Ukraine war mega thread

[David48atTD]

And if there had been no

.'invasion by Russia of a Sovereign Country' Ukraine is the phrase you were looking for

[sabang]

So what if Putin likes Dostoyevsky?

• Hamid Dabashi
  Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
  
  
  
  “Vladimir Putin adores Fyodor Dostoevsky,” I recently read in an article. “A close reading of the legendary author’s texts reveals the feeling might have been mutual.”
• 
  Before long I also read that in Italy a university had cancelled a literature course on Dostoyevsky over the Ukraine crisis. If the world were left at the mercy of such acts of juvenile lunacy, we will sooner lose the moral parameters of our earthly existence than we do the environmental conditions of human survival. What has Dostoyevsky to do with Putin? We might as well ban Faulkner because we oppose the Ku Klux Klan – or stop reading Emile Zola because we do not like Marine Le Pen. What sheer sophomoric puerility is this?
  
  
  People around the world aghast at the barbarity of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (as they were with Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq) must be very careful not to fall into this trap. “A plague on both your houses,” we should instead say both to Putin and his nemesis as we reach for our copies of the masterpieces of Russian literature to reread in protest, beginning of course with Dostoyevsky.
• 
  Years ago, I was a member of the jury at a film festival in St Petersburg, Russia, on which occasion a Russian colleague generously gave me a tour of the neighbourhood in which Dostoyevsky had lived when writing Crime and Punishment (1866), a book I first read when I was a poor undergraduate student in Tehran, not too dissimilar to the main character of the novel, Rodion Raskolnikov – minus, of course, murdering any pawnbroker Iranian counterpart of Alyona Ivanovna.
• 
  I was walking through that neighbourhood like a pilgrim retracing every inch of it graced by the memories of a lasting monument to a man’s literary genius, a novelist whom Nietzsche had praised as “the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn”, the towering moral figure on whom Freud wrote his iconic essay, “Dostoyevsky and Parricide”.
• 
  Maligning a whole civilisation
  
  Extract Dostoyevsky from our moral memories and we will be one step closer to Dante’s Inferno. Dostoyevsky is irreplaceable. Please leave him alone.
• 
  The issue however is not just Dostoevsky. There is an alarming, positively pathetic, rise and resurgence of Russophobia in Europe and the United States – almost instantly following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Blame Putin for Ukraine, as you blame George W Bush for Afghanistan and Iraq or anywhere else on his map of the “War on Terror”.
• 
  Take Putin, Bush, Bashar al-Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a whole gang of kindred thugs together, put a leash around their necks as you dispatch them all to the International Criminal Court and charge them with war crimes, and crimes against humanity. But this juvenile demonisation of an entire culture is pathetic.
• 
  I recall how back in January 2020, US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb 52 Iranian sites, including many that are considered world heritage monuments. The barbaric mentality that just a while ago was targeting Iran and Islam, has now turned to Russia.
• 
  It is one thing for European and US media to shed their thin veneer of journalistic neutrality and be utterly vulgar in their partisan coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is an entirely different thing for the classic European and American Russophobia to rear its ugly head and reconnect to its fascist roots to demonise Russians with dizzying speed and insidious tenacity. We Muslims, still struggling against Islamophobia in Europe and the US, are woefully familiar with the mechanism of how this renewed Russophobia is acting itself out.
  
  
  We denounce Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine, and we love reading Dostoyevsky’s novels, watching Andrei Tarkovsky’s movies, and marvelling at Mikhail Bakhtin’s philosophical brilliance. Repeat these few phrases three times a day and leave the world be.
• 
  Politics of propaganda
  
