this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025

432 points (99.1% liked)

World News

41131 readers

4690 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

432

US presented Ukraine with a document to access minerals but offered almost nothing (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave to c/world

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Ukrainian officials were advised not to sign a U.S. proposal on accessing rare earth minerals, as it prioritized U.S. interests and lacked security guarantees for Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The document, presented by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassent during a Kyiv visit, was intended as compensation for U.S. aid.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Zelenskyy stressed any agreement must ensure both financial benefits and security for Ukraine amid ongoing Russian aggression, and Ukraine is preparing a counter proposal.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] kreskin 13 points 2 days ago

You only offer such a one sided bad faith deal if you are truly an idiot or if the whole point is to make a show of them refusing the deal. Israel does this to Palestinians all the time for makreting purposes, as another example. The problem with trump is that we dont know if he is truly that stupid or if he has a separate malign intent in doing this. My money is on malign intent.

[–] PugJesus 149 points 4 days ago (15 children)

Trump and the rest of the Putin-bootlickers can go fuck themselves.

May Europe do what the US is apparently no longer willing to, and provide Ukraine the necessary support to defend itself.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

And the people complaining that people who want to support Ukraine against an outside invasion are warmongers can go fuck themselves with a cactus.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] kreskin 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They are going to have to. But the western rules based order is as sickly there as it is everywhere else. Inconvenient laws are just ignored these days by European governments too, so it appears to be just a matter of time. (I hope I'm wrong, for what thats worth)

load more comments (13 replies)

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The agreement was performative. It was always meant to “prove” that Ukraine was not interested in peace, and a reason that Trump is the only one who can “negotiate” on Ukraines behalf.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

So, basically give up being raped by the Russians to being exploited by the Americans. What a good deal, great deal, maybe the best deal in the history of deals!

[–] Jhex 57 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Even if the USA promised total war against Russia until Ukraine is completely free plus 50 years of protection, who would believe a single letter in an agreement with Murica today??

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's not very fair, the US also promised Ukraine protection if they'd removed their nukes in the 90s...

FYI

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory.

[–] Jhex 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well they had been receiving aid against Russia until now...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

After Russia broke the agreement and attacked Ukraine, the US should have stepped in immediately and this entire was would have been prevented. I mean back in 2014 when the Russians took Crimea.

[–] Bloomcole 4 points 3 days ago

They had to run in the middle of the night from their last base in Afghanistan. They are a joke

load more comments (9 replies)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I've known people like this, who just take whatever they want as if they're entitled to it, but never a country. Weird, gives me the same feeling as if it was a person doing it... like, get the hell outta here and go earn your own stuff.

[–] AnUnusualRelic 1 points 1 day ago

They let you do it when you're famous dontchaknow? Or so I've heard.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (4 children)

It’s a much more complicated issue than that. Think of how much we have given to Ukraine to support them. Some semblance of ‘repayment’ is fair. But taking 50% of their mineral wealth is absolutely ridiculous. That is, practically, their security and future.

What good does it do to exacerbate their post war economic crisis? Nothing.

Why are we giving them security now, if we’re going to take 50% of their security afterwards? It’s so fucking backward.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Repayment is not at all what this is about. We are talking about a man who was impeached over demanding Zelenskyy provide political dirt on his opponent in exchange for not disrupting aid shipments.

[–] Valmond 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You said it yourself: given

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

You’re implying that the military aid was “given”, as in: without expectation of repayment?

Yeah, I thought the US saw this as a way to hurt Russia. Isn’t that what we were supposed to be getting out of the deal? Not fucking mineral wealth.

Though, I still don’t think it’s so preposterous for the US to ask for some sort of repayment, for lack of a better word. Just not what the Trump administration is trying to do right now. What they’re asking for is far too consequential.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Even with morals and literal colonialism aside, the US is not in any position to make demands as Europe is more than interested and willing to tide Ukraine over, carry it through this all.

If the US wants to have money then stop donating and start selling instead, see if there's buyers. Simple as that. But then also don't expect to get a cut of the reparations.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It is a person doing it. Just happens to be running the country.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Unfortunately, a lot of people in that country support him, so he's not alone.

[–] xenomor 67 points 4 days ago (4 children)

So, let me know if I understand what the US is proposing. In exchange for getting Russia to agree to only annex a large chunk of the country (for now), Ukraine must cede a huge percentage of its natural resources to the US as payment. Is that about it?

[–] SinningStromgald 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yes. Once the ~~US~~ Trump has a signed agreement for the minerals he signs a treaty for Ukraine giving Russia whatever it wants but let's the ~~US~~ Trump keep the mineral rights.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago

Trump sounds so weak ngl.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 36 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

If Trump and Musk had just waited until some of these deals were inked before trying to plunder the US Treasury, they'd be in a much better position. If they're willing to treat their own people like an ATM, how are any of our allies supposed to take them at their word, or trust that the US is negotiating in good faith? And the notion that foreign aid should be paid for like a utility bill is, I think, a pretty foreign notion to most.

It's wild to me that the super-wealthy are still so insatiably greedy that they're tripping over their own feet here.

[–] homesweethomeMrL 34 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That's because you're thinking of them as people like us instead of sociopaths.

Extreme wealth is a disease.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago

most of us if we had 10 million dollars would just stop working and go out adventuring across the world. billionaires, however, are set onto some sort of arcade game where the number next to their name when they die is the entire point. it's not fun for them. but they have to see the number go up because it's the only source of dopamine in their life

[–] SlopppyEngineer 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A recent study shows a link between workaholics and erosion of moral values.

[–] kreskin 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

workaholics? hrm.

I know a lot of very rich people (I am very not rich). Most of them dont work very hard at all-- they arent workaholics. A small handfull of them worked to some degree when were younger, but mostly they were lucky in the dotcom boom. When you hit a big break like selling your company, your pot of money just starts making more of itself and you can start strutting around like you earned every cent. They uniformly become awful people as well. Fucking each others wives, making truly awful children, enjoying throwing their weight around while pretending to be humble. Its entirely predictable and an obvious pattern. Human nature I think.

[–] SlopppyEngineer 2 points 2 days ago

That was another study. In that, they let people play Monopoly but gave one player an obvious advantage. Double money when passing start, that kind of thing. Of course they won, but when asked why they won they would invariable boast how much better they were than the rest and not mention their advantage. The same thing happens with getting lucky in dot com boom or born wealthy and they see it as just being better.