Ukraine war mega thread

[OhOh]

^ Their accounts need to be frozen now too

Including:

Britain’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss

?

[OhOh]

Reuters Front Page AWHI (Aggressive War Headline Index):

Daily Tally:

February 1, 2022 9:10 AM GMT+7

Western countries: 7

Rest of the World: 0

[bsnub]

Can the West stop Putin from invading Ukraine? Yes, it’s possible if we understand why he’s doing it in the first place. Putin has been a dictator for over 20 years, and over that time Russia has faced a lot of problems—a stagnant economy, the most extreme wealth disparity of any major country, and endemic hopelessness that infects millions of ordinary citizens. These problems have only been exacerbated by COVID-19 over the past two years. As a result, Putin’s approval ratings are as low as they’ve ever been, hovering in the low 60s. In the early years of his presidency, he was able to blame these types of issues on his predecessor or other factors, but now it’s all on him.

In a situation like this, the standard playbook for a dictator is to distract his people by stoking nationalism and starting a war. That’s why Putin’s threatening to invade Ukraine. In addition to getting Russians to rally around their leader, his designs on Ukraine satisfy some nostalgic notions of rebuilding the glory of the Soviet empire.

Despite appearances, Putin is an entirely rational man. He views everything through the lens of risk-reward. The rewards of his Ukrainian adventurism include higher approval ratings, and a lower probability of being overthrown by a rival.

At the moment, he doesn’t see much risk. The leaders who could stand up to him have their own domestic problems. In the U.S., Biden’s approval ratings are the lowest they’ve been; in the U.K., Boris Johnson is fighting for his political life; in France, Emmanuel Macron is facing a tough presidential election; and Germany is so compromised that their new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is doing everything he can to just keep Russian gas flowing so that the heat stays on.

Putin also knows that the West has never really held him accountable for his past actions. Since 2008, he has invaded Georgia, taken Crimea, occupied Eastern Ukraine, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down a passenger plane, and hacked governments and businesses around the world. The West’s response? A few sanctions, removal from the G-8, and the expulsion of a handful of diplomats.

The West’s weakness has given Putin the feeling that he can do whatever he wants with hardly any meaningful consequences. The West now appears stuck between further appeasement or a possible military confrontation, for which there is absolutely no appetite.

However, there is a way to stop Putin’s Ukrainian adventure that has nothing to do with military intervention. That is to go after his money.

Since taking power, Putin has stolen an enormous amount from the Russian state, from businesses, from private Russian citizens, and even from foreigners like me. I estimate that he is the richest man in the world and since 2000 has stolen at least $200 billion just for himself, and possibly much more.

Putin doesn’t hold any of this money in his own name. If he did, the documents showing it could be used to blackmail him and undercut his power. As a former KGB officer, he has used information like this many times to blackmail others. Instead, Putin holds his money using cutouts, so-called “oligarch trustees.” When you look at Forbes’s list of billionaires and see certain Russian oligarchs being worth $10, $15, or $20 billion dollars, not all of that is theirs. I believe that half of it belongs to Vladimir Putin—and possibly much more.

These oligarchs don’t keep this money in Russia. Instead, they keep it in the West. They use accounts in places like London, New York, and Zurich to buy villas in the South of France, football teams in the U.K., ski chalets in the Swiss Alps, and yachts and private planes to crisscross the world.

This is Putin’s Achilles’ heel.

As we look at the menu of policy options being discussed by the Biden Administration in response to Putin’s manufactured Ukraine crisis, many are either too indirect or too harsh. Some, such as broad sanctions, would result in a lot of unnecessary hardships for ordinary Russians, who are victimized by Putin as much anyone else.

There has also been some discussion of cutting Russia out of SWIFT, the system banks use to facilitate the transfer of money around the world. This is precisely what the U.S. did to Iran, and it knocked them back to the stone age economically. This would be a devastating blow to Russia, but it could also have a significant financial blowback on the West. I believe this should be held in reserve for a worst-case scenario.

