Is Russia about to invade Ukraine? (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

Russia continues to mass assets within range of Ukraine - though the official explanations are that they are for various exercises. United States intelligence has noted that Russian operatives in Ukraine could launch 'false flag' operations as a predicate to invasion. The West has pressed for negotiations and on Friday in Geneva, the US Sec. State Blinken will meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Certainly the Russian movements evidence some plan - but what is it? Some analysts believe that Putin's grand scheme involves securing Western commitments that NATO would never expand beyond its current composition. Whether that means action in Ukraine or merely the movement of pieces on the chess board remains to be seen.

VIENNA — No one expected much progress from this past week’s diplomatic marathon to defuse the security crisis Russia has ignited in Eastern Europe by surrounding Ukraine on three sides with 100,000 troops and then, by the White House’s accounting, sending in saboteurs to create a pretext for invasion.

But as the Biden administration and NATO conduct tabletop simulations about how the next few months could unfold, they are increasingly wary of another set of options for President Vladimir V. Putin, steps that are more far-reaching than simply rolling his troops and armor over Ukraine’s border.

Mr. Putin wants to extend Russia’s sphere of influence to Eastern Europe and secure written commitments that NATO will never again enlarge. If he is frustrated in reaching that goal, some of his aides suggested on the sidelines of the negotiations last week, then he would pursue Russia’s security interests with results that would be felt acutely in Europe and the United States.

There were hints, never quite spelled out, that nuclear weapons could be shifted to places — perhaps not far from the United States coastline — that would reduce warning times after a launch to as little as five minutes, potentially igniting a confrontation with echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia Issues Subtle Threats More Far-Reaching Than a Ukraine Invasion

If the West fails to meet its security demands, Moscow could take measures like placing nuclear missiles close to the U.S. coastline, Russian officials have hinted.

www.nytimes.com

Blinken Will Meet With Russia as U.S. Pushes for More Diplomacy

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will meet with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia in Geneva on Friday as the United States warns that Russia could soon attack Ukraine.

www.nytimes.com

How to think about war in Ukraine

Start with the Ukrainians

snyder.substack.com

 

[efil4]

Good.

Although i wish that $$$ would be spent with Lockheed Martin to produce more ATACMS. But this works.

 

[SaintForLife]

We shouldn't be paying for fertilizer/seeds for farmers, paying for every 1st responder or subsidizing small businesses in Ukraine.

We shouldn't be borrowing money from China to pay for things in Ukraine. It's ridiculous that people would blind support that. We are 30 trillion in debt and that's not even including unfunded liabilities.

Especially when we see things like this.

It's not a surprise that the Democrats and some Republicans were against an inspector general in Ukraine.

 

[efil4]

We shouldn't be borrowing money from China to pay for things in Ukraine. It's ridiculous that people would blind support that. We are 30 trillion in debt and that's not even including unfunded liabilities.

Any idea how much we are paying? Or you just got panties in a wad because we are paying ? Regardless of amount - be it $10 or $1000 - or would you be MORE upset at $1000 than $10?



Ahhh who cares about the debt, right? Certainly not Republicans. ( well unless it benefits them to care )

How Republicans created – and now exploit – the debt crisis

Twice in recent history, America was on track to eliminate the federal debt. In both instances, Democratic presidents passed the baton to Republicans who proceeded to balloon the debt.

thehill.com

 

[MT15]

Seriously, oh, the horror!

So what is your objection here? Please be specific. Is it the fact that the Ukrainian people will have first responders equipped and ready to help them? Or that Ukrainian farmers will have seeds and the ability to grow wheat that they export to feed the world? Or is it that their small businesses will stay afloat during a brutal invasion by a fascist country and provide services to their population?

This is lame, even by your standards.

 

[J-DONK]

We shouldn't be borrowing money from China to pay for things in Ukraine. It's ridiculous that people would blind support that. We are 30 trillion in debt and that's not even including unfunded liabilities.

You out yourself in funny ways sometimes. If you truly were interested in foreign policy at all. It's hard to miss the historic, and unprecedented deleveraging that's been going on between the world's two largest economies. China is the one country not buying American bonds. I do appreciate the Democrat president = "Let's talk about the debt" comment though.

