Putin couldn't be happier by this chaos and distraction from Ukraine. Investment paying off.
I wish people would quit saying this. If Trump was a Russian asset, why would he be seizing Russia's shadow fleet and destroying Russia's influence in Venezuela? Why would the CIA continue to give the Ukrainians targeting information and why are American weapons still flowing to Ukraine via European allies?
Trump is not a Russian agent. He is simply America manifest. He is selfish, narcissistic, and always looking to blame other people for his own failings. Putin may have given Trump a little boost because Putin figured the outcome would be beneficial to him overall, and Trump has a weird submissive man-crush on Putin like he does on any other authoritarian who Trump secretly wishes he could be, but in the end he's not helped Putin and now Putin is irrelevant. This has nothing to do with Putin any more. Russia is a fading regional power on its last dying gasps before China takes it over as a client state.
America is doing this of its own volition. They can't blame everything on Putin.
Trump is not a Russian agent.
But agent of all the world's reactionary oligarchy. Oil sheiks, pharma tycoons, techbros, and of course Russian mobster oligarchy in both business and politics. What flag they fly doesn't matter, it's all about the money. And power. And the ability to control the rest of humanity as chattel.
All having the desire to create their dystopia, end progressivism and diversity as we know it, and wanting to have their money roam anywhere and spend how much they want while the rest of the impoverished suffer further.
Despite some losses in Ukraine, despite embargoes and boycotts, Putin is still feeling like he's winning in the propaganda war that was very long in the making since Khrushchev, as he used all the skillsets he had as a master spy, and years or even months away from excitedly watching the US collapse in the mire of its own hubris.
edit: Can you stop talking about Trump doing this on his fucking own? Bastard got slotted as a candidate to become Iblis of the world by Roy Cohn, and just happened to dovetail with Russian geopolitical interests, specifically Dugin's concept of Russian world order.
You wanna know who's really gonna win this once the dust settles? China, which I'm sure if their idea of a New World Order prevails based on trade (with strings attached), will have dozens of developing countries and even some developed countries under its fold. And that's not a benevolent setup for the future, just yet another Gilded Age but with Xi Jinping characteristics.
Trump is nobody's agent. He is a demented narcissistic psychopath who craves attention and adulation. Since he has no understanding of love or friendship, the only tools he has at his disposal to get it is power and dominance. He wants to be a "winner", which to him means he needs to make everyone else around him "losers." By hurting them, by degrading them, by taking away their trappings of wealth.
There are other people who try to use Trump, because he's very easy to manipulate when you understand him. He has no principles or standards other than those I described, so there's lots of obvious buttons to press. The problem is that none of those buttons stay pressed. Even if Trump had the mental capacity to remember things from day to day it wouldn't matter to him because no deal or position he holds lasts longer than the moment he thinks of some way to get something "better." Trump can be manipulated in the same manner that a handful of mud can be manipulated. It won't stay in the shape you put it in and it's constantly slipping through your fingers.
Putin may think that he's responsible for Trump's actions, but only by coincidence and never in any sort of long-term strategic sense. And the reason Trump is in charge of America is because the Americans wanted him to be.
They aren’t seizing Russia's fleet, they were seizing Venezuela's fleet, the one carrying hard to refine crude oil. They are more interested in the Exxon and Chevron tankers Ukraine continued bombing. Owe a bank 10 bucks, it’s your problem. Owe a bank a million, it’s their problem. Those countries gave their gold and resources to Russia. Now, when they expect to receive support back, the US is giving them an excuse why they don’t need to as long as they perform a bit of false flag theater they are so accustomed to. Russia gets to double dip when the Russian stooges send the last of their gold deposits and wealth to Russia to retire there.
Russia wants to assist Trump while feigning their part as the “enemy”, yet they always manage to work lockstep in the grand scheme of things. So much so, that I expect that when the US does launch an operation against Greenland, they will try to be sneaky about it yet do it with Russia’s help, likely from one of the detachments claiming to be following one of the shadow fleets.
Russia considers its allies temporary and expendable, they’ve sacrificed theirs in negotiations to cooperate with the US to divide up their direct influence into hemispheres. Russia is specially interested in restoring the old USSR borders, but now just any win will do and they are a willing participant to Trump. Getting rid of competitors and letting go of the political baggage of their allies once exhausted is what they do. The regime puppets have already sent all their gold to Russia to try to secure their retirement within their borders. Russia treats its allies like the US is starting to.
