Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia

[bjorb]

US hegemony is quickly fading. France also called for a European policy without America.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484556404673368069

 

[Hi_Henry]

Poor Putin, he is up against the best the West muster. The second video is the good one

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484532420510720006

 

[Adobe]

"State Department orders families of U.S. embassy personnel in Ukraine to begin evacuating the country as soon as Monday: U.S. officials," Fox's Lucas Tomlinson reports.

"At the same time, Russia's embassy in Washington D.C. has been calling on the West to "end the hysteria" - assuring that there are no plans to invade Ukraine."

The article:

US Embassy Orders Evacuation Of Non-Essential Staff & Diplomats' Family Members From Ukraine | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

 

[sToRmR1dR]

"State Department orders families of U.S. embassy personnel in Ukraine to begin evacuating the country as soon as Monday: U.S. officials," Fox's Lucas Tomlinson reports.

"At the same time, Russia's embassy in Washington D.C. has been calling on the West to "end the hysteria" - assuring that there are no plans to invade Ukraine."

The article:

US Embassy Orders Evacuation Of Non-Essential Staff & Diplomats' Family Members From Ukraine | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

US State Dep't Doesn't Confirm Report That Embassy Personnel Are to Quit Ukraine From Monday

Earlier in the day, Fox News reported that the families of US Embassy staff in Kiev were ordered to start quitting the country as soon as Monday.

sputniknews.com

By Daria Bedenko - 2 hours ago

 

[bjorb]

The Empire is excluded. Most telling.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1484979892613693440

 

[whitecoast]

I found a fella named Gilbert Doctorow, who runs a blog that has a few interesting things to say about the Russia v West situation.

This was before the Blinken-Lavrov meeting:

Common sense and self-preservation go mainstream in Washington, D.C.: capitulation to Russian demands becomes discussable

It is one month since the Russians presented first to American diplomats and then to the world community their brazen demands to roll back NATO to its configuration status quo ante in May 1997 befo…

gilbertdoctorow.com

Common sense and self-preservation go mainstream in Washington, D.C.: capitulation to Russian demands becomes discussable​

It is one month since the Russians presented first to American diplomats and then to the world community their brazen demands to roll back NATO to its configuration status quo ante in May 1997 before the accession of former Warsaw Pact countries.

Those demands were taken up with seeming seriousness by the U.S. Government, then by NATO, whose Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, initially dismissed them out of hand as unacceptable. In short order dates were sketched in for a meeting of U.S. and Russian delegations in Geneva on 10 January. Then at U.S. insistence further meetings were scheduled with NATO in Brussels on 12 January and with the OSCE in Vienna on 13 January.

Western media were invited by their ‘high level but anonymous’ information sources in Washington to see these astonishing developments as required to de-escalate tensions at the Russian-Ukrainian border, where the Russians had amassed over 100,000 troops. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his minions said repeatedly the troop concentration was in preparation for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Such an invasion would spell a blitzkrieg victory for the Russians and would undo the 2.5 billion dollar U.S. investment made under two U.S. presidents to turn Ukraine from one more “catch” by the American team, as described by Gideon Rose, then editor in chief of Foreign Affairs magazine when it happened in February 2014, into a major military asset in the policy of threatening and containing the Russian Federation. Instead, this looked to become the second U.S. foreign policy debacle in less than a year after the shameful chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last August.

It is astounding that none of the major Western media picked up the fact in front of their noses: that on the pretext of an invasion they had no intention of staging, the Russians had succeeded in lining up high level meetings with the United States and its NATO allies to discuss total revisions to the security architecture in Europe, something which was the laugh of the town when first proposed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008-2009 and led to nothing back then.

I would call this the first Psy-ops success scored by Moscow. The second success was the admission by the United States, the United Kingdom and France in the run-up to the meetings in Geneva and Brussels that they would not send a single soldier to help defend the Ukrainians if they were invaded! This was the loudest possible signal to Kiev to sober up its rabid nationalist militias and forget entirely using their shiny new U.S. military gear to stage the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that remain in open rebellion against the central authorities. Was this foreseeable on the part of Joe Biden, who in 2008 had been inciting the Georgian president Saakashvili to similar folly of recovering rebel provinces by force of arms in the face of Russian opposition? No, it resulted directly from some folks on Capitol Hill knowing what’s what with respect to comparative U.S. and Russian military strength, capabilities and will in Russia’s Near Abroad today. Victory two for Psy-ops!

