Zelensky: war in Ukraine can end faster with Trump - can only negotiate from a position of strength - expects Trump to strengthen Ukraine - but by 1799 Logan act can’t discuss until he's president
From what he says Zelensky seems reasonably confident that Trump isn't likely to do what Biden did - to give permissions for various systems - but only after a lot of saying no and then finally yes.
I think he expects Trump to make quick decisions rather than to wait for months and he expects those decisions to be good for Ukraine and to enable his victory plan.
I.e. Zelensky thinks Trump will be easier to work with. He doesn’t have much to go on yet. All he says is he presented his plan and Trump heard what they said and said nothing against the Ukrainian position. But Trump can’t say more because of a 1799 act, the Logan act which forbids a president elect or anyone in the US from negotiating with a foreign power except with the explicit permission of the current president.
So Zelensky can only really negotiate once Trump is inaugurated. He says he will report back to the Ukrainian people after his first meeting with Trump as president.
He seems optimistic because he said:
I emphasize once again with the policy of this team that will now head the White House the war will end faster this is their approach this is their promise to their society and for them it is also very important not only for the sake of Ukraine
[auto translate for я ще раз підкреслюю, що з політикою цієї команди, яка тепер очолюватиме Білий дім, війна закінчиться швидше, це їхній підхід, це їх обіцянка суспільству, і для них це також дуже важливо не лише заради України]
I know Trump makes lots of false promises. But I think this is something that will appeal to him. He will want to negotiate from a position of strength and understands the need for leverage over anyone he bargains with.
It sounds like Zelensky explained it to him in a way that he would understand. Zelensky is very good at finding ways to explain things to appeal to the background of the people he talks to, shown this many times since the war started.
First here is where Zelensky says he has to negotiate from a position of strength.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Zelensky says the war will end FASTER with Trump’s team
Ukraine has never been quite strong enough to negotiate with Putin.
So long as Putin's army is advancing against an enemy he sees as weak and on its own, he will NOT DO ANY GENUINE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
Zelensky says Trump understands Ukraine hs to be strong - but can’t negotiate with Zelensky until he’s president.
QUOTE: Under the conditions that Ukraine is not alone with Russia, that Ukraine is strong.
From
. Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EMBEDDED VIDEO:
Mr President, under what conditions are negotiations between Ukraine and Russia possible?
A. Under the conditions that Ukraine is not alone with Russia, that Ukraine is strong.
What kind of negotiations can be held with just a murderer?
If we are talking to Putin, a murderer, and we are in the conditions in which we are now - not strengthened by some important elements - then I believe this is a losing status of these negotiations for Ukraine right from the start.
This is definitely not about a just end to the war and not about a just peace for Ukraine and the whole world.
So of course there is nothing to do at these negotiations if you are in a weak situation.
END TRANSCRIPT
For anyone who speaks Ukrainian the full interview is here:
The sections are:
01:05 — Congratulations on the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian Radio
03:15 — On preparations for winter
08:55 — On the participation of Iran and North Korea in the war
12:21 — On Trump and the prospect of negotiations
. 20:25 — On the meeting with Trump
25:30 — On the law on mobilization
. 31:00 — On how long the war will last
34:10 — On the Ukrainian Front and desertion
37:30 — On Ukrainian weapons
40:00 — On the situation at the front and the Russian offensive
Here is how Zelensky continues after the section translated by Anton Geraschenko, this now is auto translate:
For me, anyone can be a mediator, but you can't speak abstractly. I'm a mediator. I don't want to give examples of certain countries, so I can't choose one side or the other, neither in unconditional values nor in violations of international law. This cannot be. America must maintain its position of supporting Ukraine because Russia is an aggressor. It has violated our territorial integrity, sovereignty, and international law. This status must remain, and then we must think about this.
This is one of the points. I don't even think about the victory plan. This is one of the points at the entrance, which is very important for any negotiation platform. There must also be elements of our Victory plan, this is strengthening. In fact, we say this is the Victory plan.
Yes, for us, this is a victory. A strong Ukraine in diplomacy or on the battlefield. This is the second question. First, a strong Ukraine. It must be strong for any diplomacy. I want to emphasize this once again, but the United States is not only a potential mediator in negotiations, it is a country that provides huge amounts of assistance to Ukraine.
Interview at: 12:18
Then this is where he talks about his meeting with Trump, says the meeting went well, Trump heard their reasoning and listened and said he supports Ukraine. He says he can’t talk to Trump officially president to president until the inauguration and that he doesn’t want to talk to other people indirectly about what Trump might say.
He says he will meet president to president after inauguration day and then tell the Ukrainian people how it went.
About the meeting with Trump very good meeting really in September positive [we made the argument] absolutely clear from our side … and the Basis on which we stand he heard, against our position I have nothing.
