I had hoped for significantly more:
https://x.com/pcfrolich/status/1897685845756244297
It is still a lot, but certain people and parties are blocking the Big Increase than many Norwegian parliamentarians have been asking for. This is still a more than a doubling of previously promised aid in 2025 (from 35 bil nok to 85 bil nok). But I am still very unhappy.
For context, that is in 2025 over 3x what the US has provided per capita since the beginning.
I know, but it still grinds on me.
Certain parliamenterians (particularly former finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum) have been doing their best to limit the increase, not because they donāt want to aid Ukraine, but because they donāt want Norway to donate more than the Big States (in total, not per capita, as we already donate a lot indeed per capita).
2 angles on this: Fear of Russia (they donāt want us to stick out) and self interest in that they argue that if we donate much more, others will definately donate less and we are responsible for the Norwegian people and ladida.
And I can agree that a 1000 billions nok is maybe too much and an astronomical sum. That is fair, but it could have been certainly much more than this, without rocking the Norwegian economy.
That having been said, Vedum was in favour of this increase, he is hardly āantiā, he is just in the āwe should not spend dramatically more than anyone elseā club.
The āitās not a competition peopleā cannot just ignore that Denmark AND Finland, are giving more per GDP. Denmark does not border RU, but Finland absolutely does and they do not have our Sovreign Wealth Fund.
Ok, bullshit warning! Iām only posting this so people can see what twisted logic supporters of the invasion use in the West. This was posted by a friend of mine who i have previously described as a ātankieā. I fear our friendship is on the rocks 
"Many people were understandably appalled at the Oval Office row involving Trump and Zelensky. It was indeed unedifying and appeared to be a form of bullying of President Zelensky by Trump and his lapdog JD Vance.
However, peopleās understandable loathing of Trump, which I share, should not blind them to the background and realpolitik to this public spat which lies in the long and murky history of US involvement in Ukraine.
While Trump is a boorish, arrogant oaf, his statement that President Zelensky wouldnāt be āsuch a tough guy without US supportā is essentially correct. You donāt have to like the messenger to accept the factual basis of the message.
Zelensky has never held āthe cardsā- as Trump put it - in this war. Ukraine was never an independent actor in this conflict. The real movers and shakers have always been in Washington, Moscow and Brussels.
The reality also is that many western supporters of continued war in Ukraine take a simplistic, ill-informed view on the background to the conflict which, to be frank about it, is the result of a diet of Russophobia which people in this part of the world have basically been reared on.
The truth is that the long histories of Ukraine and Russia are inextricably linked. They have been for 1,000 years. Ukraineās capital was the heart of Kievan Rus and laid the foundations for the Russian nation.
Despite huge efforts in the west to portray Ukraine as an oppressed nation, that caricature is disputed by many. For instance, the most obvious problem with this analysis is that Ukraine was an integral part of the old Russian Empire.
Even during the Soviet era, Ukraine was a central player in the USSR. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was himself Ukrainian.
What is also true, of course is that the Ukrainian people suffered horrifically during the period of the Holodomor, which some historians believe was a man made famine engineered purposely by Stalin.
Saying any of the foregoing does not make one an admirer of Putin, who is a brutal authoritatian. It is merely to understand the history of the region.
When the USSR collapsed, Ukraine became independent and thatās when things get more complicated.
The United States and NATO gave explicit assurances to the world that in the post Soviet period, NATO would not expand āone inch eastward." It wasnāt long before this solemn commitment was torn up.
Western intelligence and political interests began meddling in the internal politics of Ukraine. So too did Russia.
In 2014, what many people describe, fairly accurately as āa coupā overthrew a democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, because he rejected an EU trade deal.
The hidden hand of the US and the CIA was exposed - when officials like Victoria Nuland were heard on a leaked phonecall, handpicking Ukraineās next government before Yanukovych had even departed.
Anti-government protests at this time were anything but peaceful. They included self-declared, neo-Nazi organisations.
Western and Kiev backed groups supported bans on the Russian language, and people in the east of the country who identified with Russia were brutally attacked.
In this atmosphere, Crimea voted to return to Russia. Groups in Donbass also voted to secede.
Russia was clearly interfering in Ukraine at this time also. We all remember the ālittle green menā, who were clearly Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil.
However, it is also a fact that Kiev attacked their own people, shelling civilians for eight years, and there wasnāt a peep out of the bleeding heart liberals in the west.
It should also be remembered that Ukraine suffers hugely from corruption, with oligarchs funding political parties in their own self interest. It cannot be compared to any liberal democracy in Western Europe.
