Russia says seized Ukrainian lands are under its nuclear protection

www.reuters.com/ ^ | 10/18/2022 | Reuters

[RomanSoldier19]

Russia said on Tuesday that four Ukrainian regions whose annexation it proclaimed last month are under the protection of its nuclear arsenal.

The statement from the Kremlin came at a moment of acute tension, with both NATO and Russia expected to hold military exercises shortly to test the readiness of their nuclear weapons forces.

Asked by reporters if the regions were under Moscow's nuclear umbrella, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "All these territories are inalienable parts of the Russian Federation and they are all protected. Their security is provided for at the same level as [it is for] the rest of Russia's territory."

[dforest]

What practical sense does the US have in funding or defending Ukraine?

You can’t expect other countries to live up to past agreements or treaties and exempt your own country while declaring yourselves morally superior because it is okay when we do it. If those promises to Gorby can be ignored now, then so can the border in Ukraine.

The current US regime doesn’t even honor the Constitution or the rule of law. Moral superiority? What a joke. The current regime even bullies it’s own supposed allies? Moral superiority? Nope

[DesertRhino]

I would call the people supporting the modern Nazis in Galicia the Quislings. The term was literally created for them.

[Travis McGee]

We’re doing GREAT in Africa!

/sarcasm

The U.S. Is Losing Yet Another ‘War on Terror’

The Pentagon last month quietly released a report revealing that — despite sending forces to at least 22 countries in Africa — the U.S. isn’t reaching its objectives

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/war-or-terror-africa-sahel-niger-pentagon-1234612083/

THE SECURITY SITUATION in the African Sahel — where U.S. commandos have trained, fought, and died in a “shadow war” for the past 20 years — is a nightmare, according to a Pentagon report quietly released late last month. It’s just the latest evidence of systemic American military failures across the continent, including two decades of deployments, drone strikes, and commando raids in Somalia that have resulted in a wheel-spinning stalemate and an ongoing spate of coups by U.S.-trained officers across West Africa that the chief of U.S. commandos on the continent said was due to U.S. alliances with repressive regimes.

“The western Sahel has seen a quadrupling in the number of militant Islamist group events since 2019,” reads the new analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the Pentagon’s foremost research institution devoted to the continent. “The 2,800 violent events projected for 2022 represent a doubling in the past year. This violence has expanded in intensity and geographic reach.”

[much more at link]

[mac_truck]

Here another way to look at the divide in Ukraine...from the last fairly held election. Ethnicity is less of a factor than cultural and regional affiliation.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Specifically, "Which "street fight" at a global level have we Americans won in the last three decades?"

[SES1066]

Domestically, we here in the US see how much the LEFT looks upon ‘1984’ as a training tome.

For this conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the use of threats and strong-arm tactics, I am seeing Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” as Putin’s game plan.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Thanks for the info on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, a set of three documents and about "security agreements." Border too, of course.

It is interesting that the US interests involved Donald Blinken, Anthony Blinken's father. So from Clinton to Biden, there is some interesting Democrat Party continuity. Odd, also that these were not treaties in the formal sense, nor "agreements" as you state, but "assurances" in the clever distinctions of politics, world and national.

I appreciate you're looking into the various documents, which are worth considering.

I'd venture to say that the Budapest memoranda, plural, are no longer in force, given that they are eighteen years old and now and violated a number of times by Russia, as well as the 2013 complaint from Belarus that the US violated it. Kravcjhuk also signed the Lisbon Protocol which is a footnote to the story. Look into the vocabulary, as it was all watered down into "assurance," and the non-treaty, as with so many, was never ratified by the US Congress as required by our laws. Ditto with so many, like the Paris Accords. As contrast the new START Treaty remains in force.

Minutiae aside, the current conflict is not one of treaties broken, nor one of NATO members interlocking defense agreements, but something quite its own non-NATO event. What is certain is that the princelings of Biden, Pelosi, Kerry and Romney were using post-Maidan, pre-SMO Ukraine as a very fine cash cow. Interests aplenty, with a suspicion that other political names in the cash cow now losing its function because Vlad the Warmonger is warring against Volodymyr the warmonger, and many backdoors seem closed. Given that Vindman the American Ukrainian was so prominent in the impeachment process against Trump, there are many sides to this complex issue.

