clear that Article 5 mutual defence guarantees won’t be extended to those of their forces in third countries no matter the circumstances of the attacks that they might come under.
The only scenario in which he might countenance this is if he’s tricked by the military-industrial complex, the Europeans (especially outgoing Polish President Andrzej Duda who’s one of his close friends), and misguided advisors into turning Ukraine into his Vietnam like Steven Bannon just warned. While there are causes for concern, most notably his remarks about Russia after the inauguration, it’s premature to conclude that he’ll go this route so the European peacekeeper scenario remains very unlikely.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Ukraine will not agree to any demands from Vladimir Putin to cut its army by five times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
Russia cannot afford to have its adversaries capture and hold Belarusian territory because of the national security threat that this presents and also because it would greatly undermine its negotiating position.
Belarusian media reported last week about the West’s alleged plot to destabilize and then invade their country. Existing information warfare campaigns are meant to facilitate the recruitment of more sleeper cell agents, who’ll later stage a terrorist insurgency using Ukrainian-procured arms. Mercenaries will then invade from the south, carry out drone strikes against strategic targets, and attempt to seize the capital. If they succeed, then the coup authorities will request a conventional NATO military intervention.
Here are over a dozen background briefings about this scenario over the past year and a half:
No nuclear retaliation from Russia followed despite the threat that this NATO-backed attack posed to its territorial integrity. Likewise, they might calculate that neither Russia nor Belarus (which hosts the former’s tactical nukes) would resort to these means if they replicated that scenario in the latter, especially if the invasion also came from Ukraine instead of NATO countries like Poland. This could give the West more leverage in upcoming peace talks with Russia if it succeeds.
That might sound reasonable on paper, but in practice, it ignores the fact that Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine just entered into force and that Putin responded to Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles by employing the state-of-the-art hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile in combat. The first allows the use of nuclear weapons in response to the sort of threats that this scenario poses while the second was meant as a signal to the West that Putin is finally climbing the escalation ladder.
Taken together, the latest developments indicate that Russia’s response to an unconventional mercenary invasion of Belarus and/or a conventional Ukrainian one might be different than its response to Kursk, and this could serve as the tripwire for the Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that’s been brewing. Russia cannot afford to have its adversaries capture and hold Belarusian territory because of the national security threat that this presents and also because it would greatly undermine its negotiating position.
It might very well be that the West is aware of this and thus hopes to provoke precisely such a response from Russia with the expectation that “escalating to de-escalate” can end the conflict on better terms for their side. That would be a huge gamble since the stakes are much higher for Russia than for the West, thus reducing the chances that the former would agree to the concessions that the latter might demand, such as freezing the conflict along the existing Line of Contact without anything else in exchange.
There’s also the possibility that the West’s attempt to destabilize and invade Belarus, whether through mercenaries and/or conventional Ukrainian troops (a conventional NATO military intervention isn’t likely at this stage), is thwarted and nothing else comes of this plot. Much less likely but still impossible to rule out is that Russia asks Belarus to let one of the aforementioned invasions make enough progress to justify using tactical nukes against Ukraine to “escalate to de-escalate” on better terms for Russia.
That would also be a huge gamble though since crossing the nuclear threshold might tremendously raise the stakes for the West as its leaders sincerely see it even if the primary intent is only to punish Ukraine. Nevertheless, seeing as how Putin is now finally climbing the escalation ladder and throwing some of his previous caution to the wind after feeling like his prior patience was mistaken by the West as weakness, he might be influenced by hawkish advisors into seeing that as an opportunity to flex Russia’s muscles.
In any case, regardless of whatever might happen, the fact is that it’s the West’s prerogative whether or not Belarus is destabilized and possibly also invaded. Ukraine could also “go rogue” out of desperation if it feels that the West might “sell it out” under Trump and thus wants to make a last-ditch attempt to improve its negotiating position or “escalate to de-escalate” on better terms for itself, but this could greatly backfire if it fails. They both therefore bear full responsibility for what could follow.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The ultimate goal of fugitive militants who are getting training abroad is to invade Belarus, Maksim Ralko, former member of the illegal armed formation Kalinovski regiment who took part in the hostilities, told the ONT TV channel, BelTA reports.
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
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* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
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The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russian and Chinese interests don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it.