Strictly speaking, Trump is not a Russian asset, he's everything you claim him to be, but he also is quite willing to work with Russia and other criminal elements to get himself ahead. Russia is his ally because they have mutual interests and Russia was never in it to build an empire spanning the globe. Iran was not useful against Israel, they've provided all the support they could to Russia, and now they are becoming too costly to maintain because of all the spheres of influence they are in conflict with. Venezuela still has the same regime, if anything one that is even more of a stooge, both to Russia and the US. Those "captured" shadow fleets are just another form of money exchanging hands.
Dictators usually end up turning on each other, but usually after they've run out of prey to play with and have to deal with their own consequences of their own actions. The US still has plenty of momentum in its drive towards fascism, and they will get more out of treating Russia as a shadow false flag ally that reverting back towards the old democratic world order that would condemn his own country's shift towards a dictatorship.
The fantasy that this is all entirely the fault of outside influence gives everyone a nice, comfortable "out" for not having to get involved or feel like they're not doing enough.
They're not doing enough.
Destroying the shadow fleet is something the US military is doing, and I'm sure trump is doing everything he can to drag his feet.
Maduro had outlived his usefulness, he was a liability; by having the US seize control it doesn't substantially reduce Russian influence, since Russia now has a much stronger hold over American politicians than back when Venezuela was a vital proxy.
Destroying the shadow fleet is something the US military is doing, and I'm sure trump is doing everything he can to drag his feet.
Trump has been bragging about seizing those ships. He's not dragging his feet. You really think Trump wouldn't be raging his head off and firing generals left and right if the US military was doing that stuff against his wishes?
by having the US seize control it doesn't substantially reduce Russian influence, since Russia now has a much stronger hold over American politicians than back when Venezuela was a vital proxy.
You're delusional. And I say that as a Canadian who has absolutely no love of America. Venezuela was dependent on Russia for its own defense, America isn't.
Shh. The world is black and white.
Krasnow has earned a special price for that .
A government spokesperson for Germany also confirmed to Reuters that soldiers would be sent to Greenland on Thursday. The country is expected to deploy over a dozen reconnaissance troops, according to the report.
:-/
This feels like the time Poland sent eight soldiers in with the US invasion of Iraq.
These are advance troops that will figure out logistics, where it makes sense to deploy a bigger force. What they need, and infrastructure.
They are also a deterrent, if german soldiers are killed shit will hit the fan.
Often called "tripwire forces" when they were NATO troops stationed in Eastern Europe. Their purpose is to force the adversary to kill some people before it can take any territory, ensuring that they can't simply make it a fait accompli and hope there will be no further repercussions.
I mean, we'll see. But if the US really is serious about taking Greenland by force, you've got a US military base already on the island that's been running these defense calculations for decades. It's going to be an uphill climb just to reach parity with the Americans on securing the territory. I hope this isn't perfunctory, and someone is asking the question "How do we deal with one or more US aircraft carriers?" seriously.
You mean like that time when a Swedish diesel sub bypassed all the defenses and "sunk" the US carrier?
Or that time when Netherlands sub "sunk" one?
Or that time when Australia "sunk" one?
Or that time when Canada "sunk" one?
Those carriers are far from invincible.
The USA is historically bad at wars - Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea - all lost despite their massive military spending.
The only wars they won in modern times are the ones where they received help from their EU NATO allies.
They're only good at "strike and run away" operations, like the one in Venezuela.
If they can't take Greenland overnight, it will cost them very dearly to go to war with NATO, with no certainty of winning.
To add to this, the US is not that great in the Arctic. To occupy Greenland they need boots on the ground, and they are not equipped or manned to do Arctic land operations. EU + Canada surpass them in that. The US only has the one airborne division that are actually cold weather fighters. They also have far fewer ice breakers and the additional units that they were going to buy from Finland (who makes the best ones in the world) will surely be canceled.
Are they going to kill German & French troops to do that? If there are UK troops there then goodbye to hundreds of billions in AUKUS $ too.
Any US carrier strike group can probably sink the entire navy of most countries. This calls for a full NATO response because if it doesn't then I don't know what does
Wasn't it one of the Nordics that 'sunk' an American carried in drills a while back?
It did, and the US considered the outcome so concerning that they requested to lease the submarine (but not install a crew - Swedish sailors would operate it in the US navy). Since those were different times, with only mild insanity among US presidents, Sweden granted the request.
Wikipedia tells us:
Secondment to United States Navy
In 2004, the Swedish government received a request from the United States to lease HSwMS Gotland – Swedish-flagged, commanded and crewed, for one year for use in antisubmarine warfare exercises. The Swedish government granted this request in October 2004, with both navies signing a memorandum of understanding on 21 March 2005.[5][6] The lease was extended for another 12 months in 2006.[7][8][9] In July 2007, HSwMS Gotland departed San Diego for Sweden.[10]
One of? I thought it was several...