Now today I am delighted to share with readers an article just published by The National Interest in Washington urging what would be, in effect, total capitulation to Russian demands for NATO’s downsizing. I am especially delighted that the author’s lever for his argumentation is precisely the definition of “military technical means” that I have provided to an otherwise clueless community of Russia experts in the U.S. and Western Europe. It is all set out on page one of his essay.

Biden’s Opportunity for Peace in Eurasia

While these comprehensive peace agreements with Russia and China would not be without challenges, they would provide an unprecedented opportunity for Biden to secure his presidential legacy as a transformational peace president while also serving to safeguard vital U.S. national security interests.

nationalinterest.org

That this was dynamite is confirmed by its immediately being reposted by a news portal in Latvia, which would be one of the countries whose anti-Russian, pro-American government would be finished, kaput should the recommendations in this article be implemented.

https://latvia.on-24.com/world/109351.html

I hasten to add that the publishers of this article are just one step away from U.S. mainstream in terms of respectability. The officers of the parent organization, the Center for the National Interest, formerly known as The Nixon Center, include not only dual citizenship former Soviets, whose patriotism might be put in question by political foes, but also some high serving former U.S. government folks who made the right sounds of patriotism when given a microphone in the past. Not entirely unimpeachable, but pretty solid. And now we read this call for capitulation in their journal!

It is entirely logical that the author has used my little linguistic exploration as the starting point for his argumentation. Because language is key to what is before us: the American foreign policy community is largely lacking all competence in Russian thanks to policies that go back more than a decade. I recall my semester on Columbia campus in 2010-11 when I refreshed my knowledge of The Harriman Institute and discovered they had dropped all language requirements for their master’s degree in regional studies relating to Russia and Eurasia. Instead, they required students to concentrate on numerical skills, which presumably would be more useful for their obtaining jobs after graduation in banks and international organizations. And Columbia was not at all alone in its downgrading of language skills.

The net result is that journalists who report today on crises like the ongoing crisis between the United States and Russia are heavily reliant on handouts from the State Department and Pentagon, i.e. on state propaganda which they are unable to interpret critically and just pass through to their readers without comment.

But there is a bigger issue that cannot be resolved just by starting up language courses: it is the unwillingness of institutions of higher education presently to listen to our adversaries and try to understand the logic underlying their behavior. In the case of Russia, anyone presenting the Russian side of things has been instantly labeled a ‘stooge of Putin’ over the past decade. I know very well, because all of my efforts as a public intellectual during this time have been precisely to present the thinking of the other side to my readers. Not to be an advocate or modern day “Tokyo Rose,” just to let the facts fall where they may.

Now that the Russians are saying “move or we will move you,” which they can back up with superior tactical and strategic military hardware, it is obvious there is a price to pay for ignorance.

One the meeting itself:

Blinken and Lavrov meeting in Geneva: two steps forward and one step back

Contrary to my expectations, the 90 minute meeting of Blinken and Lavrov in Geneva yesterday appears to have had some justification and ended with a slightly improved prognosis for resolution of th…

gilbertdoctorow.com

Blinken and Lavrov meeting in Geneva: two steps forward and one step back​

Contrary to my expectations, the 90 minute meeting of Blinken and Lavrov in Geneva yesterday appears to have had some justification and ended with a slightly improved prognosis for resolution of the crises, both those at the borders of Ukraine and those in bilateral US-Russian relations over satisfaction of Russian demands that the security architecture of Europe be redrawn.

Very subtly, the second issue is moving into the center of attention, which is, all by itself, an undeniable achievement of Vladimir Putin’s stated policy of maintaining and intensifying pressure on the West to be heard about its security concerns.

In his press briefing, Blinken repeated his by now ritualistic statement that there will be severe economic punishment if Russia invades Ukraine. However, he also said that the United States will submit to Russia a written response to its draft treaties of 15 December within the coming week. To this he added that the sides will meet again at the ministerial level after that submission, and, most significantly, that the U.S. President is ready to hold another summit meeting with President Putin if the sides believe that will be useful.

From the foregoing, one can extract the message that there will be some substantive counter offer from the United States to the Russian text that will be sufficiently interesting for the talks to continue and even to be bumped up to the presidential level.

Sergei Lavrov’s separate press briefing was broadcast live by both CNN and the BBC, something we have not seen in years.

