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

 

[UriUT]

"I'm not on Russia's side, but..."

"Both sides, but let me tell you only about those liberals and their plot to overthrow our government, corruption and install their world order. And btw, I am the only one who can see this and save you from it."

 

[SaintForLife]

Good lord, you're on a nonsensical post roll today. Sheesh.

What a ridiculous response. You accuse me of being a troll for posting something you don't like or don't want to hear. That's incredibly juvenile. Do you have an actual response to my post or will you go with the predictable I support Putin for showing the US destabilized Ukraine and have been using them in a proxy war against the US. Or that the main reasons we get involved in wars is for power and to enrich the weapons manufacturers.

 

[MT15]

No, you’re a troll because you desperately use the most ridiculous sources you can find to somehow show how you “know” things yet you never seem to see how your sources are using you. They’re totally campaigning to sow this one-sided approach and you can’t see it.

And when there is a legitimate post questioning your sources you don’t engage with those responses. I have spent a lot of time using the exact articles you post to show you they don’t actually say what the people you quote from Twitter say they do, and you ignore those posts. And then show back up a week later with the same old crap all over again.

I can’t take you seriously. And it’s not worth the time spent to try to reason with you.

 

[DaveXA]

What a ridiculous response. You accuse me of being a troll for posting something you don't like or don't want to hear. That's incredibly juvenile. Do you have an actual response to my post or will you go with the predictable I support Putin for showing the US destabilized Ukraine and have been using them in a proxy war against the US. Or that the main reasons we get involved in wars is for power and to enrich the weapons manufacturers.

Not any more ridiculous than the complete nonsense you're spewing. But I guess I can't be too surprised considering the sources you've been parroting. It's beyond old.

 

[SaintForLife]

Tell me you blame the US for the Russian invasion without coming out and saying it. What a sad thing really, to be so desperate to be seen as “knowing” a thing that you will actively root against your own country and excuse a murderous dictator. I didn’t think you were this far gone, SFL.

Did you check out the person you quoted? Like at all? I read her bio and her tweets and those of her associate. Pure Russian propaganda. Straight from the Kremlin, including an allegation that RT was smeared by Western Media, when I heard the former boss of RT say on Russian television that she wanted to control all media, so that only the stories favorable to Russia are carried.

I don't blame the US for Russia invading Ukraine, but I do blame the US for destabilizing Ukraine and using them as a proxy war against Russia.

Can you post a link or a tweet about what you are talking about. Her tweets are almost all critical of Isreal. What associate are you talking about?

Some background on Ukraine that you won't find from the corporate press:

The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.

A key tool for this has been the International Monetary Fund, which leverages aid loans to push governments to adopt policies friendly to foreign investors. The IMF is funded by and represents Western financial capital and governments and has been at the forefront of efforts to reshape economies around the world for decades, often with disastrous results. The civil war in Yemen and the coup in Bolivia both followed a rejection of IMF terms.

In Ukraine, the IMF had long planned to implement a series of economic reforms to make the country more attractive to investors. These included cutting wage controls (i.e., lowering wages), “reform[ing] and reduc[ing]” health and education sectors (which made up the bulk of employment in Ukraine), and cutting natural gas subsidies to Ukrainian citizens that made energy affordable to the general public. Coup plotters like US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland repeatedly stressed the need for the Ukrainian government to enact the “necessary” reforms.

In 2013, after early steps to integrate with the West, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned against these changes and ended trade integration talks with the European Union. Months before his overthrow, he restarted economic negotiations with Russia, in a major snub to the Western economic sphere. By then, the nationalist protests were heating up that would go on to topple his government.

After the 2014 coup, the new government quickly restarted the EU deal. After cutting heating subsidies in half, it secured a $27 billion commitment from the IMF. The IMF’s goals still include “reducing the role of the state and vested interests in the economy” in order to attract more foreign capital.

The IMF is one of the many global institutions whose role in maintaining global inequities often goes unreported and unnoticed by the general public. The US economic quest to open global markets to capital is a key driver of international affairs, but if the press chooses to ignore it, the public debate is incomplete and shallow.

The US Helped Overthrow Ukraine’s Elected President​

During the tug of war between the US and Russia, the Americans were engaged in a destabilization campaign against the Yanukovych government. The campaign culminated with the overthrow of the elected president in the Maidan Revolution—also known as the Maidan Coup—named for the Kiev square that hosted the bulk of the protests.

As political turmoil engulfed the country in the leadup to 2014, the US was fueling anti-government sentiment through mechanisms like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), just as they had done in 2004. In December 2013, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs and a long-time regime change advocate, said that the US government had spent $5 billion promoting “democracy” in Ukraine since 1991. The money went toward supporting “senior officials in the Ukraine government…[members of] the business community as well as opposition civil society” who agree with US goals.