Yes, after the inauguration process, we'll see. After that, I congratulated him on his victory and we also had a good conversation. He said he wants to end the war, but he wants to help and he is on the side of supporting Ukraine. Ukrainians highly appreciate our strength, our integrity and courage. Yes, well, the atmosphere in our conversations so far has been good. Let's see how he is going to get Putin to the negotiating table. As far as we can see, he expresses such confidence that he can do it. I think that Putin doesn't want peace at all, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want to sit down with one of the leaders. Why? Because for him, it's the destruction of the political isolation that was built from the beginning of the war and it's beneficial for him to sit down and talk and not negotiate. I would say that it's beneficial for Putin to drag out the delay.
…
And let's imagine a situation where under some conditions these negotiations became possible, what are our red lines in these negotiations, because there have been many different voices on the part of the Trump team members over the past few months about how these negotiations could end.
….
As the president of Ukraine, I will only talk to the president of the United States of America, with all due respect to any environment, any people, to all advisers, we are, this is our level, the level of presidents. We agreed that we will all work. We agreed that everything must be in accordance with the law. I think that according to American law, they cannot take part in all processes until he has been inaugurated, all geopolitical processes, take part in them and put an end to something. I think that according to the law, he cannot do it yet, because there is no such powers and therefore our teams will work to work out a properly meaningful meeting and therefore honestly about certain lines about how does the United States see it how do we react to their vision
I will be able to tell you to our society and to you as representatives of our society absolutely openly I will be able to tell after the substantive meeting with President Trump when he will be in all his powers as the president who passed the inauguration
At the start of the section . 20:25 — On the meeting with Trump
This is where he tells us the war will end faster under Trump. He says that is their approach to end the war. Not to give them what is needed for some advance or to occupy this or that, not to show that they are very much weakened, but to ensure that the war can end.
I emphasize once again with the policy of this team that will now head the White House the war will end faster this is their approach this is their promise to their society and for them it is also very important not only for the sake of Ukraine I say frankly not only for the sake of Ukraine but for their promises not to give us the opportunity to push us to this not to give us the opportunity to occupy us to this not to show that we are very much weakened and then if now Trump under any conditions does not end this with this or that with these or those then Russia will destroy us not to give this even the opportunity of hints from anyone within the state to have such strength stability and Unity and then we can go this way and really choose what we so need it seems to me these are such tasks
In the middle of the section: . 31:00 — On how long the war will last at at :31:56
This is not just cope after the election. Zelensky has said this all along. So has Boris Johnson.
Most Ukrainians I follow on Twitter said vote for Harris.
But Zelensky didn't. Of course he couldn’t really endorse either candidate since he has to work with whoever is elected. But he has been very positive about Trump, especially since his meeting with him in the USA.
He said that he is sure Trump would come around and support Ukraine. He said whoever wins he was prepared to work with them but he has always said that he thought Trump would support Ukraine.
The context here is that Biden could have ended the war many times by giving Ukraine what it asked for. The only reason he didn't is because of Putin's bluffs. Just words.
But Biden who remembers the Cuban missile crisis as a young man seems very affected by any talk about nukes. He has been seen by the military analysts I follow as very timid, when it comes to Putins’ red lines. Typically the Baltic states or Poland move first - note they are the ones closest to Russia (first of all to send Ukraine air defence in the form of the Stingers). The UK has also often been first to move, or instance first to provide modern tanks or to train the F-16 pilots. Sometimes France. Then it’s the US later, often very late, for instance with the Abrams tanks, then Germany typically last of all.
Biden must know intellectually that there is no way that Russia would really use nukes. But from his actions, he seems more affected by the bluffs than most NATO leaders.
Now nobody in Europe was even discussing doing this back in early spring 2022, when Russia was bombing Mariupol. Poland wanted to send peace keepers to rescue the civilians from the siege. That never happened because of the worries about Putin’s red lines and many civilians died in the bombing of Mariupol, tens of thousands probably with mass graves photographed by satellite after Mariupol fell.
This wasn’t even on the cards back then, when Zelensky was saying “close the skies” with every speech. Nobody was going to give Ukraine anything like as advanced as Patriot air defences not until the winter bombing on Ukrainian infrastructure.
And HiMARS seemed a very major thing to give to Ukraine back then when they ot it secretly at the beginning of the summer.
But of course any NATO country would have access to those on day 1 and far more.
But in some alternative future, suppose Biden had given Ukraine the Patriot air defences and HiMARS for instance early on just after the battle of Kyiv. Then Russia could never have taken Mariupol and the war wouldn't have lasted much longer.
This would have saved tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, maybe even into the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers’ lives and it would have saved Europe and the USA tens of billions of dollars of money.
As the war continues and Russia ramped up in capabilities itself, adapted to the very different conditions of fighting a modern war with a near peer like Ukraine, and its army got more capable. Also both sides innovated in many ways, and what Ukraine needs has also increased.
The attacks on civilian infrastructure in winter of 2023-4 made it vital for Ukraine to have far better air defences.
The very wide mine fields in 2023 made it far harder for any counteroffensive to succeed. Before 2023 Ukraine could do a counteroffensive without much air cover and achieved major counteroffensives in this way in 2022 liberating nearly half the territory it had lost. That became next to impossible in 2023.
