Polish PM Donald Tusk warns that "literally any scenario is possible" and that Europe entered the pre-war era when Russia invaded Ukraine

“War is no longer a concept from the past. It is real, and it started over two years ago. The most worrying thing at the moment is that literally any scenario is possible. We haven’t seen a situation like this since 1945,” Tusk said in an interview with the European media grouping LENA on Friday.

“I know it sounds devastating, especially for the younger generation, but we have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the pre-war era. I’m not exaggerating; it’s becoming clearer every day.”

The former European Council president’s comments came soon after the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war upended an era of peace in Europe and pushed nations into ramping up weapons production.

Tusk further said that no one in Europe would feel safe if Kyiv lost the war.

starman, (edited )
@starman@programming.dev avatar

As former Polish president, Lech Kaczyński, said in 2008:

And we also know very well that today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic States, and then maybe it’s time for my country, Poland!

full text of his speechLadies and Gentlemen! We are here to express total solidarity. We are here the leaders of five countries: Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We are here to take up the fight. For the first time in a long time, our neighbors from the north, and for us also from the north and the east, showed the face we have known for hundreds of years. These neighbors believe that the nations around them should be subject to them. We say no! This country is Russia. This country believes that the old days of the empire that fell less than 20 years ago are coming back. That domination will again be a feature of this region. Well, it won’t be. These times are over once and for all. Not for twenty, thirty or fifty years! We all experienced this dominance at the same time, or in slightly different periods. This is a disaster for all of Europe. It is breaking human characters, it is imposing a foreign system, it is imposing a foreign language. But how is the situation different today from that of many years ago? Today we are here together. Today the world had to react, even if it was reluctant to do so. And we are here to make this world react even more strongly. In particular the European Union and NATO. When I initiated this visit, some people thought that the presidents would be afraid. Nobody was afraid. Everyone came because Central Europe has brave leaders. And I would like to say it not only to you, I would also like to say it to those from our common European Union, that Central Europe, Georgia, that our entire region will count, that we are an entity. And we also know very well that today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic States, and then maybe it’s time for my country, Poland! We were deeply convinced that membership in NATO and the EU would end the period of Russian appetites. It turned out that it was not, that it was a mistake. But we can oppose it if the values on which Europe is supposed to be based have any practical significance. If they are to matter, we must be here, all of Europe must be here. There are four NATO countries here. There is Ukraine, a great country. There is President Sarkozy, currently the President of the European Council, but there should be 27 of them here. We believe that Europe will understand your right to freedom and will also understand its interests. He will understand that without Georgia, Russia will restore its empire, and this is not in anyone’s interest. That’s why we are here!

Topipolous,

He was right in this one, but still a scumbag

rottingleaf,

No, it started when you morons decided that bullies you deal with and even help remain in power (because they are “reasonable” and their opposition is potentially neo-Nazi, communist or something) won’t ever blackmail or even directly hurt you.

And since Turkey is still their ally, I’d say they’ve learned nothing.

I am confident those people (and even some here) think they are very smart politicians, know what they are doing, ends justify the means and all that.

Only they are not, the bullies understand the relationship better and will benefit more from it.

A friendly reminder that EU observers would call Russian elections up to standards (when there were enough mathematical proof that they weren’t and also widespread protests), and people on the Web would defend that saying that if Putin’s “stability” ends, there will be communists or neo-Nazis on top.

Fuck these people.

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Everyone is well aware of Erdogan (also Orban). If we went to war or put sanctions on countries at the first sign of a country being slightly fashy, that’s all the world would ever be and there would be no progress. In the interests of peace we do negoitiate we some dispicable people at times in the hopes that it will change in the future. And yes, we even negotiate with terrorists… there’s currently a huge amounts of negotiations with Hamas happening right now. Because you have to take a balanced view between destroying evil bastards and the cost associated with destroying the evil bastards.

It’s not always clear when we should stop negotiating and start isolating a country for being a little too fashy. And sanctions are a sliding scale, and there were indeed targeted sanctions on Russia before the current war in Ukraine. Obviously this didn’t dissuade Russia from taking things forward.

So what’s the red line where if a country crosses it we should give them the “fuck you” treatment rather than trying to encourage them to do better through diplomatic means? Hungary and Turkey are very very far from that line. Russia? They unilaterally invaded a neighbouring democratic country unprovoked. Yeah they took a big shit on that red line while crossing it. The get the “fuck you” treatment.

rottingleaf,

It doesn’t work like that. Buggery gets you buggered. Everything else is sophistic attempts to justify immoral actions which won’t lead to any positive results (except maybe some direct or indirect bribes to politicians making such decisions).

