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| Biden should use prudence in dealing with Putin . America should use diplomacy , dialog , invite all parties to talk about Ukraine . Avoid WAR at all costs ! |
The US Needs to stay out of Ukraine !
First, Russia's national security/military leverage relies heavily on nuclear capacity. (7)>>They simply have to ensure no NATO anti-ballistic missile system on Ukrainian soil, for whatever price they could afford---kinda like Russia version of Cuba Missile Crisis.And last, maybe least, EU wont cooperate with US in long term on this issue, as EU does not want to make Russia fully hostile towards them. Like China, (8)>>they need gas from Russia. More importantly, a war between Russia and NATO will inflict heavy damage on Europe(geographically close to Russia,connected by land), but not US.Ukraine should go back being some kind of satellite state of Russia, like always was. It's the only stable solution.Looks like to me that (9)>>Putin is putting in place the perfect plan to invade Ukraine this winter or the winter after... ? I'm no specialist whatsoever and even though I have a "hobby" interest on the history of the WWII and other wars, I'm far from having read enough about it. However, there are some signs for this plan:EU contries, particularly Germany, stupidily phased out many coal and oil powered energy stations, becoming more dependant on Russian gas. (10)>>The Nordstream pipeline, fiercely defended by Merkel, is a symbol of this foolish mentality.As far as the territorial situation is concerned, Russia is winning, but only to a limited extent. It has seized parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, and they are clearly able to hold onto it.It might come as a shock to Kiev’s strongest supporters, but Ukraine is not the center of the universe. It’s obviously important to those who live there, as well as those with family or friends there. The ill humanitarian consequences of the ongoing conflict should be of concern to people of good will anywhere. But Ukraine is largely irrelevant to American security. Those areas where part of Russian territory for 200 years .Ukraine sealed its own fate when it took the CIA bait and embraced the Maidan coup, spearheaded by the violence provided by Right Sector and other neo-Nazi groups back in 2013. Since then, its GDP/capita declined by 1/3 in real $ terms, millions of its young citizens left the country in desperation, setting it on the path of demographic disaster. Living standards tanked and there are few real prospects of improvement. (11)>>The idea that Russia fears a "prosperous", "successful" Ukraine? It really has nothing to fear in that regard! Now it is close to losing the lucrative gas transit business, which will make things even worse.The next reason enough: Ukraine isn’t important geographically; Russia matters more than Ukraine to America; blame is widely shared for Ukraine’s travails; Washington never guaranteed Ukraine’s security; Vladimir Putin is not Hitler and Russia is not Nazi Germany (or Stalin’s Soviet Union); and there’s no genocide.
Using the Diplomatic Leverage on Ukraine .
War has to be avoided at all costs with Russia over Ukraine . Despite uncertainty about Russian military plans and the outcome of Ukrainian military operations against the rebels in their remaining redoubts, it is not too soon to consider how to lay the foundations for a negotiated solution. (12)>>This must involve the EU and UK , the US , Russia and Ukraine . Biden’s video call with Putin night is important for both clarifying intentions and cooling tensions regarding Ukraine. To encourage Biden to accept this responsibility, Russia has been staging military drills close to Ukraine’s borders, with enough troops massing there to launch an offensive. As Putin seeks a final formula for the configuration of the post-Soviet space, the signal is clear: (13)>>if the Minsk agreements aren’t being implemented, the alternative is military force.Russia proposed including the United States in the Normandy format, but that Germany and France refused, as well as Putin’s calls for firm guarantees that NATO will not expand further east: something only the United States can promise. Although this may look like an unreasonable negotiating position now, it clearly sets out the strategic horizon of Russia’s demands.In December 2019, as French, German, Ukrainian and Russian leaders met in Paris to hold their first Normandy Format meeting to advance the Ukrainian peace process in three years, there seemed to be cause for hope.Even though NATO and Russia no longer have diplomatic representations to each other, this does not mean that all contacts have been severed. In Brussels, Russia keeps an embassy to Belgium (and a mission to the EU, although it is not relevant for this purpose); all NATO countries keep embassies in Moscow. It's still possible that some historic agreement could be made with all parties involved .