Then the drones in 2024 on both sides and the glide bombs completely change the way the war is conducted. Now it is impossible for a soldier or tank to move concealed amongst the trees or for humans to do long range reconnaissance by creeping around in reed beds any more. It is also impossible to hide build ups of forces like Ukraine did in 2022. At least not without drone suppression, Ukraine managed to suppress Russian drones for its Kursk oblast incursion but the main way it succeeded is just that the Russian high command ignored the warnings from the front line about the incursion. They just didn’t believe that Ukraine would do it and so ignored it.
A counteroffensive that would have worked in 2022 or even 2023 wouldn't work in 2024.
But even with all those improvements the NATO equipment from the 1980s remains vastly superior to anything Russia has.
Ukraine has been able to destroy much of Russia’s air defences not only in occupied Ukraine but also deep within Russia now, and Russia only has finite quantities of air defences and continues to lose them faster than they can replace them.
And the 1980s technology ATACMS and the more modern Stormshadow missiles can get through even the most modern of the Russian air defences, the S-500. Ukraine has destroyed several S-500 systems and many of the older S-300 and S-400 systems.
Russia is pretty much defenceless now to the extent that Ukraine has been able to drop small explosives deep within Russia using modified ultralight hobbiest aircraft that fly for hours through Russian airspace without being shot down. And its Black Sea Fleet has been pushed entirely out of Crimea and can only be safe on the far side of the Black Sea out of reach of the ATACMS and Ukraine’s own Neptune Cruise missile.
Meanwhile Ukraine is now developing a missile like ATACMS with a range of 700 km and a shoot and scoot launch system of its own like HiMARS that can fire either those 700 km ballistic missiles or a cruise missile similar to stormshadow but with a longer range too around 700 km. Those ranges likely soon extend to beyond 1000 km. But it will likely not be until summer 2025 that Ukraine has large numbers of those missiles. It says so far it has built 100 of them.
NATO and especially the USA have large stocks of such missiles and far more capable ones already today.
This is what is so frustrating for Ukraine. It is like they are forced to fight with their legs tied together and one hand tied behind their back compared to what any NATO country would have on day 1.
This war would be over tomorrow if Ukraine had the capabilities any NATO country would have at its disposal on day 1.
So it is still possible for Trump to end the war very quickly by giving Zelensky what he wants to force Putin to negotiate. Just because of NATO's vast technological superiority over Russia in conventional warfare.
So it is likely to involve this in some form.
Zelensky himself says that he thinks the war will end faster under Trump. This can only mean that Trump has hinted to him that he will help enable Ukraine's victory plan to negotiate from a position of strength as Zelensky also says that the war can only end if Ukraine is stronger than it is now.
QUOTE STARTS (BBC)
“It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House. This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” Zelensky said in an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne.
He added that Ukraine "must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means".
The situation on the battlefield is difficult, with Russian forces making advances, Zelensky said.
He said US legislation only allows him to meet with Trump after his inauguration in January.
...
When the pair met in New York in September, Trump said he “learned a lot” from the meeting and said he would get the war "resolved very quickly".
Trump has yet to divulge how he intends to end the war.
. Zelensky says Ukraine-Russia war will 'end sooner' with Trump as president
When it says: "US legislation only allows him to meet with Trump after his inauguration in January."
- this is about an ancient law in America from 1799, the Logan act that forbids anyone in the USA from negotiating for the USA with foreign leaders without the explicit permission of the current president to negotiate on his behalf.
Trump wouldn't have permission of Biden to negotiate with Zelensky. on his behalf obviously.
So - Zelensky could in principle meet with Trump if he just exchanged small talk but he couldn't have serious negotiations about the war until after noon of Jan 20th.
It sounds as if he may have had hints from Trump that he would
be willing agree to elements of his Victory plan that Biden wouldn't let him have.
That is also what Boris Johnson thought would happen.
There is no way that Zelensky would be upbeat like that about a surrender plan. So it does sound promising.
Same story on Kyiv Independent with more details from the interview .
QUOTE STARTS (Kyiv Independent)
A necessary condition for negotiations, he [Zelensky] added, is that Ukraine would not be "alone" with Russia, as just speaking with Putin was a "losing position."
He also said that the United States could not take a neutral position as a mediator: "America must maintain the position that Russia is an aggressor, that it has violated our territorial integrity and international law."
Regardless, the war in Ukraine will "end faster" under a Trump administration, Zelensky believes.
Zelensky also said that the country was "grateful" for the aid received, but still has not received half of the weapons allocated by the U.S.
Among its own domestically-produced weapons, the country is currently testing four types of missiles, he said.
Why Ukraine now feels it has to join NATO - only AFTER THE WAR
There is no way that Ukraine can feel safe from Putin now with any agreement short of Ukraine joining NATO. Even security guarantees wouldn't necessarily last a change of leader in the countries that offer it. After all Ukraine got what seemed like watertight security guarantees with the Budapest memorandum. I think Zelensky is wary of short term security guarantees with individual countries like the UK or US that may not translate into action if it is invaded again.
Russia did NOT invade because of NATO expansion - the last country to join NATO with a border with Russia before the war was tiny Estonia in 2004 - and Ukraine was ready to promise never to join NAT
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Shows date that country joined NATO
Date shown for any country that joined after 2000 or borders Russia
Dates in yellow: joined BECAUSE of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Russia did NOT attack Ukraine to prevent expansion of NATO.