  The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a naked act of military aggression straight out of the American playbook. With all its brutality and vulgarity, the Russians have done nothing that the US and its European and regional allies have not done for decades and centuries – most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere[at] – or what their client Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have not done in Yemen. So what is the big deal? Everything is in order when they do it to Black and brown people around the globe. The world is coming to an end if someone does the same thing to white people with blue eyes and blonde hair.
• 
  None of this justifies Putin’s military adventurism in Ukraine – but the US and its European allies are the last entities on planet earth with any moral authority to point fingers at Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rightly achieved the highest admiration of people around the globe for staying put and leading his country in a battle of survival against Putin – but this is the same man who is a solid Zionist fully behind the continued Israeli theft of Palestine and murder of Palestinians. Wherefore this failure to see the larger global picture?
• 
  If we were to remain free of the political propaganda of both sides and focus on the human costs of such follies, the demonisation of regional and global cultures is revealed for the nonsensical gibberish that it is. The best of Russia is the best of our humanity. The worst of Russia has an uncanny similarity with the worst we have seen of Europe and the US. We did not stop reading Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens or Jane Austen when the US and its European partners unleashed their barbarism on Afghanistan and Iraq. We will not stop reading Leo Tolstoy or Ivan Turgenev or Nikolai Gogol now that Russia has done the same in Ukraine.
• 
  The malignant (generic) anti-Russian sentiments in Europe and by extension the US goes back at least to the Napoleonic Wars when Russia was pictured as the barbaric antithesis of “Europe”. The fictitious document known as “The Will of Peter the Great” (forged early in the nineteenth century and repeatedly revived any time there is a war in Crimea) has attributed to the Russian emperor the desire to conquer Europe and subjugate its people. The same delusional phobia would later be recycled for Arabs and Muslims “reconquering Europe”.
• 
  No doubt there are zealot Russian nationalists who want to expand the territorial domains of their former empire. But how is that different from the nefarious Project for New American Century of neanderthal neoconservatives like William Kristol and Robert Kagan who under Bush plotted to conquer the whole planet under the US flag? Delusional Europeans and their American counterparts are very limited in their conspiratorial imagination and not so clever in making up newer fearful fantasies so keep recycling the old ones. According to them, Arabs want to conquer Europe, Muslims want to conquer Europe, Turks, Africans, Russians, ad absurdum, want to conquer Europe – all the while they do not seem to notice that they are the ones who are bombing Asia and Africa at will.
• 
  Hollywood at work
  
  It is impossible to exaggerate how gullible a whole spectrum of Americans is at such moments, drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid without the slightest doubt or hesitation, acting like robots commanded in one direction or another. “Russian Restaurants Feel War’s Impact,” reports The New York Times, “most owners are antiwar, and many of them are from Ukraine. But customer numbers are down all the same.” What did Beef Stroganoff, Borscht, or Pirozhki do to you anyway? They are delicious. Much better, in fact, than the ghastly hamburgers that McDonald’s has evidently decided to stop feeding the Russians in retaliation for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
• 
  Like many other cultures around the world, American culture cannot understand itself except by demonising a constellation of others. A fictive white interlocutor stands at the epicentre of all these systematic acts of alienation and tireless demonisation of others. All that is needed is a hint to trigger the machinery into action.
• 
  Over the course of its history, Hollywood has emerged as the main barometer of American propaganda, consistently marking and targeting the presumed enemies of “the American way of life”. From Hollywood blockbusters like the Rocky series and Diehard to spy thrillers of successive generations, Hollywood thrives on demonising Russians.
• 
  “In Hollywood,” Michael Idov recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “the ‘evil Russian’ stereotype isn’t back. It never left.” Nina Khrushcheva, a scholar of cinema at New York University even makes the perfectly plausible claim that Putin’s self-image is in fact influenced by Hollywood’s portrait of evil Russians. In the movie Equalizer (2014), the chief Russian villain is called Vladimir Pushkin. Any relation to Alexander Pushkin perhaps – the greatest Russian Romantic poet and playwright of all time?
• 
  Any time Hollywood as the chief propaganda machinery of the US and Europe goes low, the world must go high. Today is the best time to rediscover the masters of Russian Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov – and countless other masters are all waiting for you. While you are at it, get to know a few Ukrainian artists too. Begin with Taras Shevchenko, their glorious Kobzar – then discover their many other poets, artists and folklorists. As Russia is not just Putin, Ukraine is not just Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
  https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/4/1/beware-of-the-resurgent-russophobia
  
  
  
  

[Troy]

Beware of the black on blue text...I can't read it.

[sabang]

It's white now! Sorry, I paste it then quickly Edit to make it readable! Clumsy but it works.