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

The majority of fascist movements die out and fade away. We just focus on the ones that start invading other countries, because obviously that’s away bigger problem for other countries.

Guys like Erdogan and Orban are a concern (if they weren’t you wouldn’t have even heard their names) and diplomatic efforts are made to prevent those situations from getting worse. Eventually the peoples of Turkey and Hungary will get tired of their shit and the problem will be gone. This is the most likely way things will go.

How many wars against the fascists do you want to be happening simultaneously? Especially considering most of the time such wars aren’t necessary since most fascist movements die off without the need for regime change.

Topipolous,

Just a side note I love how you go all the way to build up an argument around Erdogan & Orban to of course end up mentioning Hamas, but you conveniently ignore to mention the biggest thug of all Netanyahu who is running the craziest fascist state of all Israel. And checking out your post history I know exactly why you didn’t mention them.

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Netanyahu is an asshole. Israel is a democracy, but it has a proportional representation system which opens up scenarios where there’s coalitions with extremists and since all power is in the parties it’s more difficult to remove someone from power. So if Netanyahu’s coalition with the extremists holds, he’ll remain in power… until the next election. Not a good leader, but until the next election the world will need to negotiate with him.

Hamas is an overtly genocidal organization. They are fascist that took power the classic fascist way, win a plurality of the votes then permanently “suspend elections”. They seek to restore ethnicity in the region to the way they were in the history books and are very willing to use violence to accomplish this. So Israel used the strategy of isolate them and wait for their movement to die off in time. In hindsight they should have affected a regime change immediately, but chose the less invasive approach for fascist regimes. So there was a blockade and a fence to contain them until the Palestinian people got tired of their shit and removed them from power. After 17 years of authoritarian rule, Hamas knew their support was fading and with an eminent deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia a big chunk of their funding would likely to get cut off. So on October 7, 2023 they sent their most zealous fighters into villages to murder as many people as they could to start a war, and took hostages to ensure it would be a ground war. Since they are fascists they are good at propaganda, they have used the suffering in the war they started to create international support for them. Given the success of their propaganda campaign and the international support they’ve gotten, the death in destruction will carry over into the next generation and the violence will persist for the foreseeable future.

There will be a ceasefire, and sooner or later Netanyahu will be removed from power. Israel will heal from the events of October 7. Though right of return is a dead issue now, Israelis won’t want Palestinians moving in from Gaza for at least a generation, but in another generation any Palestinians that actually lost land in the conflicts of the past will be long gone. Of course Palestinians can get back some land in the West Bank, but it’s not going to be much.

Given that movements based in hatred always result in destruction there’s no good future for Palestine, whether it becomes a state or not. A very bleak future for Palestinians, but the TikTok crowd doesn’t care, they got their likes and clout by using the suffering of Palestinians for their own profit the same way Hamas does. They’ll move on to the next outrage within days of a ceasefire and forget all about Palestinians. Palestinians will continue to suffer under corrupt and authoritarian leaders. There’s a significant probability that the kind of conflict we’re seeing right now will happen again sometime in the future.

But hey you got to feel self righteous for a few months, that’s what really matters, right?

crispy_kilt,

If only there were some way we could make sure Ukraine is able to make the invaders fuck off.

Oh well. Best continue delivering tiny amounts of outdated hardware with great delay.

nivenkos, (edited )

Europe has donated around ~$150 billion USD (including from member states). That’s almost an entire year’s EU budget, over 20x the ESA’s annual budget (wtf), and over 20x the EU’s 6-year contribution to ITER (double wtf).

The money comes from somewhere and Europe is broke.

The US needs to stop shirking their duty, and send the military in. They are making an absolute fortune off LNG and weapons exports, they should take the responsibility to help.

EDIT: Also rich for Poland to complain about this when they are the biggest leech of EU funds in the Union. It’s absurd that there are only ~9 net contributors to begin with.