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>Personally I wish the United States would stay out of Ukraine . American hooliganism to enter a conflict with out using a diplomatic solution first is vary worrisome . More worrisome than Putin reasons why he would invade Ukraine . While Biden's video conference call with Putin should have had the Ukrainian leader included . My question here is , with all the militarily weapons the US sold to Ukraine , its a cold war tactic .The U.S. has made a habit of promiscuously meddling around the world. The results rarely have been pretty. Thousands of Americans have been killed, tens of thousands have been wounded, hundreds of thousands of foreigners have died, and a multitude of international furies have been loosed. Putin is right that any NATO troops , weapons in Ukraine is a threat to Russian territories . His build up of troops along the Ukraine border is justifiable . No one wants a war with Russia , I don't . But the US NEEDS to hold talks with Russia , invite the Ukraine side as well.(1.2)>>In December 2015, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the vice president. 1. Viktor Shokin was investigating Hunter Biden and Burisma in 2016. Ukrainian news sources and the NYT reported on the 2 open investigating into Burisma at the time. Latvia had reported to Ukraine (and confirms) that money being funneled to Hunter Biden was being laundered through Latvian businesses and Shokin was investigating that situation. This directly jeopardized Biden's multi-million dollar "job" of staying home and smoking crack.2. Viktor Shokin had seized property belonging to Burisma's owner in Feb. of 2016 (again, this can be sourced to Ukrainian news agencies at the time it happened).3. Just a week or so later, Burisma contacted the US state dept. and requested their assistance with the investigation into them, naming Hunter Biden as a reason they'd want to help. The emails that this request was being discussed was gotten via a FOIA lawsuit and they are available to view on the web.4. A few weeks after that, Joe Biden told Ukraine that if they didn't fire Viktor Shokin within the next 6 hours, they weren't going to get the billion dollars in aid appropriated by Congress. This can be sourced to Joe Biden himself, as he bragged about this at CFR meeting and it's on Youtube.5. After acquiescing to Biden's extortion, Biden's personally approved replaced started to work. Not long after, he exonerated Burisma and all of it's team of all charges.6. Joe Biden however claims that he extorted Ukraine because Viktor Shokin wasn't investigating, which is demonstrably false, and ironic given that the guy Joe Biden approved to replace Shokin completely let the corrupt Burisma off the hook for anything. Would you like educated on anything else that you aren't aware of?"Let's see - Ukraine fired their corrupt prosecutor Shokin because he wasn't investigating corruption of politicians"A complete lie. NO ONE has been able to show that Shokin did ANYTHING corrupt, and he hadn't even been in office a year at that point. In fact, the President of Ukraine complained bitterly to Joe Biden in a phone call about the fact that Biden could not provide any just cause for Shokin's firing. This phone meeting was even recorded: President Porshenko to Joe Biden 2/28/2016: "Yesterday, I met with the General Prosecutor Shokin, and despite of the fact that we didn’t have any corruption charges, we don’t have any information about him doing something wrong … I especially asked him to resign.""Contrary to your inept thinking - the US doesn't have ultimate authority to remove foreign country's officials"But corrupt US officials do have the ability to use a billion in tax payer funds to extort foreign officials to do their bidding, just as Porshenko claimed in the phone conversation he had with Biden.There's been ZERO evidence of any actual corruption by Shokin, and you'll find no evidence that any third party had any complaints of corruption during Shokin's time in office as chief prosecutor until Jan/Feb of 2016 when the investigations into Burisma WHO WERE BRIBING OFFICIALS started to heat up. No one said a peep over any of this until Joe Biden decided action needed to be taken, and the evidence showed this only happened after Burisma contacted him and complained about Shokin and name dropped his son. Sorry. (2)>>Kyiv also needed to fortify their own democracy with real progress on anticorruption reforms. For years, U.S. officials have implored Ukraine’s leaders to deliver on promises to drive out political corruption, a main cause of the 2014 popular revolution that pushed out the country’s Russian-backed president —The revelation in the leaked Panama Papers that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, on assuming office in 2014, had passed ownership of his major chocolate business, Roshen, to an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands may not have exposed anything illegal. But the move was at the very least politically insensitive on the president’s part and will have confirmed the impression of many ordinary Ukrainians that their leaders have managed to stay part of a global wealthy elite while the country’s average standard of living has fallen.