Chances of Zelensky dying from falling out a window, helicopter crash or shark in his pool just jumped by 50%
I think the chances of Zelensky dying from falling out a window, helicopter crash or shark in his pool just jumped by 50%.
Trump blackmailing Ukraine for are earth minerals would be funny if it weren’t so venal and evil.
The truth is that the rare earth minerals the Ukraine claim to have was an ill advised ruse used by the Ukrainians to try and tempt Trump, unfortunately he was tempted but in a bad way.
This is a case of the Zelensky who cried rare earth mineral.
Gordon Campbell, the most underrated blogger in NZ breaks it down…
One of the odder aspects of Donald Trump’s transactional approach to Ukraine – give us access to your reserves of rare earth minerals, as payback for what we’ve spent in your defence – is that most media coverage has assumed that yeah, that sounds like Trump. Follow the money. The more significant point, as Javier Blas pointed out in a Bloomberg News column, is that Ukraine doesn’t actually have much in the way of rare earth minerals.
This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. As Blas says, the Pentagon had claimed that there were US $1Trillion worth of lithium deposits in Afghanistan, which the Pentagon claimed had the potential to make Afghanistan “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” This was a fantasy. Similarly, the authoritative US Geological Survey shows no rare earth listings for Ukraine, either as reserves, or as mined production figures. China, Vietnam, Burma, Australia, Brazil, Canada – and Greenland ! – do figure prominently.
Ukraine got itself into this fix:
The hype about the Ukrainian rare earths began with Ukrainians themselves. Desperate to find a way to engage Trump, they miscalculated presenting the then-incoming president a “victory plan” in November that talked up — way, way up — the potential of the country’s mineral resources. Soon, they lost control of the narrative.
On Feb. 3, Trump emphatically said the Ukrainians had “very valuable rare earths.” Always keen to be perceived as a dealmaker, he added: “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.” He doubled down a few days later, telling Fox News on Feb. 11 about his talks with Ukrainian officials: “I told them that I want the equivalent like $500 billion worth of rare earth.”
$500 billion? Reportedly, the world’s entire annual production of the 17 rare earth minerals is worth only about $15 billion a year. Ukraine does have some mineral deposits of scandium, and it also earns some money from its mining for titanium and gallium but these mines tend to be located in eastern regions now controlled by Russia. There are tiny rare earth deposits at the Novopoltavske deposit, discovered by the Soviets in 1970 – but as Blas explains, because these cannot be extracted at a commercially viable rate of return, they remain undeveloped today, 50 years after being discovered.
Finally, a document produced in Lithuania and bearing a NATO imprint has been cited – online – as vindicating Trump’s repeated arguments that Ukraine is laden with rare earth minerals. With good reason, Bloomberg News is deeply sceptical:
Although affiliated with the military alliance, bearing its name and logo, the entity [in Lithuania that produced the report] and its counterparts are autonomous bodies outside the command chain. The document is provocative: “Ukraine emerges as a key potential supplier of rare earth metals such as titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium…” The list should ring every alarm. Anyone with a passing knowledge of chemistry knows none of those minerals are rare earths.
Why NATO’s imprint is attached to the report, which appears devoid of basic fact-checking, is beyond comprehension. A spokesperson told me the views reflected those of the author rather than NATO — something the document doesn’t say. The report, uncorrected, is still available online.
But this only highlights the basic problem with fact checking Donald Trump, and his assertions. He’s not much interested in facts and policy details and assumes most of his audience feels likewise. That doesn’t make him stupid. It means he’s really engaged in shifting the American public’s attitudes to Ukraine.
In this case, rather than having the US being seen to be throwing Ukraine to the wolves, he has chosen to portray Ukraine as a greedy ingrate that is hoarding its own wealth while sponging off everyone else. There will always be an audience for that kind of message. It is the foreign policy equivalent of “people on welfare are driving around in Cadillacs” on your tax dollar, friend. In Trumpworld, Ukraine is the welfare queen of geo-politics.
…the whole thing was a bullshit spin that Trump took seriously.
Trump sees a means to exploit Ukraine’s situation by demanding protection money via minerals and Trump’s supposed investment into ‘Ukraine’ actually amounts to investment plans for Ukrainian land that Russia now owns!
So Trump is forcing Zelensky to surrender to Putin while Trump invests into Russia!
What the bloody hell is happening?
Alexander Dugin and Trump’s New Christofascist Regional Super Power Old Word Order:
Alexander Dugin is one of the most influential Russian philosophers when it comes to influencing Putin AND Trump. He argues Russia needs to own the Ukraine to protect Russia and his multipolar arguments that Marco Rubio himself repeated in his Munich speech tell us everything we need to know about how Trump is reverting back to the Old World Order.
Trump sees the cost of being a Global Super power is wasteful and sees the funding of global institutions as a waste of American money. He wants to make America a Regional Super Power, adopting Dugin’s philosophy of multipolar interests.
This means Trump is more focused on forcing Canada to join America, taking Greenland and sexing the Panama Canal. That’s being a Regional Super Power.
He is inviting Putin to have his own Regional Super Power status by gifting him 20% of the Ukraine and making Europe pay more for his largesse to protect them, because ultimately Trump wants to make Putin an ally.
