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Chebureki Man
@CheburekiMan
Imagine being German and not comprehending that two of your NATO allies blew up your cheap gas supply and substituted it with their expensive gas supplies.
11:00 PM · Feb 9, 2023·
62.6K
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Chebureki Man
@CheburekiMan
Imagine being German and not comprehending that two of your NATO allies blew up your cheap gas supply and substituted it with their expensive gas supplies.
11:00 PM · Feb 9, 2023·
62.6K
Views
Notice the clever way that Reuters frames its coverage so that the claims of the Ukrainian military are given as much credibility as the claims of the Russian Foreign Minister. What Reuters fails to point out is that the OSCE’s report verifies Lavrov’s version of events while disproving the claims of the Ukrainians. It is the job of a journalist to make the distinction between fact and fiction but, once again, we see how agenda-driven news is not meant to inform but to mislead.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced alarm on Friday over a sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine and accused the OSCE special monitoring mission of glossing over what he said were Ukrainian violations of the peace process….
Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the Donbass could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine. Tensions are already high over a Russian military buildup to the north, east and south of Ukraine.
“We are very concerned by the reports of recent days – yesterday and the day before there was a sharp increase in shelling using weapons that are prohibited under the Minsk agreements,” Lavrov said, referring to peace accords aimed at ending the conflict. “So far we are seeing the special monitoring mission is doing its best to smooth over all questions that point to the blame of Ukraine’s armed forces,” he told a news conference.
Ukraine’s military on Friday denied violating the Minsk peace process and accused Moscow of waging an information war to say that Kyiv was shelling civilians, allegations it said were lies and designed to provoke it.” (Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling, Reuters)
Here’s a bit more background from an article by foreign policy analyst Danial Kovalik:Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a 'special military operation'….
under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.… Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led 'special military operation.' [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]
..The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense, devised originally by the US and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction.
While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground. (“Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression”, Consortium News)
So, has anyone in the western media reported on the fact that Putin invoked UN Article 51 before he launched the Special Military Operation?One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev… claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more … The government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples … precisely because of their ethnicity. ..
While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that 'nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ' And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.
In light of the above, it is my assessment.. that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself. (“Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”, RT)
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Putin was worried about. He was worried about NATO expansion and, in particular, the emergence of a hostile military alliance backed by Washington-groomed Nazis occupying territory on his western flank. Was that unreasonable of him? Should he have embraced these US-backed Russophobes and allowed them to place their missiles on his border? Would that have been the prudent thing to do?Article 1
The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends:
shall not undertake actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other Party;
shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.
Article 3
The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.
Article 4
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.
Article 5
The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.
The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.
The Parties shall maintain dialogue and cooperate to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military activities on and over the high seas, including agreeing on the maximum approach distance between warships and aircraft.
Article 6
The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
Article 7
The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.
The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.” (“To Make Sense of War”, Israel Shamir, Unz Review)
1) Who started the war?
Answer– Ukraine started the war
2) Was the Russian invasion a violation of international law?
Answer– No, the Russian invasion should be approved under United Nations Article 51
3) Could the war have been avoided if Ukraine declared neutrality and met Putin’s reasonable demands?
Answer– Yes, the war could have been avoided
4) The last point deals with the Minsk Treaty and how the dishonesty of western leaders is going to effect the final settlement in Ukraine. I am convinced that neither Washington nor the NATO allies have any idea of how severely international relations have been decimated by the Minsk betrayal. In a world where legally binding agreements can be breezily discarded in the name of political expediency, the only way to settle disputes is through brute force. Did anyone in Germany, France or Washington think about this before they acted? (But, first, some background on Minsk.)
There’s no way to overstate the importance of the Minsk betrayal or the impact it’s going to have on the final settlement in Ukraine. When trust is lost, nations can only ensure their security through brute force. What that means is that Russia must expand its perimeter as far as is necessary to ensure that it will remain beyond the enemy’s range of fire. (Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev have already indicated that they plan to do just that.) Second, the new perimeter must be permanently fortified with combat troops and lethal weaponry that are kept on hairtrigger alert. When treaties become vehicles for political opportunism, then nations must accept a permanent state of war. This is the world that Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and the US created by opting to use ‘the cornerstone of international relations’ (Treaties) to advance their own narrow warmongering objectives.(11:40 minute) “In 2015, Germany and France were supposed to play a neutral role.They were supposed to make Ukraine and Russia follow the rules. But they didn’t do that, and the reason they didn’t do that is what Angela Merkel revealed in her interview on December 7. Merkel said, “The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also gave time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014 and 2015 is not the modern Ukraine.”