These three countries total population just over 6 million don't hae a single fighter jet or tank between them but are safe because they are in NATO.
This map shows why Ukraine wants to join NATO only AFTER THE WAR.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, it had
- Security guarantees to prevent an invasion from the US, UK and Russia
- Russia had already taken Crimea in 2014 but promised not to do that again with the Minsk accords.
- Putin personally promised Macron he would not invade Ukraine.
- Lavrov and Blinken were due to meet to arrange the next peace discussion between Biden and Putin on the day of the invasion
- Ukraine was prepared to promise not to join NATO if it had adequate security guarantees
Russia did NOT join tiny Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which joined NATO in 2004 though they don't have a single fighter jet or tank between the three of them.
Ukraine had a population of nearly 44 million on the day of thre invasion. Even without any soldiers from NATO, it could have prevented the invasion with weapons and defensive equipment any NATO country has on day 1.
It could still end the invasion in days with just NATO's 1980s Tomahawk. Russia would withdraw as it would lose its entire Black Sea fleet and much else in hours if it didn't.
Background graphic from:
Elon Musk is constantly belittling Ukraine. But he is NOT THE PRESIDENT.
Elon Musk isn't Trump's poodle. And Trump isn't Elon Musk's poodle either.
Musk won't be the one talking to Putin and I know he was on the call with Zelensky. But he won't be calling the shots and it is predictable that at some point Musk and Trump will fall out, may very well be over Ukraine though there are many other things they could fall out over.
SECTION Trump will also have the same problem of the first term of a revolving door presidency - Elon Musk won’t be Trump’s poodle for instance
Starlink is only for civilians. The army use Starshield which is administered by the Pentagon.
Elon Musk promised Zelensky on that phone call that he would continue to supply Starlink - but though important, this is only relevant to civilians in Ukraine who need it because normal internet gets interrupted.
Starshield uses the same satellites as Starlink but it also has enhanced capabilities and they are adding other satellites dedicated to Starshield such as with imaging capabilities.
. SpaceX Starshield - Wikipedia
QUOTE STARTS
Starshield will offer a higher level of security than Starlink, featuring "additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements," according to SpaceX's Starshield page.
Starshield spacecraft will also be interoperable with other satellites that are equipped with the laser-communications terminal that Starlink craft use, the page adds.
. SpaceX reveals 'Starshield' satellite project for national security use
And BTW Musk can't ever be president because he wasn't born in the USA.
Why is defence against Russia so expensive for Ukraine? Because it is, or was the second most powerful army in the world and because Ukraine’s allies are reluctant to give it the CONVENTIONAL weapons any NATO country would have on day 1 which could end this war tomorrow
That $60 billion IS ALL FOR DEFENCE and that amount has only partly protected Ukraine.
Ukraine still is being bombed with glide bombs every day that destroy multistory houses with a single bomb, killing many civilians, and still has an army that is advancing slowly street by street in Donbas, demolishing everything as it goes. It is used to defend Ukraine not to enrich Zelensky. The people in the world who most want this war to stop are the Ukrainians. Millions are refugees in other countries and many thousands are dying on the front line fighting Russia.
It is not Ukraine's fault that defence against Russia is so expensive.
Remember Ukraine is defending itself against the second strongest army in the world.
It doesn't come cheap to defend against an enemy with hypersonic missiles, thousands of tanks, millions of shells, hundreds of fighter jets, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and one of the largest fleets in the world in the Black Sea. And remember that because of Putin's bluffs, Ukraine doesn't have access to NATO's most powerful conventional weapons because its allies are afraid that would make it too strong.
The defence would have been far less cost if its allies had given Ukraine the Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-35 figher jets, grey eagle drones etc on day 1. If Ukraine was supported by NATO Russia would never have invaded.
This is why Putin invaded Ukraine which already had dozens of Mig-29 fighter jets, a population of over 40 million, an army with combat experience in Donbas, and dozens of tanks instead of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which don't have a single tank or fighter jet between them and a combined population of just over 6 million.
But the Baltic states are part of NATO and Ukraine is not. The Baltic states have access to all that NATO equipment and a rapid response force of 40,000 from day 1. That is why Russia didn't attack the Baltic states and Kaliningrad remains an enclave on the Baltic sea that can only be supplied by sea or through Lithuania.
This is also why Ukraine wants to join NATO. Not under any pressure from NATO, not because of any top down influence from Zelensky, but because Putin invaded Ukraine already in 2014 when it took Crimea, and they didn't feel safe from Putin. Right up to the day of the invasion, Ukraine and the West were trying to negotiate to stop another invasion and wanted security guarantees.
Ukraine was prepared to promise not to join NATO if they had sufficient security guarantees in some other form to be sure Russia wouldn't do a second Crimea.
But in the middle of those negotiations Putin just sent his tanks over the border without warning and after repeatedly promising he wouldn't.