By 2022 NATO countries had funnelled millions of weapons and money into Ukraine. So, with NATO on its doorstep, in contravention of previous assurances; with Russian identifying communities being attacked; and the prospect of Ukraine becoming a base for NATO nuclear weapons - Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Russian invasion was wrong. It was illegal under international law. Like all invasions it was brutal.
But let nobody pretend that the US or other western powers would not do the same in similar circumstances. If you believe that - I have some magic beans to sell you!
Saying any of this does not make one an admirer of Putin. It merely means you recognise the truth.
And the truth is that Ukraine has been used as a pawn in geopolitical scheming for years, and it still is.
With President Zelenskyy being abandoned by his previous sponsors - Washington, Ukraine has now effectively lost the war.
There is no way that the Brits, France or the EU can fill the role played by Washington. They have neither the military capability nor the money.
But what Britain, France and others now wish to do is to greatly militarise Europe. They are seeking to keep up the fantasy that Russia can be defeated by Ukraine on the battlefield. This is utterly delusional.
If they werenāt able to defeat Russia with the backing of the most powerful military and economy in the world, how on earth can they do it without them?
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are dragging kids and old men off the streets to force them to the frontline in an unwinnable war.
Itās disgusting. Itās shameful. Itās a waste of human lives. And people in Ireland need to stop cheering it on.
Why should Ireland care about any of this at all? Well, because influential forces in this country are seeking very explicitly to drag us into the vortex of a new European militarism.
For a start, the British have announced that they will manufacture their weapons of destruction for Ukraine on the island of Ireland - in a city that itself has only recently emerged into peace from a decades long conflict. This is an obscenity!
The British have no money for struggling pensioners, or for their crumbling health service but have plenty of money for weapons of war.
Meanwhile, in the South the opinion writers, the columnists and the editors have been working overtime to end Irelandās longstanding policy of military neutrality.
The first step in this process will be the Fianna FĆ”il/Fine Gael governmentās attempt to remove the Triple Lock regarding the deployment of Irish troops overseas.
The insidious campaign to chip away at Irish neutrality must be strongly opposed. The Irish people highly value our neutrality, our record of peacekeeping and our long anti-colonial history.
Meanwhile the efforts to flood Ukraine with more weapons of war and to escalate the conflict must be replaced with efforts to broker a ceasefire and serious negotiations towards a lasting peace."
I have literally read the same from pseudo-intellectuals countless of times before. But thank you for posting it. I suppose I could have posted something similar, but I just discard the tankie-logic on the basis of it being ignorant and knee-jerk.
Cheers for posting !
The worst part about the pseudo-intellectuals Magnus eloquently put it, is that facts are very selective and cherry-picked.
There is zero agreement regarding NATO expansion. The US secretly of state, providing verbal assurances to the USSR is a weak argument. He did not speak for NATO, his statement was not formal US policy. It was not even written down. Even Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that no written agreement restricted NATOās expansion. That the focus was on Germany (not Eastern Europe). However the final agreement with respect to Germany had no clauses related to NATO.
The contrast to this however is the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Which places a legal binding security guarantee to protect Ukraine.
Obviously Russia has broken this, however I would argue that now the US is also breaking it.
They hang a lot on as conversation (as Corbyn also does), but ignore binding agreements between nations ā¦
The other aspect, is how that article describes how the democratic leader was overthrown by CIA ā¦ lets just ignore Russias political interference, you would have thought it was at least worth mentioning electron fraud, orange revolution, and that Russia poisoned Viktor Yushchenkoā¦
Except that the evidence doesnāt even show thatā¦
@Magnus are there any companies that can step in to replace those capabilities?
What they are effectively saying is: āYeah, the invasion is illegal, but Russia is justified. Can you really blame Russia if Ukraine wants to join NATO?ā
Itās a reflex argument trotted out a lot by people who are fundamentally opposed to the West. They are prepared to go to any length to demonize the West and absolve whoever is opposing it no matter what.
It is infuriating, dishonest and stupid.
I think there is Planetlabs. I donāt think they use the same satelite. But i will have to read up. I donāt honestly know without checking.
You know, you could do a version of this with Ireland and Englandā¦
Exactly my thoughts.
If Ireland was united and England invaded it in order to protect the Ulster Unionists it would be a very similar situation.
Also, when he says Ukraine was part of the USSR, Ireland was part of Britain and part of the Empire.
The combination of closeness and distance is also common to both instances.