In an interview with Fox News on March 23, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff discussed negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, expressing his optimism about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to peace.
Witkoff, who brokered the now broken Jan. 15 ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, has become a leading figure in negotiations regarding Russia and Ukraine.
When asked whether he was convinced that Putin was seeking peace, he responded in the affirmative: “I feel that he wants peace,” said Witkoff.
Why would Russia need to militarily take over Europe. They’re just going to wait for Europe to collapse economically, and then exercise influence through political capture. Europeans played themselves, and now the EU will be divvied up by the US and Russia.
I don’t really understand how this pans out like that. The US seems to be tanking its own economy at an alarming rate, Russia is still basically a heavily militarised Italy in terms of its economy. Europe is going to suffer but it seems like the only leverage Russia really has is military and gas reserves (which Europe has since hedged against after the energy price spike) at this point.
If you ask me the whole alliance between Russia and the US is notable mostly because it creates a one-sided nuclear hegemony where they each have significant missile defences and other countries don’t have enough arms to overwhelm those, essentially undermining the MAD idea. But you know that’s not economic, that’s “might is right.”
While the US economy is far from doing well, access to cheap shale energy and a residual industrial base keeps it afloat compared to Europe. It’s also amazing that people are still regurgitating the myth that Russia is merely a gas station with nukes. This lazy analysis ignores Russia’s dominance in tangible material production. Russia is the world’s top exporter of natural gas, second-largest oil producer, largest wheat supplier, a key producers of fertilizers, palladium, and uranium just to name a few things. These aren’t abstract service-sector GDP numbers that form the basis of European economy, they’re the bedrock of global supply chains. When measured by output of physical goods such as energy, food, and metals, Russia’s economy dwarfs Europe, which having deindustrialized itself is left reliant on importing precisely these resources.
Europe’s lack of self-sufficiency is staggering. The EU imports around 60% of its energy and 45% of its food, with entire industries like chemicals and steel now dependent on overpriced US LNG or shaky Middle Eastern supply lines. Sanctions on Russia backfired spectacularly. Europe ended up cutting off cheap gas which led to collapse of the industrial base, spiking energy costs by 300% and leading many of the remaining factories to flee to the US or Asia. Meanwhile, Russia redirected exports to China, India, and the Global South, proving its commodities are indispensable. GDP metrics which count Belgian bureaucracy and Spanish tourism as “growth” are irrelevant to real economic power.
This is where BRICS flips the script. Countries like Hungary and Slovakia are already defying Russian sanctions decrees from EU to secure cheap gas and nuclear deals. BRICS offers these countries an economic lifeline with access to Russian energy, Chinese manufacturing, and a bloc representing 45% of humanity along with 30% of global GDP in purchasing power terms. Why cling to a stagnant EU that enforces austerity and energy poverty when BRICS provides affordable resources, infrastructure investment, and a path out of the dollar-dominated financial system? Hungary and Slovakia aren’t just posturing, they’re hedging against a EU so that they can keep lights on. Once one domino falls, others will follow, unraveling the myth of European unity.
In the end, GDP spreadsheets won’t save Brussels. Material reality is relentless, and either Europeans bow to American demands and decay, or pivots eastward where tangible material development is happening.
Obviously? They’re not able to, and even if they were, the EU economy and population is so much bigger, Russia would become the backwater of its own empire. Why would they want that? The end result would look a lot like the EU admitting Russia.
History shows absolute expansion over different cultures is a self constricting trap. Every now and then a fool tries with different tech and eventually the power bubble bursts and we all got to deal with the rubble.
Rome had an easy start because most of Europe wasn’t fortified yet. Try taking India kingdom by kingdom.
Of course they don’t want to take over Europe. They want their regions in Ukraine and renegotiations on security on whole of their western border and now just not promises of security based on goodwill, because all goodwill between parties have been destroyed because of this war. If they wanted European resources, goods and tech they would just much rather trade for them. It’s much simpler than taking the burden of occupying and administering a fucking unruly European subcontinent! That would btw also get destroyed in the process if they ever tried to take it. Jesus, they don’t even want to take over all of Ukraine for pretty much the same reasons.
They want the Baltics, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, all to be like Hungary, or preferably like Belarus - slave/puppet authoritarian regimes. Finland too, really, but I think that the Finns scare them.
Just a little bit of Europe, as a treat.
Fuck nation states and their divide and conquer bullshit. Solidarity amongst the working class of every country. Fuck these shitters, they do not represent us.
The fact this does even make news after stating clearly prove in what warmongering haze USA and Europe exist.
Alright, so he wants to take all of Europe.
Obviously.
They’ve failed in three years of trying to take half of a country with a smaller GDP than Greece and a long border.
Hilarious of you to keep parroting this myth as both EU and the US have now admitted to funneling hundreds of billions into this proxy war along with countless military equipment from NATO.
k
lol riiiiiight