Basically, all three partners of the Minsk Agreement lied and betrayed Russia. Even Putin said, “One day Russia will have to reach an agreement with Ukraine, but Germany and France betrayed Russia, and now they are helping Ukraine with weapons.”… It is a shame that western political leaders engage in negotiations that they do not intend to honor or enforce…(Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has admitted the same as Merkel and Hollande)….Now even Putin has acknowledged that it was a mistake to agree to the Minsk Accords.
He even said that the Donbas problem should have been resolved by force-of-arms at the time. (2015) Russia waited 8 years to recognize Donbas’s independence, and then launched a full-scale attack this year. But then Putin was under the impression that the Minsk Accords–guaranteed by Germany and France and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council including the United States– would resolve the crisis and would give the Donbas autonomy while remaining part of Ukraine. Germany and France were supposed to make sure the Minsk accords were implemented from 2015 to 2022. The collective west always knew that war was the only solution. They never wanted peace, they just played along in the name of Minsk agreement. So, you can see, it is a diplomatic “win” for the west……
France and Germany appeased Russia with the Minsk agreement and gave false hopes of a peaceful settlement. But, in reality, they were buying time for Ukraine to build its military. There was never a diplomatic solution; the collective west –which includes the United States, NATO, the European Union and the G-7– fooled Russia into believing there was a diplomatic solution to the Donbas conflict (but) instead, they were preparing Ukraine for a full-fledged war against Russia.
So, either way, this war was meant to happen. There was never a diplomatic solution…. This is what Angela Merkel wanted to convey: “The Cold War never ended”. She was the German Chancellor when the coup took place in Ukraine in 2014 and the Minsk Accords were signed. Therefore her contribution to this duplicitous game along with Germany, France, Ukraine and US– has led to this war. And she very well knows it. But, either way, it is not going to end well for Germany or France whose economies have been badly hurt. Ukraine has been completely destroyed. It has become the Afghanistan of Europe. It is the western political leaders that are guilty of the murder of Ukraine.
As it has been since 2014, the Ukrainian government has been launching vicious military attacks against Russian-speaking Ukrainian civilians in the Donbas region. Thousands of Russian speaking civilians have been killed. Russia should have taken back the territory in 2014 along with Crimea. But, then, Russia fell into the trap of the western countries’ Minsk Agreement. … It is not Russia that started this war, it is the United States that started this war. Ukraine is just a pawn that is supported by the US and the other european governments. And, it is a pity that the Ukrainian government serves the interests of the United States and not the Ukrainian people.” (“Angela Merkel’s revelation about Minsk Agreements | Russia Ukraine war“, Amit Sengupta, You Tube)
What specifically did he say that is wrong?
If the Russian invasion of Ukraine was justified to keep NATO troops off of Russia's border, then a NATO invasion would be justified now to keep Russian troops off of the NATO border.Here’s something else you will never see in the western media. You’ll never see the actual text of Putin’s security demands that were made a full two months before the war broke out. And, the reason you won’t see them, is because his demands were legitimate, reasonable and necessary. All Putin wanted was basic assurances that NATO was not planning to put its bases, armies and missile sites on Russia’s border. In other words, he was doing the same thing that all responsible leaders do to defend the safety and security of their own people.
ere are a few critical excerpts from the text of Putin’s proposal to the US and NATO:
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Putin was worried about. He was worried about NATO expansion and, in particular, the emergence of a hostile military alliance backed by Washington-groomed Nazis occupying territory on his western flank. Was that unreasonable of him? Should he have embraced these US-backed Russophobes and allowed them to place their missiles on his border? Would that have been the prudent thing to do?
So, what can we deduce from Putin’s list of demands?
First, we can deduce that he is not trying to reconstruct the Soviet empire as the MSM relentlessly insists. The list focuses exclusively on security-related demands, nothing else.
Second, it proves that the war could have easily been avoided had Zelensky simply maintained the status quo and formally announced that Ukraine would remain neutral. In fact, Zelensky actually agreed to neutrality in negotiations with Moscow in March, but Washington prevented the Ukrainian president from going through with the deal which means that the Biden administration is largely responsible for the ongoing conflict. (RT published an article stating clearly that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine in March but the deal was intentionally scuttled by the US and UK. Washington wanted a war.)
Third, it shows that Putin is a reasonable leader whose demands should have been eagerly accepted. Was it unreasonable of Putin to ask that “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and… military alliances.. in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security”? Was it unreasonable for him the ask that “The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories”?
Where exactly are the “unreasonable demands” that Putin supposedly made?
There aren’t any. Putin made no demands that the US wouldn’t have made if ‘the shoe was on the other foot.’
