US and Russia to ‘normalise’ relationship

18 comments

1. SS:

   US and Russia high level official met today to purportedly discuss Ukraine peace. However it emerged at the press conference that much of the subject matter of the meeting was to start normalising ties between Russia and US both politically and economically.

   US moving away from EU allies and starting a new partnership with Russia is not surprising under Trump but still a geopolitical major shift away from US historical values.

   How do you see this development?

2. Does it mean us would revert sanctions?

3. Is this John Moronscheimer’s “We need Russia as allies to fight China” dumbassery raising its ugly head?

4. This is expected. They can’t do intensive negotiations with the weak diplomatic corps currently present in both countries. They must normalise first before talks begin on ceasefire or peace deals.

   Rubio vs Lavrov is too high level for the technical details. It will be Witkoff and some Russian diplomat hammering it out for weeks before the big men show up for the ceremony.

5. Europe will be nuts if they don’t start growing their relationship with China, India and Brazil.

6. By US and British standards, invading other countries is a completely normal thing to do. Not sure why Russia should be treated any differently.

   Edit: [https://kottke.org/12/11/britain-has-invaded-all-but-22-countries](https://kottke.org/12/11/britain-has-invaded-all-but-22-countries)

7. Basically Trump and the US is green lighting war of conquest. One state can annex part of all of another state’s territory, completely wreck civilian infrastructure, level cities and kill thousands of civilians, safe in the knowledge that within about 3 years all is well again and you can be reinstated into the global order.

8. So the war is over, business returns to normal

9. “Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.” From George Orwell “1984”

10. I suspect the US is going to force elections in Ukraine and remove Zelensky before a deal is signed.

    They will try to get a pro-Russian president elected and get him to sign the deal.

11. Trump to buy Russia

12. What concessions is Russia making in this negotiation?

13. Means nothing besides the US weakening its global role if the Ukraines refuse to accede to the outcome + Europeans are serious about stepping up (which they seem to be waking up with the 700bn+ defense bill in the works

14. russia has zero to offer… they are broken financially and militarily… other than dirt on trump why would the u.s be doing this?

15. So trump is pulling a Hillary Clinton here and trying another “reset”? I wonder if they’re going to give him a big red button too.

16. Why does the Trump administration think the US has to concede anything? It’s not being harmed by the war at all. Sure, it is spending money on Ukraine, but it’s earning that back enormously in increased profits from energy exports.

17. Obama reset but dumber.

18. This all looks insane, but I am trying to think rationally a give it an explanation.

    The only reason I can think about for this move, is that the USA are trying to distance Russia a little bit from China, which is the ultimate USA rival.

    The USA may fear that a Russian collapse would lead to what is essentially a takeover of the country by the Chinese. China with Russia as a puppet would be very strong, as they would have more people and more natural resources than the US.

    On the other hand forcing the EU to grow balls (and military), may turn out useful later. They are going for a “divide et impera” strategy with the EU as each individual country is no match for the USA and it’s probably easy to bring them back to on the USA side in the future, unless something really bad happens.

    If all goes well for the USA, they end up with a neutral Russia and still with the support of Europe and Canada.

    However, I’m probably overthinking it and Trump is just an insane evil man.

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