China fuels US bond rout by slashing holdings to 14-year low as Washington-Beijing tensions drag on

US Treasury prices have tanked in 2023, with investors fretting about the Federal Reserve's interest-rate hikes.

finance.yahoo.com

This article talks about the drop in trade.

China says drop in trade with the U.S. is 'a direct consequence of U.S. moves'

China's ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, has blamed U.S. tariffs and export controls for a drop in trade between the two countries.

www.cnbc.com

Do you even know who America's biggest trading partner is now? I bet this fact never makes it through the bubble since it contradicts every racist idea Republicans have about Mexico.

Mexico’s Moment: The Biggest US Trading Partner Is No Longer China

Investments from Tesla, BMW and others along with the new Cold War have transformed Mexico’s economy.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

We shouldn't be paying for fertilizer/seeds for farmers, paying for every 1st responder or subsidizing small businesses in Ukraine.

We shouldn't be borrowing money from China to pay for things in Ukraine. It's ridiculous that people would blind support that. We are 30 trillion in debt and that's not even including unfunded liabilities.

Especially when we see things like this.

It's not a surprise that the Democrats and some Republicans were against an inspector general in Ukraine.

man, i can write a 100 page reply on the things our gov't shouldn't be paying for. why is this one in particular have you bothered?
And i bet i can find many things that you are ok with the gov't paying for that I/others would disagree with.

 

[coldseat]

We pay for a lot of humanitarian things around the world. While it does have the effect of helping those in need throughout the world, that isn't the only reason we do. It's a really effective part of our soft diplomacy to get countries to work and partner with us to accomplish mutual goals. It's undoubtedly the best money we spend internationally because instead of fighting with countries it leads to us working with them and building trust.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

We pay for a lot of humanitarian things around the world. While it does have the effect of helping those in need throughout the world, that isn't the only reason we do. It's a really effective part of our soft diplomacy to get countries to work and partner with us to accomplish mutual goals. It's undoubtedly the best money we spend internationally because instead of fighting with countries it leads to us working with them and building trust.

also, the money spent in Ukraine, is money well spent in the long run. If Putin accidentally falls out of a window because of all this, the world is better off.

 

[SaintForLife]

Seriously, oh, the horror!

So what is your objection here? Please be specific. Is it the fact that the Ukrainian people will have first responders equipped and ready to help them? Or that Ukrainian farmers will have seeds and the ability to grow wheat that they export to feed the world? Or is it that their small businesses will stay afloat during a brutal invasion by a fascist country and provide services to their population?

This is lame, even by your standards.

Here are a few reasons:



Also:

New Ukraine President Zelenskiy dissolves parliament

Ukraine's new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy took the oath of office on Monday and immediately announced he was dissolving parliament.

www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Commentary: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

As Ukraine's struggle against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law...

www.reuters.com

 

[SaintForLife]

From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve been told that the issue of NATO expansion is irrelevant to the war, and that anyone bringing it up is, at best, unwittingly parroting Kremlin propaganda, at worst, apologizing for or justifying the war.

So it was curious to see NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this month say explicitly that Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his criminal war as a reaction to the possibility of NATO expanding into Ukraine, and the alliance’s refusal to swear it off — not once or twice, but three separate times.

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.”

“He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite,” Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the alliance in response to Putin’s invasion. Their entry, he later insisted, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he's getting the exact opposite.”

It’s not clear if Stoltenberg was referring to the draft treaty Putin put forward in December 2021 and simply mixed up the seasons (the provisions of each are the same), or if he’s referring to an earlier, as-yet-unreported incident. In any case, what Stoltenberg claims here — that Putin viewed Ukraine’s NATO entry as so unacceptable he was willing to invade to stop it, and put forward a negotiating bid that might have prevented it, only for NATO to reject it — has been repeatedly made by those trying to explain the causes of the war and how it could be ended, only to be dismissed as propaganda.

The only logical conclusion, if we’re to listen to the hawks, is that the man in charge of the very alliance helping Ukraine defend itself from Putin is, in fact, working for the Russian leader and spreading his propaganda.

This isn’t the only instance from a member of the NATO establishment. Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee in May this year, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said, alongside Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, that “we assess that Putin probably has scaled back his immediate ambitions to ... ensuring that Ukraine will never become a NATO ally.” Earlier in her testimony, Haines had said that Putin’s invasion had backfired by “precipitating the very events he hoped to avoid such as Finland's accession to NATO and Sweden's petition to join.”

