The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Big_Zucchini]

It is not.
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This is not a representative graph. It only shows local monetary value of donations, but it fails to deduct Europe's energy imports from the total. Which if adjusted to PPP differences between Europe and Russia, would certainly put Europe in the negative.

Factors that negate Europe's aid:

1. Russian PPP is much higher due to lower labor costs, access to local natural resources.
2. European aid is calculated in monetary value to Europe, not Ukraine. That Leopard 1 costs $20-30 million to replace with a Leopard 2A8, but a Leopard 1 isn't worth $20-30 million to Ukraine.
3. European war materiel production costs are the world's highest due to bad defense-MIC synergy and decades long disarmament.

 

[Fredled]

The Trump Zelensky meeting at the Oval Office was the most incredible event I have seen in my entire life.
Everything went very well, even friendly. Then, for no apparent reason, JD Vance suddenly started to show anger at Zelensky, and Trump, following up on what JD was saying, almost yelled at the Ukrainian president. Poor Zelensky didn't understand what happened.
It's unbelievable how fast JD Vance and Trump fell offensed. Zelensky didn't say anything wrong, IMO. The US president and vice-president behaved in non professional and overly emotional manner. The signature of the agreement was canceled and Zelensky asked to leave early. They callapsed the talks in a matter of seconds.
It started when Zelensky said that the US will feel the effect of the war in Ukraine. Zelensky didn't express his idea properly and Trump interpreted it in a wrong way.

Zelensky has dramatically improved his English. He is now able to make long sentences and understand most of the time, but not always. Yet, language barriers and custom differences shouldn't lead to the collapse of a conversation at such level. They should have at least consulted their aides to fix the misunderstanding before cancelling all further events.
The state of the US leadership is extremely worrying.

 

[Feanor]

It is not.
View attachment 52383

Only if you count the EU as a whole. As a country the US has provided more than any other. It's also an awkward and I suspect dishonest way to show the data. Instead of an increasing total what would this chart look like with deliveries by month? That cheerful upward trend would be gone revealing a far less pleasant reality.