[Troy]

Well, the attack on an oil refinery in Russia won't have helped Ukraine and the peace talks. They really needed to refrain from any offensive action outside Ukraine to maintain the moral upper hand.

Unwise decision in my view.

[sabang]

M'ehh, it's war. But it will invite an uncompromising response. I'm assuming there was no ceasefire in effect?

[Norton]

Take Putin, Bush, Bashar al-Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a whole gang of kindred thugs together, put a leash around their necks as you dispatch them all to the International Criminal Court and charge them with war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Very good advice here. Wrong is wrong.

[Backspin]

Looks like the prelims are starting in Odessa. And the Ukrainian regime was caught with its pants down.

In Odessa, the commander of the defense was caught in an orgy with a transvestite.



In the underground brothel of the Odessa region of Arcadia, Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrey Kislovsky, a deputy of the Odessa City Council from the Trust in Affairs party, one of the leaders of the local territorial defense, was spotted.

Telegram: Contact @intelslava

[Cujo]

Well, the attack on an oil refinery in Russia won't have helped Ukraine and the peace talks. They really needed to refrain from any offensive action outside Ukraine to maintain the moral upper hand.

Unwise decision in my view.

Oh do fuck off. I've been of the opinion all along they should be staging Guerilla warfare in Russia proper. Blowing up infrastructure and as far as possible military institutions. Making the Ruskies feel some pain.

[Cujo]

Video in link
In Odessa, the commander of the defense was caught in an orgy with a transvestite.

In the underground brothel of the Odessa region of Arcadia, Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrey Kislovsky, a deputy of the Odessa City Council from the Trust in Affairs party, one of the leaders of the local territorial defense, was spotted.

Telegram: Contact @intelslava

Maybe, mabe not. I'm thinking not. The Ruskies WILL lie you know, to discredit their enemy.

[Backspin]

Maybe, mabe not. I'm thinking not. The Ruskies WILL lie you know, to discredit their enemy.

You are gonna watch it to see what the LB looks like

The brothel was probably opened up there by the Russian security services 5 years ago

[Backspin]

Agreed 100% ... had Putin, thus Russia had not invaded Ukraine, there would be no war, no woman and children killed by Russian bombs.

If 'invasion' is the answer, it's a very silly question posed by 'ole Puffy Putin

The war didn't start on Feb24. The war started in 2014 and the line of contact has never gone completely cold since then. There has been shelling of the donbass for 8 years.

And the Ukraine was planning on an attack on the donbass for March. Which is why the US and UK were flying weapons in.

[Backspin]

Oh do fuck off. I've been of the opinion all along they should be staging Guerilla warfare in Russia proper. Blowing up infrastructure and as far as possible military institutions. Making the Ruskies feel some pain.

So you are a war monger and chickenhawk. Plain and simple

[David48atTD]

The war didn't start on Feb24. The war started in 2014

backspin, in part, you are partially correct. The prelude to the war started when Russia invaded the Crimea area of Ukraine.

... and don't retort with the crap that the Crimea 'voted' on it ... it's bullshite 100% and you know it.

[sabang]

It isn't bullshit- the Crimean Parliament called a Referendum, and you know it. There were already 6 or 7 Russian military bases in Crimea prior to Maidan- what invasion? And the de facto local currency used was the ruble- because the Crimean economy was and is near totally dependent on Russian tourism, and the Russian military. Which, combined with the fact it is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian rather explains the overwhelming result of the Referendum.

Sadly, it has become obvious that Ukraine is just another pawn in the USA's 'forever war' antics-


US and NATO Allies Arm Neo-Nazi Units in Ukraine as Foreign Policy Elites Yearn for Afghan-style Insurgency

Corporate US media and foreign policy hardliners want to create a new Afghanistan in the middle of Europe by flooding Ukraine with weapons. The arms industry is very pleased.



Following urgent requests for arms from the Ukrainian government, at least 32 countries have announced their intention to ship billions of dollars in weapons into Ukraine for use against Russian forces in Ukraine. Photographic evidence shows that these weapons have already ended up in the hands of neo-Nazi paramilitaries – units which have already received training and arms the US and its NATO allies.

