Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted his European allies Thursday for what he portrayed as the continent’s slow, fragmented and inadequate response to Russia’s invasion nearly four years ago and its continued international aggression.
Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskyy listed a litany of grievances and criticisms of Europe that he said have left Ukraine at the mercy of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid an ongoing U.S. push for a peace settlement.
It’s infuriating that in any way the West stumbles is always a win in Putin’s eyes.
"A year has passed. And nothing has changed. We are still in a situation where I must say the same words again,” Zelenskyy said.
True and false at the same time. Taken separately, a lot of things have changed. Dozens of prototypes have become experimental products and are being used. E.g. factory A opened, factory B got furnished and is doing test production, factory C is being built, with the understanding that it will give production in 2027. That helps, if you know “I will get a shiny new thingy in 2027”, you can donate your old thingy in 2026 (but the old thingy could be obsolete already).
But he’s right about attitudes. Attitudes in many offices are complacent. Things are not taken seriously, people are stuck in their routine and helpless.
I would like to deny, but I’ve had a chance to observe first hand. An office which you’d expect to respond to queries fast, responded slower than moss grows. An office which you’d expect to be constructive and help find a way to legally reserve airspace kept playing table tennis with applications until threatened with civil disobedience. Conditions for a project competition which you’d hope to accommodate agile development turned out to be a bureaucratic jumble in which you can’t even sign an application due to severe limitations. I’ve heard credible stories of drone developers in Eastern Europe driving hundreds of kilometers to Ukraine to test (or testing illegally) because at home, things are overregulated. It’s a recipe for falling behind.
On the grand scale, politicians are also relatively passive and not very resourceful. It was sad to watch the situation involving frozen Russian funds. There was a way to help and intervene effectively, but politicians were too risk-averse to use it.
And he is not wrong. European support can be adequately described as Too little too late
US support was too little too late. Biden was a failure across the board.
You’re not wrong, but it wasn’t just him. It was a group effort.
That is true. Everyone was letting Biden take the lead, somehow thinking he knew what he was doing though.
Europe has a lot of talk.
Europe just loves to shit talk the US at every opportunity, yet consistently underfunds their share of NATO. This is a European conflict yet all European leaders do is talk. Of course their defense spending is woefully small, they just rely on the US military to secure their interests.
Don’t look to the US to lead everything and then also complain about the US leading everything.
You clearly don’t understand how hypocritical this is. We coerced Europe into being this way. It’s only in the last 10-15 years or so that we started asking them to contribute more militarily.
Our strategy against the Soviets was for Europe to hold them off while the US brought over an expeditionary force that would push the Soviets back. Europe would provide most of the financial support.
Now some Americans are acting like they ripped us off. Just more backstabbing fake grievance bullshit designed to slander democracies because democracy and pluralism are the enemy now.
From a pure realpolitik point if view, alienating Europe while they’re beginning their next rearmament era is a pretty fucking stupid move. They have three times our population and it wasn’t that long ago that Europe had the strongest militaries in the world. If they reach that point again the US will not be the global hegemon anymore and Americans won’t like that because we’ve benefited from it economically. Though at this point it’s very clear the world is better off with saner hegemony under other countries.
We’ll be falling behind China in science and engineering soon enough too. China, the EU and various middle powers are all making moves to fill the soft power hole left by the current administration. All because dipshit magas only believe in hard power and bullying people like cavemen.
You are not getting the full picture. NATO by design used to exist to keep Europe small militarily under US supervision, because the US wanted to avoid another Nazi-like regime from taking hold in Europe. That was the deal post WW2. The EU doesn’t grow their armies to the point they could reasonably threaten the US, and they provide that necessary protection instead. So the US inherently didn’t want the EU to have too much defense spending, and to follow their lead so they could keep control. And with how weak Europe was after WW2, they could not really refuse nor reject that.
In return, EU specialized in trade and manufacturing, something the US wanted. Hence why they are such big trading partners still. It’s not like the US was just snoozing at the wheel for more than two decades as defense spending went down. There was always caution (and honestly, the EU shouldn’t have ignored this) that more defense was going to be needed, but the status quo was always by mutual consent, as the US also benefited from essentially it’s own continent wide production factory while it could do what it does best at home (it’s military). And until Russia invaded Ukraine, nobody could even begin to sell the idea of more defense spending to the people, as that would too have increased prices for the US. And the US could have escalated if more defense spending was a dealbreaker to them, but they did not until Trump, because it would have just been a bad change without the hindsight of 2021.