Most recently, the U.S. announced sanctions that would curtail Russia’s ability to further develop their oil and gas industry. These may be the type of thing that a long-term thinker would care about, but Putin is too preoccupied with his own short-term survival to give them much weight. Moreover, these sanctions don’t touch him personally.

All of this brings us back to Putin’s wealth. A tool called the Magnitsky Act (named after my murdered Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky) already exists, and it can be used to stop Putin in his tracks.

The Magnitsky Act allows the U.S. government to freeze the assets and ban the travel of anyone involved in grand corruption or human rights abuse. These have devastating effects. Anyone who gets put on the U.S. Treasury’s Magnitsky List becomes a financial pariah who can effectively no longer do business with anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the power of the U.S. government.

It might be symbolic to sanction Putin, but it would be very material to sanction his oligarch trustees. It’s no mystery who they are, and it’s straightforward to demonstrate that they’ve been involved in high-level corruption.

So how to proceed? First, President Biden should make a list of Putin’s top 50 oligarch trustees and immediately sanction five of them. This would show Putin that the U.S. is not bluffing. Second, President Biden should give Putin a deadline of 10 days to retreat from the Ukrainian border or another five oligarchs will be sanctioned. In the event that Putin does invade Ukraine, the U.S. will make it be known that they will sanction the full list of these 50 oligarchs, and then draw up a new list of 50 more.

If you ask any Russian dissident or opposition politician what would stop Putin, they would all point toward this strategy. The Magnitsky Act is a like a modern-day cancer drug. Instead of nearly killing the patient to target the cancer, it targets the cancer directly.

When I describe this strategy, most people ask why the U.S. isn’t already doing this? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that President Biden doesn’t want to do this unilaterally. Unfortunately, in Europe, Putin’s network has spread money far and wide among politicians and opinion leaders, making it almost impossible for Europe to agree to take a tough stance against Russia. I think Biden’s commitment to multilateralism is laudable, but I think this is a situation where the U.S. can accomplish 80 percent of its goals by acting alone, potentially stopping a war before a single shot is fired.

Will this work? I believe it will, and I don’t see a lot of downside to trying. Putin won’t like it, but that’s the point. Moreover, it’s infinitely better than any spilled blood.
The Magnitsky Act should be used now to stop Putin in his tracks.

https://time.com/6143645/how-to-stop...stion-ukraine/

[OhOh]

Anothers opinion.

"Does it not resemble what goes on between the two Koreas?


Every year, at the time of the harvest, the US and South Korea run military exercises. This forces North Korea to mobilise. This takes manpower away from the harvest.

People starve.

The US crows about how backward North Korea is under Kim."

[thailazer]

Heather Cox Richardson's daily brief speaks of Trump, Putin, and about Russian oligarchs being brought under the light in the Ukraine issue. Interesting stuff, and all worth reading....