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 enforcement agencies.Many of the National Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. Although Azov uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks, a recent article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose, pointing out that, like other volunteer militias, Azov has been “reined in” through its integration into Ukraine’s armed forces. While it’s true that private militias no longer rule the battlefront, it’s the home front that Kiev needs to worry about now.When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. (3)>>as Biden said sending US troops unilaterally .No, we don't lie about our intentions like cowards. US soldiers are in Ukraine and they are training Ukraine soldiers.The consequences of an invasion would go beyond sanctions, however. Biden said he told Putin he would likely have to increase US troop presence in Europe to reassure NATO allies of the United States' continued support if Russia went ahead with an invasion.Putin has long complained about the presence of NATO troops along Russia's border, alleging they are a threat to his country's security.Ukraine has been seeking membership in NATO for several years, but is not in the final stages of entering the defense bloc. Biden has said previously the country must first do more to scrub out corruption before joining.White House is relying on Germany to dissuade them by leveraging the pipeline. There likely isn't much of a "plan B" as NATO won't be joining in the fun.Since there are no US troops in ukraine, the untimely demise of those new arrivals of unknown origin would be regrettable, but certainly not a casus belli. When one waltzes into the middle of a warzone, s/he should be prepared to end up in a crossfire....... what exactly do you think they're going to do in Ukraine if "shit hits the fan?" Nothing. Countries around Ukraine that are in NATO are an ENTIRELY different situation.(4)>>Washington and Moscow. Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized the American move."The participation of instructors and specialists from a third country on the territory of Ukraine, where an unresolved intra-Ukrainian conflict remains, where problems persist in carrying out the Minsk agreement, is far from helping resolve the conflict. To the contrary, it enables destabilizing the situation," Peskov said.See, the problem here, Mr Peskov, is there shouldn't be a second country --specifically, your country-- on the territory of Ukraine. Your country invaded Ukraine, and now you're all butthurt because the US brings in some help for the Ukrainian side. So, tell you what: seeing as you were the first in, why don't you go first in pulling your troops out. Once your troops are back in garrison, perhaps the US will think about reducing its footprint.Sound good? --or was this the proxy war for which your country was asking?(4.1)>>Moscow legally annexed Crimea. Crimea has historically been Russian though. Most people who live there are Russian speaking. I think people miss the big picture, not much different than Serbs and Montonegrians. Prior to the invasion, Ukrainians generally had a positive view of Russia. Maybe the hope was that by taking Crimea, the Ukrainians would recognize that their government is incompetent and can't protect them, and it would be better to either join Russia or be their closely aligned puppet like Belarus? Whatever the case may be, Russia basically blew up all their good will and shifted Ukraine decidedly to the West. I don't really see a clear cut way they can get a "win" out of this. (5)>>it has not moved to annex Donbas. Kremlin TV chief Margarita Simonyan was the headline-grabbing highlight of the recent Russian Donbas Forum, which took place in Occupied East Ukraine on January 28 and signaled a fresh escalation in Moscow’s seven-year hybrid war against Ukraine. Simonyan’s words carry significant weight. As chief editor of the Kremlin’s flagship television network RT (formerly Russia Today) and international news agency Rossiya Segodnya, she occupies a position close to the summit of Putin’s propaganda apparatus and is widely recognized as a trusted regime insider. While Simonyan does not officially speak for the authorities, it is highly unlikely she would have traveled to the war zone in eastern Ukraine and made such provocative statements without having first received a nod of approval from the Kremlin.