Frankly, this notion that the EU took advantage of the US is really just MAGA propaganda. The same way Trump is now making the despicable claim that EU soldiers didn’t die enough for when the US, the single country that ever invoked NATO’s article 5, invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. When the US under Trump realized they could just not uphold their part of the system in place, as Trump does not understand diplomacy and soft power, that’s what he did, and defense spending was just the easy excuse if you ignore all that historical context.
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Jeez, who pulled you out of /r/thedonald’s casket? Are they reassigning people to haunt Lemmy now?
Tankies are unsurprisingly regurgitating the same talking points as MAGA fascists. They are all on the same team.
They aren’t wrong though - the USSR got somewhere around $100-150B from Lend Lease. Ukraine has gotten something like $300B already.
But it’s certainly not money laundering. Wars cost a lot in the modern age. The real question is why are countries giving so much but only to keep Ukraine from losing.
It’s embarrassing for Russia that this war is now longer than their war against Germany in WWII but it’s also sort of embarrassing for Ukraine’s allies.
EDIT: I was estimating in today’s dollars, from Wikipedia - A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $690 billion in 2024 when accounting for inflation) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.[3] In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to other Allies.
The USSR also got a second front. Western allies were also fighting Germany, even if they could have easily stayed out of it. The EU knows some of their members are next on the Russian menu, and still they refuse to fight for their survival.
I honestly think the EU can only win by helping Ukraine. Russia and the US see the EU as weak abd indecisive, which is why they think they can take advantage of it. If the EU shows itself to be strong and a major power in its own right, they’re likely to back off. Both Putin and Trump only respect strength and force, and Ukraine is the best opportunity for the EU to show that.
On top of that, they’ll gain a valuable ally with the most effective and creative army in the world.
There is too much to win for the EU, and nothing to lose. Just end this war by liberating Ukraine.
While I wholeheartedly agree, war is always a loss. And I think Russia is treading carefully knowing exactly what the West will allow. (And manipulating their biggest obstacle.)
You’re absolutely right. War costs everybody. That money would be better spent to improve people’s lives instead of destroying it. But when someone attacks you, not defending yourself may end up costing more. And helping (and gaining) an ally is better than losing them.
But more than that: the EU showing its strength can discourage further aggression from Russia. And maybe the US.
Your whole framing is suspect, not to mention you’re talking finances and you can’t even figure out that $150 B (EDIT: as written in the post, when I posted this I didn’t check that the nominal figure really was) in 1944 dollars is closer to $2,800 B in 2025 dollars.
$11.3 B in 1944 dollars is equal to $207 B in 2025 dollars.
It was in today’s dollars. See my edit. And I don’t think it is suspect to ask Ukraine’s allies to do more to help them actually win when Zelensky is saying it himself ad nauseam.
What does a win for Ukraine look like to you? Just wondering.
And btw, from an outsider perspective it’s funny and cringe to see the attacks on your comment. I’m afraid those commenters don’t have wherewithal to be as embarrassed as they should be, but it’s a good point, that Ukraine has gotten a lot more outside funding (about $380 bn) than the USSR did to defeat Germany in WWII (about $250 bn in today’s $). I hadn’t noticed that.
Edit: the commenter above (Skiluros) made up the $2.8tn figure by applying inflation to a commenter above saying that the USSR had received less money through lend-lease than Ukraine has since the invasion by Russia. This figure Is wrong because the original commenter was already discussing inflation-adjusted figures, and they refuse to correct the mistake.
According to Wikipedia’s article on lend-lease, the USSR got $11.3bn, which today would roughly be $250bn. It’s higher than what Greg said (which I assumed was taking inflation into account, hence me cheking), but still lower than what Ukraine has gotten (assuming the $300bn is correct, didn’t fact check that).
I wasn’t refusing to correct the mistake, thanks. I just hadn’t checked my replies until now. I have made the edits now to clarify.
