Who Started the Second Cold War?

“Russia has not accepted the hand of partnership,” says NATO commander, Gen. Philip Breedlove, “but has chosen a path of belligerence.” But why should Putin see NATO’s inexorable eastward march as an extended “hand of partnership”?

Had we lost the Cold War and Russian spy planes began to patrol off Pensacola, Norfolk and San Diego, how would U.S. F-16 pilots have reacted? If we awoke to find Mexico, Canada, Cuba, and most of South America in a military alliance against us, welcoming Russian bases and troops, would we regard that as “the hand of partnership”?

1. As to the Litvinenko allegations, this is dealt with in detail here.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/27/assessing-a-murder-case-against-putin/

2. As to the Yuschenko “disfigurement,” I don’t know how many times I have addressed this canard on FR. But once again.

No evidence has ever been produced that the Russian government had any involvement with this incident; in fact the opposite is the case.

“In September 2009, Larysa Cherednichenko, former head of the department for supervision over investigations into criminal cases of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, said high-ranking officials from the presidential secretariat and family members of Yushchenko falsified evidence in his poisoning case, with dioxin being added to Yushchenko’s blood samples. Cherednichenko claims she was warned that she would be dismissed from her office immediately after she wrote her report on August 26, 2009 and said she was offered two positions, which she refused, and contested her dismissal in court.[29]

Also in September 2009, a special commission, created by the Verkhovna Rada, came to a conclusion that the Yushchenko dioxin poisoning was falsified to strengthen his positions during 2004 presidential elections. The commission demanded to bring to justice those guilty in fabrication of blood tests.[30] To date, no one has been identified. There were allegations US intelligence services injected blood samples taken from Yushchenko with dioxin to feign poisoning.[citation needed] These allegations were dismissed by Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko

Also:

ÂHowever, a new team of investigators assigned to the case after Yushchenko lost power to his long-term rival Viktor Yanukovych, alleged that the Yushchenko dioxin poisoning could have been falsified to strengthen his positions during 2004 presidential elections.

Investigators demanded that the ex-president give new blood tests, as traces of dioxin remain in blood forever.

Yushchenko, whose health has improved significantly since 2004, has refused to cooperate and said last year he wanted to “close that chapter” in his life.”

http://sputniknews.com/world/20120405/172637154.html

In other words, Yuschenko refuses to give blood samples that could at least determine whether he was poisoned by dioxin at all In any court in the world failure of a party to produce evidence within his control justifies an inference that the evidence, if produced, would be unfavorable to that party.

But here is the capper: In 2008, while Yuschenko was still President, US Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, reported:

“President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday accused the godfather of one of his children and member of his own political party of involvement in his near-fatal poisoning, a stunning twist to one of post-Soviet Ukraine’s most notorious scandals.

Yushchenko did not provide evidence for his claim that David Zhvania participated in giving him a massive dose of dioxin that sickened him and left his face badly scarred.
. . .
This summer, Zhvania angered Yushchenko by claiming that the president suffered only from food poisoning and accusing his staff of inventing a politically motivated attack to boost his popularity during the closely fought presidential campaign.

Asked Thursday at a news conference whether he thought Zhvania took part in the poisoning, Yushchenko answered: “I think yes, to put it mildly.”

Zhvania countered that Yushchenko’s poisoning has yet to be proved.

He dismissed Yushchenko’s statement as “absolutely ill-considered and irresponsible” and said it shows his disregard for the rule of law.

“Such actions of V. Yushchenko don’t disgrace him personally as much as they humiliate Ukraine in front of the international community,” Zhvania said in a statement.

Despite a nearly four-year investigation, prosecutors have failed to identify a single suspect in the mysterious poisoning. Yushchenko has consistently said he knew who was responsible for the poisoning, but declined to name them while an investigation continued.

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2008/07/ukraine_president_blames_forme.html

In other words, Yuschenko close political and personal ally says Yuschenko was not dioxin poisoned and Yuschenko then accuses that man himself [not the Russians] of being behind the poisoning!

Beyond that, you don’t tell us that Yuschenko awarded the title Hero of Ukraine to the Nazis collaborator mass murderer Stepan Bandera and has praised his barbarous Ukrainian Insurgent Army, ally of Hitler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko

Also, per the same article:

Also in September 2005, former president Leonid Kravchuk accused exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky of financing Yushchenko’s presidential election campaign, and provided copies of documents showing money transfers from companies he said were controlled by Berezovsky to companies controlled by Yushchenko’s official backers. Berezovsky confirmed that he met Yushchenko’s representatives in London before the election, and that the money was transferred from his companies, but he refused to confirm or deny that the money was used in Yushchenko’s campaign. Financing of election campaigns by foreign citizens is illegal in Ukraine.

He was such a pathetic president he got barely 5% of the vote in running for re-election.

3. As to Georgia, as the EU found, Georgia started the war by attacking South Ossetia, and, in the course of repelling the invasion, the Russian armed forces entered Georgia for 13 days and left.

4. I have never cited Cohen for anything and have hardly ever read his work. Straw man. Cohen is an exception anyway, most Leftists hate Putin with a purple passion.

5. NATO is a hostile military alliance clearly directed at Russia, which conducts exercises within hundreds of yards of the Russian border. Would we be comfortable with Russian troops performing exercises at a similar distance inside Canada or Mexico? The US went bonkers in 1979 when a single Sovier combat brigade was discovered in Cuba, 90 miles away across seawater.

6. What Russian Admiral? Do you have a name, a source, a direct quotation?

7. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are not lesser evils, they are pure evil and the US has turned a blind eye to their support of the head choppers. The “moderate rebels” fight right alongside Al Nusra in Northern Syria. (By way, how come the Russian rebels in East Ukraine can’t be “moderates?”)

8. I get it: US bombs hospitals “accidentally,” but alleged Russian attacks are “knowing,” according to a Western NGO.

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