“Ukraine – Russia”

A significant portion of the money the U.S. allocated for Ukraine aid was indeed spent within the U.S., particularly with the military-industrial complex, rather than being directly transferred to Ukraine as cash. Here’s how it breaks down based on available information:

The U.S. has committed substantial aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with Congress approving around $175 billion in emergency funding by mid-2024. This aid includes military, economic, and humanitarian support. However, the military component—channeled through mechanisms like the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI)—is where the connection to the U.S. military-industrial complex becomes clear.

This is a Grok answer.

Europe seeks economic salvation via rearmament.

h/t XC

I am hardly alone among conservatives in stating that I greatly admire Douglas Murray, a fierce opponent of wokeness, defender of Israel, and author of such must-reads as The Strange Death of Europe and The War on the West. And that is why his latest piece in The Spectator, titled “The MAGA Movement is Wrong on Ukraine” is such a disappointment that I felt compelled to respond (the article is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but I have excerpted the key selections below).

“How can the right be so wrong? Or at least portions of the right – especially the American right – when it comes to Ukraine?” Murray asks and then explains.

No one wants Ukraine to fall but those attacking the US should validate their concern by helping pay the bills.

Volodymyr Zelensky will not attend high-level talks between Ukrainian and US negotiators next week but insisted his country is “fully committed” to peace talks.

The Ukrainian leader said that he would visit Saudi Arabia for talks with the Arabian kingdom’s crown prince on Monday but would not stay on for talks with representatives of the US government aimed at ending the war.

“Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of this war. Realistic proposals are on the table,” he said in a statement posted to X.

US President Donald Trump has said he is finding it “more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine” than Russia in attempts to broker peace between the two nations.

The US is “doing very well with Russia”, and “it may be easier dealing with” Moscow than Kyiv, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.

Hours earlier, Trump had said he was “strongly considering” large-scale sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire with Ukraine was reached.

GERMANY THREATENS WAR AGAINST US + RUSSIA⁉️

The German legacy media have the audacity to announce that Europe has to face both USA’s president Trump and Russia as enemies now.

All just to defend Ukraine? Clearly, a much bigger agenda is behind these WWIII ambitions!!! pic.twitter.com/cByXm73apx

— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) March 8, 2025

EU leaders can’t defend their own borders, let alone Ukraine’s.

The last time European states were embarking on rearmament, we were well down the road towards a world war. This time, it’s the war in Ukraine and the unravelling of the Western military alliance that are driving European rearmament. Suddenly, virtually every European head of state has become converted to the virtue of increasing defence spending and boosting the arms industry.

Macron would never risk Paris for Vilnius

He’s not even chancellor yet, but Friedrich Merz already wants to revolutionise European security. In a recent interview on German television, he called for a European nuclear umbrella, with the Federal Republic swapping US protection for the backing of Britain and France. His geopolitical gambit isn’t surprising: the current generation of European political elites has never experienced such a crisis of confidence in the transatlantic relationship, with Donald Trump smashing the certainties they’ve held dear since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Although a ceasefire to stop the killing in Ukraine appeared closer this week after Ukrainian President Zelensky sent President Trump a letter promising to cooperate with his peace efforts, European states are floating several unhelpful proposals that could hurt the peace process.

Zelensky was supposed to sign a deal at the White House last Friday, giving the U.S. access to his country’s rare earth mineral deposits. However, Zelensky’s insistence on first resolving other issues and his rude behavior during an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and Vice President Vance caused him to be booted from the White House and his relationship with Trump to break down.

Within a single week in February, several attacks against enlistment offices and personnel in Ukraine took place, resulting in injuries among both military and civilians. The most striking was the murder of an enlistment officer at a gas station in Poltava Oblast.

A man killed the officer during an attempt to kidnap his acquaintance who had recently been mobilized into the army. The soldier died immediately from the gunshot wounds. Two accomplices were detained later the same day.

“Killing military personnel in the rear is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Mykhailo Drapatyi, commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, wrote on Facebook, reacting to the recent attacks.