CNN reported tonight that former president Trump had not one but two executive orders prepared to enable his loyalists to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. One authorizing the Pentagon to seize the machines was made public as part of the investigation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Another, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security, has been confirmed to CNN by a number of sources, but is not publicly available.
Shortly after this report, the New York Times reported a story with much more detail, claiming that Trump was directly involved in the plans to seize the machines. The authors talked to “people familiar with the matter [who] were briefed on the events by participants or had firsthand knowledge of them.” That latter description is interesting: someone in Trump’s inner circle is talking to reporters (and the shape of the different elements in the story suggests that person is not necessarily giving an accurate account).
CNN also reported that former vice president Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, testified before the January 6 committee last week. Short had been cooperating with the committee, providing documents, and testified after a subpoena. He was with Pence for many of the key moments surrounding the events of January 6.
The committee has asked a judge to adjust document production from lawyer John Eastman’s former employer, Chapman University. Eastman sued to stop a subpoena for 94,000 pages of emails the university agreed to produce, saying that many of them were covered by attorney-client privilege. So a judge ordered him to review them, but he is moving so slowly the committee says he won’t get around to sending the ones between January 4, 2021, and January 7, 2021—the ones the members most want to see—until it’s too late for them to be of use. The judge ordered him to prioritize those days.
Also, campaign finance reports filed today show that former president George W. Bush donated the maximum allowable to Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is vice chair of the January 6 committee, and to Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who also opposed former president Trump. The fight between establishment Republicans and Trump Republicans continues to simmer, but the muted response today to Trump’s statement last night about overturning the election suggests the establishment is not willing to make a stand in favor of our democratic system if it means losing their base.
In the wake of Trump’s weekend attack on the prosecutors investigating the varying valuations of his properties and his efforts to overturn the election, Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis today asked the FBI to address heightened security concerns.
Otherwise, today’s main news came from the meeting of the United Nations Security Council, where the U.S. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned of an “urgent and dangerous” situation in Europe as Russian president Vladimir Putin has massed more than 100,000 Russian troops along the border with Ukraine. The Russian representative countered that Russia had indicated no intention of invading Ukraine and the U.S. is fearmongering.
At stake is the concept of sovereignty: will large states have the power to absorb their neighbors into spheres of influence in a system that mirrors that of the Cold War era, or will each state have the right to hold firm borders and determine its own alliances.
The U.S. and the U.K. have said they have prepared a list of “oligarchs close to the Kremlin” who will be hit with sanctions in the case that Russian troops invade Ukraine again. The list includes the family members of those profiting from Putin’s regime, cutting off their ability to funnel illicit money into western democracies.
This is a huge deal. Oligarchs consolidated power in the former Soviet satellite states in the 1990s and moved enormous amounts of illicit money into the U.S. and the U.K.—so much that London is sometimes called “Londongrad.” Recent studies suggest that the influx of that illicit money had undermined democracy, and cleaning it up would almost certainly help to stabilize the systems in the U.S. and the U.K. British foreign secretary Liz Truss said the measures “can target anyone providing strategic support close to Vladimir Putin.”
This threat appears to have worried the Kremlin, whose spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the proposed measures an illegitimate “outright attack on business.” The head of Russia’s Senate committee for protection of national sovereignty, Andrey Klimov, said that any such sanctions would hurt Britain rather than Russia by hurting the image of the U.K. as a safe haven for investments. Capital would flow out of the U.K. to Hong Kong or Zurich, he warned.
Interviewed by Politico’s Ryan Heath, European Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Kadri Liik noted that a massive military deployment would be “very badly received” in Russia. Asked if Putin sees Biden as weak, Liik said the opposite: that he has come off as smart. “He’s trying to limit his frontlines. He’s not fighting each and every battle. Plus, Biden is someone who can speak on behalf of the West. During the whole Trump period, there was no one like that.”
In Britain today, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the country’s Conservative Party faced a serious challenge to his government when a report revealed “failures of leadership and judgment” by Johnson in attending 12 parties that ignored the country’s strict lockdown rules. Johnson had downplayed the events and now that they are confirmed, even much of his own party appears ready to abandon him, appalled that he apparently considered himself above the law. In a leader, one member of Parliament said, “honesty and decency matters.”

[NamPikToot]

Putin also knows that the West has never really held him accountable for his past actions. Since 2008, he has invaded Georgia, taken Crimea, occupied Eastern Ukraine, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down a passenger plane, and hacked governments and businesses around the world.

he's also conducted assassinations on foreign soil and kidnapped political opponents...and more.

[HermantheGerman]

^That Russia and China wanted behind closed doors

Russia had tried to avert the meeting at the last second with a vote. With 10 of the 15 member states, however, enough countries voted for the deliberations. With three abstentions, China and its partner Russia voted against the consultations.


Communist bastards!

[OhOh]

NaGastani unsugents, "balanced" diplomacy or humour, whichever it's amusing:

[OhOh]

Russia assumes the UNSC Presidency February 1st.

Russia’s UN Security Council presidency in February 2022

31 January 2022 16:56

"Some scheduled events:

On February 7 on the topic, Humanitarian Aspects of the UN Security Council Sanctions Regimes.