Yes, the Swedish diesel electric subs are really quiet and hard to detect in a war game scenario, but that is done with many artificial constraints to the defending CSG, which is tightly packed in a relatively small patch of ocean that the Swedish sub knew and could plan for.
In reality those subs are stealthy only while traveling at 6 knots and the CSG can travel at 30 over vast expanses of water, with an effective strike range of 2000 miles.
Also, in war they're allowed to use high energy sonars that they can't use in a war game because it kills marine animals, which will detect a turd floating 500 miles away (exaggerating here but you get the idea).
It's not about realistically fighting of the US if they decide to really go for it, but they will have to kill European soldiers if they decide to do so. This would effectively end NATO and the transantlantic partnership.
Hi. I have to step in about Polish soldiers :p I don't know what you're referring to but there were 2500 Polish soldiers deployed to Iraq, 150 wounded and 28 dead. That was during very hard economic times for Poland, still recovering from communism. Somehow they found money for this and sent them with really shitty equipment (cars “armoured” with bulletproof vests on the doors as protection for example)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_involvement_in_the_Iraq_War
What? That didn't happen. Poland sent thousands of troops to support the war.
200, in the year of the invasion. It swelled to 2,500 over the next five years, then trickled away into a final withdrawal a month before the Republicans lost the White House in 2008.
There were smaller deployments - Iceland sent 2 soldiers, for instance. But it all paled behind the the US at 150k and UK at 46k. Which goes back to the whole problem with a NATO internal conflict. The US is the backbone of European defense. Again, what do any of these countries plan to do against an aircraft carrier group? Nobody seems to have a serious answer.
Serious question: how will a carrier group fare in arctic ice during winter? Will it be what is needed to hold an Arctic island after showing up all bristly in the summer months?
While the USA’s relatively slim arctic-ready forces are deployed on the Atlantic side of the ice, what will be happening on the pacific side?
An answer: they can take it, but when winter comes, holding it will be difficult. The northern NATO members have notable infantry that can use the ice to advantage, and there are only five or six harbours of interest in Greenland.
It's 13. Germany is sending 13 soldiers. Literally the minimum to be able to say "over a dozen".
Europe finally figuring out that they are about to be fighting a two front war against a fascist invasion.
Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada are sending troops to Greenland
Still no troops for Ukraine.
Sure but Ukraine is not in NATO..
Yeah, pisses me off. The entire defence of Europe falls upon Ukraine's shoulders.
To be fair Greenland belongs to the EU, Ukraine not.
Edit: To be more exact: The people of Greenland belong to the EU, so the EU has a much greater obligation to protect them (in contrast to Ukrainian people).
No, it isn't part of the EU.
It is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which isn't in the EU. Only Denmark, a country within the Kingdom is in the EU.
However, the citizen of Greenland are citizen of Denmark, thus EU citizen.
But you are right that Greenland has a closer relationship with the EU, then Ukraine. And the EU and allies want to protect its citizens at least. And via its member state Denmark, the constituents of Kingdom of Denmark as well.
Edit: To be honest, I have no clue what happens to citizen of Greenland, if US would take over... Would they be EU and US citizen? Would they have to leave? Well... Let's hope that doesn't get answered anytime.
If North Korea can have nukes, Ukraine can have nukes. Every nation in europe should be able to have nukes so long as russia, china, israel, north korea, and america has nukes. Ukraine shoulda kept their nukes, but thats just hindsight. Nato should be giving ukraine nukes, not bodies. Once israel, north korea, russia, america, and china de-nuke (in that order), then we can discuss any further kind of nuclear disarmament. Until that seemingly impossible scenario arises, nuke up, europe.
While it's sad that things have even come to this at all, it's good to hear someone is at least doing the bare minimum to stand up to Trump.
Anyway we are fucked up as Europe. We are digital colony of USA… everything relies on us companies…
Plus NATO was a great way for most countries to relax on military draft and spending... here's the result.
I wouldn't send too many troops to Greenland, Putin's not dead yet.
Churchill once said of the Old World being endangered and hoping for the New World to step into the rescue.
But now, makes me wonder if the Old World could possibly do the same, but feels like a long shot.
It’s funny, most of the time when you hear it, it’s this quote
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Then it stops.
But the next bit is what you’re referring to
And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
I always thought it was odd because it showed the bond we have.
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/