Underscoring the careless nature of the unprecedented arms shipments, the formerly neutral country of Norway has warned that its government cannot “guarantee that the weapons [it is sending to Ukraine] will not fall into the wrong hands.”

As corporate media and Reddit forums spin out a rose-colored view of the Ukrainian military’s performance, some 20,000 foreign fighters from 52 countries have signed up to join the newly-formed “International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine.” Many are now fleeing back across the Polish border, filled with fear in the face of heavy casualties.

All of this builds on $3.8 billion in military aid from the United States to Ukraine, the training of 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers by Canada and the United Kingdom, and a longstanding CIA program aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency.

As Western officials clamor for a long and bloody war against Russia while shirking efforts at negotiation, progressive anti-war voices in Congress like Rep. Ro Khanna, who once massive arms transfers to Kiev.

During his widely broadcast, carefully scripted speech to Congress on March 16, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky’s thanked the United States for its “overwhelming support” in terms of “weapons and ammunition, for training, for finances.”

He went on to beseech Congress for a no-fly zone, which even top White House officials have acknowledged as a call for conventional war against Russia.

While a no-fly zone remains off the table for the time being, NATO leaders are hoping for an extended war of attrition, consequences be damned. And arms dealers are having a field day, with stocks in top defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman surged by 20% during the first week of the conflict.

As former special advisor to the Secretary of Defense Col. Douglas Macgregor , “

it looks more and more as though Ukrainians are almost incidental to the operation in the sense that they are there to impale themselves on the Russian army and die in great numbers, because the real goal of this entire thing is the destruction of the Russian state and Vladimir Putin.”

Priming the public for endless war, lobbying for an insurgency

David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist and reliable voice of the US intelligence apparatus, noted that even prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “the United States and NATO allies [were] ready to provide weapons and training for a long battle of resistance.”

This March, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas commented, “I think what you’re hearing from all of us — and it’s a real mindset change — we’re talking about potentially a long war… Think about this less as a classic war. Afghanistan went on [for] two decades… this could be another frozen struggle, and it could wax and wane, but this could be part of the new normal.”

The Afghan option has been advocated for Ukraine by some of the most prominent figures among the US foreign policy establishment, and particularly those on the Democratic side of the aisle.

“It didn’t end well for the Russians…but the fact is, that a very motivated, and then funded, and armed insurgency basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. I think that is the model that people are now looking toward,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a February 28 interview with MSNBC.

Clinton waxed nostalgic over the campaign to arm and train the Afghan mujahideen in a bid to suck the Soviet Union into a “Vietnamese quagmire.” If Western government can “keep the Ukrainian, both their military and their citizen volunteer soldiers supplied, that can continue to stymie Russia,” she added.

Next, Clinton pointed to the dirty war in Syria, where the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program funneled weapons to the so-called “moderate rebels” of the Free Syrian Army, creating what mainstream US analyst Sam Heller called “weapons farms for larger Islamist and jihadist factions, including Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.”

“It took years to finally defeat Syria in terms of the insurgencies, the democratic forces as well as others who battled the Russians, the Syrians, and the Iranians,” Clinton said.

As a no-longer official voice of the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Hillary Clinton is able to speak with more candor than the current US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on the objectives of the liberal interventionist clique to which they both belong.

When Hillary Clinton resurfaced on MSNBC on March 8 for an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brezinski – daughter of Zbigniew, the architect of the program to arm the Afghan mujahedin – Clinton was more explicit than before about her desire for the Afghan option.

“Lethal defensive weapons are making their way into Ukraine. They need more. I want to see them get more. I’ve urged publicly and privately that they get more,” the former Secretary of State . “There is a concerted effort by governments, particularly NATO governments, both to provide weapons and aid.”

“This is not going to end quickly,” Clinton concluded, “it’s going to drag on.”

In a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Blinken insisted that should Russian President Vladimir Putin try to “enforce such a puppet regime by keeping Russian forces in Ukraine, it will be a long, bloody, drawn-out mess through which Russia will continue to suffer grievously.”

In one media appearance after another, the Secretary of State has alluded to the possibility of a forever war in Ukraine. “I think we have to be prepared, unfortunately, tragically, for this to go on for some time,” he told Face The Nation.