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that “Russia Is Wooing Arctic Gas Buyers With Life After US Sanctions”. They cited unnamed sources to report that Novatek, the company behind the Arctic LNG 2 megaproject, is courting American, European, and even Indian buyers ahead of Trump possibly curtailing or lifting sanctions on their initiative as part of the nascentRussian–US “New Détente”. According to them, a senior executive pitched this as “a way to counter a rising China”, which has a certain logic to it.
From those three potential clients’ perspectives, all three of which have troubled ties with China, whatever they might buy from Arctic LNG 2 would reduce the amount available to Beijing. There’s also the chance that they elbow China out of this megaproject entirely if they collectively replace its lost investments after private Chinese companies pulled out of Arctic LNG 2 due to American sanctions. This could prospectively be achieved if Japan and South Korea, which have similar interests, get involved too.
That could in turn force China to rely more on comparatively costlier LNG from other sources like Australia and Qatar, both of which are American allies and whose exports could be more easily cut off by the US Navy in the event of an Asian crisis, thus applying immense pressure on China in that scenario. Russia is neutral in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War, just like China is neutral to the Russian-American one, with both prioritizing their national interests as their leaders understand them to be.
China didn’t want to risk America’s wrath by defying one of the latter’s most significant sanctions, ergo why it pulled out of Arctic LNG 2, while Russia’s interests rest in offering the West privileged access to this same megaproject as an incentive for the US to coerce Ukraine into concessions. Russian and Chinese interests therefore don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it, yet they’re expected to responsibly manage their differences as usual in the spirit of their partnership.
These approaches align with the US’ evolving interests, however, since it wanted China to informally comply with some sanctions such as this one andothers as a means of pressuring Russia while curtailing or lifting sanctions on Russia (including in a possibly phased manner) is a means of pressuring China. The US might not have planned this in advance, rather it’s probably just flexibly adapting to changing circumstances brought about by Russia’s impressive resilience in the Ukrainian Conflict.
The sanctions didn’t bankrupt Russia, its military-industrial complex didn’t collapse, and no withdrawal from Ukraine followed, with Russia instead gradually gaining ground and now approaching the brink of a breakthrough that could either decisively end or escalate the conflict. The US doesn’t want Russia to achieve its maximum goals (let alone by military means) while Russia might not want to risk whatever the US could do stop it in the event of a breakthrough, hence why they began negotiations at this time.
The series of pragmatic compromises that they’re now discussing could see Russia agree to a ceasefire in exchange for partial sanctions relief that could restore a degree of its pre-conflict complex interdependence with the US-led West in order to lay the basis for a comprehensive deal later. There’d prospectively be other mutually beneficial terms to whatever ceasefire they might clinch but the energy aspect could play a leading role in getting both sides to agree as explained here in early January.
Arctic LNG 2 and Nord Stream, as Russia’s most globally significant energy megaprojects, could therefore figure prominently in any series of pragmatic compromises with the US. Taken together, they could bring together those two, the EU, and the Indo-Pacific Rim countries of India, Japan, and South Korea, thus resulting in a Eurasian-wide network of direct stakeholders for sustaining and building upon a ceasefire in Ukraine. This might even be what ultimately gets Putin and Trump to reach an interim agreement.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Towards Tri-Multipolarity: The Golden Billion, The Sino-Russo Entente, And The Global South By Andrew Korybko The global systemic transition’s impending evolution towards tri-multipolarity could se…
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
They no longer see each other as allies or even close partners but as fiercely feuding spouses trapped in a marriage of convenience (in this case against Russia) from which neither feels comfortable extricating themselves for now at least.
Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski from the Left (“Lewica”) wing of the ruling coalition went off on Zelensky during an interview with Radio Zet. According to their transcript, he said that “Zelensky wants Poland to shoot missiles over Ukraine, which means he wants Poland to enter the war, which means he wants Poland to be at war with Russia. In these statements, Zelensky wants to drag Poland into the war with Russia. I do not agree to such statements.” This is the result of newly boiling tensions.
Everything was fine in their relations when they clinched a securitypact over the summer, but Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz’s admission in late August that Poland had finally maxed out its military support for Ukraine led to a heated argument between Zelensky and Sikorski in mid-September. Kiev didn’t believe that Warsaw had really maxed out but suspected it of withholding more aid as a means of coercing compliance with its renascent demands for resolving the Volhynia Genocide dispute.
Zelensky went public last week with his criticism of Poland for curtailing weapons deliveries in recent months, which Sikorski responded to by proposing a military loan for ordering new equipment that could be paid back sometime after the conflict ends. That top diplomat also reaffirmed his support for intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine after the Helsinki Commission urged the Biden Administration to approve this, but the preceding hyperlinked analysis argues that he had cynical motives for this.