Likewise, in a March 2023 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Russia expert Fiona Hill — who served as an intelligence analyst under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as on the National Security Council under President Donald Trump — told the paper that “it was always obvious that NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine and to Georgia was a provocation for Putin.” Yet the opposite claim, that the invasion was entirely “unprovoked,” has become such an article of faith in Western discourse that this word is ubiquitous in news reports and official statements on the war.

When officials say the quiet part about Russia and NATO out loud

Was the invasion about the alliance's expansion to Moscow's doorstep? Depends on who's telling the story.

responsiblestatecraft.org

 

[coldseat]

From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve been told that the issue of NATO expansion is irrelevant to the war, and that anyone bringing it up is, at best, unwittingly parroting Kremlin propaganda, at worst, apologizing for or justifying the war.

So it was curious to see NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this month say explicitly that Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his criminal war as a reaction to the possibility of NATO expanding into Ukraine, and the alliance’s refusal to swear it off — not once or twice, but three separate times.

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.”

“He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite,” Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the alliance in response to Putin’s invasion. Their entry, he later insisted, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he's getting the exact opposite.”

It’s not clear if Stoltenberg was referring to the draft treaty Putin put forward in December 2021 and simply mixed up the seasons (the provisions of each are the same), or if he’s referring to an earlier, as-yet-unreported incident. In any case, what Stoltenberg claims here — that Putin viewed Ukraine’s NATO entry as so unacceptable he was willing to invade to stop it, and put forward a negotiating bid that might have prevented it, only for NATO to reject it — has been repeatedly made by those trying to explain the causes of the war and how it could be ended, only to be dismissed as propaganda.

The only logical conclusion, if we’re to listen to the hawks, is that the man in charge of the very alliance helping Ukraine defend itself from Putin is, in fact, working for the Russian leader and spreading his propaganda.

This isn’t the only instance from a member of the NATO establishment. Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee in May this year, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said, alongside Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, that “we assess that Putin probably has scaled back his immediate ambitions to ... ensuring that Ukraine will never become a NATO ally.” Earlier in her testimony, Haines had said that Putin’s invasion had backfired by “precipitating the very events he hoped to avoid such as Finland's accession to NATO and Sweden's petition to join.”

Likewise, in a March 2023 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Russia expert Fiona Hill — who served as an intelligence analyst under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as on the National Security Council under President Donald Trump — told the paper that “it was always obvious that NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine and to Georgia was a provocation for Putin.” Yet the opposite claim, that the invasion was entirely “unprovoked,” has become such an article of faith in Western discourse that this word is ubiquitous in news reports and official statements on the war.

When officials say the quiet part about Russia and NATO out loud

Was the invasion about the alliance's expansion to Moscow's doorstep? Depends on who's telling the story.

responsiblestatecraft.org

Putin doesn't get to decide what alliance an independent country joins. He doesn't get to invade another country because he doesn't like their decision. He doesn't get to decide what government another country has. There was nothing imminent about Ukraine joining NATO, it was merely their long term objective given the perceived and real threat of Russia's continued aggression towards them.

 

[MT15]

I don’t believe anything known Russian sympathizers Rand Paul and GG say. Nothing.

And none of your wall of words will ever justify what Russia has done and is doing to the people of Ukraine. None of them.

You should be ashamed to side with Putin. You really should feel shame over this.

 

[DaveXA]

Here are a few reasons:



Also:

New Ukraine President Zelenskiy dissolves parliament

Ukraine's new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy took the oath of office on Monday and immediately announced he was dissolving parliament.

www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Commentary: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

As Ukraine's struggle against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law...

www.reuters.com

Trusting anything Rand Paul has to say about anything, let alone Ukraine is a fool's errand. He's the worst Senator by a mile.

Your commentary and posting on Ukraine sounds a lot like the Russian propaganda I see pretty regularly on Twitter.

 

[SaintForLife]

Trusting anything Rand Paul has to say about anything, let alone Ukraine is a fool's errand. He's the worst Senator by a mile.

Your commentary and posting on Ukraine sounds a lot like the Russian propaganda I see pretty regularly on Twitter.

