kravietz š¦Sorry, but I disagree with the FT author when he wrote this, and all subsequent chain of thoughts:
What Vance did was to subvert the ideas of freedom, democracy and shared values that have underpinned the western alliance for 80 years.
What #Vance did was to rudely but accurately describing the behaviour of European capitals towards #Russia imperial ambitions over the last decade. Europe not only lost decisiveness, but entirely lost the moral compass - as a reminder, as Russian army invaded #Crimea and #Donbas in 2014, European politicians and media consistently spoke about āpro-Russian separatistsā.
As #Netherlands mourned almost 300 people shot down by Russians in #MH17 in 2014, Berlin negotiated Nord Stream 2 to further pour money into Russian weapons while France sold them thermal imaging for latest weapons systems. And this continued for well over a decade, until Putin attacked. But even in January 2022 Berlin refused UK flights with defensive weapons (!) directed to Germany in a gesture that was just as petty as disgusting.
Then the same capitals consistently blocked supplies of any heavy weapons to Ukraine and cared more about stability of Russia than existence of #Ukraine. Only after a year or so the countries somehow changed their stance and started actually supporting Ukraine, but at a rate that merely allows it to survive and nothing more. There was lots of words, but very little actions.
What Vance said was rude, but I donāt think European leaders left him any options after these 10+ years, and it seem to have worked. If it had worked, it means it was justified.
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