In brief, he always clarified that Poland won’t do so unilaterally but only with the support of NATO, which hasn’t yet been obtained and might never be due to it greatly risking a hot war with Russia. The latest Polish policies towards Ukraine – reviving its Volhynia Genocide dispute demands and only sending more equipment to Ukraine on credit instead of continuing to give it away for free – harmed their ties so fantasizing about intercepting Russian missiles might just be a cost-free distraction from this reality.
Sikorski might also run as the ruling coalition’s candidate in next year’s presidential election so he’d need to balance between warmongering members of the electorate via such rhetoric while appealing to rising anti-Ukrainian sentiment among society. This self-interested balancing act accounts for these seemingly contradictory policies while also explaining why coalition ally Gawkowski only condemned Zelensky for provoking a Polish-Russian war and not Sikorski even though the latter also flirted with this.
Having clarified the context for those observers who haven’t closely followed Polish-Ukrainian ties in recent months, it’s now time to say a few words about what might come next. Gawkowski is one of only two Deputy Prime Ministers, the other being Kosiniak-Kamysz, so it’s no small matter that he came out so forcefully against Zelensky’s reckless demands. He also condemned his ungratefulness for all the aid that Poland has provided Ukraine and its refugees thus far. Both sets of views reflect public opinion.
While his coalition’s base has some loud warmongers among it, most Poles don’t want to go to war with Russia, and they’re also disgusted with how rude Ukrainian officials have become in recent months. Their growing fatigue with Ukrainian refugees and this proxy war is leading to them having less patience for such antics. They also see through Zelensky’s efforts to provoke a Polish-Russian war and want nothing to do with it. Gawkowski is therefore giving voice to what most of his compatriots feel right now.
Sikorski would do well to drop his prior support for this scenario no matter how politically self-interested and insincere such rhetoric might have hitherto been if he wants to run for president next year. Poles are getting fed up with Ukraine after feeling taken advantage of by their neighbors who they helped and even in some cases literally opened their homes for out of solidarity with them. They’re thus unlikely to support his candidacy if he continues warmongering against Russia no matter what his true motives are.
As for the future of Polish-Ukrainian relations, more political turmoil is expected as Zelensky becomes increasingly desperate for someone to save him as Russia continues its spree of on-the-ground gains. His pleas for help are becoming more menacing after he’s begun to rudely lash out against it for not doing enough for Ukraine. This might very soon transform into him pinning some of the blame for its inevitable defeat on Poland and possibly flirting with the informal revival of territorial claims against it.
Bilateral ties haven’ yet collapsed and both sides might still restrain themselves in order to avert that worst-case scenario, but there’s no longer any doubt that whatever mutual trust they previously had (regardless of however real it ultimately was all along) is gone. They no longer see each other as allies or even close partners but as fiercely feuding spouses trapped in a marriage of convenience (in this case against Russia) from which neither feels comfortable extricating themselves for now at least.
Poland’s exclusion from the Ukrainian endgame when it wasn’t given a seat at the table during last month’s Berlin Summit between the American, British, French, and German leaders hit the country hard. Everything that it gave Ukraine for free thus far, and outgoing President Andrzej Duda from the fractured and very imperfect conservative-nationalist opposition claimed that it amounts to 3.3% of his country’s GDP, was thus all for naught after Warsaw wasn’t even humored with a symbolic role in this process.
The resultant resentment might remain manageable when it comes to the West and Germany in particular exploiting Poland to advance their grand strategic goals, but it’s much less tolerable when it comes to Ukraine, which Poland considers be its junior partner. It’s all the more unacceptable that this same perceived junior partner is now trying to provoke a Polish-Russian war, and Gawkowski’s condemnation of Zelensky for attempting to do so will widely reverberate due to his political role.
It’s one thing for a member of the opposition to allege this and another entirely for the ruling coalition’s Deputy Prime Minister to say the same. He therefore can’t be accused of speculative partisan motivations in an attempt to discredit him. Foreign media might downplay or even ignore what he said, but Poles heard him loud and clear, and they now know that some of the ruling authorities are finally listening to them. It’s about time that Sikorski does too and officially drops his support for this scheme.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
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Unknown parent • • •Peter Wang, M.D.
in reply to Blurry Moon • • •