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How Does It End? Fissures Emerge Over What Constitutes Victory in Ukraine
New York Times ^ | 26th May 2022 | David E. Sanger

Posted on 05/26/2022 8:57:38 PM PDT by Cronos

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To: BobL
Europe pretty much ended that when they started expanding NATO east, after promising they wouldn’t (in exchange for Russia allowing a peaceful unification of Germany).

Funny, because Gorbachev was asked exactly what had happened. He said Russia never asked for such a wide-reaching binding agreement (and even if it had, it certainly never committed it to paper), neither side formally ratified this agreement, and in any case this informal assurance was made before the Iron Curtain fell.

So the agreement Putin clings to existed only in the context of if the Soviet Union continued to exist but Germany was reunified, East Germany would then become NATO's de-facto eastern border but it would not host NATO forces.

A few more things to consider: 1) since this agreement was never sought by either side it was never a formal commitment; 2) since it was never ratified by either side's politicans it was never binding - the next US President or Russian leader could've just pretended it didn't exist; 3) when the USSR collapsed the conditions for this agreement also collapsed; 4) when Russia, the USA and the UN ALL formally recognised the existence of the ex-SSR states like Poland, Belarus and Ukraine as being sovereign, Russia ceded its ability to dictate to its neighbors if they could join NATO or the EEC. A sovereign nation state with the right of self-determination can sign a treaty or trade agreement with whoever it likes.

Like Putin, you seem incapable of understanding what happened in the 1990s so as a friendly reminder: the BRD and DDR no longer exist as two different countries, the nonexistent DDR doesn't exist inside a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR doesn't exist anymore, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine has now been a sovereign independent nation state independent of Russia for 30 years, and Russia signed a formal agreement alongside Ukraine, the UK and the USA to NEVER attack Ukraine unless in retaliation for it invading them, and even then only in accordance with UN Charter principles.

Has Ukraine invaded Russia militarily or in any other way since that agreement was signed? No. Therefore Russia didn't just break an agreement with Ukraine, it broke its word to the USA. Case closed.

Finally, Minsk. An agreement whereby France and Germany, with Russian leverage, pressured Ukraine to accept the legitimacy of Russia breaking that agreement - how happy it must make you, to think that America can sign a formal agreement with Russia to not invade somewhere, and GERMANY AND FRANCE were able to just tear that agreement up without even asking Washington first so they can carry on sucking at Putin's petroleum teat.

41 posted on 05/27/2022 3:45:30 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: Cronos

“Three months ago, Mr. Putin’s own strategic objective was to take all of Ukraine ”

Was it? How does the NYT writer know that?


42 posted on 05/27/2022 3:47:12 AM PDT by oblomov
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To: MalPearce

Don’t see any timeline on your pictures.


43 posted on 05/27/2022 5:07:21 AM PDT by BobL (Putin isn't sending gays into our schools to groom my children, but anti-Putin people are)
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To: BobL

Why do you need a timeline? What’s that got to do with the price of fish?

These are invasion maps, not Agile sprints on a GANTT chart. Russia probably doesn’t pay for Microsoft Project 365. To them PRINCE2 probably sounds suspiciously un-Soviet.


44 posted on 05/27/2022 5:16:43 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: Cronos

...Three months ago, Mr. Putin’s own strategic objective was to take all of Ukraine — a task he thought he could accomplish in mere days”

This disinfo repeated endlessly by the msm discredits virtually every “ analytical” piece allowed to be published


45 posted on 05/27/2022 5:35:51 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: MalPearce

“Why do you need a timeline?”

I don’t, but people here claim to know that the timeline was days - so I figure the Russian government posted it somewhere and I would just like to see it, as otherwise who knows what else they lie about?

As to the price of consumer goods, I suspect that shortages and price hikes (especially for energy) due to their war in Ukraine are things that European leaders didn’t mention to the public before starting this war.

The rest of your post is gibberish.


46 posted on 05/27/2022 5:39:59 AM PDT by BobL (Putin isn't sending gays into our schools to groom my children, but anti-Putin people are)
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To: oblomov

Putin’s demands in December included...