I have no clue around the exact sum provided to the USSR (although I have read about the nature of the support and what it focused on). I am just pointing you can’t compare dollars in a nominal manner.
money hasn’t changed in 80 years!
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS!
Tell me you don’t understand how inflation works without telling me you don’t understand how inflation works
Tell me you don’t understand geopolitical strategy around an expansionist nuclear state works without telling me you don’t understand how geopolitical strategy around an expansionist nuclear state works
Tell me you have a reductive and naive view of history and current events without telling me you have a reductive and naive view of history and current events
Though your snippy reply maybe doesn’t deserve it, respectfully- the figures I quoted were in today’s dollars. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed people would know that though.
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I don’t think we want to change the mind of someone who is willing to give up the lives of Ukrainians because is it too expensive to help them fight the fascist empire trying to wipe them out.
that would be Ukrainians.
edit imagine downvoting the fact that Ukrainians don’t want to be genocided and then thinking you’re anti-imperial.
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That’s just plain wrong. The allies fought the axis on multiple fronts. If that’s not support, then I don’t know what is.
The allies did try to hurt the ussr every way possible too though. Hitler’s rise was only possible because the fear of the commies that hitler hated.
The russians at one point were fighting in 17 fronts with the largest army ever assembled it is said.
They had one front. The 17 fronts were subdivisions of that one front. That’s like saying that Hitler fought on 7 fronts because he had 4 Heeresgruppen in the east.
It was not just in ww2 they were at war constantly from their founding. Civil wars with the whites, abbritish invasion half assed though it was at archangel in conjunction with them. Not sure if japanese were still contesting the far east after they wiped out the russian fleet and sent their army packing in the tsar days in the 00’s.
The west sponsored a lot of civil strife and helped invasions to prove communism does not work.
The results of which made it more likely the worst sort of military leader would take over, as it did with stalin. It totally worked, for capital. More afraid of reform than absolute rulers, let alone all that seizing the means of production talk.
Anyway when the US got involved, we helped them enough to not collapse, but let them both wear each other out while we leisurely took egypt, sicily, italy, then finally d day.
Zelensky isn’t wrong, but even peacekeeping missions are extremely politically unpopular in Western Europe right now.
The French left is basically saying “it’s not our issue, we shouldn’t get involved”. The far right say the same. The incumbents are barely hanging on to their remaining political capital
Far rights became Putin’s mouthpiece in most countries.
Helping Ukraine is a duty of the free world, because we can’t afford losing more allies after we lost US.
Zelensky isn’t wrong, but even peacekeeping missions are extremely politically unpopular in Western Europe right now.
This is why I’m not bullish on the notion of a collective European defense. I’m sure it will happen, but how hamstrung will it be with politics?
I’m not bullish on a collective European defence because Europe thinks it’s a spending and rearmament problem, when in fact it’s a logistics and coordination one.
You have a battalion in Spain that you’d need to deploy to Latvia. How do you airlift? Which country has airlifting capabilities, etc.
Very true. People think American military hegemony is about fancy tech and nukes. Really it’s about being able to firehose materiel at an enemy until our populace feels bad about it.
Unless Mélenchon changed his tuned again, last I heard, he was only against loans. Helping, yes, but no strings attached.
I don’t know about Mélenchon but years after the fact I still read a lot of similar slander on the Swedish left. They literally were just in disagreement about how weapons exports should be made possible without breaking existing Swedish legislation, and the issue was addressed in 24 hours, but people still bring up that incident as “the Swedish far left blocked help for Ukraine”.
Wasn’t aware of this, fair then
Congrats Bill Murray, your comedy movie has transcended pop culture.
I wish the EU would get off the pot and destroy Russia already. It is a dagger pointed at their backside, just waiting for an open conflict to erupt between the US and the EU. Getting rid of Russia would go a long way towards safeguarding democracy and human decency.
Plus, the EU can invest into Ukraine. They have excellent resources, and truly blooded soldiers with expertise in modern warfare. Having them teach the EU how to fight sooner than later would be invaluable if the US attacks the EU.
Be it humanitarian or pragmatic, there is no downside in the EU doing the right thing.