Vivarevo,

You dont understand money system tbh

ikka,

The US needs to stop shirking their duty, and send the military in

Bro just casually suggested WWIII

Hamartiogonic,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

Last time it took a while for USA to get involved. History has a bad habit of repeating itself.

barsoap,

That’s almost an entire year’s EU budget

Not to detract from the numbers but the EU budget is tiny, all things considered. For comparison: France and Germany have state budgets of ~1.5 trillion each. The EU doesn’t have a military, very limited police forces (mostly just FRONTEX), it doesn’t run welfare and health systems and the only pensions it pays out are to its own civil servants. A good 130 billion are cohesion funds and agricultural/environmental subsidies, the rest has to get by on 20bn. Which is higher than, but in the same ballpark of, Hamburg’s state budget. Probably lower actually if you include all the brick+mortar and shipping stuff Hamburg owns their turnover doesn’t count towards the state budget.

crispy_kilt, (edited )

Europe isn’t broke, the rich countries are stingy. 150 billion is not much for an economy of 19 trillion - in fact it’s not even 1%

Money is nice, it enables Ukraine to keep paying its public servants, but what they really need is modern military hardware, and lots of it. Europe alone has enough if they just delivered it. The USA with their absolutely massive military not helping at the moment is a prolem too, obviously, but we Europeans can no longer rely on them, as they’re apparently insane enough to elect someone like Trump, who said many times he doesn’t give a shit.

nivenkos,

That 19 trillion isn’t spendable money at all though. Learn the difference between GDP and a budget.

We’re already at high inflation, high interest rates and little to no growth - the situation is extremely precarious in Europe. We could easily end up like Argentina or Turkey.

tormeh,

All of GDP is spendable if the will is there. It’s not at the moment, but let’s see how this decade turns out.

nivenkos,

GDP isn’t state-owned - we aren’t a Communist state (thankfully) - and any attempt to get close to that would destroy the GDP.

tormeh,

All property is potentially subject to government seizure. Just like we’re all military reservists. These things are implicit, and we just hope and pray it won’t come to that. But total war is definitely on the cards this decade, at least for some countries.

maynarkh,

Dude, inflation just got back under control, we’re at like 2.6% annual. Growth was never much different than now, the US is back where it was during the 2010s.

The situation might be precarious, but it’s more because of asset inflation and the related housing inflation, rather than an economy being strained to the brink. And of course the political problems.

TBH the bigger question is whether the EU will find the willingness to help, not the money.

crispy_kilt,

That 19 trillion isn’t spendable money at all though. Learn the difference between GDP and a budget.

You learn being a nice person. Your arrogance and condescension is uncalled for.

Comparing state expenditures as a percentage of GDP is widespread: contributions of EU member states to the EU budget is defined as a percentage of their GDP, as is the NATO defence spending target.

We’re already at high inflation, high interest rates and little to no growth - the situation is extremely precarious in Europe. We could easily end up like Argentina or Turkey.

Nah, not really.

John_McMurray,

Awwww not your feelings.

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

I really like how you took the comment into consideration and added to the conversation instead of just jumping in and trying to start shit.

John_McMurray,

Oh I considered what his comment was worth in context. Fucking near zero just whining.

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

Don’t worry, I’ll listen to your feelings about their comment.

abbadon420,

The comparison to the pre-war stage of ww2 is an obvious one to make. The aggressor is invading and Europe is acting like they’re not at war, again.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

The aggressor is invading and Europe is acting like they’re not at war, again.

The Phoney War wasn’t so much countries pretending that they weren’t at war as it was countries preparing for war. The Axis had started arming themselves sooner; the Allies wanted to have enough time to build up.

whyNotSquirrel,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

so it’s worse now?

gravitas_deficiency,

Arguably, yes, because it seems like everyone analogous to the Allies this time around can’t agree on anything and are simultaneously having to deal with a lot of hostile propaganda/manipulation, up to and including quisling politicians in our governments (sometimes entire governments, really) and hostile foreign service agents.

TL;DR: we’ve learned nothing

fuckingkangaroos,

To be fair, back then they didn’t have to also contend with hostile propaganda saturating their political discourse like we have on social media.

phoneymouse,

Instead, Europe initially leaned in to becoming more dependent on the aggressor for natural gas.

FatLegTed, (edited )
@FatLegTed@piefed.social avatar

Exactly. Further to the 'pre-war' comment, I'd suggest it started when they took Crimea. I think they were warming up with Chechnya and Georgia.

Meanwhile our politicians bicker and squabble about what toilets people should be using.

whyNotSquirrel,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

Toilets? Can’t be real right?

Tar_alcaran,

www.google.com/search?q=trans+bathroom

whyNotSquirrel,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

ohhh in this way, I get it now, I thought they were debating on the object, eg mandatories bidet or whatsoever

but yeah it’s still quite stupid. Not the subject but why would you separate the toilet by gender in the first place

SpaceCowboy,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Trump also complains a lot about how many times he needs to flush the toilet. I wish that was a joke.

Tar_alcaran,

Would you be surprised to learn that the answer is sexism?

time.com/…/history-sex-segregated-bathrooms/

whyNotSquirrel,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

interesting reading thanks! Which confirms the stupidity of separated bathrooms

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