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Russia is not the Empire which is expanding here.
Posted on 10/05/2023 7:23:25 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
—> The last major country that want to go out and just take over other countries is Russia period.
Which we caused and could have prevented at many stages.
—-> I think I made a lot of sense so I don’t think I am being foolish
And if you were foolish, that’s exactly what you’d think.
“Which we caused and could have prevented at many stages.”
We caused?!?! How on earth did we cause the Russian invasion, Ivan?!?!?
Bro, do you even read the news?Have you even paid attention from the time of Obama forward?
Do you even know what Russia did to respond in every legal forum over years to get redress?
Do you even know that to recognize a reality is not to support Russia?
... and frankly, that is why your posts have been foolish.
They are not grounded in reality, nor critical thinking, since they are divorced from and accounting of the facts.
The only places I know that would are with you are Russian propaganda and marginal fringe sites. The over whelming majority of sites and sources of news whether lib or conservative have shown that Russia is a ruthless predatory power bent on expanding their borders. There is no other cause of this war. I suppose you think the Ukrainians are the Nazis and you are telling me that I am not grounded in reality.
—> The only places I know that would are with you are Russian propaganda and marginal fringe sites
Your lack of news gathering skills as you describe are one source of your issue.
The other is likely a critical thinking issue
—> There is no other cause of this war.
There you go again
—> I suppose you think the Ukrainians are the Nazis
No question that many are, but not all
The globalist homos that fomented the color revolutions across Europe and ukraine do have Nazi descendent ties.
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Russia is not the Empire which is expanding here.
Hey, Rev wrong. I gather you are referring to NATO. NATO is not expanding its borders. It is protecting the borders of its members. And due to the actions of Russia more countries are joining to defend themselves. apparently they have a little bit more knowledge of Russia and its aims than you do.
This is not a NATO war. NATO is helping Ukraine defend itself against a Russian invasion.
This is a Russian invasion.
America didn’t tell Putin to invade - unless you think he is that idiotic to follow American orders
Ugh, must we explain what thinking informed people already know? The Maidan “revolution” (I.e. coup) was a western operation to regime change Ukraine away from their charting a neutral course between Russia and Europe into fully the western orbit. This was the culmination of nato expanding up to the borders of Russia. (Remember, nato said originally “not one inch further” to the east and then over the years gobbled up nations right to the Russian border.) Finally, the Ukraine land grab was a bridge too far. Confirming the west’s duplicitous conduct was even Merkel ADMITTING the west lied to Russia about not abiding to the Minsk agreement, but rather was a trick to arm Ukraine through stealth to prepare for war.
This is the war nato/American cabal wanted since they believed their own propaganda - Russia was just a “gas station” with a flag. Easy-peasy, no match for america the empire and all their pretty over priced military toys. Besides, we would use the economic nuclear option and destroy Russia without a shot being fired. Haha, but like Yosemite Sam this economic weapon blew up in our own corrupt face as it only managed to form the majority of the world against us as seen in the BRICS, Russia defacto alliance with China and the flight of countries away from the dollar reserve since it’s nothing more than fiat currency producing more debt than productivity.
Look, I’m not making fun of the america you love. Fact is, THAT america is long dead. What exist now is a sick corrupt hollowed out corpse more prone to evil than good. Blowing up pipelines, illegally occupying Syria, turning institutions against its own citizens…. America has become what it used to stand against.
As Burke once wrote, “to be loved, a country must be lovely.”
ConInPA “Nazis.”
You really think that Nazis have a Jewish President and Prime Minister??
Many Ukrainians acted abominably in WWII, but since 1990 (actually since the 1940s) they have shown no overall inclination to Naziism - no more than the Russian Federation or the USA.
They had one party that could be labelled neo-Nazi and they didn’t even get into parliament at the last election.
Nazism is a form of fascism, with
1. disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system.
2. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism,
3. scientific racism, social Darwinism and the use of eugenics into its creed.
Ukraine has had democratic elections for 3 decades now — not always fair, but for the past 15 years they have been fair and externally monitored.
In contrast, Russia has not had non-manipulated elections since 1999.
Ukraine has had different leaders since 2000 — Russia has had ONE dictator - Putin - for 23 years.
Russia also centralized rule in one person and subordinated business to the state. Ukraine has not.
By all definitions, Russia under Putin is a Nazi state.