This is why Ukraine sees no future now except by joining NATO once the war is over. It already had guarantees of military supplies from Russia, the US and UK under the Budapest Memorandum and it sees that vague guarantees are not enough to protect itself from Russia. It will only be safe with a strong security guarantee and the only lasting one that will still be valid a decade from now is to join NATO.
Also Zelensky does NOT benefit personally from this money either. You can compare photos of him before and after the war to see how much he has aged in just 2 years. He has not had an easy 2 years.
Zelensky was a multimillionaire when elected to the presidency, because of his TV role as a very popular comedian in Ukraine, and his wife was even wealthier than him when they married. His wealth is nothing to do with that $60 billion, all those stories are FAKE.
Zelensky has always wanted peace. It is Putin who has never wanted peace. Ukraine needs to be far stronger to achieve peace. And Ukraine does NOT WANT MINSK 3. Because that would just be to surrender.
It is obvious that Trump MUST have promised Ukraine strength enough to force Putin to negotiate.
So far Ukraine has always been the one that Putin sees as being in a weak situation. In that situation all Russia will ever do is dictate terms of surrender. What Russia is doing to Ukraine is AWFUL.
If you were in a country has destroyed ALL your fossil fuel power stations with long distance bombs. If you were facing a winter where your allies are providing thousands of mobile generators to keep going in a country where many rely on electricity to keep warm, and a country that Putin has invaded after breaking several peace agreements already to invade, would you accept his terms of surrender, withdraw all your soldiers from a huge area ceding nearly as much land again as he has already taken, and sign another peace treaty with him? Of course not.
Remember that Ukraine is doing the fighting, there is no way US soldiers will be fighting there. What Boris Johnson thinks is that Trump will give Ukraine all the permissions it wants and help Ukraine negotiate from strength.
NATO’s vast superiority over Russia - F-35 fighter jets with radar cross-section of a supersonic potato - high altitude stealth Gray Eagle drone able to drop ATACMS and Tomahawk cruise missiles with range of 2,400 km - Ukraine gets none of these
Imagine how hard it would be to defend against supersonic potatoes? That is what the Russians would see in their radars if they were fighting a NATO country with F-35s
.
When you look for one of these F-35s on radar …
This is what you see: [large potato]
Russian radar operator (imagined): “What is that on the radar? A supersonic potato?”
Billie Flyn, F-35 test pilot on what it would do in Ukraine.
It would go in and kill every surface-to-air missile threat that was out there, and neutralize all the threats on the ground, and achieve air dominance because it would kill all the air-to-air assets also. Remember: we see them, they don’t see us. It’s like playing football, when one team’s invisible, and the other team is not….
Background photos: rightmost potato from: Potato var. Linda HC1 and F-35 at Edwards
The 4th generation F-35 has a radar cross section of 0.005 square meters or about 7 cm by 7 cm, 2.8 inches by 2.8 inches similar to a large potato. It's like trying to detect supersonic potatoes in flight. The Mig-29 has a cross section of 3 square meters so about the size of a normal door. The F-16c is between the two, 1.2, smaller than a door.
Figures from here: Radar Cross Section (RCS)
Since 2022, Ukraine has been asking for the high altitude stealth Gray Eagle drone which can fly behind the front line and then deliver its “Hellfire” missiles from far too high for Russia to detect them.
But the US won’t send them. Again NATO would have those
.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Ukraine has asked for the high altitude stealth Grey Eagle drone since 2022.
this could drop small precise missiles from an undetectable high alitude of 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) and fly for up to 36 hours, range of 370 km.
Any NATO country has these available from day 1.
Photo: MQ-1C Warrior (2005-08-11)
Details from: General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle
.jpg){kind=link}
The USA are not likely to send Ukraine the veteran 1980s technology Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of over 2,400 kilometers and a payload like the ATACMS.
The US uses these against the Houthi rebels in Yemen for instance.
Any NATO country would have access to these on day 1 but Ukraine’s allies feel they are too powerful for Ukraine.
Ukraine uses similar weapons with a much shorter range against Russia in Crimea (such as the UK Stormshadow and its own Neptune) and Russia is unable to stop them.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Range of the US tomahawk cruise missile with a half ton payload like the ATACMS, travels at nearly 1000 km / hour, range 2,400 km.
Proven ability to get through Russia's S-400 system
With the current state of Russian air defences, teh US could sink the entire Russian Black Sea fleet in a few hours but doesn't give this capability to ukraine.
Details of the missile here: Tomahawk (missile) - Wikipedia
Circle drawn with this free online map circle drawing tool Radius Around a Point on a Map
Russia seems unable even to stop modified microlight hobbyist aircraft loaded with explosives! This is about how Ukraine is using modified ultralights as long range attack drones. Ukraine appears to deploy modified A-22 ultralights as suicide UAVs
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Russia's air defences are so degraded that Ukraine is able to fly ultralights through them without getting shot down.
Replace pilot by explosives and remote control, and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and bomb a Russian oil refinery 1000s of kilometres from Ukraine.
Yet Russia claims FALSELY it can "escalate" and win a war against not just Ukraine but NATO as well. Just bluffs and bulls**t.