On February 16, we plan to hold a debate on UN-CSTO interaction.

On February 17, we plan to organise a traditional Council briefing timed to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements of 2015 and the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2202, which approved it.

Other important items on the Security Council’s February agenda include political and humanitarian aspects of the situation in Syria, the state of affairs in the Central African Republic, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Haiti, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Middle Eastern settlement, and combatting terrorism."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1796532/

[OhOh]

Defense Minister Calls for Peaceful Solution to Russia-Ukraine Standoff
MTI-Hungary Today 2022.02.01.

"A peaceful solution to the standoff between Russia and Ukraine through dialogue is in Hungary’s interest, Defence Minister Tibor Benkő told public television on Monday. Benkő also warned against ratcheting up Cold War rhetoric.

Referring to a recent request to station NATO troops in Hungary, Benkő said the country’s Armed Forces had undergone a comprehensive development programme since 2017, resulting in “robust defence capabilities” that NATO had acknowledged. “This is why we say there is no need for a 1,000-strong NATO contingent to be stationed in Hungary,” he added.

In the current situation, Hungary’s armed forces are tasked with ensuring peace and security in the country and the region rather than “show force that would rouse people’s fear and anxiety”.NATO’s plan for the conflict includes peaceful solutions as well as deterrence, Benkő said.Referring to his talks with UK counterpart Ben Wallace earlier on Monday, Benkő said Wallace had praised the standard and professionalism of Hungary’s armed forces and agreed there was no need to offer troops to the country.

Responding to a statement by Ágnes Vadai of the opposition Democratic Coalition, who called the defence minister “a tool of Russian disinformation”, Benkő said Hungary’s government had always rejected the notion of foreign forces being stationed in the country.

“Riling people up at a time when armed conflict is forming [nearby] is not right,” he said."

Defense Minister Calls for Peaceful Solution to Russia-Ukraine Standoff

[OhOh]

Blinken’s response to Russia NATO demand is frankly disturbing

Problematic: Calling the territorial integrity of Ukraine a ‘core principle’ of the US and suggesting entering the alliance is Kiev’s ‘right to choose.’

January 27, 2022

Written by Marcus Stanley


"Yesterday the U.S. State Department submitted written responses to Russian negotiating positions in the ongoing U.S.-Russia negotiations over the Ukraine crisis. The exact text and details of the responses are confidential. However, Secretary of State Blinken’s statement regarding the content of the U.S. response is disturbing. At a press briefing, Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. refusal to engage with the core Russian position that the Ukraine should not be permitted to enter NATO, adding that in the written response “we make clear that there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend — including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances.

This is problematic from several perspectives. At the most basic level, it indicates that the U.S. is refusing to seek compromise regarding what Russia believes to be a core national security interest, namely that the U.S. should not make an alliance commitment to the military defense of Ukraine. Russia views Ukraine as a strategically critical nation due to its location directly on the Russian border and deep historical and cultural ties to Eastern Ukraine.

As Secretary Blinken must understand, NATO membership is not a decision made by Ukraine alone, and his claim that NATO membership is simply a matter of the Ukraine’s “right to choose” its own security arrangements is deeply misleading. NATO membership involves a two-way commitment, not simply the free choices of the entering member. Current alliance members must commit to mutual defense of the new member. Since the U.S. has by far the largest and most effective military forces in NATO, the most vital element of NATO membership is the American commitment to defend member borders. So Russia’s negotiating position is directed at a potential American commitment to defend Ukraine. Rather than engage honestly with the question of whether such an American military commitment really makes sense, Blinken deflects and reframes it as a matter of “core principles” around Ukraine’s choices and sovereignty.

In the long term, this indicates an unwillingness to grapple with the question of how to align American military commitments and resources with our long-term strategic interests, and whether Ukraine represents a core interest which justifies the placement of many tens or even hundreds of thousands of new troops in Europe and risking a major war with another nuclear power.