Have you heard about a guy named Napoleon and also Hitler? History can be interesting. You don’t just “get rid of Russia” and also that statement is a little ambiguous. Are you talking government overthrow? Mass genocide? The former takes time and latter is not an option in our global world.
You clearly haven’t watched nearly enough Kings and Generals, listened to Behind the Bastards, nor read The Cartoon History of the Universe. Leaders and nations change all the time, be it by death, conquest, reform, or revolution. It happens a ton, we just occupy a slim frame of observable time within our lifespans.
Historians would someday be writing about all sorts of details that aren’t visible to us right now.
True, I don’t argue any of that.
Europe could definitely do more, but I don’t think a brute force removal of the current russian elite is feasible without huge loss of life.
Since apparently these days you could just fly into a capital and kidnap a president after a few months of training, simulation and bribery maybe they could do something like that for Putin and the main Russian oligarchs. Clear out the trash in one go and avoid war. But I think this is also too optimistic.
Timidity is a good way to lose control over a situation - be it at a personal or national level. The longer that the EU drags their feet, the harder things will become when the choice to take action is no longer possible.
One way or another, the EU should do more. Support Ukraine directly, declare war on Putin, call in Agent 47. The important thing, is that inaction inherently lends itself to allowing someone more assertive to take control. That someone shouldn’t be Putin nor Trump.
I wish the EU would get off the pot and destroy Russia already.
You mean the regime and the mobsters aiming to abolish all restrictions on their wealth.
There’s zero shot that the US attacks Europe I refuse to believe in that timeline
That was my thinking back in 2016. I was astonished when I woke up to the news because how could he be elected in favour of her? It makes no sense.
The U.S. has a history of fucking around even among “allies” to them so I fully believe that they could invade us.
If we invaded Greenland, that would be tantamount to an attack on Europe. Pretty decent chance of that happening at some point the way things are going.
China is far more likely to do something about Russia than the EU is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if China takes a bite out of Russia. It would be a way to look like a ‘good and tough guy’, and would avoid the risks that comes with trying to take Taiwan. Right now, Russia is in no shape to defend their eastern flank.
Personally I think it is more likely for China to attack Taiwan, but the Russian option is certainly there if Xi gets cold feet.
there is no downside in the EU doing the right thing
I feel like that’s a really easy thing to say if one ignores that Europe has lived through two world wars and many of the people who fought them are still alive.
No. Your position is what gave Nazi Germany the opportunity to do all the things it did. Russia is kidnapping Ukranian children, sending drones into EU territory, sabotaging infrastructure with their shadow fleet, manipulating American elections, and more.
Russia is an enemy of the EU, and should be taken care of. Delaying what must be done, will only ensure that Russia and Dogey America can work together to spitroast European nations.
Totally, man.
Thank you for sharing your opinion.
Destroying a country is “the right thing”? Homey you’re part of the problem.
The destruction of Nazi Germany is a good thing. Same goes for Imperial Japan, and the American Confederacy. The Russia we have today sucks, and should be taken out. The people of Russia certainly aren’t benefiting from their leadership, and sometimes an forceful change by external powers is the better way out of a bad situation.
As an American, I am expecting a 2nd American Civil War. I would like outside nations to align against Dogey America, be it by pen or sword. What is good for the goose, is also good for the gander.
What about Israel? Should it be “destroyed” as well?
Considering that they engage in genocide, I would say so.
YES
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Now you’re being willfully ignorant. He’s made clear his meaning, definitions, and point. If you still refuse to interpret it in the way he clearly intended, that’s your problem.
Marshall Plans are essential for replacing a bad nation with a better one. Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and much of the EU were put on a much better path because of them.
In my nation, Reconstruction was halted early. Aside from limiting the power of surviving members of the confederacy, a continued Reconstruction would have allowed people of good character to leave a greater mark on Southern society. The building of a better nation, is crucial for rehabilitating a broken one.
With all due respect, you might want to improve your English reading comprehension before participating in English-language political arguments.
nazi simp. ewwwwww
I hardly think it’s “humanitarian” to “get rid of/destroy Russia” or any other country full of innocent people just living their lives, simply because their leaders are fucking the world over (and I’m not just saying because as an American, I can relate). Regime change? Sure, absolutely, let’s try it. Talking about the whole nation as if they were an infestation with no real purpose other than the eradication of “human decency”? Those are literal, almost verbatim, Nazi talking points my friend. Please be better than that, I know you can
It depends on what is meant by “destroy”. I interpret it as “destroy in its current form”, not “erase from the map”.