Lavrov declined to characterize the talks as proceeding well or otherwise and insisted that will be clear only after the American submission is received. He explained to journalists that the substance of the meeting had been to provide the Americans with clarifications of several points in the draft treaties. We may assume that one such clarification was over the meaning of the Russian demand that NATO return to the 1997 status quo before the accession of former Warsaw Pact member countries. We now were told that in the case of Bulgaria and Romania, for example, all NATO troops and installations would have to be removed.

On the sidelines of the talks, one interesting and relevant piece of news which the Russian state television reported but I have not seen in Western media. Deputy Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov said to a journalist who met him in the cloakroom as he was on his way to the meeting: “We are not afraid of anyone, including the United States!”

That is a statement which only a handful of nations in the world can make. It reflects the newfound self-confidence that is propelling the Russians forward in their present quest for treatment as equals by the Collective West and for changed security arrangements in Europe.

This brings us to the other side of the equation – the step back. Both Russia on the one side and the United States with NATO member countries on the other are proceeding apace with saber rattling.

The U.S. embassy in Kiev announced yesterday the arrival by plane of substantial new “lethal arms” to Ukraine, apparently ammunition. Meanwhile, the day before, the United Kingdom had made numerous flights to Kiev to bring in weapons and elite trainers/military advisers.

For its part, Russia announced yesterday the immediate start of a worldwide exercise of naval power that includes the move of landing assault vessels into the Black Sea. Russia also has in the past few days added another 6,000 soldiers to its 100,000 strong forces at the Ukraine borders and has brought in Iskander missile launchers capable of making precise and highly destructive strikes on Kiev. Furthermore, Russia has brought into the theater its S-400 air defense missiles, which would enable it to enforce a ‘no fly zone’ over Ukraine at any time of its choosing, thereby denying access to the United States and other allied planes for delivery of further weapons or for performance of aerial reconnaissance.

All of the foregoing Russian measures fit nicely into the description of ‘military technical measures’ that Vladimir Putin had said Russia will apply should the talks with the United States over its security demands reach a dead end.

So far not a single shot has been fired. There is heightened tension but no war. It is safe to assume that this line of psychological warfare is precisely the favored strategy of the Russian President to reach his objective of revising the European security architecture.

Already the fissures within Europe over how to respond to the Russian demands are deepening. In a lengthy address to the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg, French President Emanuel Macron has spoken of the need for a Europeans-only approach to Russia on this question, showing more than a measure of skepticism if not contempt for the Biden administration. And German chancellor Scholz has tamed his inexperienced, loudmouth Greens Party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock and has himself taken the lead in parting company with the United States and fellow NATO members over how to deal with Moscow. Even the BBC reporting yesterday on the flights of British planes carrying military supplies to Ukraine showed the large arc by which they skirted German airspace, traveling instead to the north through Denmark to avoid conflict with the German government’s policy against sending arms to Ukraine under present conditions.

Similarly, The Financial Times and other mainstream Western press are now giving considerably more attention to the Russian security demands which were previously buried in coverage of the stand-off at the Ukraine-Russia border.

The task before Vladimir Putin is to convert what the Russian leadership believes to be their present “window of opportunity,” when they have strategic and tactical military advantage over the United States and NATO, into political gain. They are demanding changes to the security architecture that normally come only after one side has won a war. It is devilishly difficult to achieve without ‘breaking some china’ though that is the constraint that the ever cautious Putin is working under.

As I have mentioned in prior articles, one element in the ongoing Psy-ops is to release every few days information about additional options available to the Kremlin to get its way without invading Ukraine. One such option that emerged a couple of days ago was the announcement that a bill has been introduced in the State Duma calling upon President Putin to recognize the Donbas republics of Lugansk and Donetsk as independent, sovereign countries,, preparing the way for possible Russian annexation. Yesterday, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov addressed this issue, saying it must be approached “with caution.” It has further come out at the initiators of the bill in question were the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, not the ultra-nationalist LDPR of Zhirinovsky or the ruling party United Russia. Russian politics are definitely more complex and ‘normal’ than our Western media and governments tend to understand.

Apart from ideologically blinded fools in the United States, among them well known former diplomats like Ivo Daalder (ambassador to NATO 2009-2013) who published his view on how to constrain Putin in The Financial Times two days ago, the realistically minded politicians and statesmen in the United States, of whom there always were quite a few, are now sitting up straight and paying attention to Putin. We have not heard the words ‘thug’ or ‘killer’ applied to his name for some time. The worst we hear from people like Daalder is that he is a ’dictator’ and so by definition is our adversary in the global struggle between freedom loving democratic countries and dictatorships. But such Neocon ideological nonsense always was a veneer for popular consumption over the bitter pill of American military dominance. Now confidence in that dominance is being put to the acid test by the Russians.