Graphic shows the File:Huntair.pathfinder.arp.jpg
Replace pilot and passenger by explosives and remote control and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and head off and bomb a refinery deep in Russia.
Video showing some of the drones attacking oil refineries Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones are trying to disrupt Russia’s energy industry. So far, it’s working | CNN Business Bear in mind that to do this it has flown slowly at about the speed of a fast car over Russia for many hours and not been shot down by air defences or even fighter jets.
If Ukraine had the Tomahawk, then given how vulnerable the Russian warships have been since it sunk the Moskkva, Ukraine could sink the Russian ships anywhere in the Black Sea.
Russia would no longer have a Black Sea fleet the day after Ukraine got the missiles. But the US would be too worried about giving Ukraine that capability.
But even more so none of its airfields or command centers or munitions depots or fuel depots or munitions factories would be safe from Ukraine right up to 2,400 km from the front line.
Myth that only US soldiers in Ukraine could fight Russia back - it isn’t the soldiers they need with a population of 37 million still - what they need is the equipment any US soldier would have had on day 1 of the war
If Biden had given Ukraine everything it wanted in 2022 after the battle of Kyiv, the war would have been over early in 2022.
Russia with its capabilities in Spring 2022 could never have taken Mariupol if Ukraine had just HiMARS and Patriot. Ukraine could have protected Mariupol from bombing with one Patriot air defence system and HiMARS would have destroyed the munitions dumps, fuel dumps etc that Russia relied on and the war would have been over.
This would have saved the US and Europe tens of billions of dollars in support too.
That is what people don’t realize. By giving Ukraine just enough to stop Russia but not enough to fight back in a big way the war gets far more expensive for the US and Europe than if they gave Ukraine what it asks for, even though it costs a little bit more in the near term.
In that alternative history where the US gives Ukraine one Patriot air defence system and HiMARS in early spring 2022 after it lost the battle of Kyiv the war is over before summer starts.
I say this just to help readers understand quite how very superior NATO’s equipment is and to understand why Russia never for a moment has ever considered invading the far weaker three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and LIthunaia.
Now, the more the war continued the more Ukraine needed to keep parity with Russia. If we could send Ukraine’s current military capabilities back in a time machine to even the fall 2022 or even back to summer 2023, the war would be over almost immediately.
But now Ukraine needs far more than it had in 2022 to end the war quickly. And Boris Johnson thinks that once Trump realizes that he can't achieve peace in 24 hours he will just give Ukraine whatever it asks for.
That would end the war quickly and save the USA tens of billions of dollars as well.
The only thing relevant I know of is the Tomahawks, we know this only because of a leak and the victory plan likely has other elements that have not been leaked yet. The Tomahawk for anyone who doesn't know is a cruise missile with a range of 2,400 km, 1980s technology with a conventional payload similar to the ATACMS. It is like a very very long distance stormshadow or ATACMS. Russia's air defences are likely unable to stop it just like it can't stop the ATACMS, and NATO has large numbers of them and any NATO country would have them on day 1.
There are many other things that could help Ukraine but the Tomahawk is the most obvious. Biden doesn't want to give them to Ukraine because he worries it would make Ukraien too powerful, even as a weapon not to use now but just as a way to get Putin to negotiate. Trump believes in negotiating form a position of strength. So he would likely agree with Zelensky there.
In the secret Victory plan they were part of negotiations- Zelensky asked the US to give them to Ukraine with the promise that Ukraine would only deploy them if Russia refused to end its war and de-escalate.
By giving them to Ukraine then they become something that Ukraine uses to achieve negotiations rather than the US threatening to use them.
But the US told him that it was an escalation to do this and so refused.
So Trump must have promised Zelensky something that makes him stronger than Putin to an extent Biden never did.
That is the only thing that makes sense here.
TWEET STARTS
⚡️How to understand Tomahawk messages? This was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House, - Zelenskyi.
"It turns out that there is nothing confidential between the partners," the president said.
Ukraine has already destroyed a third of the Black Sea Fleet without the Tomahawks.
As we’ve seen, if Ukraine had these missiles, the same ones the US uses against Houthis in Yemen, they could sink Russia's entire Black Sea fleet in a few hours since we now know that the Russian air defences can't stop NATO cruise missiles - and it could destroy many high-value targets within 2,400 km of the front line.
It would likely end the war immediately if Ukraine had them.
The Black Sea fleet is very important to Russia historically and culturally as well as militarily.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is of huge national pride to the Russians. Ukraine has already sunk its flagship and a third of its ships with the ATACMS, stormshadows and its own native Neptune but most have retreated out of reach to the far side of the Black Sea.
If Ukaine had the Tomahawk cruise missile it could sink the entire fleet - gone from the Black Sea for the first time since it began in 1783
A major lever for negotiations with Russia from a position of strength.
Black Sea Fleet - just before the start of the Crimean war of 1853-6
Graphic: Ivan Aivazovsky. Black Sea Fleet in the Bay of Theodosia, Crimea, just before the Crimean War
Losing a third of the fleet is something Putin can hide from his people but losing all of it is not something he could hide. He’d be so humiliated his regime would likely be over. Putin would never risk that, so it is a powerful negotiating lever.
