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I know, it makes the pro Russians spitting mad to see Ukraine arming itself with some modern defenses. Even more so that NATO's top members would be providing Ukraine with arms. This isn't going plan at all... So its their duty to poop post on Ukraine and its partnerships with Europe. Wait till you see our plans for their air force upgrades.
You have to be kidding me!!! THIS IS EXPLOITATION!!! Nothing more.
Like I said. It's selling a toddler a baseball bat to go after Fedor Emilianenko.
How dare Turkey sell Ukraine warships. Ukraine's navy was supposed to be worthless after Russia seized their soviet junk 7 years ago. The anger this brings to the anti Ukrainians is a deep rage! What are they going to do, blog about it? This is anti Russian to allow Ukraine defensive capabilities! Enslavement to allow them to defend themselves!
Ukraine never really stabilised after the regime change in 2014. Things have become much worse in many ways — rampant corruption, venality, dysfunctional political system and poverty. What used to be one of the most prosperous regions of the former USSR is in decay. The charioteers of the 2014 colour revolution from the US and Europe have no interest in nation-building. All that matters to them is that Ukraine has turned into an American colony, driven by animus against Russia.
...
The story of Georgia, where the US’ regime change project in the post-Soviet period was first successfully staged, is even more tragic. As in Ukraine, in Georgia too, Russia was willing to work with the US for a democratic transition. But the US agenda narrowly focused on installing a virulently anti-Russian government in Tbilisi and a brash, US-educated lawyer named Mikheil Saakashvili — with an American wife — was brought in to serve that purpose.
Again, as in Ukraine’s Donbas and Crimea, a highly charged issue of “territorial sovereignty” was subtly brought in when Washington encouraged Saakashvili to stage an attack on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia in 2008, which in turn led to the loss of two breakaway regions. Georgia could never quite establish itself as a democracy, either.
Even by the ranking of American think tanks, Georgia has been steadily slipping in the democracy ratings. Then came a curious twist to the tale when the free and fair presidential election last October, threw up as winner a Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili (estimated by Forbes to be worth $5 billion).
Washington suspects that Ivanishvili who made his vast fortunes in Russia as a Russian citizen once — in metals, real estate, and banking — may be beholden to Moscow. Thus, a whispering campaign began insinuating about the Russian roots of his business empire, which has snowballed into protests demanding snap elections despite President Ivanishvili’s insistence that his loyalty to his country is not to be doubted.
A few recent words from Jack Matlock who was US ambassador to Moscow under presidents Reagan and Bush senior: “The Ukraine crisis is a product, in large part, of the policy of indefinite expansion of NATO to the east. If there had been no possibility of Ukraine ever becoming part of NATO, and therefore Sevastopol [the ex-Soviet naval port in Crimea] becoming a NATO base, Russia would not have invaded Crimea.”
He goes on to say: “Americans have lived for nearly two centuries with the Monroe Doctrine [which forbids non-Americans to seize land or intervene in Latin America]. Why don’t we understand that other countries are sensitive about military bases from potential rivals not only coming up to their borders, but taking land which historically they have considered theirs.
“These are extremely emotional issues — issues that are made to order for any authoritarian leader that wants to strengthen his rule.”
In a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Lukin, vice president of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adds a point: “It was only a matter of time before Russia finally reacted to Western encirclement.”
Matlock’s final point is that “you have almost a clique in Washington that just can’t look at any atrocity in the world without wanting the US to get involved militarily”. [Despite Iraq and Libya which are falling to pieces, perhaps to be followed by Afghanistan.]
Matlock was the top Soviet expert in the Reagan administration before he became ambassador. His great predecessor in this role, George Kennan, went to his grave warning that an expansion of NATO would be totally counterproductive.
Last week, by a vast majority, the US Congress passed a motion ratcheting up the economic sanctions that have been imposed on Russia. President Donald Trump appears to have no choice but to sign this motion into law.
The biggest dividing issue between Russia, and the US and Europe, is NATO expansion and Ukraine.
As Matlock argues, they are linked.
NATO expansion is now a done deed. The imbroglio in Ukraine continues.
Is there a way to repair the damage?
Could Ukraine be turned into a buffer state that would abjure membership in NATO for all time?
We still hear powerful voices in the West, as well as in Ukraine, calling for this.
Could Ukraine have an economic arrangement with both the EU and the Russian-conceived Eurasian Economic Union?
I have every reason to believe, having just been to Moscow to talk to highly placed political experts, that this could be the route to ending the fighting and solving the problem.
All sides have to push to one side what Chancellor Angela Merkel calls “old thinking”.
