War in Ukraine (Previously - Will there be War?)

Lawrence Freedman on peace agreements to end the war.


samf.substack.com/p/irreconcilable-differences?

Sedition, dissent, and treachery.


also, a priest reminding his parishioners of the sixth commandment...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4yv7nv8xlo

Are you suggesting it's false?

8x EU Foreign Ministers have a say:-

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/24/russia-economic-growth-western-sanctions-vladimir-putin-moscow

Well thanks michaelc, an unexpected treat and 40 minutes well spent. First off, the interviewer was great, short questions, lets the guy answer not like UK ones who interrupt all the time, clear line of questioning, the works. What is astonishing are the comments below which I examined during the 2 commercial break. I really hope the type of people who comment on Youtube videos are not representative of the population in general otherwise we are doomed.

Actually Orban is not at all as I was conditioned to expect. I do take the point that someone should be actively exploring a resolution of the conflict beyond hoping that their side 'wins'. I don't agree with Orban about the invincibility of Russia so should he actually start proposing solutions to the conflict I would take them with a grain of salt. But it is possible to believe in him as a mediator in so far as making reports on peoples standpoints. 

The best outcome if this war is that Russia, the aggressor state, takes a beating, has a think and stops exploiting its people as cannon fodder while ruining their small oil based economy. This collapse is closer than Orban thinks. The point the interviewer makes about his own experience as a reporter in Ukraine, that Ukrainians are fighting on their own soil, not to lose their homes, is lost on Orban but the side resisting has the fibre to repel those people who are far from home, lost in the wasteland of someone else's country. There is no equality of right with which Zelenskyy can be forced to the table with Putin as Orban suggests. Orban is whooly about the point about the abrogation of the Minsk agreement but the invasion by Russia, a signatory to that agreement, means there is no value to Putins signature on anything.

He's 'only' been leader of Hungary since 2010 so clearly he won't become 'Diktator Orban' for a few more years  But seriously, that's very the reason you listen to such people - because they are in power not merely 'in office' as so many toadies in the western fold are. (There's every chance, for instance they know of what they speak.) I'm holding my neck in here but reading between the lines you know what I'm suggesting about the alternative style of government available in the West. [You might call it 'MacDemocracy' and like a hamburger it's not good for you, really]

Basically Orban and Hungary are on the very edge of the US sphere of influence and therefore he acts in his own interest and the interest of Hungary rather than whatever the US tells them to do  (like Germany and the UK). Basically although Hungary is part of the EU and NATO they have very strong economic and historical ties to Russia - they are also intelligent enough to realise that threatening the Russians assuming the US will back them up is not a good idea (unlike Estonia). Orban is certainly a smart, independent player on the international scene and has positioned himself as the only person in the EU who can talk to the Russians which is probably going to put him in a very real position of power within the EU when Ukraine collapses under the Russian Assault and the US military industrial complex sets sail for its next war zone *. 


* - which will probably be against some developing nation with natural resources and an army made up of guys with pickup trucks and AK47s