(6)>>Russians and Ukrainians are close enough ethnically and culturally.Many observers have suggested that since most Crimeans were ethnically Russian, they were therefore loyal to Russia, and therefore welcomed annexation. But is it true? Would Crimeans have voted to join Russia if the referendum had been legal, free and fair? Back in the 1990s, Crimean separatists had tried to secede from Ukraine, in part to be closer to Russia. They were able to organize a referendum in 1994, which Kiev declared illegal. This referendum showed mass support for a “treaty based” relationship between Kiev and Crimea, and for allowing dual Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, which was banned under Ukrainian law. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he believes Russians and Ukrainians constitute one nation and that the countries should find a way to integrate.Putin made the comments in an interview with the American film director Oliver Stone ; material from the interview was used in a Stone film about Ukraine and the full transcript was published by the Kremlin on Friday.“I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people ... one nation, in fact,” Putin said. “When these lands that are now the core of Ukraine joined Russia ... nobody thought of themselves as anything but Russians.”VERY surprised that 41% of Ukrainians would agree with this statement. Thought it would be much lower. In the east of the country and among the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate such an opinion is shared by more than 60 percent of respondents. The thesis of "one nation" is shared by more than 80 percent of the electorate of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform. In the west of Ukraine, on the contrary - more than 70 percent disagree with this statement.In a recent article, Putin argues that "Ukraine's true sovereignty is possible in partnership with Russia." He also repeats an opinion he has expressed many times that Russians and Ukrainians are "one nation." (7)>>They simply have to ensure no NATO anti-ballistic missile system on Ukrainian soil.In addition to training, this declared presence of US troops serves as a potential trigger mechanism for major escalation. Russia has described the U.S. anti-missile shield in Europe as a “threat” and says it is taking “protective measures” to guard against it, the country’s state news agency TASS reported.Similar to US troops near the DMZ in Korea or NATO troops in west Berlin. They would have no chance of doing something practical defense-wise against a full scale Russian attack, but their loss would immediately ignite american outrage, guaranteeing a major American response/retaliation. This is how you can just send a few Americans or NATO troops into a country and have them serve as an effective deterrent. Biden said “no unilateral US troop deployments to Ukraine.” Bit of a moot point since there are already NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine, so he’s telling the truth - the US troops already there won’t be deployed unilaterally, they’ve already been joined by other NATO troops. I’m not sure it’ll take much for someone to invoke Article 5 if SHTF.The second thing is, I wouldn't call threatening the big investment that Russia has been pouring its influence behind to revive its struggling economy, namely, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, just a Horny Bonk. If Putin invades Ukraine and as a result the Americans and Germans begin dismantling the pipeline, Russia can't sell gas. Which means that the Oligarchs who make a lot of their money off of oil and gas will lose tons of money, and Putin may find himself falling down the stairs of his home in a "tragic accident that all Russians should learn from."(8)>>they need gas from Russia. So when Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in , offering to increase Russia’s gas supplies to Europe, regional gas prices (up a staggering 500% so far this year) fell and markets breathed a sigh of relief.Experts warned that Russia’s offer demonstrated that Europe is increasingly vulnerable to Moscow’s ability to turn on — and off, more importantly — gas supplies as and when it wants.Gas prices have risen this year because of factors including low gas inventories and increased demand following the economic recovery since the easing of COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as tighter-than-usual supplies from Russia. In Britain, some energy companies have gone bust, consumers face much higher energy bills and companies in many sectors including food production and agriculture have felt the pain.