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 Post subject: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 11:01 am 
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Russia's out there trying to be silly. They issued their demands not to invade Ukraine, which are so ridiculous that it guarantees they'll invade Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59696450

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Russia Ukraine: Moscow lists demands for defusing Ukraine tensions
Published20 minutes ago
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Ukraine conflict

Media caption,
Russian troop build-up: View from Ukraine front line
Russia's foreign ministry has laid out demands for guarantees from Nato and the US on Ukraine and said it is ready for talks as early as Saturday.

Russia denies Western reports of up to 100,000 Russian troops close to Ukraine's borders with plans to attack.

However it says if tensions are to be reduced then Nato should scrap hopes of Ukraine or Georgia ever joining the Western defensive alliance.

The Russian proposals are already being viewed as a non-starter by the US.

Responding to Moscow's call for direct negotiations with the US, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters: "There will be no talks on European security without our European allies and partners."

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had given the US and Nato two draft treaties. There was no other option, he said, as the "state of relations between Russia and the collective West is a total lack of trust".

In the proposals Russia sets out a series of demands, which require countries that joined Nato after the fall of the Soviet Union not to deploy troops or weapons in areas where they could be seen as a threat to Russia. Heavy bombers and warships would not be allowed in areas outside their national airspace or waters from which they could launch an attack.

That would mean Nato not playing any role at all in any of the three Baltic republics or Poland. And Nato would have to abandon plans for Ukraine and Georgia to eventually join the Western alliance.

line
Russia asks for the impossible
Analysis box by Steve Rosenberg, Moscow correspondent
Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Well it was… until now.

It's virtually impossible to imagine the US and Nato signing the draft documents Russian diplomats have drawn up, without considerable changes.

Russia demanding a veto on who joins the Alliance. A non-starter. Nato has said many times before that Moscow can have no say over who gets to be a member.

Plus the Russians want to turn the clock back to May 1997. Any country that joined the Nato alliance after that date won't be allowed Nato troops or weaponry. How would the Baltic states, which view Russia as a potential threat, feel about that?

Moscow knows very well it's demanding things the West won't deliver, so why ask?

A negotiating tactic, perhaps. Ask for the world and hope to secure other concessions.

Or it may be designed for domestic consumption: to convince the Russian public that growing tension between Russia and the West isn't Moscow's fault.

line
Russia invaded Georgia during a brief war in 2008 and seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 before backing separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Conflict in the east began in April 2014 and has claimed more than 14,000 lives, with casualties still being reported.

However, the build-up of Russian forces in areas beyond Ukraine's borders has prompted fears of another Russian invasion.

CONTEXT: Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?
ANALYSIS: What would be the fallout if Russia invaded Ukraine?
PUTIN: Russian leader compares Ukraine war zone to genocide
EU leaders warned at a summit late on Thursday night that any aggression would have "massive consequences and severe cost" and spoke of restrictive measures while calling for diplomatic efforts to resolve the increase in tensions.

They said diplomacy should focus on the four-way dialogue between Paris, Berlin, Kyiv and Moscow, known as the Normandy format. Russia pointedly preferred to focus on talks with the US.

A Ukrainian serviceman is seen on the front line near the village of Travneve in Donetsk region, Ukraine, December 15, 2021
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,
Several ceasefires have been agreed but violence is still going on in eastern Ukraine
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that Russia is increasing, not reducing, its troops on the border with "combat-ready troops, tanks, artillery, armoured units, drones [and] electronic warfare systems".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday he would prefer sanctions to be imposed immediately, before Russia took any military action.

Ukraine shares borders with both the EU and Russia, with which it has deep social and cultural ties.


The real gem is here:
Quote:
In the proposals Russia sets out a series of demands, which require countries that joined Nato after the fall of the Soviet Union not to deploy troops or weapons in areas where they could be seen as a threat to Russia. Heavy bombers and warships would not be allowed in areas outside their national airspace or waters from which they could launch an attack.

That would mean Nato not playing any role at all in any of the three Baltic republics or Poland.


Russia wants to be able to push around the Baltics and get them back under their thumb.
It also looks like Russia's trying to bypass NATO and try to negotiate directly with the US but I'm glad to see the White House's response:

"There will be no talks on European security without our European allies and partners."


