NY Yella Cake | If a Divided Germany Could Enter NATO, Why Not Ukraine?, 26 May
Frozen Curtain Option

[...]
"When West Germany joined NATO, there was what you could call a monumental frozen conflict," she said. "And yet it was felt very important to anchor West Germany in the Western alliance, and so West Germany joined. The Russians complained about it and said it was very dangerous, but they were powerless to prevent it."
[...]

Zelensk* in the ROLE of Adenauer? idunno about that.

Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of West Germany, ["]chose["] security over territory, and Germans supported him, re-electing him until he resigned in 1963.

temporarily US-occupied FRG, temporarily RU-occupied DDR

"Adenauer decided that it was more important to have a solid defense agreement with the West and led West Germany into NATO," said François Heisbourg, a French defense expert. "It was a brave decision, because it meant unity wasn't going to happen easily."

oh

Ukraine is of course a different case. When West Germany joined NATO, it was not at war with East Germany and both enTItiEs had been recognized as individual states in 1949, said M.E. Sarotte, author of a diplomatic history, "Not One Inch," about the enlargement of NATO, German reunification and the Russian responses.
[...]

wsj | China, Pushing Ukraine Cease-Fire, Gets Cool Reception in Europe, 26 May
Strategic Autonomy Zone (SAZ) Option

[...]
Diplomat Li Hui, who has visited Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels this month, urged European governments to view China as an economic alternative to Washington and said they should move quickly to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine before it spreads, those officials said. Li was due to travel to Moscow on Friday.
[...]

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning's Regular Press Conference on May 25, 2023
TASS: Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui said yesterday at a meeting with the German side on the Ukraine crisis in Berlin that "China encourages European countries to start looking at the root causes of the crisis to find a way to sort out high and low priorities and supports their efforts to ensure long-term stability on the European continent". Could you share more with us on that? What do you think is the root causes of the Ukraine crisis? ....

"We explained that freezing the conflict is not in the interest of the international community unless there is withdrawal of Russian troops," a diplomat who spoke to Li said. The diplomat said Li was told "it's impossible to split Europe from [US] America" and that Europe wouldn't withdraw support from Ukraine.
[...]

our sanctions, our interest rate hikes, our inflation, our "ammo-buying scheme" don't affect ...

"RUSSIA'S BRUTAL WAR AGAINST UKRAINE is making the context for the EU-China relationship more complex," the EU's trade chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, said Thursday. He said he conveyed that message to Wang [Wentao], China's commerce minister, during a meeting last month.
The EU is preparing an economic security strategy, due next month, that appears set to bring the bloc closer to the U.S. in its approach to China.

mfocom.cn | Significant News
Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao Chairs a Meeting with US Companies (23.05.23)

commerce.gov | Readout of Secretary Raimondo's Meeting with Ministry of Commerce Minister Wang Wentao (25.05.23)

[...]
EU and U.S. officials are set to discuss trade relations with China during a high-level meeting of the Trade and Technology Council in northern Sweden next week. The EU's competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, who will attend the meeting in Sweden, said Thursday that Europe is now following some of its Western allies in taking a more cautious approach toward China. She said the bloc wants to protect trade with China that it doesn't see as risky and to be more precise in identifying the ["anti-coercion"] areas that pose concerns for Europe's economic security.
[...]

OK, BOOMER!