So "not my circus and not my clowns" as regards the seeming two sides, Ukraine and Russia, my circus and my clowns are the current Biden regime and the many-headed hydra of the corrupt state in America. For this, the other circus is a side show.

[Rockingham]

Let's look at the entire post-WW II era. NATO and Europe's freedom are a win. We won the Korean War in that South Korea is a free and prosperous ally today. The Vietnam War is less of a loss than it may seem in that it was won as a holding action that broke the Communist advance in Asia. And Vietnam today is on commercial good terms with the US and becoming an economic rival to China. We also won the larger Cold War, of course.

We won the First Gulf War, and time may yet show that we won the Iraq War, perhaps even the Afghan War, in spite of our ignominious last days there. We also won numerous brush fire wars and guerrilla actions. Columbia, for example, beat back its narco insurgency with US help. And I count Israel's survival as a free and prosperous American friend as a win.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "We’re doing GREAT in Africa!"

At least, post colonial France still makes money printing currency for some ex-colonies, and gets to import nice rapists to murder and dismember a French girl. Diversity is indeed a strenght, say some....

[hanamizu]

When did Congress declare war? Against whom?

---

I know you know this, but for those who are wondering, the last time Congress declared war was in June of 1942 against Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "...in spite of our ignominious last days there."

We define "win" in very different terms. Yours seems akin to "battles," while the larger civilizational war is ongoing. Claiming Ho Chi Minh's "win" as our win is most amusing to me. Iraq is a mess, we still are involved militarily in Syria, Obama's Libya is also a mess, Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban, and Israel's wars did not involve the American military. For such is was important for you to return to glory days for your response.

For myself and given $ 31 trillion in US debt today, it becomes past time for the prosperous 51 million South Koreans to man the DMZ by themselves, and pay fully for their own defense against the 26 million North Koreans, a backwater nation with half the population and a comparatively tiny economic base.

President Trump had observed of Europe that so many in NATO were not ponying up their agreed-upon share, and for this he was ridiculed. When Uncle Sam is supposed to be the world's policeman as well as the leading (by a lot) debtor nation in the world, it seems our priorities are now well out of whack. But what the heck let's just keep paying. We can't be out of money, because we still have blank checks left. After all, Biden just told us how great the economy is. Yeah for us!

[Sunsong]

We have already communicated to putin what will happen to him and to russia if he uses a nuke!

My guess is that putin wants to survive...

he should just declare victory, that Ukraine is now de-Nazified, and have a big victory parade in moscow

[gloryblaze]

Thanks! Good info.

[Wuli]

Putin upping his threats.

I believe no matter how many nukes he has, he is mostly bluffing, as he knows starting a nuclear exchange will be suicide for Russia - no matter what damages others incur.

I do not believe the Russian military high command would, at the last minute, sacrifice Russia for Putin. They’d rather have Russia intact than Putin, if they have to chose between the two.

[dfwgator]

Most of the German Generals were against Hitler, but went along with him anyway.

[tlozo]

Here another way to look at the divide in Ukraine...from the last fairly held election.

Ukrainians(including ethnic Russians) are fighting ferociously against Russian invasion and you're going to peddle some 'divide' bs. Why don't you be honest and post the last election?

Zelensky Election.

[Wuli]

“Most of the German Generals were against Hitler, but went along with him anyway.”

Nukes were not involved.

[tlozo]

The term Russian Donbas comes from the fact the region was part of Russia before it was made part of Soviet Ukraine in 1922.

Listen Moron ethnicity of Donbas was still majority Ukraininan in 1926 that's why it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. Russians were a minority.

Ethnic Groups in Ukraine, of Russians, 1926 census

[tlozo]

Furthermore the Donbas region is culturely Russian with a majority Russian speaking population.

Now you're completely lying by posting a deceptive map that has a red for 25% to 74% Russian ethnicity. So areas that have only 25% Russian ethnicity are colored in red as if there is some Russian majority. What a joke!

[tlozo]

Always go to primary sources.

Who was Hans-Dietrich Genscher? He was Germany's foreign minister, who had no authority to promise anything on NATO.

Once again, you do not address the fact that Gorbachev has said in subsequent interviews, that there was no promise not to enlarge NATO eastward past Germany. Also, former Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze also agreed, said there was no limit on NATO enlargement.