My take? I think Russia's looked at all of the internal troubles of NATO the past decade or so with the lackluster performance in Libya (e.g. countries whining it was too expensive, taking too long, running out of bombs), several partners openly defying the spending requirements, COVID instability, and changing political waves to try to drive a major wedge into NATO. While some of our partner nations have been - let's say "less than forthcoming" - if there are some partners who have been very much ON BOARD it is the former WARPAC countries, especially Poland and the Baltics. There's a few other things to consider, the US military is very tired, worn out, neglected, and in need of serious maintenance after 20 years of fighting in A-Stan and Iraq the kind of warfare that one wouldn't fight in Europe, it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere and several European nations (i.e. NATO members) [ cough cough Germany cough cough ] depend on Russia to keep the heat on, and of course their own internal issues.

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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 22:18 pm 
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Russia can go Fuck Themselves. They don't have the combat power or the money to fight a war with Ukraine and they cant afford to risk the Natural Gas supply to Europe because their other income in nearly nonexistent. If they try to push for any invasion they will have another internal uprising and Putin will be wearing his own poisoned panties...

If they ever try anymore bullshit they will end up be fully broken apart and the actual russians, which are not the majority in that country any more, running for their lives...

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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2021 03:55 am 
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Maybe they are posturing in hopes to get ahold of some U.S. tax payer hush money from our crooked politicians; just like Iran, North Korea, and others do all the time.

It's basically foreign aid, with theatrics.


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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 11:51 am 
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Bribe money has happen before.
Obama /Biden sent a plane load of US taxpayer money to Iran when they were in office.

What a corrupt deal!

Best Regards,
Pappy

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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Tue Dec 21, 2021 18:24 pm 
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Putin's demands are definitely theatrics but I don't think it's to get money.
I think it's more to build the narrative of "self defense" because of "NATO aggression."
NATO doesn't have an obligation to defend either Georgia or Ukraine because neither are full-fledged members.
Ukraine's military didn't perform that well the first go around with Donbass, which is a result of 20+ years of corruption following the end of the USSR.
Ukraine's sold so much stuff off to the highest bidder arm's dealer and never attempted to maintain its military.
I think the Russians could take Ukraine.

The biggest laughable part of his demands - and they've already been rejected - is demanding that NATO basically abandon the Baltics & Poland.
The White House already rejected any negotiations concerning NATO without Europe at the table and that's unlikely to change.
I think if pushed, we might find some of our "weaker" [not militarily but politically] NATO allies fold.
I can immediately finger Germany as the #1 white flag waiver this go around.
We can count on the UK & France but not for the long haul, both were complaining about cost, time, and ran out of munitions for Libya.
The former Soviet bloc countries are with us until the end but there's still (save for Poland) a lot of work to be done with their militaries.
Turkey, who knows with the Sultan, anyone's guess.
Greece, mystery how they'll respond but I am not hopeful.
Italy, I think we can count on but they don't have the greatest track record.
As of the other nations, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, they'll be with us.
Who'd I miss?

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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 15:17 pm 
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This kind of Atlanticist discourse worries me. The attitude, the behavior, the actions of the Westerners remind me of what I saw in Yugoslavia.


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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 23:35 pm 
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NATO will not have to address any of this crap. putin is about to go away anyway. His Parkinson's is out of control and its reported he also has cancer. His days on this earth are of a very low number. I still say an internal coup will take him out. There have already been 7 attempts to assassinate him. 8 will be the lucky number.

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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 17:09 pm 
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America’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

Paul Craig Roberts

American foreign policy, wrapped up in hubris inside American exceptionalism, is incapable of recognizing a dangerous situation.

And a dangerous situation is what we have.

The Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov speaking for the Kremlin has made it clear that Russia will tolerate no further movement of NATO toward Russia’s borders. Russia has ruled out any possibility of the former Russian provinces of Ukraine and Georgia becoming NATO members. If this red line is ignored, the consequences, Ryabkov said, “will be dire.” Russia will respond militarily, and the West, he said, will find it has undermined its own security, not Russia’s.