1. No further NATO expansion, anywhere.

2. roll back any NATO military presence in the Baltic or central European states to a status quo ante based on NATO deployment positions in 1997. By that logic NATO eould be removed from Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia.

3. No accession of Ukraine or Georgia to NATO.

4. No joint training or drills without previous agreement from Russia - in Ukraine, eastern Europe, Georgia or Central Asia.

5. Withdrawal of NATO short range defensive/retaliatory missiles.

6. A defacto revision of the 1949 Washington Treaty, Article 10.

7. Denazification. Which Putin and the Kremlin have since clarified, is actually not about Azov and co, but is about de-Westernisation and de-Europeanisation.

Occam’s Razor. For Putin to demand all that, and for him to call on Ukrainians to depose Z while readying Yanukovych for a comeback, it all adds up to him demanding a free run at Ukraine with no Western support, an enabled regime change, and guarantees of minimal resistance.

Wht would he do any of that - let alone all of that - if he didn’t want a full takeover? Did he want guarantees that the West would not retaliate against something he wasn’t planning to do?


47 posted on 05/27/2022 5:42:54 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: BobL

Yo, comrade, the price if fish is an idiom. I guess that wasn’t covered in your bot trolling orientation day.


48 posted on 05/27/2022 5:44:12 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: MalPearce

Whatever...still meaningless.


49 posted on 05/27/2022 5:48:21 AM PDT by BobL (Putin isn't sending gays into our schools to groom my children, but anti-Putin people are)
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To: BobL

Anyway, you’re quite wrong on the analysis of energy prices and the impact of the rising cost of living being an afterthought.

Governments have known about the risks for donkeys years. Germany screwed up massively by thinking it was far more important for them to mitigate against a highly implausible tectonic event destabilising its nuclear power generation after the tsunami at Fukushima, than mitigate its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

From 2019 - check page 38. Risk of Russia impeding shipping was mentioned. Other reports from the time spell out the risk in more detail, feel free to google them.

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR-—SSCI.pdf

In autumn 2020 I had 6kWp of solar generation and battery storage installed, and converted the heating system to hydrogen mix capable gas, so it can easily be converted. I also have negotiated access to locally produced food sources.

Why? Because I read threat intelligence reports, and energy security and foot supply chain stability have been featured in many of them over the years. Russian activity in the Azov and Black Sea, combined with other risks in Ukraine (e.g. of wildfires and chemical pollution) had all the makings of a perfect storm.

I also have zombie-proofed fencing around the homestead, but that’s just belts and braces.


50 posted on 05/27/2022 6:03:16 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: MalPearce

“Anyway, you’re quite wrong on the analysis of energy prices and the impact of the rising cost of living being an afterthought.”

It was clearly an afterthought, since the idea of the sanctions was to quickly get Russia to pull back in Ukraine (remember Biden saying that the Ruble is “rubble”) which would mean Russia being crippled economically, and quickly learn their lesson (perhaps with the help of mass protests overthrowing their government).

They NEVER expected the war to drag on, and were TOTALLY UNPREPARED for it. And if the war heads into winter, things will really get interesting there!


51 posted on 05/27/2022 6:18:18 AM PDT by BobL (Putin isn't sending gays into our schools to groom my children, but anti-Putin people are)
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To: MalPearce

By the way, nice job on the prepping!

I assume you’re also prepped on water collection and purification. If not, I can give you a some suggestions.

Also make sure you can form a small, defensive, militia around your place, since the you’ll have to fight off groups of them as things get worse.

I assume you’re also prepped on water collection and purification.


52 posted on 05/27/2022 6:21:31 AM PDT by BobL (Putin isn't sending gays into our schools to groom my children, but anti-Putin people are)
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To: BobL

Thanks! I might not be the sharpest spanner in the toolbox but I thoroughly research stuff before I set a position on it.

I used to do risk and vulnerability planning, Hazard Operability for critical national infrastructure, and “what if” wargaming as part of the day job.