Destroy in the way that Nazi Germany was destroyed, or the British Empire was destroyed. The people and places still exist, but are structured differently.
Not in the way that Palestine is being destroyed now where there is literally bare emptiness where the people were.
Watch out for that first step. It’s a doozy!
Ned Ryerson!
I feel bad for him
He hasn’t realized he’s just a tool yet?
He’s not wrong.
Can’t crush Russias regime, though. One has to keep an eye on Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Some of these ICBMs might actually be able to fly.
And one must be careful to not generate a disbalance of power between opposing (or even neighboring) countries or Gaza happens all over again. Because the stronger one can. It’s only human. :( - already some people in France are looking anxiously towards Germany’s military buildup.
Still. The argument that you need to have means to steer things your way is correct - military, economically, diplomatic. If you can make the additional expenses and budget cuts look advantageous to the general public.
Who chose this picture 😅
Thats actually so true.
The US is dead set against Ukraine now. They just cannot directly repudiate the alliance now, the admin needs the military on their side.
They even want to blow up nato, trying to use greenland to do so, but apparently found the patriotic fervor of expansion could not overcome our fraternity with europe, yet.
The president is compromized by both russia and israel, and in alliance with them. Both have hoardes of kompromat on politicians and swells it is not limited to the president
It really is true, I am surprised how so many could not see it
You mean to say western countries are betraying their ally?! No way!!! /s
At what point have we betrayed Ukraine? European countries are very far from perfect but we did not betray Ukraine, sure we could have done more but at this point only the European Union is footing the bill for the war. I do not see China, India, Brazil, South Africa or Japan for example sending billions in aid to Ukraine, let alone Trump.
This Month:
Japan announces $6 billion in support for Ukraine.
I hereby also announce $100 billion in support of Ukraine. Announcements aren’t worth much.
At what point have we betrayed Ukraine?
Literally since it is an independent country. Ukraine was, already well before 2022, the poorest country in Europe. The EU-exported model of neoliberalism, austerity and privatization led to catastrophic results for the Ukrainian economy, leading to drug abuse, crime, lack of healthcare, malnutrition, violence and unemployment, resulting in net population losses of above 10 million between 1991 and 2022, counting increased mortality, mass emigration and lack of births. Europe literally hollowed out Ukraine and made it desperately poor.
The same EU exported model that made Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as rich as they are today. But also what made Hungary or Greece what they are today, right?
Turns out corruption and internal politics have more influence than anything, but the EU has been a net gain overall for any country that actually gave it an honest try.
Romania and Bulgaria are rich? I’m Spanish, a country by no means rich, and we have tons of Romanian immigrants because the working conditions there are extremely hard, and they suffered similar issues:
This is especially true for Bulgaria, they lost like a freaking third of the population since 1990 (from 9mn to 6.4mn in 2024). By what metric are they rich? GDP per capita? How about access to housing, to healthcare, to quality education, the ability to stay in rural areas with non-decrepit infrastructure…
Regarding Poland, the country may be richer as a whole (again, using GDP per capita as metric), but are the people faring better? Look at the share of national income by the bottom 50% of the people:
Relative richness, compared to how they started in the 90’s after communism. In 2000 Spain had an average salary of 1443€ and Romania 143€. In 2018 Spain grew to 2295€ but Romania to 965€ an almost 7 times increase.
Current minimum salary in Romania is 814€. It was 40€ in 2000. Your average IT person in Romania right now makes ~70% as a much as a Spaniard but their rent and prices are less than half compared to Spain. Lower skill jobs are still lagging, but it’s been getting better and better.
All of this success is partly due to the EU pulling strings on Romanian politicians in exchange for funds and partly having a political and justice system that has mostly been doing acceptable. If you compare 90’s Ukraine and Romania they had a similar shitty start and the same access to opportunities including the EU. One embraced that and the other did not.