Trump understands that to negotiate you need leverage. The tomahawk cruise missile would be strong leverage for Ukraine in any negotiations. And if they are Ukraine’s missiles rather than US missiles it avoids any direct confrontation between world powers, after all the US sells this cruise missile to numerous countries.
The tomahawk cruise missile is just one of numerous military reasons why Russia would never invade any NATO country, even without any nuclear deterrent.
QUOTE STARTS
According to Zelensky, Ukraine requested the missiles on the condition that it would deploy them only if Russia refused to end its war and de-escalate.
"I said that this is a preventive method. I was told that it is an escalation," Zelensky said.
. Zelensky calls out White House over Tomahawk missiles leak — 'it was confidential'
Trump might have hinted that it seemed a good idea or something??
Clearly Zelensky believes that if they had Tomahawks like any NATO country would have - and perhaps other things - that Putin would be in the mood for negotiations.
If Ukraine had tomahawks they would have the capability to sink Russia's entire Black Sea Fleet in hours.
Not for the US to threaten to do that but for Ukraine to threaten to do so.
This is only part of the Victory plan.
If not this it has to be something that says to Putin in the clearest possible terms that it can't possibly win in Ukraine, he can't keep advancing, that this war has to end and end right away.
Trump will not achieve that by just saying to Putin "please stop attacking Ukraine and work out a peace plan with Zelensky". He will just be ignored unless he and Zelensky are talking from a position of strength.
This is the only way to end the war quickly and Biden could have done that at any point in the last two years. I think Trump will likely do something like this soon after he enters office based on what Zelensky has just said.
If not. If it is just talk and nothing to make Ukraine stronger, then Ukraine will just keep fighting, has to. Zelensky won't believe words if that is all Trump gets from Putin, because Putin has broken his promises many times.
So I think if it is genuine as Zelensky thinks it is, it has to be some way to put Ukraine in a very strong bargaining position relative to Putin, it's the only thing that makes sense.
Stoltenberg in an interview with the BBC said that Trump's objection wasn't to NATO in his first term but to NATO countries not fulfilling Obama's requirement to spend 2% of their budget on defence. Now the average spend is above 2% and most of them spend more than 2%. He also says that the US under Trump was first to give Ukraine lethal aid in the form of the Javelin anti-tank missiles which made quite a difference in the first few days of the war.
He also thinks it is possible that Trump may be a better bet for Ukraine.
You can listen to Stoltenberg here
QUOTE STARTS (2:33)
So is Donald Trump a better bet for Ukraine?
Is it true that the Democrats' strategy was not working?
2:33
I will be very careful comparing and also predicting exactly what will happen.
What I can say is that I expect also the new US administration to support Ukraine because it is in the security interest of the United states to ensure that President Putin doesn't succeed in Ukraine.
And last time I worked with him, back the last time he was president, you had to remember that back then after Putin had annexed Crimea and gone into EAstern Donbas, the line, the policy from NATO allies including United States, was not to deliver lethal aid, not to deliver weapons to Ukraine.
It was President Trump who changed that policy and started to deliver weapons to Ukraine including the javelin, the anti tank weapons that proved so decisive, so important, especially at the beginning of the war.
Q. And people forget that don't they?
A. Yes. So I cannot promise or predict exactly what will happen. But I'm only saying that last time actually the Trump administration stepped up their support for Ukraine.
Until then many allies were a bit afraid that delivering weapons to Ukraine was too provocative to Russia, and that we need to, in a way, to try to prevent Russia from being provoked and go further.
The reality is I think that if we had given more weapons to Ukraine earlier we may have prevented the full-scale invasion. because then the cost for Russia to invade would be much higher.
And the other thing I would say, is that President Trump is a man that likes to make deals. He is very open about that.
And of course, to make a deal on Ukraine, there has to be some kind of leverage, and leverage is military support to Ukraine.
WE all want this war to end. Teh problem is that we know that the quickest way to end the war is to lose the war but that will not bring peace. It will bring occupation of Ukraine.
If we want a lasting and a just peace we need to convince Putin that he will not win on the battlefield. He has to sit down and accept a solution where ukraine prevails as a soverign and indpeendent nation.
How do you do that?
By supporting Ukraine militarily.
So we have to increase the cost for Russia. It's for Ukrainians to decide whta is an acceptable solution, what are the conditions for negotiations, and what can be an end game.
It is our responsibility to maximize the likelihood for an outcome where Ukraine continues to be a sovereign, independent state in Europe.
I don't think we can change Putin's mind. His mind, his aim is to control Ukraine.
But I think we can change his calculus.
If the price he has to pay fo rgetting to control Ukraine is too high, then he may be willing to settle for something less, for something where Ukraine prevails.
. Jens Stoltenberg on Uraine and NATO
So he is one of those along with Boris Johnson who expect Trump to go the other way and be fully behind Zelensky after he fails to achieve peace in 24 hours.
Whatever happens there is no way that Russia attacks NATO
This is why Admiral Radakin said that there is no way that Russia attacks NATO.