The NED is a key organization in the network of American soft power that pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing US-friendly regimes. The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius (9/22/91) once wrote that the organization functions by “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The NED targets governments who oppose US military or economic policy, stirring up anti-government opposition.

The NED board of directors includes Elliott Abrams, whose sordid record runs from the Iran/Contra affair in the ’80s to the Trump administration’s effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In 2013, NED president Carl Gershman wrote a piece in the Washington Post (9/26/13) that described Ukraine as the “biggest prize” in the East/West rivalry. After the Obama administration, Nuland joined the NED board of directors before returning to the State Department in the Biden administration as undersecretary of state for political affairs.

One of the many recipients of NED money for projects in Ukraine was the International Republican Institute. The IRI, once chaired by Sen. John McCain, has long had a hand in US regime change operations. During the protests that eventually brought down the government, McCain and other US officials personally flew into Ukraine to encourage protesters.

What You Should Really Know About Ukraine

Media echoed the view that the US should have an active role in Ukrainian politics and enforce its perspective through military threats.

fair.org

 

[samiam5211]

I don't blame the US for Russia invading Ukraine, but I do blame the US for destabilizing Ukraine and using them as a proxy war against Russia.

Can you post a link or a tweet about what you are talking about. Her tweets are almost all critical of Isreal. What associate are you talking about?

Some background on Ukraine that you won't find from the corporate press:

The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.

A key tool for this has been the International Monetary Fund, which leverages aid loans to push governments to adopt policies friendly to foreign investors. The IMF is funded by and represents Western financial capital and governments and has been at the forefront of efforts to reshape economies around the world for decades, often with disastrous results. The civil war in Yemen and the coup in Bolivia both followed a rejection of IMF terms.

In Ukraine, the IMF had long planned to implement a series of economic reforms to make the country more attractive to investors. These included cutting wage controls (i.e., lowering wages), “reform[ing] and reduc[ing]” health and education sectors (which made up the bulk of employment in Ukraine), and cutting natural gas subsidies to Ukrainian citizens that made energy affordable to the general public. Coup plotters like US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland repeatedly stressed the need for the Ukrainian government to enact the “necessary” reforms.

In 2013, after early steps to integrate with the West, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned against these changes and ended trade integration talks with the European Union. Months before his overthrow, he restarted economic negotiations with Russia, in a major snub to the Western economic sphere. By then, the nationalist protests were heating up that would go on to topple his government.

After the 2014 coup, the new government quickly restarted the EU deal. After cutting heating subsidies in half, it secured a $27 billion commitment from the IMF. The IMF’s goals still include “reducing the role of the state and vested interests in the economy” in order to attract more foreign capital.

The IMF is one of the many global institutions whose role in maintaining global inequities often goes unreported and unnoticed by the general public. The US economic quest to open global markets to capital is a key driver of international affairs, but if the press chooses to ignore it, the public debate is incomplete and shallow.

The US Helped Overthrow Ukraine’s Elected President​

During the tug of war between the US and Russia, the Americans were engaged in a destabilization campaign against the Yanukovych government. The campaign culminated with the overthrow of the elected president in the Maidan Revolution—also known as the Maidan Coup—named for the Kiev square that hosted the bulk of the protests.

As political turmoil engulfed the country in the leadup to 2014, the US was fueling anti-government sentiment through mechanisms like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), just as they had done in 2004. In December 2013, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs and a long-time regime change advocate, said that the US government had spent $5 billion promoting “democracy” in Ukraine since 1991. The money went toward supporting “senior officials in the Ukraine government…[members of] the business community as well as opposition civil society” who agree with US goals.

The NED is a key organization in the network of American soft power that pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing US-friendly regimes. The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius (9/22/91) once wrote that the organization functions by “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The NED targets governments who oppose US military or economic policy, stirring up anti-government opposition.

The NED board of directors includes Elliott Abrams, whose sordid record runs from the Iran/Contra affair in the ’80s to the Trump administration’s effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In 2013, NED president Carl Gershman wrote a piece in the Washington Post (9/26/13) that described Ukraine as the “biggest prize” in the East/West rivalry. After the Obama administration, Nuland joined the NED board of directors before returning to the State Department in the Biden administration as undersecretary of state for political affairs.

One of the many recipients of NED money for projects in Ukraine was the International Republican Institute. The IRI, once chaired by Sen. John McCain, has long had a hand in US regime change operations. During the protests that eventually brought down the government, McCain and other US officials personally flew into Ukraine to encourage protesters.