Fourth, it proves that the war is not a struggle for Ukrainian liberation or democracy. That’s hogwash. It is a war that is aimed at “weakening” Russia and eventually removing Putin from power. Those are the overriding goals. What that means is that Ukrainian soldiers are not dying for their country, they are dying for an elitist dream to expand NATO, crush Russia, encircle China, and extend US hegemony for another century. Ukraine is merely the battlefield on which the Great Power struggle is being fought.
There are number points we are trying to make in this article:
The aim of the Minsk agreement was to end the fighting between the Ukrainian army and ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine. It was the responsibility of the four participants in the treaty– Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine– to ensure that both sides followed the terms of the deal. But in December, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with a German magazine, that there was never any intention of implementing the deal, instead, the plan was to use the time to make Ukraine stronger in order to prepare for a war with Russia. So, clearly, from the very beginning, the United States intended to provoke a war with Russia.
On September 5, 2014, Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia all signed Minsk, but the treaty failed and the fighting resumed. On February 12, 2015, Minsk 2 was signed, but that failed, as well. Please, watch this short segment on You Tube by Amit Sengupta who gives a brief rundown of Minsk and its implications: (I transcribed the piece myself and any mistakes are mine.)
There’s no way to overstate the importance of the Minsk betrayal or the impact it’s going to have on the final settlement in Ukraine. When trust is lost, nations can only ensure their security through brute force. What that means is that Russia must expand its perimeter as far as is necessary to ensure that it will remain beyond the enemy’s range of fire. (Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev have already indicated that they plan to do just that.) Second, the new perimeter must be permanently fortified with combat troops and lethal weaponry that are kept on hairtrigger alert. When treaties become vehicles for political opportunism, then nations must accept a permanent state of war. This is the world that Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and the US created by opting to use ‘the cornerstone of international relations’ (Treaties) to advance their own narrow warmongering objectives.
We just wonder if anyone in Washington realizes whet the fu** they’ve done?
ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zerowww.zerohedge.com
If the Russian invasion of Ukraine was justified to keep NATO troops off of Russia's border, then a NATO invasion would be justified now to keep Russian troops off of the NATO border.
You can't have it both ways.
My opinion is that an invasion of a sovereign country because you don't like who they are allying with is never justified outside of a decared war. This would include the bay of pigs in Cuba, but that was a long time ago.
Furthermore, Russia's excuse that they need a neutral buffer is ridiculous. What does that buy them ? They are so outmatched by NATO that the concept of them mounting a serious defense is laughable. They could demilizarize all of continental Europe and it would maybe buy them a week if NATO got aggressive. Ukraine wouldn't give them more than a few hours.
Imaging Guatamala claiming they were justified in invading Mexico because they needed a buffer against the US LOL.
We will quickly have air supremacy in any conflict for the reasonable future for the simple fact that there *are* no peer militaries for the US.IMO if Ukraine had the nuclear stockpile of France or the UK they would have been the most powerful military in Europe. They have been fighting like the most battle hardened troops in Europe. They were much better equipped and trained than we realized.
I don't envision the rest of NATO (some not all) fighting with such resolve.
Russia is absolutely getting a bloody nose, but they are gaining very valuable modern warfare peer level combat experience.
The US and NATOs recent experience is fighting 3rd rate armies and goat fuckers with complete air and logistics superiority.
I might be an oddball in this thread because I genuinely feel and sympathize with the Ukrainian people. I do. However I also feel Russia is being demonized far more than they deserve to be. I feel they genuinely felt backed into a corner and I can't say that if my country wasn't in their shoes I wouldn't feel the exact same way. I try to make impartial fair judgements and what I see is the US and NATO have been covertly goading this war along and continually fanning the flames.
The US and NATO are essentially throwing money and munitions into Ukraine to weaken Russia but in reality it's only causing more suffering for the Ukrainian people because they are being decimated now, their cities in ruins and their economy will be in shambles. We are fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. I am honestly to the point where if I am objectively looking at the situation fairly, Russia is entitled to and arguably should be shooting down NATO and US reconnaissance jets that are directly assisting Ukraine to kill Russians. Thats a very dangerous line we are walking.
I don't want ww3. But at the rate things are going we keep doubling down and are being pulled in by mission creep. It's almost like we are trying to get pulled into the war directly. That's sick. It's like we're trying to get Russia to shoot down one of our planes so we can get involved. Putin keeps telling us not to cross a red line and we keep sticking our toes over it each time. It's like a trespasser in your yard and you keep telling him not 1 step closer and he keeps coming, sooner or later you shoot him but who knows when that threshold is.