Biden too has hinted at efforts to stoke a long-term insurgency in the country, vowing that Russia “will pay a continuing high price over the long run,” though “it’s going to take time.”

Unlike the proxy wars in Syria and Afghanistan, where Western-backed jihadist foreign fighters took up their crusade in hopes of establishing a medieval Islamic caliphate, the champions of the “holy war” in Ukraine look to the country’s more recent history of Nazism as their call to arms.

Months before Russia launched its operation inside Ukaine, the CIA launched a program to train Ukrainian fighters for an insurgency. Meanwhile, weapons furnished by NATO allies have been placed in the hands of the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi former paramilitary organization incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.



Full Article- https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-a...rgency/279997/

[Switch]

^Much too long and riddled with the usual Russian interpretation and supposition. No real facts in evidence at all.
Still typical of your style. Backspin would have edited that to put a better spin on it as he is the warmonger, despite his feeble attempts to claim the contrary.

[sabang]

The full article is even longer. Didn't want to tax your brain too much- more curious folk can always follow the link.

[David48atTD]

It isn't bullshit- the Crimean Parliament called a Referendum, and you know it. There were already 6 or 7 Russian military bases in Crimea prior to Maidan- what invasion? And the de facto local currency used was the ruble- because the Crimean economy was and is near totally dependent on Russian tourism, and the Russian military. Which, combined with the fact it is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian rather explains the overwhelming result of the Referendum.

Nope ... it's bullshit.

Was the 'Referendum' legal and valid?

The Venice Commission declared that the referendum was illegal under both Ukrainian and Crimean Constitutions, and violated international standards and norms.
WIKI

The 'Crimean Parliament' doesn't move international boarders ... the two sovereign nations with the shared border do that.

Most of the Black Sea, Odessa specifically rely on Russian tourism ... but that doesn't make it Russian Territory.

[David48atTD]

How exactly did Ukraine get here?

We look back at the major developments in the country's recent history to get you up to speed with events on the ground today

Cracking the USSR:
In 1991, as the collapsing USSR dissolved its hold on Soviet republics, Ukraine achieved independence, and three years later, Russia, the US, Britain and Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum – part of the negotiations aimed at keeping Soviet-era nuclear weapons from scattering to the winds.
Ukraine agreed to send its nuclear weapons to Russia to be disarmed there, in return for the three powers' promises to respect Ukraine.

Specifically ...

1. they agreed never to coerce Ukraine with economic pressure;
2. to never threaten or use force against Ukraine;
3. and to respect Ukrainian territory and sovereignty.

Ukraine's revolution and Russia's occupation of Crimea: how we got here | Crimea | The Guardian

[bsnub]

Unflinching proof that the Russians are deliberately killing civilians...



Interesting story about what happened to a specific airborne unit...

[Backspin]

How exactly did Ukraine get here?

We look back at the major developments in the country's recent history to get you up to speed with events on the ground today

Cracking the USSR:
In 1991, as the collapsing USSR dissolved its hold on Soviet republics, Ukraine achieved independence, and three years later, Russia, the US, Britain and Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum – part of the negotiations aimed at keeping Soviet-era nuclear weapons from scattering to the winds.
Ukraine agreed to send its nuclear weapons to Russia to be disarmed there, in return for the three powers' promises to respect Ukraine.

Specifically ...

1. they agreed never to coerce Ukraine with economic pressure;
2. to never threaten or use force against Ukraine;
3. and to respect Ukrainian territory and sovereignty.

Ukraine's revolution and Russia's occupation of Crimea: how we got here | Crimea | The Guardian

You are new to this topic because the war got hot again. The Budapest memorandum has been done to death on this forum

And from 1991 to 2014, Russia did NONE of the 3 items on the list and in 2014, THE UNITED STATES BROKE THE 1ST RULE BY USING ECONOMIC COERCION (THE EU ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT) TO SUBJUGATE UKRAINE TO ITS OWN INTEREST.

[sabang]

Was the 'Referendum' legal and valid?