In other words, as the Kremlin sees it, the incorporation of Ukraine and/or Georgia into NATO is an unacceptable threat to Russian national security. Period. It is not negotiable.

In a rational world such an unequivocal statement by a preeminent military power with hypersonic nuclear missiles would be taken seriously. But the Western World is no longer rational. It is a world drunk on arrogance. The NATO secretary replied to what is, in effect, an ultimatum from a nuclear power by rejecting out of hand that power’s security concern: “Whether Ukraine joins NATO is up to the bloc’s member states and its leadership, and Moscow doesn’t have input into the decision.” The idiot NATO secretary went on to boast, foolishly, that NATO was so little impressed with Russian objections that NATO was “already training Ukrainian troops and consulting with them, and are conducting joint exercises and providing military supplies and technology.”

So NATO, so drunk on exaggerated American military power, spit in the Kremlin’s eye (see: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... mlins-eye/ ).

The White House spokesperson replying for President Biden and the National Security Council said Washington “will not compromise” on NATO expansion, adding that Washington won’t accept the idea of halting NATO expansion, despite what Russia demands.

In other words–be certain to understand this and its consequences–Washington’s position is that Russia has NO legitimate national security interests except as defined by Washington.

Here we have a highly dangerous situation. One power says you are treading on me and we won’t tolerate it; the other power says you have no say in the matter.

During the 20th century Cold War we Cold Warriors heard every word, every intonation of what the Soviets said. To risk nuclear war because some fool had wax in his ears or was feeling macho that day was out of the question. In those days there were departments of Russian studies in US universities that were not dependent on funding from the military-security complex. There was public debate. There was always an independent expert, such as Stephen Cohen, to remind everyone of how the Russians saw the situation.

Today independent scholarship has disappeared. Russian studies programs in universities are Russophobic in keeping with their funding. As there are no objective scholars, there are no knowledgeable people in the US intelligence community. We can see this in the recent statement of Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who reports that US intelligence agencies believe that Putin is “giving serious consideration” to an invasion of Ukraine.

Washington has been saying this since 2014 when Washington overthrew the Russian friendly Ukrainian government hoping to seize in the process the Russian naval base in Crimea. It is a fixed message. There is no thought. Just repetition of propaganda. So we have a National Security Council incapable of nothing but the repetition of propagandistic slogans.

In effect Washington is already at war with Russia.

Meanwhile last Thursday evening, December 16, Washington and its neo-nazi Ukraine puppet decided to confirm Russian suspicions that Washington and Ukraine represent revanchist Nazism. Only two countries voted against the UN resolution condemning Nazism. Yes, it was the United States and Ukraine. The utter total stupidity of the US vote is extraordinary. That Washington supports Nazism is the last thing the Kremlin needed to hear.

My generation was the last generation in the West to be educated instead of indoctrinated, and even we were fed lies about World War I and World War II. Subsequent generations are largely unaware that in German-occupied Western Ukraine large armies were organized and incorporated into the German army’s march into Russia. It was remnants of these “Banderas” (Stepan Bandera) that Washington used to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an American puppet state on former Russian territory while the Kremlin, ignoring its backyard, was enjoying the Sochi Olympics.

The mistakes that people make have more to do with world history than any good decisions. I am watching Washington, which I know so well from a quarter century of high level participation, make the mistake of a lifetime. The Washington regime is so full of arrogance that it is unable to comprehend that Russia has run out of patience.

The Russians see a real problem. All Washington sees is a propaganda opportunity. This is a situation that leads directly to Washington miscalculating. The miscalculation will be fatal.

See also:

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... utin-talk/

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... gton-hear/

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... sis-redux/

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... mlins-eye/

Update to America’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

In America Russophobia is running amuck. The Propaganda Ministry repeats daily that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine. The American people, long trained to regard Russia as the enemy, have heard the allegation so many times it has become a fact. The arrogant Biden regime has rebuffed Russia’s security concern, and the Republicans are no better. Blind belligerence towards Russia is building as Republican senators add their voices to the propaganda that Putin intends to invade Ukraine and “rob the Ukrainian people of their sovereignty.”( Washington already did that when it overthrew the elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and established a puppet state in Kiev.) The Republicans want to rush $450 million more in weapons to “the brave Ukrainian armed forces.” And for good measure, the Republicans want to have Russia designated a terrorist state.