More importantly in the short term, it digs the U.S. into a position “on principle” that no compromise whatsoever is available on the critical question of Ukrainian membership in NATO. This is particularly confusing because the Biden Administration has been clear that it is currently unwilling to directly commit the U.S. military to the defense of Ukraine – which is precisely what would be immediately required if Ukraine became a NATO member. A credible defense for Ukraine would require a massive increase in U.S. forces in Europe, possibly approaching Cold War level ground and air forces.

It is hard to see any domestic appetite for expending this level of resources, and internationally an immediate beneficiary would be China."

Blinken's response to Russia NATO demand is frankly disturbing – Responsible Statecraft

[Backspin]

The US has reportedly been putting pressure on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to cancel his upcoming trip to Moscow in an attempt to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin on the world stage, amid escalating tensions on the border with Ukraine.

https://www.rt.com/russia/547909-us-pressuring-brazils-bolsonaro/

Bilateral relations between Hungary & Russia are strengthening as the two countries cooperate on various areas from nuclear energy to vaccines.

Hungary rejected Britain's request of rationing Nato troops on its territory yesterday.

https://www.rt.com/russia/547980-putin-orban-partnership-talks-moscow/

The UK is to sanction Russian billionaires who have money in London. I guess they are sanctioning Russia for not invading Ukraine. This is good. Anyone from Russia who's dumb enough to have money in the Anglo world deserves to lose it.

[helge]

Just enjoying the fact that you Three Stooges continue to step in your own fecal droppings.

Well

I dare you Snubs to post up a poll...."Who are "the bigliest forum fool" in Speakers Corner.

You'll win; hands down

You are hot air and quotes from a
paper, you wrote yourself

Not even your supposed allies in the Mutty Waters would disagree


Still like you though

Fancy a beer ?

[Backspin]

Bris Johnson is in Ukraine, first visit to the new imperial outpost. Listen to what the sweaty fat slob says. What a fuckin weirdo. That was trump level awkward and inappropriate.

Great Britain wants very much to have its own naval bases on the Black Sea coast. https://twitter.com/vicktop55/status/1488592873910067208/video/1

[sabang]

Perhaps have another referendum in Crimea, and see what they think? Yawwwn. What a bojo.

[OhOh]

Telephone conversation with President of France Emmanuel Macron

Vladimir Putin had an extensive telephone conversation with President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron.

January 28, 2022 16:15

"The leaders exchanged views on the measures that both countries are taking to combat the coronavirus. The main topic of conversation, though, was the issue of providing Russia with long-term and legally binding security guarantees, including in the wake of recent Russia-US talks in Geneva and a NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels.Vladimir Putin made it clear that the Russian side would carefully study the written responses to the draft agreements on security guarantees received from the United States and NATO on January 26, after which it would decide on further action.

At the same time, attention was drawn to the fact that the US and NATO responses did not address Russia’s fundamental concerns such as stopping NATO expansion, not deploying assault weapons near Russia’s borders, or rolling NATO’s military capacity and infrastructure in Europe back to where they were in 1997 when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

The key question on the United States and its allies’ plans to follow the principle of the indivisibility of security was ignored. This principle is enshrined in the OSCE and NATO-Russia basic documents and stipulates that no one should strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other countries.

When discussing the situation in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin emphasised the importance of Kiev’s strict compliance with the provisions of the Minsk Package of Measures and other agreements, primarily on establishing a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk and legalising the special status of Donbass. Based on the outcome of the meeting of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy four countries held in Paris on January 26, the parties reaffirmed their commitment to continuing working in this format.

With regard to France's chairmanship of the EU Council in the first half of 2022, Emmanuel Macron briefed Vladimir Putin on Paris's approaches to the pan-European track. It was agreed to continue the Russian-French dialogue on the entire range of European security issues.

The state of affairs around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear programme was reviewed. The proximity of Russia’s and France’s positions on this was noted. Both countries strongly support continuing international efforts to maintain and implement the JCPOA, and UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

Some practical aspects of bilateral cooperation, including nuclear energy, were discussed.
The President of Russia and the President of France agreed to stay in close communication."