Ukrainians protested Yanukovych not fulfilling his campaign promises of closer economic ties to the EU as they had the right to do under the Ukrainian Constitution. He ordered that the police open fire on them. 108 Ukrainians were killed. Then scared to death about what he had done he fled the country with a big percentage of the Ukrainian treasury. He abandoned his job. The next day the Parliament voted to remove him from office, as the law allowed. It wasn’t a coup, the man abandoned his job. Three months later the people of the country held an election and elected someone who was willing to show up.
Yanukovych, a russian puppet, ran away whilst he was still President and relinquished his role, never returning to Ukraine.
Yanukovich could have stayed, he could have plead his case. He could have made the public arguement for why he did what he did. He didn’t do that though. Instead he burned a bunch of documents, packed a suitcase full of cash and fled in the middle of the night.
There was no armed uprising
There was no fifth column.
There wasn’t even a singular political leader who opposed him who stepped into his role. Ukraine had a short lived provisional government until a new election was held. Their constitution was never suspended
Ukraine, like every other democracy, has acts in place that deal with an absent leader and enacted them accordingly.
Russia decided to call this a coup in an effort to de-legitimise the Ukrainian government because it objected to the removal of its puppet. It did not like the idea of a free democratic nation on its border.
That's false
Gorbachev and the documents show ZERO promise not to enlarge
What the Germans, Americans, British and French did agree to in 1990 was that there would be no deployment of non-German NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR. I was a deputy director on the State Department’s Soviet desk at the time, and that was certainly the point of Secretary James Baker’s discussions with Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1990, few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.=======================================The agreement on not deploying foreign troops on the territory of the former GDR was incorporated in Article 5 of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, which was signed on September 12, 1990 by the foreign ministers of the two Germanys, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France. Article 5 had three provisions:
- Until Soviet forces had completed their withdrawal from the former GDR, only German territorial defense units not integrated into NATO would be deployed in that territory.
- There would be no increase in the numbers of troops or equipment of U.S., British and French forces stationed in Berlin.
- Once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.
When one reads the full text of the Woerner speech cited by Putin, it is clear that the secretary general’s comments referred to NATO forces in eastern Germany, not a broader commitment not to enlarge the Alliance.
Former Soviet President Gorbachev’s View
We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
Several years after German reunification, in 1997, NATO said that in the “current and foreseeable security environment” there would be no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members. Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members. Since March, NATO has increased the presence of its military forces in the Baltic region and Central Europe.
Putin is not stupid, and his aides surely have access to the former Soviet records from the time and understand the history of the commitments made by Western leaders and NATO. But the West’s alleged promise not to enlarge the Alliance will undoubtedly remain a standard element of his anti-NATO spin. That is because it fits so well with the picture that the Russian leader seeks to paint of an aggrieved Russia, taken advantage of by others and increasingly isolated—not due to its own actions, but because of the machinations of a deceitful West.
Here is the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
to summarize , it means that Soviet forces would withdraw from East Germany, and that no foreign forces would be stationed there afterwards. In other words, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, only the German military would be allowed to be stationed in the former East Germany.
NOTE -- not in the former East Germany.
Absolutely NOTHING about going to Poland, the Baltics etc.
So stop repeating the lie about "promised to not go one inch further east"
you mean Russia grabbing Ukrainian land i.e. Crimea?
[Excerpt:]
1. There are two Minsk Agreements, not just one. The first “Minsk Protocol” was signed on September 5, 2014. It mainly consists of a commitment to a ceasefire along the existing line of contact, which Russia never respected. By February 2015, fighting had intensified to a level that led to renewed calls for a ceasefire, and ultimately led to the second Minsk Agreement, signed on February 12, 2015. Even after this agreement, Russian-led forces kept fighting and took the town of Debaltseve six days later. The two agreements are cumulative, building on each other, rather than the second replacing the first. This is important in understanding the importance, reflected in the first agreement, of an immediate ceasefire and full monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including on the Ukraine-Russia border, as fundamental to the subsequent package of agreements.
2. Russia is a Party to the Minsk Agreements. The original Minsk signatories are Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia is a protagonist in the war in Ukraine and is fully obliged to follow the deal’s terms. Despite that, however, Russia untruthfully claims not to be a party and only a facilitator — and that the real agreements are between Ukraine and the so-called “separatists,” who call themselves the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics (LPR and DPR), but are in fact Russian supplied and directed.
3. The LPR and DPR are not recognized as legitimate entities under the Minsk Agreements. The signatures of the leaders of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics were added after they had already been signed by Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE. They were not among the original signatories, and indeed Ukraine would not have signed had their signatures been part of the deal. There is nothing in the content or format of the Agreement that legitimizes these entities and they should not be treated as negotiating partners in any sense. Russia alone controls the forces occupying parts of eastern Ukraine.
