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President Joe Biden poured cold water on Ukraine's hopes of expedited membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) amid Russia's invasion on Saturday. On Saturday, the president addressed the possibility of speeding up the process to allow Ukraine to join the alliance ahead of his 2024 campaign rally in Philadelphia. A reporter asked Biden about previous reports claiming that he supported waiving the requirement for Ukraine to obtain a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to join NATO. According to the MAP, candidates must make military and democratic reforms before being considered to join. However, this could be a lengthy process...

Graham Phillips reports for Lugansk, Russia, showing footage of Wagner forces flying the Russian flag over various parts of what was Bakhmut.

Major Russian media now reporting Bakhmut in Russian handsBakhmut was the basic lynchpin of the entire ukie defensive system in the East.

Minsk agreement and sabotage, why Putin is not interested in Western peace proposals The war wiill likely end soon, but not on Western terms.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Russia that “no one will ever forgive you” for spreading terror following a series of missile attacks on New Year’s Eve. Zelensky said in an address on Saturday that the missile attacks will not mark the end of the year but the outcome of Russia’s fate in that it will not be forgiven. He mentioned that Russia launched missile attacks during the war at other holidays such as Easter and Christmas. “They call themselves Christians. They are very proud of their orthodoxy. But they are following the devil. They support him and are together with...

The comments from the Russian leader follow intense Russian shelling on the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Christmas Eve that killed at least 10 people and injured more than 50 others. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia as “absolute evil” on Saturday following the deadly strikes, which he said were for “the sake of intimidation and pleasure.” Zelensky and President Biden discussed what a “just peace” would look like when Zelensky visited the United States on Wednesday for his first international trip since the war started in February.

On July 25, 2019, Trump called Zelensky to congratulate him on his recent parliamentary victory.

“This is a huge victory for Moscow over Washington,” former national security director John Bolton declared this morning on CBS. “It endangers other Americans in the future, who can be grabbed and used by bargaining chips,” he said of the swap of Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout, one of the world’s most dangerous men before his arrest and conviction.Bolton also revealed in this clip that the Trump administration had an offer to trade Paul Whelan for Bout two years ago. They passed, and as Bolton says, “for very good reasons” (via Caleb Howe at Mediaite):The 1-for-1 prisoner swap of Brittney...

In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law No. 7172-1 that will ban opposition parties and seize their property. The law targets opposition parties if they deny the armed aggression against Ukraine.The law includes actions that support the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus, the two invading countries.The news was first published on the Ukrainian news website UKRinform. This news was reported the same day US GOP Senators paid him a visit in Kyiv to show their support.Zelenskyy also closed all of the TV stations and consolidated them into one state-run channel.“Ukraine has had to take extraordinary measures to...

Ukraine is facing technical problems with western artillery amid war with Russia. According to New York Times, one-third of the howitzers sent to Ukraine have developed snags. A U.S. official said that a third of the 350 howitzers sent by the west to Ukraine are out of action. The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Defense is concerned over the development. The U.S. reportedly set up a repair facility in Poland to fix "faulty" weapons, the NYT reported. ...

The US is pressuring Ukraine to be open to peace talks with Russia, with a top Pentagon official saying that Kiev's forces will find it hard to recover all the territory Russia has controlled during the war.US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said on Wednesday that the US and allied support has not diminished but considered that Kiev's defense puts it in a better position to begin talks."The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine, to include ... Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high

Another excellent interview. Scott Ritter differs from Col. MacGregor who thinks the errant Ukrainian missile crashing into Poland was "probably" a mistake. Ritter thinks it was a deliberate strike on Poland to force NATO into the conflict (Article4/5) But, he thinks it was done by a rogue "nationalist" (read neo-nazi) who control the missile batteries in the Western part of Ukraine which is where the missile strike originated from without Zelensky's knowledge. He also feels there is no possibility of a negotiated settlement at this time because Zelensky will not accept reality. "Ritter: How do we end this conflict? And...

The U.S. Treasury and the State Department have tacitly asked major U.S. banks, including JPMorgan and Citigroup, not to refuse to cooperate with "certain strategic Russian companies" to minimize the adverse effects of sanctions. In particular, officials urged banks not to refuse to provide "basic services" (money transfers and conversion into dollars) to companies that are not directly under sanctions, such as Gazprom, Uralkali, and PhosAgro. The Biden administration has repeatedly said it wants banks and businesses to keep the money flowing to nonsanctioned sectors of Russia's economy. But the extent of its conversations with the banks hasn't been previously...

President Joe Biden reportedly lost his temper after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for more U.S. assistance just days after $1 billion in aid was approved. NBC News, citing four sources familiar with the situation, reported on Monday that during the June 15 phone call, “Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy he’d just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, which started on Feb. 24, when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting. Biden lost his temper.” Biden remarked that Zelensky should be more appreciative of...

Liberal guests on Bill Maher’s comedy show downplayed the risk of nuclear escalation in the Ukraine vs. Russia war for control of the Donbas region. “They’re tactical nukes — they’re just bigger versions of what a conventional attack would be,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson, a Harvard-trained science and “science communicator.” He said on the October 15 show: “Modern nukes don’t have the radiation problem … it’s a different kind of weapon than Hiroshima and Nagasaki … in the way that we used to have to worry about with fallout and all the rest of that. What you really have to...

(interesting pro-Russian article out of India - elpadre) Two massive terrorist strikes misfired spectacularly and a terrible beauty is born in the Ukraine war. These two carefully planned attacks in quick succession — on Nord Stream gas pipelines and Crimean Bridge — were intended as a knockout blow to Russia. According to President Vladimir Putin, people ‘who want to finally sever ties between Russia and the EU, weaken Europe’ are behind the Nord Stream blasts. He named the US, Ukraine and Poland as ‘beneficiaries’. Last Wednesday, Russia’s domestic intelligence service FSB identified Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, as the...

An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a "peace" in Ukraine that serves Russian interests, an expert told Insider. Such a move, which some influential figures have called for, risks setting a precedent that atomic blackmail is the way to win wars and take territory troops can't otherwise hold, a model that could be copycatted by even the weakest nuclear-armed states, and may only succeed at delaying another war. Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia's nuclear doctrine and capabilities at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research,...

ransomnote: I picked up many memes from other FReepers to use in today's thread and often lost track of whom to thank! For example, I know I picked up memes from cranked...I've been baffled by the aggressive cheer-leading for the puppet Zelensky. Support for Zelensky and the Ukraine is support for Joe Biden/Hunter Biden even though they've already stolen so much money via the Deep State money laundering/fraud operations headquartered there. It's not just the Bidens; the Ukraine is the Deep State's back office. Why pour our money and weapons into a hole in the ground serving the Deep State?I'm...

NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as Russian officials speak of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in the eight-month invasion of Ukraine.Speaking at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “a guy I know fairly well” and the Russian leader was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”Biden added, “We have not faced the prospect of...

President Biden on Friday vowed to hold Russia accountable for its “fraudulent attempt” to annex Ukrainian territory and called on other countries to do the same. Biden blasted a move earlier in the day by Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, four Ukrainian regions that he claimed were now part of Russia.