What You Should Really Know About Ukraine

Media echoed the view that the US should have an active role in Ukrainian politics and enforce its perspective through military threats.

fair.org

No one cares about what the Russian puppets you get your news from want us to believe.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Trump, "I hope that you (Zelenskyy) and President Putin can get together and can solve your problems."

 

[zztop]

Ukraine battered again; Zelenskyy says US officials to visit

A Ukrainian presidential office advisor says Russian forces have tried to storm a steel plant that is the last defense stronghold in the strategic port city of Mariupol.

apnews.com

also another mass grave reportedly found

Live updates | Mariupol officials: Second mass grave found

Mariupol officials say another mass grave has been found outside the besieged city in southern Ukraine.

apnews.com

 

[UriUT]

Ukraine battered again; Zelenskyy says US officials to visit

A Ukrainian presidential office advisor says Russian forces have tried to storm a steel plant that is the last defense stronghold in the strategic port city of Mariupol.

apnews.com

also another mass grave reportedly found

Live updates | Mariupol officials: Second mass grave found

Mariupol officials say another mass grave has been found outside the besieged city in southern Ukraine.

apnews.com

I don't think they're even pretending to care any more.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

It's basically the second Vietnam for Russia (as an extension of the Soviet Union). This will drag out at a terrible cost to the Ukrainian people. SFL trying to paint the U.S. as aggressors in this scenario is priceless. If anything, Putin's action has proven that past action in Ukraine by the U.S. was warranted. Isolationist foreign policy is not realistic in the 21st century.

 

[CoolBrees]

Him saying the US is using Ukraine as a proxy is adorable for two reasons.

1) he learned what proxy meant

2) saying all of this began since the Obama administration really shows how shallow the pool of knowledge really is.

It’s like my 10 year old coming home from school and telling me about their day. Adorable.

 

[UriUT]

Context: Each is a wife of a dead pro-Russian soldier holding 10k rubles = $131. That is how much they were paid for their loved ones by Russia.

 

[J-DONK]

I don't blame the US for Russia invading Ukraine, but I do blame the US for destabilizing Ukraine and using them as a proxy war against Russia.

Can you post a link or a tweet about what you are talking about. Her tweets are almost all critical of Isreal. What associate are you talking about?

Some background on Ukraine that you won't find from the corporate press:

The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.

A key tool for this has been the International Monetary Fund, which leverages aid loans to push governments to adopt policies friendly to foreign investors. The IMF is funded by and represents Western financial capital and governments and has been at the forefront of efforts to reshape economies around the world for decades, often with disastrous results. The civil war in Yemen and the coup in Bolivia both followed a rejection of IMF terms.

In Ukraine, the IMF had long planned to implement a series of economic reforms to make the country more attractive to investors. These included cutting wage controls (i.e., lowering wages), “reform[ing] and reduc[ing]” health and education sectors (which made up the bulk of employment in Ukraine), and cutting natural gas subsidies to Ukrainian citizens that made energy affordable to the general public. Coup plotters like US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland repeatedly stressed the need for the Ukrainian government to enact the “necessary” reforms.

In 2013, after early steps to integrate with the West, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned against these changes and ended trade integration talks with the European Union. Months before his overthrow, he restarted economic negotiations with Russia, in a major snub to the Western economic sphere. By then, the nationalist protests were heating up that would go on to topple his government.

After the 2014 coup, the new government quickly restarted the EU deal. After cutting heating subsidies in half, it secured a $27 billion commitment from the IMF. The IMF’s goals still include “reducing the role of the state and vested interests in the economy” in order to attract more foreign capital.

The IMF is one of the many global institutions whose role in maintaining global inequities often goes unreported and unnoticed by the general public. The US economic quest to open global markets to capital is a key driver of international affairs, but if the press chooses to ignore it, the public debate is incomplete and shallow.

The US Helped Overthrow Ukraine’s Elected President​

During the tug of war between the US and Russia, the Americans were engaged in a destabilization campaign against the Yanukovych government. The campaign culminated with the overthrow of the elected president in the Maidan Revolution—also known as the Maidan Coup—named for the Kiev square that hosted the bulk of the protests.

As political turmoil engulfed the country in the leadup to 2014, the US was fueling anti-government sentiment through mechanisms like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), just as they had done in 2004. In December 2013, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs and a long-time regime change advocate, said that the US government had spent $5 billion promoting “democracy” in Ukraine since 1991. The money went toward supporting “senior officials in the Ukraine government…[members of] the business community as well as opposition civil society” who agree with US goals.

The NED is a key organization in the network of American soft power that pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing US-friendly regimes. The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius (9/22/91) once wrote that the organization functions by “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The NED targets governments who oppose US military or economic policy, stirring up anti-government opposition.