All of which brings me to the final point today, to what extent is the Russian confidence in its negotiating position assisted by the country’s growing alliance with China.

In the United States, in the past several years when China was identified by U.S. President Trump as the prospective Public Enemy Number One that had to be contained at all costs, there has been the beating of drums in the American press telling us that the PRC is busy developing what will soon be the world’s most powerful armed forces.

In August 2021, when the Chinese conducted their first tests of their own hypersonic missiles, Western newspapers all quoted one Pentagon official who claimed this was a new ‘Sputnik moment,’ meaning that the Chinese had moved ahead technologically with an awesome new weapon system. They all ignored the fact that the Russians had done the same three years earlier and now had hypersonic glide missiles ready for serial production.

In short, Western media and, presumably, most Western politicians were deceived by their own prevailing propaganda about Russian being a power in decline with ability only to act as ‘spoiler,’ and ignored the reality which the Russians are saying loudly and clearly today: that they have the world’s most modern armed forces and are second in strength globally only to the United States.

What this means is that the Chinese factor in Russian strategic actions exists only in the economic domain, where cooperation with China in the event of drastic U.S. and European sanctions such as cut-off from SWIFT will be very important for stability of the Russian economy and military potential. However, in all other respects, the China factor is useful to Russia only as a scarecrow, to raise U.S. fears of a simultaneous Chinese strike on Taiwan when the Russians invade Ukraine. Neither event is likely to happen, but the possibility is another feature of Russia’s ongoing psychological warfare to achieve its security objectives.

It's really eerie. Reading this, and looking back at the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 (which Putin protested), the Russian Olympics, the Ukraine Maidan, the rape of Libya, the attempted overthrow of Assad in Syria, the Russiagate psy-op on the western public throughout the Trump presidency... and now after all that water under the bridge we are here now.

I was too young to follow the news during the lead-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the prompt dissolution of the USSR right afterward. But between the rapid collapse of the Afghanistan outpost and now this.... is it too much to hope that the collapse of the NATO imperial apparatus, or at least its contractile implosion, may be far sooner than we realize?

 

[Pierre]

There is still a lot of work to do for Germany and Russia the be allied:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1485116901256691712

 

[Voyageur]

There is still a lot of work to do for Germany and Russia the be allied:

Some of Schoenbach's words:

Speaking to a think-tank discussion in India on Friday, the video of which was later posted on the social media, Schoenbach said Putin deserved respect and that Ukraine would never be able to reclaim its former territory of Crimea, which joined the Russian Federation in a referendum in 2014.

"What he (Putin) really wants is respect," Schoenbach told the discussion. "And my God, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost... It is easy to give him the respect he really demands - and probably also deserves," he added, calling Russia an old and important country.

There are likely many military chiefs, even from within the Joint Chiefs (they are not all stupid by any means) who may feel the same as Schoenbach.

Added here is an internal look at the Russian people's recent thoughts on war (John Helmer):

HOW RUSSIANS VIEW THE RISK OF WAR WITH THE US

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with When the US-led putsch in Kiev started the Ukrainian civil war in 2014, most Russians have believed the ris

johnhelmer.net

The new poll was released on Monday and has not yet been published in English. Three days earlier, however, Levada released the responses of its nationwide sample to the question asked in the same interview — what are the major fears Russians have for the future. World war was ranked second after fear for the illness of family members; it came well ahead of Russians’ fear of abuse of power and political repression, poverty, robbery, loss of savings, unemployment or growing old. Fear of illness in the family is now acknowledged by 82%; fear of world war by 56%. The Russian apprehension of war has almost doubled since 2003.


These are not phantom fears stoked by the mass media. Russians don’t believe what they read in the Russian or foreign press. In Russian thinking, the media are as untrustworthy as banks, businessmen, government officials, and political parties. In this distrust and disbelief, Russians lead all Europeans; their disbelief in the press is also greater than the comparable American measure, plummeting though that has been since the 2016 presidential election.

 

[Hi_Henry]

I was too young to follow the news during the lead-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the prompt dissolution of the USSR right afterward. But between the rapid collapse of the Afghanistan outpost and now this.... is it too much to hope that the collapse of the NATO imperial apparatus, or at least its contractile implosion, may be far sooner than we realize?

I'll give you a couple of examples of how The Game you see being played today was played before the fall of Communism.