Ukraine’s New President Dissolves Parliament and Calls a Snap Election (Published 2019)

Volodymyr Zelensky wants to consolidate power with a Parliament led by his new political party. He said his first priority is ending a prolonged separatist conflict.

www.nytimes.com

Why Ukraine likely won't hold elections next year

When Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a fake vote to extend his mandate in March 2024, Ukraine will not be allowed to hold an election due to the martial law imposed amid Russia's aggression. This won't suddenly make Russia more democratic than Ukraine. If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, it

kyivindependent.com

The church itself failed to denounce its collaborator priests, which only fanned the flames of tension. The Ukrainian authorities responded by raiding churches and monasteries, and launching twenty-three criminal cases against UOCMP clergy.

Holy War: The Fight for Ukraine’s Churches and Monasteries

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will never be able to return to its prewar position. There are only two options now: swear allegiance to the new national consensus, or become a pro-Kremlin collaborator.

carnegieendowment.org

Will you still claim that the things that Rand Paul said in the tweet I posted aren't true? That's not even mentioning the literal Nazis in Ukraine that the media has tries to whitewash.

A lot of what you and others here say about anyone who criticizes or questions US foreign policy being guilty of Russian propaganda sounds like a lot of posts I see on Twitter from CIA simps.

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[efil4]

Ukraine’s New President Dissolves Parliament and Calls a Snap Election (Published 2019)

Volodymyr Zelensky wants to consolidate power with a Parliament led by his new political party. He said his first priority is ending a prolonged separatist conflict.

www.nytimes.com

Why Ukraine likely won't hold elections next year

When Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a fake vote to extend his mandate in March 2024, Ukraine will not be allowed to hold an election due to the martial law imposed amid Russia's aggression. This won't suddenly make Russia more democratic than Ukraine. If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, it

kyivindependent.com

The church itself failed to denounce its collaborator priests, which only fanned the flames of tension. The Ukrainian authorities responded by raiding churches and monasteries, and launching twenty-three criminal cases against UOCMP clergy.

Holy War: The Fight for Ukraine’s Churches and Monasteries

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will never be able to return to its prewar position. There are only two options now: swear allegiance to the new national consensus, or become a pro-Kremlin collaborator.

carnegieendowment.org

Will you still claim that the things that Rand Paul said in the tweet I posted aren't true? That's not even mentioning the literal Nazis in Ukraine that the media has tries to whitewash.

A lot of what you and others here say about anyone who criticizes or questions US foreign policy being guilty of Russian propaganda sounds like a lot of posts I see on Twitter from CIA simps.

USD to Ruble as of 10.2.23 is $1 to 101.

Looks like someone working overtime to make up for the exchange rate increase.

 

[MT15]

All the bleating to try to tear down Ukraine and excuse Russia for a brutal invasion full of war crimes is just sick. Ukraine has a right to exist, as do Poland, etc. Let’s have no more BS about this stuff which is just Russian talking points and ignores what Russia intends to do if things go their way in Ukraine.

 

[DaveXA]

Ukraine’s New President Dissolves Parliament and Calls a Snap Election (Published 2019)

Volodymyr Zelensky wants to consolidate power with a Parliament led by his new political party. He said his first priority is ending a prolonged separatist conflict.

www.nytimes.com

Why Ukraine likely won't hold elections next year

When Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a fake vote to extend his mandate in March 2024, Ukraine will not be allowed to hold an election due to the martial law imposed amid Russia's aggression. This won't suddenly make Russia more democratic than Ukraine. If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, it

kyivindependent.com

The church itself failed to denounce its collaborator priests, which only fanned the flames of tension. The Ukrainian authorities responded by raiding churches and monasteries, and launching twenty-three criminal cases against UOCMP clergy.

Holy War: The Fight for Ukraine’s Churches and Monasteries

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church will never be able to return to its prewar position. There are only two options now: swear allegiance to the new national consensus, or become a pro-Kremlin collaborator.

carnegieendowment.org

Will you still claim that the things that Rand Paul said in the tweet I posted aren't true? That's not even mentioning the literal Nazis in Ukraine that the media has tries to whitewash.

A lot of what you and others here say about anyone who criticizes or questions US foreign policy being guilty of Russian propaganda sounds like a lot of posts I see on Twitter from CIA simps.

Using the term whitewashing when talking about Nazis running things in Ukraine is incredibly ironic, not to mention based on outright lies. You have zero credibility. Cya.