The history of Siam and Switzerland after the Napoleonic wars and Finland and Austria after World War II suggests that a successful neutral state lying between two antagonists is possible.
They might not have called themselves buffer states, but in effect they were.
Of course in Ukraine’s case, the domestic policies have to bring stability and consensus at home or the big outside players will be tempted to intervene.
Just repudiating NATO membership is not enough.
The Second Minsk Agreement, negotiated in February 2015 by Merkel and presidents Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande of France, provides the framework for domestic accord.
At the moment Russia and the Western nations seem to interpret the agreement separately.
According to the World Policy Journal: “The West tends to support reformers rather the reform process as such, and in that way implicates itself in internal political struggles that prevail within the entrenched, corrupt, political system.”
Besides that, the West, in particular some high-ranking people in NATO, sometimes speaks as if it believed that Putin’s next step would be to send forces right into Ukraine.
Putin is no fool and would not do that.
Ukraine is not Crimea, where Russia had a valid historical claim, even if Putin jumped the gun with the almost instant referendum.
It is true that Ukraine matters more to Russia than it does to the West, and so Russia is prepared to pay a higher price than the West.
The status quo, while certainly not welcome, can be lived with.
Russians can afford to wait until the West tires of its support for a government that does not get on top of corruption or its economy, and that is visibly influenced by far right groups that have their roots in Nazi organisations active during the time of World War II.
Political authority has to be decentralised and demilitarised in Ukraine. Neutrality has to be its central policy.
Eastern Ukraine can have some independence to pursue its own foreign policy in limited areas (not defence) just as Scotland and Catalonia do.
The final step would be to recognise that Ukraine is a buffer zone, neither of the East nor of the West, but with peaceful and economically fruitful relations with both.
The grand chessboard is generally understood by anyone who's a nonpartisan observer. Generally, hawks tend to see things as they want them to turn out in the end and try to impose those views even as progress towards the end don't successfully transpire.
A few recent words from Jack Matlock who was US ambassador to Moscow under presidents Reagan and Bush senior: “The Ukraine crisis is a product, in large part, of the policy of indefinite expansion of NATO to the east. If there had been no possibility of Ukraine ever becoming part of NATO, and therefore Sevastopol [the ex-Soviet naval port in Crimea] becoming a NATO base, Russia would not have invaded Crimea.”
He goes on to say: “Americans have lived for nearly two centuries with the Monroe Doctrine [which forbids non-Americans to seize land or intervene in Latin America]. Why don’t we understand that other countries are sensitive about military bases from potential rivals not only coming up to their borders, but taking land which historically they have considered theirs.
“These are extremely emotional issues — issues that are made to order for any authoritarian leader that wants to strengthen his rule.”
In a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Lukin, vice president of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adds a point: “It was only a matter of time before Russia finally reacted to Western encirclement.”
Matlock’s final point is that “you have almost a clique in Washington that just can’t look at any atrocity in the world without wanting the US to get involved militarily”. [Despite Iraq and Libya which are falling to pieces, perhaps to be followed by Afghanistan.]
Matlock was the top Soviet expert in the Reagan administration before he became ambassador. His great predecessor in this role, George Kennan, went to his grave warning that an expansion of NATO would be totally counterproductive.
Last week, by a vast majority, the US Congress passed a motion ratcheting up the economic sanctions that have been imposed on Russia. President Donald Trump appears to have no choice but to sign this motion into law.
The biggest dividing issue between Russia, and the US and Europe, is NATO expansion and Ukraine.
As Matlock argues, they are linked.
NATO expansion is now a done deed. The imbroglio in Ukraine continues.
Is there a way to repair the damage?
Could Ukraine be turned into a buffer state that would abjure membership in NATO for all time?
We still hear powerful voices in the West, as well as in Ukraine, calling for this.
Could Ukraine have an economic arrangement with both the EU and the Russian-conceived Eurasian Economic Union?
I have every reason to believe, having just been to Moscow to talk to highly placed political experts, that this could be the route to ending the fighting and solving the problem.
All sides have to push to one side what Chancellor Angela Merkel calls “old thinking”.
The history of Siam and Switzerland after the Napoleonic wars and Finland and Austria after World War II suggests that a successful neutral state lying between two antagonists is possible.
They might not have called themselves buffer states, but in effect they were.
Of course in Ukraine’s case, the domestic policies have to bring stability and consensus at home or the big outside players will be tempted to intervene.
Just repudiating NATO membership is not enough.
The Second Minsk Agreement, negotiated in February 2015 by Merkel and presidents Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande of France, provides the framework for domestic accord.
At the moment Russia and the Western nations seem to interpret the agreement separately.