Why? Because in Trump’s warped view of God saving him for a special purpose, he is reuniting the old 3 Romes, including Mar-a-largo as the 4th Rome, taking back Gaza and will join forces with Russia to take out the godless Chinese.
Because that’s really why Trump is buttering up Putin, he believes there is more in common binding them culturally and Religion wise than binds Russia and China.
Amerika + Russia vs China:
The end game of Trump smashing the global status quo by unfunding Americas global obligations for Regional dominance and inviting Russia to do the same is ultimately about Trump making Putin an ally to jointly deal to China.
While America will take Canada, Greenland and Panama as Putin takes 20% of Ukraine, Trump may either shrug if Xi does the same and invades Taiwan or he could make Taiwan the redline and demand Taiwan pay more for their defence.
Trump may well look at China live firing in the Tasman Sea as a reason to send a nuclear ship here.
Zelensky on the other hand has enraged both America and Russia.
No one survives being the target of both the KGB and CIA.
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Zelensky was elected, on the promise that he would implement the Minsk Accords and stop the terrorism against the civilians of Donetsk and Lugansk.
He proceeded to p**s out after the likes of the Azov Battalion threatened to kill him if he carried out what his voters elected him to do, and caused Russia to have to move in to establish protections for the people of the independent republics. Now everyone in Ukraine has very good justification to want him gone.
“Chances of Zelensky dying from falling out a window, helicopter crash or shark in his pool just jumped by 50%”
Martyn, Nafe – Don’t you mean 150%? Perhaps even 200%. Possibly even the bigliest chance in the history of the World, maybe even in the history of the Universe. It’d be great TV though.
Similarly the chances of a Luigi also just increased at least 50%. “We’ll see what happens”
this will not end well for the current US Administration including Musk…. they will all be living in Russia if they get out alive. Amerikkka is a tinderbox about to explode.
Zelensky is no Mr clean, he supports the Israeli IDF butchers for instance.
Trump is stupid and is losing it. Dementia is setting in. After the mid term elections a Democrat congress may impeach Trump on the grounds of insanity! Unfortunately that means that the excremental Vance would take over but he would be a lame duck
Time for Europe to step up, isn’t it?
Right now, there are fifty patients waiting to be seen in Wellington Hospital, the capitals A&E, and it’s not even a Friday or Saturday night when all the drunks and sports injuries roll up. I’d just as soon see our PM fall out a window if thinks this is an acceptable way to treat health challenged Kiwis.
There’s still a 2% chance we’ll be hit by an asteroid. Maybe those withdrawing their kiwisaver now, are the smart ones. With all these hypotheticals being bandied about, now that the Trumpzilla loose cannon has left the launchpad, being one of the more fascist American administrations in recent history, when ironically the original pretext of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was to quel nazi’s. Though I wouldn’t wager that Putin has kept any tally of how many nazi’s have been eliminated, if any. So I think I’ll try some of what you’re smoking, or what Zhi is smoking. For the stars are alligning for China retaking Taiwan, and Zhi knows it. Europe can’t even properly protect Ukraine, and is anyone sure that the current American administration would do much of anything if Taiwan was invaded. China is now closer to Russia, and is gaining allies in the Pacific, and can project naval power into the Tasman sea, and would like to gain Taiwan’s silicon chip industry
NZ could do worse than consider taking a position of neutrality, withdrawing from 5eyes, forbidding companies like Rocket Lab doing military work, and stop companies researching the next generation of weapons, such as Kea Aerospace developing the ultimate drone, a stratospheric solar plane, which if used in war, could give a day and night air superiority observation platform to rain down munitions on battlefield combatants, like Thor himself. https://www.keaaerospace.com
Hopefully Taiwan learns from Zelensky’s predicament. Being USA’s pawn is a thankless task, let alone an extremely damaging one. Still, if a useful idiot ever arises out of Taiwan for the world to focus upon, then yep, we’re off to war and Taiwan becomes the next Ukraine Here’s hoping that Taiwan always remains just Taiwan to us all…..
How is Fascist Ukraine’s brutal crack-down on its millions of Russian-speaking citizens any different to Zionist Israel’s brutal subjugation of the Palestinians? What’s the difference?
How can the world wring its hands when its demands that Israel stop waging a genocide on the Palestinians but condemn Russia for stepping in to stop Ukraine brutally subjugating its Russian-speaking citizens? What’s the difference?
And again, if the US can be excused for demanding, in 1963, that Warsaw Pact missiles be removed from Cuba, why are Russia’s demands that NATO missiles aren’t sited in Ukraine not similarly respected? What’s the difference?
The truth is NATO is a charade disguising US imperialism in Europe, best summed up by its first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, who said NATO’s European purpose was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down, and nothing has changed.
The differences are so huge it is embarrassing you are even attempting to compare them.
250 000 dead in Gaza and WestBank.
How many died during the Ukrainian crack down?
We will wait for you to find 250 000 dead Russian Speaking Ukrainians killed by Ukraine Malcolm – get back to us, we are waiting
And there are now 6500 verifiable cases of war crimes against civilians that are being investigated.