The Ukraine crisis is in part an armaments marketing program as the Republicans backing the bill are in tight with the military/security complex. But everyone is overlooking the effect on the Kremlin whose trust in Washington has reached zero on the scale.

Perhaps in preparation for what the Kremlin sees will be a showdown over Washington’s indifference to Russia’s security concern, the Kremlin has ordered two strategic nuclear missile forces to combat duty. Additionally, Russia has closed the northern sea route and deployed radio engineering regiments and electronic domes to jam US over-the-horizon radar. If US naval provocations continue in the Black Sea, Russia might also close the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, the neo-nazi Ukrainian battalions armed by Washington are escalating the situation with the Donbass Russians.

Washington is setting itself up for an embarrassing backdown or a major confrontation for which Washington holds few cards.

From : https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/1 ... y-dilemma/

Paul Craig Roberts
Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He has been a contributing editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, a columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He has held numerous academic positions.


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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 20:00 pm 
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Will America Sell Air Defence Systems to Ukraine? Pentagon Team Completes Mission to Support Ukrainian Capabilities

Amid high tensions between Ukraine and Russia, and widespread Western claims of a Russian intent to invade its neighbour, a team from the U.S. Department of Defence completed a mission to assess Ukrainian air defence needs. This was confirmed by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, who announced the team's return at a press conference in December 20. Other missions assigned to the team included discussing Ukraine's ability to respond to Russian naval, electronic, and cyber attacks. Ukraine inherited a robust air defence capability from the Soviet Union in 1991 including early variants of the S-300 air defence system, as well as longer ranged but immobile S-200s and large numbers of shorter ranged systems such as the BuK-M1. Although state of the air for its time, Ukraine’s air defence network have seen few improvements over the past three decades and are not expected to significantly challenge Russian air or missile strikes particularly as their electronic warfare countermeasures are thought to be far outdated. The situation only worsened due to questionable maintenance, and reports that Ukraine transferred some of its S-300PTs to the United States for testing purposes which removed its most formidable air defence asset. Ukraine did inherit the Soviet Union’s most formidable air superiority fighter, the Su-27, although these too have seen negligible improvements to their armaments, sensors or electronics. Combined with highly questionable pilot training and low availability rates, this has left them with only very limited viability to tackle modern Russian fighters such as the Su-30SM or Su-35.

It remains uncertain how the United States could support an improvement in Ukraine’s air defences particularly considering the latter’s limited defence budget and the risk that any sensitive American equipment provided could fall into Russian hands. American assistance is likely to centre around asymmetric systems, namely handheld low altitude MANPADS, much as it provided handheld anti tank missiles rather than selling Ukraine M1 Abrams tanks or M2 Bradley fighting vehicles to counter Russian forces asymmetrically. The Avenger air defence system, which mounts variants of the handheld Stinger missile systems on an armoured car, is likely to be the top system the U.S. is willing to export but is still very short ranged, restricted to very low altitudes and fails to match the performance of Ukraine’s existing Soviet era inventory. It has also been proposed that the U.S. provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets from its reserves as military aid, although transitioning the Ukrainian Air Force from Soviet to U.S. equipment would be costly and time consuming. While F-16s have lower maintenance needs than fighters Ukraine currently operates, those in American reserves do not have any notable performance advantages over Ukraine’s existing fighters.

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/air-defence-ukraine-pentagon-team


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 Post subject: Re: Ukrainian Future
PostPosted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 10:36 am 
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An Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine

With Russia in chaos, it does sound a bit far-fetched to see her as an aggressor.

Russia today is terribly sick. Her people are sick to the point of total exhaustion. But even so, have a conscience and don’t demand that–just to please America–Russia throw away the last vestiges of her concern for her security and her unprecedented collapse. After all, this concern in no way threatens the United States.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.

In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today’s Ukraine.

Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a “gift” of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.

Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.

Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?

As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.

I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine–but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces.

Image

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/03/14/new-russia/


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