My favorite is the following one because it is a classic method used by the US over and over again. When this was happening I understood it as was explained in MSM, Democracy fighting against Communism.

In 1981 Reagan issued sanctions on USSR. These sanctions halted any business with USSR in building a pipeline to Europe.
Sound familiar?

Background​

Reagan issued sanctions on Dec. 29, 1981, and on June 22, 1982, in response to the imposition of martial law in Poland. Reagan blamed the Soviets for the crackdown on Solidarity.

Among other things, the Dec. 29 sanctions required U.S. firms to obtain government licenses for sales to the Soviet Union of equipment or technology for the transmission or refining of oil and natural gas. The sanctions also applied to equipment and technical data for two Soviet truck plants. To put teeth into the sanctions, Reagan ordered the Commerce Department to stop processing all applications for the licenses.

Reagan complained that the natural gas pipeline would make Western Europe overly dependent on the Soviet Union for energy supplies and would provide billions of dollars in hard currency to prop up the ailing Soviet economy.

Reagan raised the international political stakes June 22 by prohibiting foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms from selling the same equipment and technology and prohibiting overseas firms from selling the Soviets those products made under U.S. licenses.

Administration attempts to enforce the June 22 sanctions brought bitter protests from European leaders, who complained that Reagan was attempting to use American law to force non-American companies to break valid contracts. Great Britain, France and Italy ordered their firms to proceed with their Soviet contracts and West Germany encouraged its firms to do the same.

Reagan's action came only a few weeks after a Western summit meeting at Versailles, France. European leaders reportedly left that meeting with the understanding that the United States would take no further unilateral actions affecting their trade.

Then a year later, 1982, he lifted them. Why ? The real answer is most likely the loss of business by US and European business and not what he said at the press conferences, "We reached our objectives.".

Abstract:
The Reagan administration decision to impose economic sanctions designed to halt construction of a Soviet gas pipeline built to supply Western Europe led, starting in late 1981, to a serious split among the NATO allies. The administration's emphasis on constraining the Soviet economy--particularly the sale of natural resources for hard currency--as a means of limiting Soviet military build-up, conflicted with the European desire for an inexpensive, reliable energy supply.

REAGAN LIFTS SANCTIONS ON SALES FOR SOVIET PIPELINE; REPORTS ACCORD WITH ALLIES (Published 1982)

www.nytimes.com

Effect of sanctions etc can be seen here,

These sanctions occured more or less between the two red lines. Effect, not much. The real hit came when Gorbachev took over as the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991. We see the GDP drop during his tenure and the rest of the damage was done by Yeltsin when he took over in 1991.

The next one comes from Eastern Europe, Poland, around the same time. This is synchronization of action to help the Dominos to fall and cripple them for years.

Reagan Takes Economic Action Against Poland

By Lee Lescaze
December 24, 1981
President Reagan ordered a series of economic reprisals against the Polish government yesterday and warned that he is prepared to impose more serious sanctions against both Poland and the Soviet Union if "the outrages in Poland do not cease."
The United States will not conduct "business as usual" with Poland's military government and "those who aid and abet them," Reagan said in a nationally televised address in which he hailed the spirit of the Polish people and declared "their cause is ours."

then

Reagan lifts sanctions on Poland, Feb. 19, 1987​

By ANDREW GLASS
02/19/2019 12:03 AM EST

On this day in 1987, two years before the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe, President Ronald Reagan lifted all U.S. sanctions against Poland.

Reagan noted the Polish government had lifted martial law, freed thousands of political prisoners and refrained from mass arrests since a broad amnesty had been declared in September 1986. But he stressed that with dissidents still facing economic penalties in lieu of jail and the Solidarity labor movement outlawed, and operating underground, “there is still far to go.”

The sanctions on Poland lasted 5 yrs !!!! That's a lot of time to "help" democracy take root as their economy tanks.

Imagine trying to pay your credit bills when they force you to lose your job to help "democracy" grow.



So what we see today is NOTHING NEW. It's simply old BS served by new waiters. It may seem new however to those who haven't followed and/or read history.

 

[Hi_Henry]

It's worth revisiting how the Maidan Revolution was manipulated from behind the curtains as the same play book is used today.

The intercepted phone call of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. The words used were very clear. What was ment by them was later seen in the end results.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1485029934091235329

Behind the scenes, in an intercepted phone call with Pyatt, Nuland can be heard plotting the make-up of a government to succeed that of Yanukovych. “Yats is the guy” she said, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, America’s preferred leader for the Ukrainian people.