The world is not better off for this war. The east and west have decoupled, global commodities and supply chains are shot, there will be new alliances, the USD demise is likely accelerated etc...
And I keep asking myself is it worth it?
Was Russia even a threat to us? Seriously if Russia over ran Ukraine in 2 weeks as expected the majority of their country would still be in tact and life would more or less be back to normal. Maybe they would have established a peace agreement by now and Ukraine proper would still be Ukraine and the Donbas annexed into Russia. Likely hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would still be alive and likely this conflict ends there. Now Russia probably can't stop. It's like of you're playing poker and you get pot committed you keep putting your chips in because now you can't afford to lose.
What the hell are we doing?
If the Russian invasion of Ukraine was justified to keep NATO troops off of Russia's border, then a NATO invasion would be justified now to keep Russian troops off of the NATO border.
You can't have it both ways.
I'm certainly not suggesting that.I suppose it could. Do you think thats a great Idea? I feel the reason we are fighting a proxy war at all is to avoid doing just that.
tomorrow morning , NATO could begin bombing Russia with the reason that Putin is insane, to many dead civilians, the Russians are going to invade Europe, and we must act now to stop him and the fools will follow the piper to their deaths never knowing the real reasons.
What Im saying is, the west can justify a war on Russia tomorrow if they want to.
I'm certainly not suggesting that.
I am saying that Russia's adventurism cannot be allowed to succeed.
For the same reason that it was a bad idea to let Germany have Austria a century ago.
Putin will not stop on his own. He would invade all of Europe if nobody ever counters him.
The longer we wait the harder it will be.
We missed the opportunity to stop this easily a decade and a half ago in Georgia. If we let him have Ukraine, they will stop for a whole. But if they are allowed to fully assimilate Ukraine they will eventually more than double their military might.
Do we really want to sacrifice everything that isn't NATO to him ?
The rhetoric used to justify the spending is irrelevant.Not everyone sees it as adventurism, I sure dont. I believe your premise is flawed, so you interpret it through the lens of pure aggression . I dont see it that way.
What was the whole point of NATO? it was to ensure or help prevent a invasion of Europe by the Soviets. it succeeded. Well the Soviet union collapsed, 25 years ago. The US needed an enemy to justify its spending and putting money in their own pockets so they insisted Russia was an enemy. even though it wanted to join the EU and even NATO . The US never wanted peace, because peace means they lose money ,Luckily for them a war on terror was invented , whereby a crime done by non state groups can be used to justify an invasion of an entire country.
Thank God for 911 and the mideast wars or they would have lost a lot of money .
They are puppet masters , and this is theater. Its all about them. about power, money.
They have been pushing for this war with Russia for years, They have been arming and training them and building defenses for years , funded by NATO and the US .
Russia will not join the globalists and give up her sovereignty to foreign leaders they never voted for. Europe has. Look at the results with their open border policy's. thier economy, the war against Russia is pushed by the globalists , the same globalists that outsourced American industry to China and want Russia to be broken up into several countries, which is where the US is headed.
Again , your wrong. thats not the only thing that would change. You see things from only one perspective , like a I said.The idea that it would matter at all whether Ukriane joined NATO or not is ridiculous. The only thing a NATO Ukraine would change is that Russia wouldn't be able to invade them. It wouldn't change a timeline for a NATO attack on Russia by more than a few hours.
now why do you think America has been depleting its reserves f munitions, phasing out vehicle platforms with so, to no replacements,Ding, ding ding.....
They do not need to know how to maintain them. They do not need to know how to service them.
The US will be sending Military personnel with these tanks to ensure they are operating to full capacity.
The Left wants and all out war. The WEF wants and all out war.
Anyone that thinks this is a good idea, is absolutely clueless to what this means. Clueless.
None of that would matter.Again , your wrong. thats not the only thing that would change. You see things from only one perspective , like a I said.
What else do you think would change? How about US and NATO tanks on Russia's border? How about US airbases less than 400 airmiles from Moscow? How about US submarines and carriers in Odessa A former Russian city? How about anti missile systems on Russias border denying her a way to defend herself in case of a NATO attack? How about tactical Nukes less than 4 minutes to Moscow?
You have to look at the circumstances like you were in court, bias's dont matter. You have to be objective in order to be fair.
Just how would a Russian general view this? As a threat ? or nothing to worry about?
My enemy is not the Russian people, its the globalists. the people you support .
Not being able to see things through the eyes of others is a flaw. Your being misled by the same people that told you Covid was deadly disease and mandated global vaccinations. That Saddam Hussien was involved in 911. That he had WMDs that Iran was ever a threat to the US . Your too smart for that bullshit .
What we have is a criminal syndicate of global proportions. Not individuals .