Tuomas Tammisto<p>As many others have noted, the <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Trump" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Trump</span></a> and <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Zelensky" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Zelensky</span></a> meeting seemed like an ambush and deliberate on the part of Trump and Vance.</p><p>Why is another question. To get a pretext to cut aid from <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Ukraine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Ukraine</span></a>? Appear tough to US audiences? And as <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://scholar.social/@kerim" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>kerim</span></a></span> put it, to extort Ukraine for resources amd state assets they are privatizing to fund the war. As Friedman notes, with these guys it's about plunder.</p><p>Sure, they are fascists too, but of the variety of <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/fascism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>fascism</span></a> that is ideologically least explicit or coherent, and mainly just reactionary with varying degrees of cleptocracy.</p><p>It is also baffling to see thw Finnish president and defense minister's note that nothing has fundamentally changed... </p><p>Personally, I thought the bilateral DAC agreement with the US was a terrible idea when made while Biden was prez, and now it seems even worse. </p><p>Even a tad of critical of pondering by our govt and president would be nice, but maybe too much to ask.</p><p><a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/UkraineWar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>UkraineWar</span></a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/DAC" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>DAC</span></a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Finland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Finland</span></a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/finpol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>finpol</span></a></p>