Admiral Radakin’s main point is that Russia is
more dangerous
but less effective
than they realized before the war started. By preparing in a strong way, they make it impossible for Putin to attack NATO.
See also my quote from General Radakin her
e
Text: The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly.
[Plus bullet points below]
These are some of his points from the speech - just reformatted as bullet-points and slightly rewritten to make it clearer, e.g. repeated the word NATO for clarity.
Any Russian assault or incursion against NATO would prompt an overwhelming response.
NATO can draw on 3.5 million uniformed personnel across the Alliance for reinforcement.
NATO’s combat air forces outnumber Russia’s 3 to 1 –
NATO would quickly establish air superiority.
NATO’s maritime forces would bottle up the Russian Navy in the Barents and the Baltic,
NATO has four times as many ships and three times as many submarines as Russia.
NATO has a
collective GDP twenty times greater than Russia.
total defence budget three-and-a-half times more than Russia AND China combined.
The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly
Putin expected to take between 3 days and 3 weeks.
to subjugate Ukraine’s population.
to take about two thirds of Ukraine’s territory.
to stop Ukraine joining NATO and the EU.
Putin failed in ALL these strategic objectives.
Its Air Force has failed to gain control of the air.
Its Navy has seen 25% of its vessels in the Black Sea sunk or damaged by a country without a Navy and Ukraine’s maritime trade is reaching back to pre-war levels.
Russia’s Army lost nearly 3,000 tanks, nearly 1500 artillery pieces and over 5,000 armoured fighting vehicles.
To pose a realistic threat to NATO’s Eastern flank within the next 2-5 years, Russia will need to
reconstitute her tanks and armoured vehicles,
rebuild her stocks of long-range missiles and artillery munitions and
extract itself from a protracted and difficult war in Ukraine.
[This doesn't mean Russia would attack. This is after the war is over and NATO would always be far stronger than Russia. He means back to how it was in 2022.]
I am not saying that Russia is not dangerous
But at the same time it is also significantly less capable than we anticipated following its disastrous illegal invasion into Ukraine.
And it faces an even stronger straitjacket with the introduction of Finland and Sweden into NATO.
Recent talk of a Britain that is undefended, and an Armed Forces chronically imperilled, is way off the mark.
There are always challenges in running a large organisation that conducts worldwide operations and is as sophisticated as our modern military.
These kinds of challenges apply to militaries everywhere. But
we have the finest people and some of the best equipment.
For longer extracts from his speech:
SHORT DEBUNK: Nothing even remotely resembling a world war situation in Ukraine now or in the future (under World War in the left panel if it doesn’t open to it)
The speech itself is here Chief of the Defence Chatham House Security and Defence Conference 2024 keynote speech
This is a graphic I did comparing Putin to a midget trying to attack a mammoth with soap bubbles:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
NASA, huge and powerful but very timid
Russia knows it can't use nukes in reality
Russia tiny and weak, bluffs as meaningless as soap bubbles
Even the Soviet Union had no way to win a war with nukes
Imagine if your team was invisible - how easily you could win a game of football.
That is how much better NATO's F-35 jets are than anything Russia has.
300+ F-35s (USA), 100+ F-35s (Europe).
Russia's 5th generation fighter jet is not ready for war and may never be (expensive technology to develop).
NATO's technology is vastly superior (one of many ways)
NATO: Population 967 million
[it's 631 million leaving out USA]
Russia: Population 144 million
NATO: 3.5 million soldiers
Russia: 1.32 million soldiers
Ukraine: 900,000 soldiers
US defence spending $883.7 billion, 3% of GDP
NATO European allies $380 billion, 2% of GDP
Russia: $112 billion, 6% of GDP.
Ukraine: $43.23 billion, 22.1% of GDP
Based on this image created by Dall-E via Bing Chat Generated by Microsoft Copilot
American football photo from: US Navy 090608-N-3283P-018 The Yokosuka Seahawks face off against the Yokohama Harbors during the U.S. Forces Japan-American Football league at Yokosuka Field - Wikimedia Commons
Putin head from this graphic flipped Vladimir Putin (2017-01-17)
Details for the figures on the graphic, see: For Russia to attack NATO is like a midget attacking a mammoth with soap bubbles - it can't do it
Or it’s like an ant fighting a mammoth
This includes sections from my draft
.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
There is NO REAL WORLD WAR RISK - or we'd all know what to do
We were ALL sent this in the cold war.
NOBODY is sent it today.
Our governments do NOT assess ANY risk of a world war.
These instructions would save millions of lives in a nuclear war.
If you are outside the epicenter and stay away from the heavy dust that falls from the sky you don't get radiation sickness.
Radioactivity is mostly gone in 2 days, most of what's left in weeks.
When I was a child we all read this and knew what to do.
Now almost nobody knows except older people because we DON'T NEED TO KNOW.
Because there is NO LONGER ANY REAL RISK OF A NUCLEAR WAR.
It's bluffs, clickbait, sensationalism and exaggerations.
Graphic from: Protect and survive : this booklet tells you how to make your home and your family as safe as possible under nuclear attack
See:
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