According to the World Policy Journal: “The West tends to support reformers rather the reform process as such, and in that way implicates itself in internal political struggles that prevail within the entrenched, corrupt, political system.”
Besides that, the West, in particular some high-ranking people in NATO, sometimes speaks as if it believed that Putin’s next step would be to send forces right into Ukraine.
Putin is no fool and would not do that.
Ukraine is not Crimea, where Russia had a valid historical claim, even if Putin jumped the gun with the almost instant referendum.
It is true that Ukraine matters more to Russia than it does to the West, and so Russia is prepared to pay a higher price than the West.
The status quo, while certainly not welcome, can be lived with.
Russians can afford to wait until the West tires of its support for a government that does not get on top of corruption or its economy, and that is visibly influenced by far right groups that have their roots in Nazi organisations active during the time of World War II.
Political authority has to be decentralised and demilitarised in Ukraine. Neutrality has to be its central policy.
Eastern Ukraine can have some independence to pursue its own foreign policy in limited areas (not defence) just as Scotland and Catalonia do.
The final step would be to recognise that Ukraine is a buffer zone, neither of the East nor of the West, but with peaceful and economically fruitful relations with both.
The grand chessboard is generally understood by anyone who's a nonpartisan observer. Generally, hawks tend to see things as they want them to turn out in the end and try to impose those views even as progress towards the end don't successfully transpire.
Right there we are going back to this whole "American exceptionalism" issue, the "moral superiority" that America ( supposedly) has over all other nations.
But anyways, since we keep on returning to the subject of Crimea ( that still remains at the core of it all,)
why don't I leave this short documentary here, about certain events that took place shortly after "Maidan" in Kiev back in 2014.
May be THIS might explain why any demands of the West to "return Crimea to Ukraine," should be regarded as criminal, and should be met with guns, a lot of them.
Because, as I've said, no matter how evil Putin is, Crimea is not some empty space; it's full of people, and these people are much better off under Putin than Kiev Nazi.
There are a lot of arguments going back and forth about this event near small town of Korsun' - Shevchenko, with Ukrainians arguing that it's nothing but a "Russian propaganda piece," and people who went though it are lying about all those killed during it.
However even this is an exaggeration ( Crimean authorities actually didn't confirm the murders,) the rest what you see here is true. Simply because you'll see an actual footage of events there.
This ambush took place near that small town, ( Korsun -Shevchenko,) when Crimeans were returning back home from Maidan.
So you be the judges. ( 18+)
( I think there are English subs there; may be not the best, but that's at least something.)
This so called Pogrom is one of many inventions of the Russian propaganda machine, and did not actually take place – at least not in the way described by the Russian media. Moreover, the way this myth was constructed provides an insight into how the Russian propaganda machine fixes history. One of Pervy Kanal's many fake news stories in the summer of 2014 was this supposed event. There is no evidence, just Russian storytelling presented as fact.
In this, Putin borrowed from his mentor, Adolf, to create his own Gliewitz Incident to justify taking another country's territory by force. It's no coincidence they used the name of the town Korsun to create this myth, as Korsun is named after the ancient city in Crimea of the same name.
This so called Pogrom is one of many inventions of the Russian propaganda machine, and did not actually take place – at least not in the way described by the Russian media. Moreover, the way this myth was constructed provides an insight into how the Russian propaganda machine fixes history. One of Pervy Kanal's many fake news stories in the summer of 2014 was this supposed event. There is no evidence, just Russian storytelling presented as fact.
In this, Putin borrowed from his mentor, Adolf, to create his own Gliewitz Incident to justify taking another country's territory by force. It's no coincidence they used the name of the town Korsun to create this myth, as Korsun is named after the ancient city in Crimea of the same name.
DKM dear, there is a FOOTAGE, ACTUAL FOOTAGE of that event that "did not actually took place" ( according to you,) in that documentary.
So before you jump to the defense of your Nazi friends yet again, ( or before I'll add something,) I want more people to see what happened, and make up their minds.
Nearly everything in this post is false, but I'll address the more obvious ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lchoro
Could Ukraine be turned into a buffer state that would abjure membership in NATO for all time?
We still hear powerful voices in the West, as well as in Ukraine, calling for this.
Even if this was true what does that even mean? There is no anti-Nato treaty Ukraine could sign even if they wanted to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lchoro
Could Ukraine have an economic arrangement with both the EU and the Russian-conceived Eurasian Economic Union?
Vladimir Putin was the one who said this was not possible. He declared free trade with the EU is incompatible with being part of Russia's trading blok. He gave Yanukovich the choice in 2013, pick one or the other. Funny how you flip this around and make it sound like it was Europe's decision.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lchoro
Political authority has to be decentralised and demilitarised in Ukraine. Neutrality has to be its central policy.