Telephone conversation with President of France Emmanuel Macron • President of Russia

Emmanuel Macron Walks a Fine Line on Ukraine

The French president, determined to engage with Russia, wants to shape a new European security order from crisis — and win the April election.

By Roger Cohen Jan. 29, 2022

"In 2019, Emmanuel Macron invited President Vladimir V. Putin to the French summer presidential residence at Brégançon, declared the need for the reinvention of “an architecture of security” between the European Union and Russia, and later pronounced that NATO had undergone a “brain death.”

The French leader enjoys provocation. He detests intellectual laziness. But even by his standards, the apparent dismissal of the Western alliance and tilt toward Moscow were startling. Poland, among other European states with experience of life in the Soviet imperium, expressed alarm.

Now a crisis provoked by Russian troops amassed on the Ukrainian border has at once galvanized a supposedly moribund NATO against a Russian threat — the alliance’s original mission — and, for Mr. Macron, demonstrated the need for his own intense brand of 21st-century Russian engagement.

“Dialogue with Russia is not a gamble, it is an approach that responds to a necessity,”

a senior official in the presidency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in keeping with French government practice, said Friday after Mr. Macron and Mr. Putin spoke by phone for more than an hour.

Later in the day, Mr. Macron spoke to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a move that placed the French leader precisely where he seeks to be ahead of an April presidential election: at the fulcrum of crisis diplomacy on Europe’s future. ....

Continues at

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/w...n-nato-eu.html

An alternate inclusive European led solution being concocted?

Green lighted or a cause for concern to NaGastan.

Which set of NaGastani "elected" officials opinions will be included, The Town, City, State, Federal, The majority party of the legislators, Primary Funders of the current White House, state department, or just Biden and his dog?

Possibly a Google web campaign and an "inclusive certified voters" online poll.

[OhOh]

Mr. Sergey Lavrov`s written message on Indivisibility of Security addressed to the Heads of Foreign / External Affairs Ministers / Secretaries of the US, Canada and several European countries

134-01-02-2022

"You are well aware that Russia is seriously concerned about increasing politico-military tensions in the immediate vicinity of its western borders. With a view to avoiding any further escalation, the Russian side presented on 15 December 2021 the drafts of two interconnected international legal documents – a Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on Security Guarantees and an Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The U.S. and NATO responses to our proposals received on 26 January 2022 demonstrate serious differences in the understanding of the principle of equal and indivisible security that is fundamental to the entire European security architecture. We believe it is necessary to immediately clarify this issue, as it will determine the prospects for future dialogue.

The Charter for European Security signed at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in November 1999 formulated key rights and obligations of the OSCE participating States with respect to indivisibility of security. It underscored the right of each participating State to be free to choose or change its security arrangements including treaties of alliances, as they evolve, as well as the right of each State to neutrality. The same paragraph of the Charter directly conditions those rights on the obligation of each State not to strengthen its security at the expense of the security of other States. It says further that no State, group of States or Organization can have any pre-eminent responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the OSCE area or can consider any part of the OSCE area as its sphere of influence.

At the OSCE Summit in Astana in December 2010, the leaders of our nations approved a declaration that reaffirmed this comprehensive package of interconnected obligations.

However, the Western countries continue to pick up out of it only those elements that suit them, and namely – the right of States to be free to choose alliances for ensuring exclusively their own security. The words ‘as they evolve’ are shamefacedly omitted, because this provision was also an integral part of the understanding of ‘indivisible security’, and specifically in the sense that military alliances must abandon their initial deterrence function and integrate into the all-European architecture based on collective approaches, rather than as narrow groups. The principle of indivisible security is selectively interpreted as a justification for the ongoing course toward irresponsible expansion of NATO.

