Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by mcv on Friday February 28, 2025 @05:14PM (#43212300)

Nukes don't give Russia infinite resources. Russia's economy is suffering. They've mostly ran out of modern tanks (except for the T-14 which still hasn't seen combat somehow), they're using donkeys for trucks now, their artillery has lost the punch it had two years ago. They're mostly sending demoralized soldiers in deadly human wave assaults, and dropping bombs on cities. That's all they've got left.

Russia has the economy of a medium-sized EU nation. The EU is vastly more powerful. If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win. Only they're divided and unwilling to believe in their strength after 80 years of dependency on the US.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by bloomingkales on Friday February 28, 2025 @05:17PM (#43212339)

This is hopeful news, because we need a leader right now.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by rectang on Friday February 28, 2025 @06:46PM (#43213442)

https://thehill.com/homenews/5170019-european-union-diplomat...

> EU’s top diplomat: ‘The free world needs a new leader’

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by chris_wot on Friday February 28, 2025 @06:08PM (#43212994)

I’ve heard (can’t recall source) that a good proportion of Russia’s nuclear arsenal hasn’t been maintained and is no longer operational.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by mcv on Friday February 28, 2025 @06:28PM (#43213222)

That is absolutely a possibility, but not a certainty, and a very dangerous gamble to make. That said, Europe probably does need its own nuclear deterrent and its own anti-ballistic missile defense.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by etc-hosts on Friday February 28, 2025 @07:29PM (#43213976)

They only need one working nuke out of their 6000. I'm sure at least one of them is operational.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by VectorLock on Saturday March 01, 2025 @10:03AM (#43219899)

If they only have one and they use it, they've effectively solved the Russia problem themselves.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by ioblomov on Friday February 28, 2025 @06:25PM (#43213179)

But is that a game of Russian roulette you'd want to play?

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by actionfromafar on Friday February 28, 2025 @07:02PM (#43213663)

No one wants to play that game. The Russians boast about the nuclear bombs, then suddenly goes quiet.

They were going to use them if Ukraine entered Russian soil!

Then they declared that parts of Ukraine was Russia. Ukraine took back some cities on supposedly "holy Russian soil" and nothing happened.

Then Ukraine took a chunk out of (actually) Russian Kursk. Suddenly no talk of nukes for a while.

What would they do with the nukes? Suicide?

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by labster on Friday February 28, 2025 @08:08PM (#43214343)

The nukes are to help with the Second Coming of Jesus. No, really:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Orthodoxy

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by TylerE on Friday February 28, 2025 @07:35PM (#43214043)

Even if not “operational” you could strap the warhead to a conventional bomb and really ruin a cities next few hundred years.

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by CapricornNoble on Friday February 28, 2025 @09:06PM (#43214833)

>Russia has the economy of a medium-sized EU nation. The EU is vastly more powerful.

This is why GDP is a useless metric. Last year it was reported Russia was manufacturing 3x more artillery shells than the US and whole EU combined.[1] Billion-dollar cosmetics and luxury goods industries don't translate well into battlefield success.

>If the EU wants to, they can give Ukraine everything they need to win.

Except manpower, which Ukraine needs and doesn't have.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery...

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Re:Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting by vanviegen on Saturday March 01, 2025 @10:16AM (#43220048)

> Only they're divided and unwilling to believe in their strength after 80 years of dependency on the US.

And perhaps a tiny bit cautious about escalating a conflict with a neighbouring country that happens to have the world's second largest nuclear arsenal?

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