How Not to Explain the Ukraine Crisis

The PBS NewsHour invited on just about the worst person in the U.S. government to help Americans understand the crisis in Ukraine, writes Mike Madden. By Mike…

www.strategic-culture.org

More interesting info is found here,

Phone Wrecks: The Secret Agenda of Ashton and Nuland Revealed

Two war-mongering women who represent the West’s foreign policy apparatus, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and EU official…

www.strategic-culture.org

Some people are able to frame the situation right

https://twitter.com/x/status/1194755364987666432

 

[Vulcan59]

FWIW,

An air cargo jet operating under US Transportation Command took off from Kyiv, Ukraine after delivering 200,000 pounds of Ammunition. It then violated the air space of Belarus, violated Russian Air Space, and “disappeared” from flight tracking as it entered Kazakhstan. At this time we are not certain that the plane was shot down. Nevertheless, this warns of increasing tensions. Once more, Biden threatened sanctions but did not commit US troops to defend Ukraine or NATO troops.

Russia May Have Shot Down US Cargo Plane

 

[sToRmR1dR]

'While Russia is waiting for the US to provide "next week written response" on security guarantees.'

US diplomats’ families ordered to leave Ukraine

The US State Department has updated its travel advisory for Ukraine, citing ‘increased threats of Russian military action’

www.rt.com

24 Jan, 2022

US Embassy in Kiev to remain operational, Department of State says

The United States commitment to Ukraineâs sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering, the official told a news briefing

tass.com

24 JAN, 2022

UK begins evacuation of diplomats from Ukraine

The UK has ordered the withdrawal of staff from its embassy in Kiev as tensions on Ukraine’s border with Russia remain at an all-time high

www.rt.com

24 Jan, 2022

No plans to evacuate diplomats from Ukraine as long as talks continue â EU top diplomat

Josep Borrell noted that there was no reason to dramatize, as far as the negotiations were going on

tass.com

24 JAN, 2022

West Using Ukraine as Instrument of Advancing Regional Interests -Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The West is using Kiev as an instrument in order to advance its own interests in the region and influence certain processes, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

sputniknews.com

10 hours ago

Washington asks Russia to keep US response on security guarantees secret - paper

Department of State sources also The Washington Post that the written US response will include US proposals in the security domain and will demonstrate the countryâs interest in maintaining the dialogue with Moscow.

tass.com

22 JAN, 2022

 

[bjorb]

Action reaction. The US is thinking it holds all the cards. But Putin hasn't even started playing yet.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1485633186256273409

 

[bjorb]

During the negotiations for the unification of West Germany and the GDR, on February 9, 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker gave Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a guarantee that NATO would not expand its area of operations an inch to the east. Below is the pledge. The entire memorandum from the U.S. archives can be read here.

 

[Ocean]

Mods

Regarding my Ukraine post waiting....

TheSilentWarRoom
Telegram channel
'E' is the insider.

Kelly Irish, [1/25/2022 12:23 PM]
[Forwarded from EWillHelpYou]
[ Photo ]
This week The New York Times, a US based propaganda outlet, published an anonymous report claiming that Russia was emptying out its diplomatic stations in the Ukraine in a possible planned escalation.

The only problem with this report?

It never happened.

The report cites the claims of an unnamed senior Ukrainian official, but both the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, and Russia deny any such activity taking place.

This did not stop US outlets from repeatedly echoing this false information as a continued pretext for the drumbeat of war, ordering the withdrawal of their own diplomats from the region. Neither did it stop senior US officials from discussing the need for further military engagement based off of this knowingly false report.
No article corrections have been issued to date.

Kelly Irish, [1/25/2022 12:23 PM]
[Forwarded from EWillHelpYou]
As early as 2015, the CIA's Ground Department (clandestine services) had quietly begun bringing Ukrainian soldiers over to the US and training them at top secret locations, including using the WHINSEC facilities at Fort Benning, Georgia.
----
At this moment in time, there are hundreds, if not thousands of quietly trained CIA funded agent provocateurs on the ground, in the Ukraine.
----
The intention, is to use them to facilitate increased hostilities, in order to open a window for NATO engagement, while at the same time; putting blame on Russian or pro-russo forces.

Kelly Irish, [1/25/2022 12:23 PM]
[Forwarded from EWillHelpYou]
BREAKING:
At 10.45 am, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange won his application to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

Check it out