4. Russia is in violation of the Minsk Agreements. The deals require a ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign military forces, disbanding of illegal armed groups, and returning control of the Ukrainian side of the international border with Russia to Ukraine, all of this under OSCE supervision. Russia has done none of this. It has regular military officers as well as intelligence operatives and unmarked “little green men” woven into the military forces in Eastern Ukraine. The LPR and DPR forces are by any definition “illegal armed groups,” that have not been disbanded. The ceasefire has barely been respected by the Russian side for more than a few days at a time.
5. Russian-led forces prevent the OSCE from accomplishing its mission in Donbas as spelled out in the Minsk Agreements. It is an unstated irony in Vienna — understood by every single diplomatic mission and member of the international staff — that Russia approves the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine when it votes in Vienna, but then blocks implementation of that same mission on the ground in Ukraine. Because Russia is a member of the OSCE, and the SMM wants to preserve what little access it has to the occupied territories, the mission is guarded in what it says about ceasefire violations and restrictions on its freedom of movement. Privately, however, they acknowledge that some 80% of such violations and restrictions come from the Russian-controlled side of the border, and those that occur on the Ukrainian side are largely for safety reasons (e.g., avoiding mined approaches to bridges.)
6. Ukraine has implemented as much of Minsk as can reasonably be done while Russia still occupies its territory. The agreements require political measures on Ukraine’s side, including a special status for the region, an amnesty for those who committed crimes as part of the conflict, local elections, and some form of decentralization under the Ukrainian constitution. But the form of these measures is not specified, and Ukraine has already passed legislation addressing every point. It has passed – and extended with renewals – legislation on special status and amnesty, and already has legislation on the books governing local elections. It has passed constitutional amendments. The Minsk Agreements do not require Ukraine to grant autonomy to Donbas, or to become a federalized state. It is Russia’s unique interpretation that the measures passed by Ukraine are somehow insufficient, even though the agreements do not specify what details should be included, and Ukraine has already complied with what is actually specified to the degree it can.
What is lacking in Ukraine’s passage of these political measures is not the legislation per se, but implementation — which Russia itself prevents by continuing to occupy the territory. For example, international legal norms would never recognize the results of elections held under conditions of occupation, yet that is exactly what Russia seeks by demanding local elections before it relinquishes control. Moreover, the elections would not be for positions in the illegitimate LPR and DPR “governments” established under Russian occupation, but for the legitimate city councils, mayors, and oblast administrations that exist under Ukrainian law. Who would vote in such elections? Ukrainian law says all displaced citizens should vote. But would Russian occupation authorities allow this? These are matters for resolution under international supervision – not for Russia to dictate terms.
What are you talking about? All the news before the war was that Russia would walk into Kyiv with no problem
No one, literally NO ONE, expected Ukraine to be able to not only stymie Russia, but push them back
Everyone talked about Russia's arms build up and its successes in Syria etc.
No one, least of all paedoBiden, expected Ukraine to do anything -- that's why Brandon tried to get Zelensky out, so Ukraine would collapse
Bull chit. You Zeepers are delusional. Go fight in Ukraine if you love those corrupt bastards so much. You die and waste your own damn money.
“Go fight in Ukraine”
Right after you go an fight for Putin, Ivan. Cronos actually knows what he is talking about as opposed to you.
As long as you subject yourself to only a daily diet of msm propaganda you will never understand. Russia initial offensive was to bring Ukraine to the table. Which it did. There was even an agreement reached (Israel which was a part of the process even had a doc showing this. This has been released) What they didn’t estimate was that BJ from UK would bring a message to Z to keep fighting and the west would deliver the arms as long as it takes. Blank check! Ukraine foolishly believed the collective west (which only insane people still believe western diplomats anymore) so backed out of the agreement and continued the war. Russia pull back was NOT the result of some brilliant Ukraine attack - Russia simply retooled for a different war. What followed was a methodical reclaiming of the territory in the east which was to have independence according to the Minsk agreement. They then dug in and turned the front into a meat grinder war of attrition. What you have witnessed for the past year is the systematic destruction of the Ukrainian military. The bonus for them is they get to show the world nato equipment burning on the steps simultaneously while the west scurries around trying to cobble together ammo and supply.
This war is over for Ukraine. Only thing left to determine is how many more men will die for the nato masters. The rump state that will be left will be financially untenable and so be a constant drain on American debt. Bravo! Another forever war… whether it ends this year or in ten, the result will be the same - cue Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. A neocon trial of blood and lost treasure.
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