Great job ignoring the healthy populational growth during socialism in Romania followed by demographic catastrophe since 1990. Let’s see what happened to Romanian GDP per capita during socialism and after (Source):
Oh, it turns out that GDP per capita grew sixfold (600%) during communism, and in the ten years following, it fell by 15%. Between 1950 and 1990, this gives an average GDP per capita growth of 4.5% per year. Let’s check the data for capitalist Romania:
That’s a growth of 250% over 34 years, or a meager 2.7% yearly growth. And that’s without taking into account that the number of people has actually dropped since 1990 and it was growing between 1950 and 1990. Damn, not looking so good for the capitalist European model, is it?
You’re being dishonest by cherrypicking year 2000, the 1990s in Romania were horrifying due to the debt given by the IMF (western-aligned organization) in order to crush the welfare state in Romania and adopt austerity policy as I discussed. You cherrypicked the year 2000 because that’s more or less when the super high inflation of the 1990s started to balance, and you’re talking in Euros and not in the local currency because exchange rates were astonishingly low due to currency devaluation. Let’s see how well Romania fared in the 1990s during capitalism!
From 5% yearly inflation during communism to 250% during capitalism. This is EXACTLY what I mean by the European betrayal: Romanians were promised wealth comparable to western Europe, and instead were met with deindustrialization, destruction of welfare, horrifying levels of inflation, and sudden unimaginable unemployment after half a century without unemployment. It’s literally western-funded loans in the 1980s that started to crash the Romanian economy. You cherrypick two convenient dates, ignore the millions of lives lost and emigrated, and say “look, more Euro is better” ignoring that people literally have to flee the country due to the terrible economy. As of today, Bulgaria and Romania are the two EU countries with highest poverty rates, 30% and 28% respectively. You could also directly ask the population, most of whom support communism and Ceaucescu and claim that life was better during socialism. They also poll saying it was a safer country and less corrupt. Tell me again how Europe hasn’t betrayed those countries.
If you also wanna discuss Spain that’s wonderful, I happen to be a Spaniard. I have seen nothing in my life but economic downturn, stagnation, reductions of real wages, and housing becoming increasingly unaffordable. Let’s go to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics to check the consumption per person:
So, the 20% poorest in Spain used to spend 4612€ per year in 2006. By 2023 it went up to 5443€… but inflation in this period was 38.7%, meaning that to maintain equal consumption capability they should be spending 6396€. Real expenditure, hence, has dropped by 15% for the poorest 20%.
Running the numbers for the following 20% poorest, who spent 7220€ in 2006, they should spend 10014€ to maintain consumer power, but it’s only risen to 9009€, so a 10% reduction in purchase power.
For the following 20%, meaning the 20% of people with the earnings closest to the mean (10% below and 10% above) it’s gone from 9551 to 12122, it should have gone to 13247€ per year, so an 8% reduction in purchase power for the average Spaniard over the past 20 years.
Now explain me how relevant your “average salary increases in Spain” are if the mean Spaniard has suffered not just stagnation. but a progressive worsening of purchase power. Tell me again how fucking wonderful this European model is.
My argument is that the shit that these countries go and have gone through is mostly self inflicted. 90s Romania was insanely corrupt with an “everyone for themselves” attitude like you wouldn’t believe. I was there so I know. People would give bribes even to the local pool to go in without paying a normal fare. Even the priests took bribes. The guy that was chosen as the first president was a former communist elite and he went to town on fucking the country over and people rioted over it. The poverty and suffering was fully internally manufactured.
People nostalgic for the communist system are idiots. Looking at the data economically it might not look bad, but there were extreme supply issues, famine and the authoritarian regime were in full swing in the final years and were the catalist for the fall of the whole system. The years leading up to that is when Romanians learned to survive by any means necessary and infused the society with the corruption that led to the experience of the 90s.
2000s is when people finally had enough and started aspiring to the European model and things started to turn around. You can totally see it on the GDP graph that you showed, 90s was not really capitalistic, it was wild oligarchy west where the only people with any opportunity were former communist elites with money and influence to create their local mafias. Those mafias continued to permate the society in some places to this day.
My argument is that overall the EU has been a net benefit for Romania. Now if you want to get into how capitalism as a whole is not great, especially for the lower classes, then sure, we can agree on that. But this is not what betrayed Romania, Romanians betrayed Romania.
