By Paul Wallis
February 23, 2025
DIGITAL JOURNAL
Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. — © AFP Pedro Pardo
Pick a subject, then digress to fill in the vast selective spaces created by your lack of knowledge and understanding of that subject. That’s usually the case with the US and Russian “negotiations” over Ukraine and the Ukraine war in general.
As diplomacy, it’s abysmal. Without including Ukraine, there can be no negotiations and no peace. Yet, from the shamelessly biased coverage and bot-based social media, you’d think Ukraine was just a spectator.
Let’s clarify:
Ukraine is an internationally recognized sovereign nation.
Ukraine cannot be and is not in any way bound by any agreement between third parties.
Negotiations between the US and Russia have achieved precisely nothing. Zip. Nada. Nil.
That’s all there is to it.
So far from being a neutral third party, the US is acting like a Russian employee. A pretty inept employee at that. A barely recognizable America is “helping” a dilapidated Russia to achieve nothing.
Russia hasn’t had a lot of success proving that Ukraine isn’t a sovereign nation. The 2014 “borders” created by sheepish Western acceptance of Russia’s illegal land grabs have barely moved.
Trump may or may not have noticed that.
He also may or may not have noticed that he’s not the president of any other country. He’s all yours, America.
The rest of the world, however, has noticed.
The situation on the ground is, to put it mildly, unambiguous.
Russia is not exactly in a position of strength. It’s in roughly the same position as America would be fighting a three-year war with Mexico and losing as badly as Russia has.
Ukraine has huge mineral resources and some coal mines are still operating despite Russia's invasion but huge investment will be needed to reach its rare earths. — © AFP Pedro Pardo
Pick a subject, then digress to fill in the vast selective spaces created by your lack of knowledge and understanding of that subject. That’s usually the case with the US and Russian “negotiations” over Ukraine and the Ukraine war in general.
As diplomacy, it’s abysmal. Without including Ukraine, there can be no negotiations and no peace. Yet, from the shamelessly biased coverage and bot-based social media, you’d think Ukraine was just a spectator.
Let’s clarify:
Ukraine is an internationally recognized sovereign nation.
Ukraine cannot be and is not in any way bound by any agreement between third parties.
Negotiations between the US and Russia have achieved precisely nothing. Zip. Nada. Nil.
That’s all there is to it.
So far from being a neutral third party, the US is acting like a Russian employee. A pretty inept employee at that. A barely recognizable America is “helping” a dilapidated Russia to achieve nothing.
Russia hasn’t had a lot of success proving that Ukraine isn’t a sovereign nation. The 2014 “borders” created by sheepish Western acceptance of Russia’s illegal land grabs have barely moved.
Trump may or may not have noticed that.
He also may or may not have noticed that he’s not the president of any other country. He’s all yours, America.
The rest of the world, however, has noticed.
The situation on the ground is, to put it mildly, unambiguous.
Russia is not exactly in a position of strength. It’s in roughly the same position as America would be fighting a three-year war with Mexico and losing as badly as Russia has.
Ukraine: reserves of critical raw materials. — © AFP
The tales of Russian military dysfunction are turning into an encyclopedia. Even Russian arms exports have dried up due to the Ukraine debacle. A “massive Russian bombardment” last night ended up as a rather brief and unimpressive statistical analysis, not a military achievement of any kind.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the US involvement is merely insulting to Ukraine and embarrassing to the US. The strategically suicidal babble about rare earths has also failed spectacularly. Why would Ukraine give valuable assets to a third party very obviously acting for its enemy and against its best interests?
I’m a trained negotiator. I’ve conducted successful commercial negotiations.
Negotiators are specifically not trained to propose absurdly unworkable non-negotiable scenarios to resolve disputes.
They are also for some reason not trained to pretend they’ve achieved something when they very obviously haven’t.
Yet that seems to be all that’s happening on the US side. These “negotiations” may as well have never happened.
_______________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
The tales of Russian military dysfunction are turning into an encyclopedia. Even Russian arms exports have dried up due to the Ukraine debacle. A “massive Russian bombardment” last night ended up as a rather brief and unimpressive statistical analysis, not a military achievement of any kind.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the US involvement is merely insulting to Ukraine and embarrassing to the US. The strategically suicidal babble about rare earths has also failed spectacularly. Why would Ukraine give valuable assets to a third party very obviously acting for its enemy and against its best interests?
I’m a trained negotiator. I’ve conducted successful commercial negotiations.
Negotiators are specifically not trained to propose absurdly unworkable non-negotiable scenarios to resolve disputes.
They are also for some reason not trained to pretend they’ve achieved something when they very obviously haven’t.
Yet that seems to be all that’s happening on the US side. These “negotiations” may as well have never happened.
_______________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
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