Eastern Ukraine can have some independence to pursue its own foreign policy in limited areas (not defence) just as Scotland and Catalonia do.
This doesn't even mean anything. Russia is occupying the eastern corner of Ukraine to pressure them towards neutrality? Scotland doesn't have the power to enact its own foreign trade policy. The only people in Ukraine who benefit from trade with Russia are the oligarchs in the east. Even many of them don't even care anymore as they can make so much selling products to Europe that they don't even have to steal to make money. It's less money than before, but they are making money and without legal issues. There are a few exceptions, but they are not going to convince anybody that their needs are more important than the national needs. And that's what lies at the heart of the problem here, Ukraine has to follow what its people want because they have free elections. Putinism is incompatible with that.
DKM dear, there is a FOOTAGE, ACTUAL FOOTAGE of that event that "did not actually took place" ( according to you,) in that documentary.
So before you jump to the defense of your Nazi friends yet again, ( or before I'll add something,) I want more people to see what happened, and make up their minds.
Documentary "footage" mixed with reenactments to create a collage of fact and fiction whose purpose isn’t to document what happened but to hammer home the narrative that Russia’s lightning covert operation saved Crimea from Ukrainian “fascists,” if not direct NATO intervention.
Not fooling anyone with lies about 7 years ago events.
Were there busses of Berkut from Crimea heading back to Crimea after shooting dead 100 Ukrainians in Kiev? Maybe. If so, they were lucky to make it back alive.
Documentary "footage" mixed with reenactments to create a collage of fact and fiction whose purpose isn’t to document what happened but to hammer home the narrative that Russia’s lightning covert operation saved Crimea from Ukrainian “fascists,” if not direct NATO intervention.
Not fooling anyone with lies about 7 years ago events.
You are confused as usual. There are no "reenactments" there.
The reenactments were in "Crimea; a road back home" - quite an interesting movie too. ( Youtube was trying to ban it by the way.)
But I made sure that there was ONLY FOOTAGE in this particular documentary. If you find any "reenactment" - please point me at it.
In fact, I did some additional search, and this is the raw footage yet again, including what people were saying back THEN, after they went through that ordeal; "They broke my arm and collar bone, just because I was from Crimea and I was speaking Russian." (13:58) (At 14:51 the Crimean authorities, when discussing the ambush, confirm 17 wounded people on the buses. They are not certain about the reported killed ones, guessing that they could have been not among the Crimeans but from couple of other Eastern Ukrainian cities, that were joining the ride. So no confirmation there.)
Then Russian channel was saying that Ukrainians never showed this pogrom, never mentioned it on their channels, yet the nationalists ordered the authorities of Crimea to be arrested.
( You already know what Crimea's answer was, and particularly when those sent with the "message" ( i.e. the ambushed people from those buses) made it back, and told what they've experienced in the hands of the nationalists.
( But Mr. Anthony Blinken ( and the rest) still "strike the pose," demanding that Crimea "should belong to Ukraine.)
The girl at the end of the footage is the same one that talked in the video above, but here she is still bed-ridden. She gives additional details here, and says how happy she is that at least someone, at least Russian soldiers ( "not ours" she says,) were there to protect the rights of the Crimeans.
Oh, and that guy that you see approximately from 8:00 to 9:00, who is willing to talk in order to save his life, is saying "I promise that we ( people from Sevastopol/Simpheropol) will never come back here, to Kiev."
I think the Crimeans should keep this promise, as much as Crimea itself. That it will never return to Kiev.
So here is this footage yet again.
I repeat - raw footage, including the first one from someone's car videocam, where the cars are turning back, when they see the smoke of the burning buses.
So don't try your tricks again DKM, let people see for themselves what American money paid for during that "revolution of dignity," and why Crimea is where it is.
Uncomfortable, I understand, but something for Mr. Blinken and Co to think about.
Were there busses of Berkut from Crimea heading back to Crimea after shooting dead 100 Ukrainians in Kiev? Maybe. If so, they were lucky to make it back alive.
That's what I keep on hearing from your Nazi friends, however I don't see any Berkut police in the picture.
Care to find them there and point to me?
Besides, everyone knows by now that there were no those '100 Ukrainians," so -called "the heavenly hundred," sacred victims of revolution.
It's yet another fake. And even those that WERE shot - it's still unclear by whom exactly, because the new government refused to conduct a thorough investigation, so I'll leave it at that.
Last edited by erasure; 03-15-2021 at 11:18 PM..
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