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Ukraine Invasion Day 1,097: Year Four Begins after the first month of King Krasnov's reign [1]
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Date: 2025-02-23
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a coordinated campaign in late 2022 and early 2023 to prevent the emergence of an independent veterans-based civil society in Russia, likely out of fear that veteran groups could threaten the stability of his regime upon their return from Ukraine.
Trump suggested was that Ukraine give the United States half of the revenue it gets from resource extraction, as far as I can tell in perpetuity. Trump suggested that this would amount to $500 billion, although this seems like a wildly exaggerated sum.
In return, Trump offered, well, zero. No additional aid, no security guarantees, no nothing.
Many of us look at Ukraine and see a nation heroically defending freedom against heavy odds, receiving arms and money from the world’s democracies but doing all the fighting and dying — a nation that deserves our deepest gratitude. Trump, however, apparently thinks that America’s past aid — which has been substantial, although Europe has given considerably more — entitles us to strip Ukraine of its wealth.
Some observers have compared the Trump proposal to the reparations the victorious allies demanded from Germany after World War I — a demand that yielded very little money to the victors but enraged the Germans and played a role in the rise of Hitler.
But Trump’s vision reminds me more of old-fashioned imperialism, in which powerful nations tried to seize the wealth of less-powerful nations just because they could. This doesn’t look to me like Weimar Germany in the 1920s; it looks like the Belgian Congo in the late 19th century, a personal possession of King Leopold which he brutally exploited for its rubber and ivory.
Trying to carry out that kind of exploitation in the 21 st century, in a nation that, once again, has been fighting for our freedom, is just depraved. So it seems almost inappropriate to point out that it’s also deeply stupid.
paulkrugman.substack.com/...
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