Was the 'Maidan Revolution' legal and valid? Nope- and that is exactly what invalidated the former (and relatively short lived) Ukrainian federation. So the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was quite entitled to hold a Referendum after the revolution, and let the People decide. Donbass was left in a sticky hole though, because it enjoyed no such legal autonomy. It went it's own way regardless, and has been at war with Ukraine since.

Strangely, I don't hear anywhere near this amount of angst and whinging about the Referenda in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Quebec. Brexit not that far off though.

[David48atTD]

^ Link to support your assertion?

The Budapest memorandum has been done to death on this forum

Nope ... it was Putin who violated the Budapest memorandum with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine war: what is the Budapest Memorandum and why has Russia's invasion torn it up?

---

THE UNITED STATES BROKE THE 1ST RULE BY USING ECONOMIC COERCION (THE EU ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT) TO SUBJUGATE UKRAINE TO ITS OWN INTEREST

No, the United States is not part of the European Union. It does not qualify since it is located in the Americas rather than Europe.

Association agreement
European Commission - Enlargement - Association agreement

An association agreement is a bilateral agreement between the EU and a third country. In the context of accession to the EU, it serves as the basis for implementation of the accession process.
Turkey currently has an association agreement.
Association agreements between the Western Balkan countries and the EU and its Member States are called 'stabilisation and association agreements'.
Association agreement

[sabang]

Now it's around 2330 in Seattle, so snubs has had plenty of time to get pissed. Thinking of you Mate!


"Recently, the peripatetic Mike Whitney had a powerful interview with one Larry C Johnson. The latter is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998 to provide training to the US Military’s Special Operations community. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right.
In any event, Johnson summarized what amounts to the dogs of war which are not barking on the Ukrainian side of the ledger. The implication is that its only a matter of time until a fait accompli on the ground in Ukraine results in the aforementioned partition of its borders and the demilitarization and neutralization of the rump state left behind, even as Washington finds itself in full-scale economic war with Russia."


..... As to the looming collapse of the Ukrainian resistance, here are the key spoiler alerts from the Johnson interview, conveying the inconvenient truths about where the war is actually heading.


Russia’s de facto No Fly Zone
Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept. In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.

The Allegedly Stalled 40-Mile Russian Column
When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction. That did not happen. Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air. That did not happen. Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column. That did not happen. The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied US Javelins.

Cut Off to the South, North and East:
We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication. The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.

Destruction of De Facto NATO Military Bases:
The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr. NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.” Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday. Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday. It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.

Agreement With Colonel Douglas Macgregor – A Guest on the Tucker Carlson Show Who Said:
“The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.”

Washington’s Massive Miscalculation:
I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West. If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and US economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the US dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history."
Full Article- https://original.antiwar.com/David_S...land-security/


I don't want to let po' snubby ruin his keyboard again, so I will save the comments of the venerable Colonel Douglas MacGregor for another chilly, drizzly Washington evening. Seems like they aren't reading from the same boy scout manual pal.

[David48atTD]

Was the 'Maidan Revolution' legal and valid? Nope- and that is exactly what invalidated the former (and relatively short lived) Ukrainian federation. So the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was quite entitled to hold a Referendum after the revolution, and let the People decide. Donbass was left in a sticky hole though, because it enjoyed no such legal autonomy. It went it's own way regardless, and has been at war with Ukraine since.

^ Let's go though this.


1/ Was the 'Maidan Revolution' legal and valid? Nope ... great, an agreement.

2/ and that is exactly what invalidated the former (and relatively short lived) Ukrainian federation. Nope ... "The Venice Commission declared that the referendum was illegal under both Ukrainian and Crimean Constitutions, and violated international standards and norms.
WIKI"

3/ So the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was quite entitled to hold a Referendum after the revolution, and let the People decide. Nope again ... see answer in #2 Plus the residents of Crimea don't decide, the Ukrainian people in the country of Ukraine decide.

4/ Donbass was left in a sticky hole though, because it enjoyed no such legal autonomy. It went it's own way regardless, and has been at war with Ukraine since. Donbass, under Ukrainian Law, under International Law is still part of Ukraine. Admittedly, they 'feel' closer to Russia, which is fair enough ... so fuck off and move to Russia