“The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”
— President Biden or Dark Brandon
“The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”
Ha there is no way thats a quote…
Biden: No, it’s not. And by the way, I don’t know why you skip over all that’s happened in the meantime. The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated. Number one.
Furthermore, that text in the article links to a fact-check, which says he is right.
What Biden Said: “The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”
The Facts: This is a fair assessment, according to a Reuters report on a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment provided to Congress. The intelligence determined that Russia had 360,000 active military personnel when it invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. By December of last year, 315,000 Russian troops had been either killed or injured in the war—a reduction in troop strength by 87%.
The troop losses are actually replaceable (as tragic as that may be), but the planes, tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and anti-air missiles are not. They have lost thousands of these and literally do not have enough parts to build more.
The troops are replaceable from a military perspective, but I don’t think their mothers hold the same opinion.
They’re not even really replaceable from a military perspective if you’re losing experienced, trained soldiers. Replacing them requires an investment in time, effort, and money.
Of course, as I understand it, Russia just replaces the bodies and doesn’t bother with the training or experience.
“Decimate” means “to reduce by one tenth,” so according to that fact check Biden was vastly understating it.
I call it octodecimation
And whose fault is it that the that deal, the ceasefire for hostages has not been consummated? Is it Hamas or Israel or both?
Biden: Hamas. Hamas could end this tomorrow. Hamas could say (unintelligible) and done period. And, but, and the last offer Israel made was very generous in terms of who they’d be willing to release, what they’d give in return, et cetera. Bibi is under enormous pressure on the hostages, on the hostages, and so he’s prepared to do about anything to get the hostages back.
???
I get it, Hamas is a terrorist organization and are not innocent by any means. But they’re straight up murdering Palestinians and boosting the recruitment rate of Hamas. Blowing people to smithereens usually does not drive them to peaceful options. Its far beyond stopping Hamas at this point. This is nothing but wreckless hate of Palestinians and ravenous hunger for their extinction. Its plain as day.
*reckless
What Israel is doing to Gaza right now is, in fact, extremely wreck-full!
How has nobody corrected me on that in 20 years. Thanks lol
It seems to me what you (and Biden) are saying is that things have progressed to the point where Hamas (and by extension the Palestinian people) are unwilling to reach a peaceful solution.
If that’s the case, what should Israel actually do? What terms should they offer? And what if Hamas rejects those terms? Is there a solution to this problem that actually solves anything?
Obviously Israel must roll over and let itself be genocided as stated in Hamas charter
It’s a good interview. I highly recommend that everyone reads it in full for themselves rather than cherry-picked quotes.
It’s good even though it is a direct transcript, including all the times he says the wrong thing and catches himself. You can tell that he knows what he is talking about, but sometimes his mouth gets out in front of his brain.
I’d love to see Trump sit down for a similar interview with Time, along with a similar transcript, where everything that comes out of his mouth is written down, verbatim. But I don’t think he has the balls for that.
I agree, clearly an intelligent man and a worthwhile read. His take on Ukraine is spot on.
A few of those nonsequitors seem to be related to battling a cold (eg, the comment on his voice) or referring to other aides who are perhaps moving through the room. TIME should do a better job with annotations in these cases, and not just the one time he mixed up Putin and Jinping.
Also, no journalist would ever pose some of these questions to Trump. Values based vs practical base? The man would think you were talking about baseball
Agreed. I thought the bit on “values-based” and “practicals-based” alliances was interesting. Diplomacy is overwhelmingly complex and I’m glad I’m no diplomat, for my own sanity.
We could do worse than having a lil bee representing us.
If only we listened to the bees 😔