The NED board of directors includes Elliott Abrams, whose sordid record runs from the Iran/Contra affair in the ’80s to the Trump administration’s effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In 2013, NED president Carl Gershman wrote a piece in the Washington Post (9/26/13) that described Ukraine as the “biggest prize” in the East/West rivalry. After the Obama administration, Nuland joined the NED board of directors before returning to the State Department in the Biden administration as undersecretary of state for political affairs.

One of the many recipients of NED money for projects in Ukraine was the International Republican Institute. The IRI, once chaired by Sen. John McCain, has long had a hand in US regime change operations. During the protests that eventually brought down the government, McCain and other US officials personally flew into Ukraine to encourage protesters.

What You Should Really Know About Ukraine

Media echoed the view that the US should have an active role in Ukrainian politics and enforce its perspective through military threats.

fair.org

The problem with your argument is that everything that America was doing in Ukraine, Russia was doing tenfold. Yanukovych was such a Russian puppet he moved there after being ousted. The broadest, and fairest take of the situation is Russia influenced the country heavily. Then OIL/GAS deposits are found. American companies start projects for extraction in 2013. Yanukovych gets ousted in 2014, and those two things are probably related. Russia immediately attacks.

If America is "destabilizing" the country. What was Russia doing for decades? How do you rationalize what Russia did to Yushchenko? You are essentially saying that it's ok for Russia to influence the country, but not America. That's why you come off, rightly so, as a pro-russian troll.

It's like trying to argue American arms are destabilizing Ukraine right now. What is implied is that a "stable Ukraine" is a conquered Ukraine. Which is something straight from the FSB.

P.S. I also feel like these discussions widely overestimate American influence. If America was this good at regime change, Cuba, and Venezuela would be capitalist countries.

 

[UriUT]

Not sure if anyone here has seen this. Ukraine asked that Russia be named a terrorist state. And suddenly, there is a conspiracy flying around in Russia that Ukraine has sent assassins to kill prominent Russian media figures. Wouldn't anyone believe it? Putin announced that the FSB uncovered the plot, shown above. Included in the evidence are 3 the sims games. Then this bizarre one....



A letter signed “Signature is illegible”. As noted in the tweet, it's as if someone took his instructions too literally. "Have Nazi symbols, find 3 sims and leave a letter w/ an illegible signature." Hollywood cannot write this plot.

 

[RobF]

Not sure if anyone here has seen this. Ukraine asked that Russia be named a terrorist state. And suddenly, there is a conspiracy flying around in Russia that Ukraine has sent assassins to kill prominent Russian media figures. Wouldn't anyone believe it? Putin announced that the FSB uncovered the plot, shown above. Included in the evidence are 3 the sims games. Then this bizarre one....



A letter signed “Signature is illegible”. As noted in the tweet, it's as if someone took his instructions too literally. "Have Nazi symbols, find 3 sims and leave a letter w/ an illegible signature." Hollywood cannot write this plot.

I did see that, and I just cannot get my head around how it's real. I keep rechecking, and no, it's a legitimate account tweeting it (Francis Scarr, BBC Monitoring's Russia specialist), other legitimate accounts have reported it, it appears to be a real thing that the FSB really did.

But that means not only did someone go out and get three copies of Sims 3 expansions, presumably instead of 'three sims', but nobody involved, at any point during the whole staging the scene, filming and photographing, sharing the videos and photos, reviewing them, and releasing them, noticed, cared, or felt able to say:"Say, guys, what is the deal with the Sims games here anyway?"

On the signature thing, I've seen it suggested that may not be a blunder, that there's a Russian Neo Nazi and associated group who do genuinely use 'signature illegible' as a pseudonym and handle. And there does appear to be some truth in that (see, e.g. this twitter thread).

But that does not explain the Sims 3 thing. I'm pretty sure there was no 'The Sims 3: Neo Nazis' expansion.

 

[MT15]

Yeah, I’m confused by the Sims reference too.

 

[superchuck500]

It's just so mental to me - Russian propaganda has it that Ukraine is overrun by Nazis and extremists, yet they dismiss western journalists and Moscow critics as Jews and they talk about shirt like this as they engage in genocidal activity in Ukraine. It's totally mental.

 

[SamAndreas]

Yeah, I’m confused by the Sims reference too.

Me three. I'm confused by this and it has become doubling confusing because the New York Post, weirdly, is the source that seems to have come through to clear it up. That or I'm still confused.

:|

Russia appears to confuse ‘The Sims’ for SIM cards in possible staged assassination attempt

Photos released show a red t-shirt with a swastika on it, inexplicably laid out next to three copies of the video game “The Sims 3.”

nypost.com