(9)>>Putin is putting in place the perfect plan to invade Ukraine this winter or the winter after... ? Do I believe Putin wants to invade Ukraine ? I think you have to give him first the justification for a invasion. ANY kind of NATO troops or US weapons in Ukraine would constitute a security risk for Russia . I do get and understand the reasons why Putin would react . What's going on in Ukraine is similar to the Cuban missile crisis , except this time NATO is encroaching on Russia . I also don't think Putin's gonna go in, but something about this buildup has got US intel spooked. Whatever they're seeing is apparently alarming enough that the rest of NATO seems to be united in countering this buildup.There's nothing to "pull out" of, Russia isn't at war with Ukraine. It's a civil war in a small region in east Ukraine, a region that wants to secede. That conflict has precisely nothing to do with any NATO dealings Ukraine has or has not. I would understand this discussion if Russia was marching on Kiev, but they aren't and the war isn't anywhere near the capitol.(10)>>The Nordstream pipeline, fiercely defended by Merkel, is a symbol of this foolish mentality. Former President of the European Council Donald Tusk called the decision to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline the biggest mistake of outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a conference on Sunday."From the perspective of EU interests, Nord Stream 2 is a bad project," Tusk said, as reported by Polish news outlet PAP.Tusk also stated that Merkel had recognized this in a conversation the two had had. He added that Merkel had been 'helpless' in the face of the lobbying of German business interests."I've done everything I could to make the EU less reliant on Russian gas, including establishing an energy union," said Tusk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been vocal in his opposition to the pipeline, calling it a "dangerous geopolitical weapon of the Kremlin". By bypassing Ukraine, the pipeline deprives the country of gas transit fees.Poland has been one of the most vocal critics of the pipeline, arguing that it hands Moscow influence over Central and Eastern European countries. Tusk has previously voiced open criticism of Merkel over the project.According to Tusk, the Netherlands, Austria and Hungary were in favor of the project, whereas the Czech Republic expressed neutrality. (11)>>The idea that Russia fears a "prosperous", "successful" Ukraine?Moscow's leverage in places like Ukraine is one way to preserve that influence. But there are other reasons why Ukraine is of deep interest to Russia — reasons that have more to do with history, faith, economics and culture. Ukraine, along with Georgia, has been the primary battleground, literally and metaphorically, for this struggle. Ukraine shares a common historical heritage with Russia. Its leaders both competed and worked together with Russia for centuries. Both Russia and Ukraine initially managed the breakup of the Soviet Union and the reemergence of Ukraine as an independent country reasonably well, but tensions over what Russians call their “Near Abroad” were present from the start. Those tensions grew over time as Russia sought to reestablish its hegemonic control over an increasingly assertive and nationally conscious Ukraine.Many consider Ukraine to be the birthplace of the region's Orthodox Christianity. Ukraine then became part of the Russian empire, and later part of the Soviet Union, where Ukrainian men were pivotal in the Soviet defeat of the German army in World War II. (Ukraine was perhaps the most important Soviet republic after Russia).(12)>>This must involve the EU and UK , the US , Russia and Ukraine . But for there to be any chance of progress toward resolving the Donbas conflict, itself necessary for improving relations between Moscow and the West, the parties will need to address certain core areas of disagreement relating to implementation of the Minsk agreements. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden set out their opposing positions on Ukraine in a video call on Tuesday and agreed that Russia and the United States should keep talking, the Kremlin said.Putin said he wanted clear international legal agreements that would exclude any further Nato advance to the east, and the removal of weapons that threaten Russia in neighboring states, primarily in Ukraine. He added that Russia was preparing clear legal documents to support its demands.Still, with Russia reversing its troop build-up and Washington interested in a June 2022 summit with Moscow, the EU and its member states may have an opportunity to work with the U.S. and UK to develop a joint deterrence strategy and revive the peace process.(13)>>if the Minsk agreements aren’t being implemented. All sides agreed that it was solid enough to proceed with next stages of Minsk 2.It is particularly interesting to see that the article advocates a change of sequence and timing of actions that are already a part of the Minsk Agreement. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, quoted by RIA Novosti.“We, of course, will very clearly state our approaches to the Ukrainian settlement, to the need to force the Kiev regime to fulfill its obligations written in black and white within the framework of the Minsk package of measures,” he said. According to Lavrov, the Ukrainian side will only listen to the United States.