It is revealing that Western representatives, while expressing their readiness to engage in dialogue on the European security architecture, deliberately avoid making reference to the Charter for European Security and the Astana Declaration in their comments. They mention only earlier OSCE documents, particularly often – the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe that does not contain the increasingly ‘inconvenient’ obligation not to strengthen own security at the expense of the security of other States. Western capitals also attempt to ignore a key OSCE document – the 1994 Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security, which clearly says that the States will choose their security arrangements, including membership in alliances, ‘bearing in mind the legitimate security concerns of other States’.

It will not work that way. The very essence of the agreements on indivisible security is that either there is security for all or there is no security for anyone. The Istanbul Charter provides that each OSCE participating State has equal right to security, and not only NATO countries that interpret this right as an exceptional privilege of membership in the ‘exclusive’ North Atlantic club.

I will not comment on other NATO guidelines and actions that reflect the aspiration of the ‘defensive’ bloc to military supremacy and the use of force bypassing the prerogatives of the U.N. Security Council. Suffice it to say that such actions contravene the fundamental all-European obligations including the commitments under the aforementioned documents to maintain only such military capabilities that are commensurate with individual or collective security needs, taking into account the obligations under international law, as well as the legitimate security interests of other States.

Discussing the present situation in Europe, our colleagues from the United States, NATO and the European Union make constant appeals for ‘de-escalation’ and call on Russia to ‘choose a path of diplomacy’. We want to remind: we have been moving along that path for decades. The key milestones, such as the documents of the Istanbul and Astana summits, are exactly the direct result of diplomacy. The very fact that the West now tries to revise to its benefit these diplomatic achievements of the leaders of all OSCE countries raises serious concern. The situation demands a frank clarification of positions.

We want to receive a clear answer to the question how our partners understand their obligation not to strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of other States on the basis of the commitment to the principle of indivisible security. How specifically does your Government intend to fulfil this obligation in practical terms in the current circumstances? If you renege on this obligation, we ask you to clearly state that.

Without having full clarity on this key issue related to the interconnection of rights and obligations approved at the highest level, it is impossible to ensure the balance of interests embodied in the instruments of the Istanbul and Astana summits. Your response will help to better understand the extent of the ability of our partners to remain faithful to their commitments, as well as the prospects for common progress toward decreasing tensions and strengthening European security.

We look forward to your prompt reply. It should not take long as the point is to clarify the understanding on the basis of which Your President/Prime Minister signed the corresponding obligations.
We also expect that the response to this letter will be given in the national capacity, as the aforementioned commitments were undertaken by each of our States individually and not within any bloc or in the name thereof."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1796679/

[NamPikToot]

With a view to avoiding any further escalation, the Russian side

de-escalated tensions by withdrawing the threatening presence of over 120,000 troops inside Ukrainian territory it had annexed.

[bsnub]

de-escalated tensions by withdrawing the threatening presence of over 120,000 troops inside Ukrainian territory it had annexed.

That is really the key point in this. It is an artificial conflict created 100% by Putin. It is beyond laughable that there are so many propagandists out there spreading lies and falsehoods. The three stooges here are helping to propagate it at every turn. Some of it is utterly laughable and goes so far as to attempt to claim that somehow America is at fault. It is just pure madness.

[NamPikToot]

Putin has talked up the perceived NATO threat to suit his own ends and that is all there is to it. Only a dictator like him and his other mates are paranoid enough to believe the West wants to threaten Russia. He is a petty little man clinging to power having failed his people and squandered the fossil fuel resource boom that the west is now turning away from.

[sabang]

And of course the US/ Nato have not talked up the 'Russian threat' to suit their own ends at all. You guys are classic!

[bsnub]

Putin has talked up the perceived NATO threat to suit his own ends and that is all there is to it.

Indeed and I posted an article on the previous page I posted an article that outlined how the US needs to go after what matters most to Putin. His money.

[sabang]

Incidentally, the three stooges- what a great nickname for Aukus! Thanks for the heads up.

[NamPikToot]

You mean Putin, Xi and their useful idiot Lukashenko

[harrybarracuda]

Reply: "Fuck off and take your troops with you and you might not get laughed at so much".