Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Ukraine's position could be better but it also could be a lot worse. The question in play here are if the US will refuse to provide weapons and equipment in return for cold hard money. If the US continues to provide Patriot missiles, air-to-air missiles, ATACMS, HIMARS ammo etc in return for European cash, that situation can be borne, even if US intelligence is cut off. If not, the situation could be a lot more difficult. Ukraine could just run out of the Patriot missiles it needs to target Russian hypersonic and ballistic missiles, and some of the parts it needs to keep its F-16s flying.

French Intelligence's warning this week was stark: if Russia wins a bad peace deal in Ukraine, they estimate a general war between European states and Russia could begin in less than 3 years.

Also this deal requires Russia to withdraw from Sumy and Kharkiv Oblasts in full, including Kupyansk. I consider this "improbable" in the extreme when they're still fighting there.

I think the only way Zelensky seriously considers this deal is if the situation regarding manpower, reserves and Ukrainian assessments of what it can do to hold the line or retake territory is considerably worse than what we were previously hearing. Just a couple of weeks ago, the EU and Ukraine were discussing packages to allow Ukraine to continue fighting for three more years, something that seemed to seriously alarm Russia as they don't have three more years of fighting at this tempo in them. That suggests to me that Ukraine has more fight left in it.

The question is if Trump would really withdraw US support (not great), intelligence (pretty bad) and would also refuse to sell weapons to Ukraine via the new funding programme (extremely bad, just not as bad as if it had happened a year or ago or three years ago). It seems unlikely Trump would turn down billions of dollars of purchases from Europe.

Some suggesting that Rubio is pretty narked off about this plan, which circumvented his office, and he might be bending Trump's ear on it.

Tiste Simeon, on 21 November 2025 - 04:15 PM, said:

He absolutely does not want to, but it sounds like the US is threatening to withdraw military support and intelligence if they do not by next Thursday. Zelensky supporting this deal could spell the end for him politically. Ukrainian civil society I think has a divide on what kind of deal to support and when. European partners are aghast.

It sounds like some European partners, some in Ukraine and even some in the US are trying to pivot to getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire whilst this deal is discussed, and if Russia refuses, to ramp up US sanctions and further support for Ukraine. Trump seemed to suggest he's not averse to that.

Apparently Russia's gold reserves have shrunk from 405 tonnes to 173 tonnes over the course of the war. Russia's Central Bank has been selling it on the sly to help patch Russia's massive budget holes.

A Russian soldier filming scenes of total carnage on the ground. He claims that three Russian battalions have been wiped out in the past week. He also claims that North Koreans are on the ground in Ukraine. Where is unclear; there have been unconfirmed reports they may have been operating in the Sumy salient.

The Polish ambassador has been attacked on the streets of Moscow. He was surrounded and people tried to beat him before he was bundled away.

Russia has conducted heavy bombings on Ternopil and Zaporizhzhia, in the former targeting a block of flats with multiple missiles which killed 25 civilians.

The Ryazan refinery has been attacked again, suffering heavy drone damage.

Türkiye has reaffirmed its support for Ukrainian territorial integrity. Erdogan also dropped in a line of support for the Crimean Tatars, which caused some Russian commentators to get very annoyed.

Lindsey Graham seems to think the new peace plan is a load of BS. He'd been talking about his much-delayed sanctions bill gaining traction just a few days ago, and this blindsided him.

Witkoff has developed a 28-point "peace plan" which was apparently directly created in consultation with Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev. The plan is merely a regurgitation of Russian maximalist demands, with full ceding of the remainder of the Donbas and Crimea, no giving up of territory in Kherson or Zaporizhzhia, removal of long-range weapons, a 50% reduction in the size of the Ukrainian army, reinstatement of Russian as an official state language and reinstatement of the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Apparently the Ukrainians have rejected the plan and replaced it with one they had previously worked out with European support. Witkoff seemed to be taken by surprise by the idea that the Ukrainians might want a say in a peace plant that impacts them, and the Europeans might want a say in what's happening on their continent.