Posted on 07/05/2020 5:46:24 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Our state informed OSCE about military potential being accumulated by Russia against Ukraine
Ukrainian and American experts, as well as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, warned that under the pretext of holding strategic exercises Kavkaz 2020, Russia may resort to a large-scale offensive against Ukraine. The other day, the Russian president signed a decree on conscription from the reserve "for military training" - without specific dates for this training. This only increased the likelihood of an offensive – behind the decree may be the attempt of the Russian leadership to conduct a covert mass mobilization for military aggression.
Against this background, the question arises: what is the number of Russian troops ready to be involved against Ukraine? How many units of armament and military equipment do they have? In general, the answer to these questions was given at a meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation on July 1.
As Ukraine currently chairs this OSCE policy-making body, the issue of implementing and modernizing the 2011 Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures was raised on Wednesday. The main speaker from Ukraine was Head of the Main Directorate for International Cooperation and Verification of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Leonid Holopatiuk. In particular, he pointed to the transformation of the occupied territories of Donbas into a "gray zone" that is not covered by the OSCE regime of arms control and confidence- and security-building measures.
Another factor of destabilization is the militarization of the occupied Crimea. The non-transparent nature of military exercises in the Russian Armed Forces also does not inspire confidence.
OCCUPATION CORPS IN DONBAS LARGER THAN SOME EUROPEAN ARMIES
"Ukraine insists that the Russian Federation has to provide in the Global Exchange of Military Information data on the number of its troops and weapons
(Excerpt) Read more at ukrinform.net ...
Same thing happened with Vietnam. The nation was split with war protesters like Lurch and Fonda that emboldened the North.
“Nobody stopped Putin from seizing Crimea. Nobody is going to defend the Ukraine.”
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Crimea is majority ethnic Russian and was actually part of Russia before dumbass Khrushchev “gave” it to Ukraine during the Soviet era. But...surprise...Ukraine is not majority ethnic Russian. I suspect those facts largely account for foreign non-involvement during the Crimea takeover.
Putin’s Real Long Game
The world order we know is already over, and Russia is moving fast to grab the advantage. Can Trump figure out the new war in time to win it?
A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter. He was smoking a cigarette while we watched Southeast DC hipsters bustle by and talked about ‘the war’ — the big war, being waged by Russia against all of us, which from this porch felt very far away. I can’t remember what prompted it — some discussion of whether the government in Kyiv was doing something that would piss off the EU — but he took a long drag off his cigarette and said, offhand: “Russia. The EU. It’s all just more Molotov-Ribbentrop shit.”
His casual reference to the Hitler-Stalin pact dividing Eastern Europe before WWII was meant as a reminder that Ukraine must decide its future for itself, rather than let it be negotiated between great powers. But it haunted me, this idea that modern revolutionaries no longer felt some special affinity with the West. Was it the belief in collective defense that was weakening, or the underlying certitude that Western values would prevail?.......................................................................................................................................
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/putins-real-long-game-214589
Any photos of Hunter Biden wearing a helmet and sticking his head out of a Ukrainian tank?
PING
In a strange way, PUTIN could be just crazy enough — enough of a outlier and a rogue — to expose what TRUMPS AMERICA is and end the current cycle of upheaval and decline. This requires non-standard thinking and leadership — but also purpose, and commitment, and values. It requires faith — for and from the RUSSIAN people and RUSSIAN institutions. And it requires the existence of truth.
I’d rather go to war with Seattle or Portland.
Anschluss
Sounds like a European problem
[I don’t think she was over there just passing out cookies.]
So far, Ukraine has accomplished a great deal merely staying independent. It will get an opportunity to reclaim its lands either when Russia falls apart or when it’s distracted by wars with China to its east. What it needs to do today is rebuild its war-ravaged economy and join the prosperous economies of the majority of the democratic ex-Warsaw Pact and former Soviet countries. That way, when opportunity comes knocking, Ukraine will be ready.
[His casual reference to the Hitler-Stalin pact dividing Eastern Europe before WWII was meant as a reminder that Ukraine must decide its future for itself, rather than let it be negotiated between great powers. But it haunted me, this idea that modern revolutionaries no longer felt some special affinity with the West. Was it the belief in collective defense that was weakening, or the underlying certitude that Western values would prevail?]
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Poland collapsed in 36 days. Ukraine’s still standing. That’s not nothing.
Red Army masses on Ukraine border: 80,000 troops and missile launchers spark invasion fear
This was from March 2014 though. Seems to happen quite often. Maybe a training ground.
I think it was the NATO commander than said Russia could defeat Ukraine in 3 days.
Isn’t Putin running again for the ? time????? He needs to do something...
L just can’t get my mind off that muslim leader demanding that NATO bombs the Ukraine like NATO did Libya, to protect the muslims in Crimea.
Islam in the Crimea has a history going back to Peter The Great when the muslims conducted slave-raids and emptied out Russian villages of their populations.
The thought that NATO should assist islam to create it’s own autonomous territory didn’t impress me. Ukraine allowing the muslims to return from Stalin’s expulsion wasn’t such a good idea.
Wheels within wheels. History is never simple.
All America's enemies, foreign & domestic, are using the chaos successfully created by the chicoms with their sneak attack to create even more chaos...
It used to be called "piling on"...
[Red Army masses on Ukraine border: 80,000 troops and missile launchers spark invasion fear
This was from March 2014 though. Seems to happen quite often. Maybe a training ground.]
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