I have even been on a Zombie Apocalypse war game... The purpose of which was to work out the most likely cascade failures that’d collapse the civil response, and feed them back into more regular disaster response planning.

Water purification? Got that covered. I live on the edge of what used to be the Zechstein Sea and below my house there’s 20km of coal seams interspersed with permeable sandstone and lime. Natural filtration with deep reservoirs. Next project: vertical wind turbines. House is insulated against cold but has redundant heating (solid fuel, dual fuel, gas/hydrogen central heating). Windows are shatterproof treble glazed with reflective inner coatings and argon chambers. Gotta cover as many angles as possible, no point mitigating one problem and ignoring another.

So whrn I hold the position I have currently on the Russia-Ukraine conflict it ain’t because of propaganda. It’s based on probabilities.

Five years ago I’d have said it looked like Ukrainian Nazis were the most destabilising force following Yanukovych’s departure. But since Poroshenko was voted out the evidence of Poroshenko and elected Nazis being a result of a hostile reaction to years of Russian interference leading to Yanukovych’s betrayal has become more evident.

Since 2019 the Nazi threat in eastern Ukraine has reduced, but the activities of pro Moscow proxies has increased. And now we’ve got civilians defending thrir hones, having yo go to the NGU for the tools and training, which means the Nazis were actually re-empowered by the invasion.

The one thing I can’t quantify yet is the extent to which Western interference causing the current crisis. It’s there, but did it provoke Putin or is it simply something that is giving Moscow a convenient scapegoat/ plausible deniability for something Putin was hell bent on doing anyway?

I don’t have that answer yet.


53 posted on 05/27/2022 7:54:57 AM PDT by MalPearce
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To: silverleaf
#35. See post #19, #30, and #40. The facts are:

  1. On May 1, President Lukashenko of Belarus showed the Russian invasion map on state TV, which showed taking all of Ukraine.
  2. On May 2, The Ukraine army posted what it claimed were captured Russian operational plans on Facebook (documents and maps in Russian)
  3. The Russian army's movements attempted to follow the purported plans. As we have seen, the Russian army has made a lot of shockingly poor decisions.

It is reasonable to conclude that Ukraine did capture Russian operational plans, and these showed Russia had over optimistically intended to take Ukraine in fifteen days.

54 posted on 05/27/2022 8:43:55 AM PDT by Widget Jr
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To: Widget Jr

President Putin announced to his nation and the world, the objectives of the Russian SMO. Special Military Operation. The capture of Kiev was never cited nor seriously pursued. Nor were any moves to the Western Ukraine, to take and hold ( emphasis hold) all of Ukraine.

The forces Russia has mobilized and deployed have been adjusted, and it seems a Southern Front was developed to secure the forces in the Eastern Donbas and secure access to Crimea, but no “ reasonable” military analyst would reasonably assess Russia amassed or deployed sufficient force to take and occupy all of Ukraine, nor ever intended to do so. The demilitarization of Western Ukraine strategic military assets has been by missile forces.

The Donbas is not going back under Kiev. The Republics will remain independent or at least, autonomous and protected. Other oblasts may join them.

Crimea is Russian.

As Ukraine breaks apart, and the ultra right nationalists are pushed to Lviv, the job of “ denazifying’ Ukraine is going to fall on Poland and other neighboring states and the EU, lest other states and the Baltic be similarly infected.

As Russia successfully achieves its mission in the Donbas, perhaps within weeks, an implied and now likely outcome will be a shift in the political structure of Ukraine, perhaps new temporary leadership arising from the military which is being decimated by Zelensky’s override of his command and orders for thousands of men to stand and die (at the behest of his controllers in the West) This inevitable political shift, in the growing opinion of observers whose assessments I consider competent, will accomplish the longer term Russian objective of neutralizing Ukraine as a US proxy threat.


55 posted on 05/27/2022 12:18:21 PM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: Widget Jr

I forgot to add, nothing coming from Ukrainian sources is proving to be very reliable, or “ reasonable”

Imo


56 posted on 05/27/2022 12:19:44 PM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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