NATO says Kiev can use F-16 jets to strike targets ‘outside Ukraine’, despite Russia’s warning
More recently, some Russian officials have threatened that further western backing for Ukraine could lead to a global nuclear war.
Financial Times, Thu, 22 Feb 2024 https://www.sott.net/article/489220-NATO-says-Kiev-can-use-F-16-jets-to-strike-targets-outside-Ukraine-despite-Russias-warning
Ukraine has the right to strike “Russian military targets outside Ukraine” in line with international law, the Nato secretary-general has said for the first time since the start of the full-scale war nearly two years ago.
Jens Stoltenberg earlier this week acknowledged that the use of western-supplied arms to strike targets in Russia had long been a point of contention among Kyiv’s allies, due to fears of escalating the conflict.
“It’s for each and every ally to decide whether there are some caveats on what they deliver, and different allies have had a bit different policies on that,” Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe in an interview published on Tuesday.
“But in general, we need to remember what this is. This is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, in blatant violation of international law. And according to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defence,” Stoltenberg added. “And that includes also striking legitimate military targets, Russian military targets, outside Ukraine. That is international law and, of course, Ukraine has the right to do so, to protect itself.”
A Nato official confirmed to the Financial Times on Thursday that Stoltenberg said Kyiv had the right to self-defence, including by striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.
The comments represent a step up in rhetoric from Stoltenberg, who has previously referred to Kyiv’s rights under international law without explicitly mentioning attacks on Russian territory.
Comment: There have been a significant number of attacks on Russian territory, albeit mostly sabotage, but indeed this would represent an overt escalation, and to which Russia will be forced to respond: 14th Feb Massive explosion at Russia’s Voktinsk munitions factory
The debate over using western weapons to strike Russia is likely to intensify as some Nato allies begin to ship F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The US-made aircraft, if armed with long-range missiles, could significantly increase the potential range of Kyiv’s strikes into Russian territory.
In recent months Kyiv has stepped up strikes on military targets inside Russia with drones and long-range missiles, including an oil depot used by the Russian army near St Petersburg.
However, due to western sensitivities around attacks on Russian territory, Ukraine has only ever alluded to its responsibility. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s air defence forces, Yuriy Ignat, said that Ukraine “as a rule, does not comment”.
France and the UK, which have already supplied Kyiv with long-range missiles, have been cautious about endorsing such strikes for fear of escalation with Moscow.
In Germany, lawmakers are seeking to persuade Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, a long-standing demand from Kyiv as it could use the advanced German weapon to strike Russia’s supply lines.
The government’s parliamentary majority on Thursday was set to approve a motion asking Scholz to deliver “additional long-range weapons systems” to Kyiv, which many take to mean Taurus. The German missile has a slightly longer range than its French and British equivalents and is more sophisticated against reinforced structures, such as bunkers and bridges.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted last year that Moscow could strike western-supplied F-16s outside Ukraine’s borders, which he said risked bringing Nato into a direct conflict with Russia. “This seriously risks dragging Nato further into this armed conflict,” Putin said in June.” The tanks are burning and the F-16s will burn just as well.”
More recently, some Russian officials have threatened that further western backing for Ukraine could lead to a global nuclear war.
“We should do everything to stop [nuclear war] happening, but the clock is ticking faster and faster,” Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and prime minister, said in an interview published on Thursday.
“And in this I also see the impotence of western governments that are always saying the same thing: ‘The Russians are trying to scare us, they’ll never do it.’ They are mistaken. If the existence of our country is at stake, then what choice does our head of state have? None.”
Long-range strike capabilities for Kyiv have become more critical as the situation on the frontline becomes increasingly stalled in a gruelling artillery battle where Russian troops are able to outfire Ukraine’s by about three to one.
While Russia captured the town of Avdiivka last week, its first major battlefield victory since May 2023, the 1,000km frontline is largely static.
“It’s also important to actually recognise that even though the situation on the battlefield is difficult, we should not overestimate Russia and underestimate Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told reporters last week, noting that Ukrainian forces were able to carry out “deep strikes” into Russian-occupied Crimea and that they succeeded in sinking one of Russia’s ships in the Black Sea.
Comment: RT explains Russia’s position:
The way the US-made jet is designed means it might have difficulties operating from Ukrainian runways, sparking speculation that they could be flown from Poland, Romania or the Baltic states instead.
Russia has repeatedly warned such a deployment would be an escalation of the conflict and may even risk nuclear war, as the F-16 is capable of delivering B61 gravity bombs.
“So, if one of those planes takes off from a NATO nation – what would that be? An attack on Russia. I shall not describe what could happen next,” Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council, said in an interview on Thursday.
It’s becoming clear that the US is intent on escalating the situation in one way or another, and alongside this Russia has been revealing just how involved with the proxy war the West is:
Rethinking Ukraine: Putin and the Mystery of National Identity
It has always been the case that the sooner Ukraine and the West settle, the better deal they will get, and that is more true every day. But prolonging the war is an end in itself to those who make money from it.
Put simply, Russia will outlast its opponents.
the formation and dissolution of national identities……………………………………. I should be interested to know where Ukrainian nationalists claim their cultural heritage lies as proof of early national identity.
There is a historical and a current strain of Nazism in Ukrainian nationalism, and it is far too tolerated by the Ukrainian state; that is certainly true. But to claim all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis is a nonsense.
Rethinking Ukraine: Putin and the Mystery of National Identity
Craig Murray February 19, 2024
The genocide in Gaza – or more precisely the major NATO powers’ active and practical support for the genocide in Gaza – has forced me to re-evaluate my views on Ukraine in a manner more sympathetic to the Russian narrative.
The formation of national identity is a very curious thing Ivory Coast has just won the African Cup of Nations at soccer, beating Nigeria in the final. The competition arouses huge patriotic fervour throughout the continent of Africa. But the boundaries of all the African nations, except arguably Ethiopia, are entirely artificial colonial constructs. They cut right across ethnic, cultural and linguistic boundaries…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
I am aware I need to read more on the creation of national identity, because most of my thought is based on simple observation. It is however entirely plain that national identity can appear, and can be genuine, and can do so in a period of merely decades. There is now a Ukrainian national identity, and those who subscribe to it have the right to their state.
That they have a right to the former boundaries of Soviet Ukraine is a different proposition. Given the reality that it is plain a significant minority of the population do not subscribe to Ukrainian national identity, that civil war broke out, and that this relates to historic geographic fracture lines, it seems that division of territory is now not only inevitable but desirable.
All people of good will should therefore wish to see an end to fighting and a peace settlement, of which the territorial elements are somewhere close to the current lines between the forces, with Russia giving back some territory in return for recognition of its gains. The alternative is more death, human misery and economic malaise.
In particular, I was complacent in my dismissive attitude to the argument that the Western powers would back ethnic cleansing and massacre in the Donbass, by forces including some motivated by Nazi ideology. The same powers who are funding and arming Ukraine are funding and arming a genocide by racial supremacist Israeli forces in Gaza. It is beyond argument that my belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.
I apologise.
This does not mean that I was wrong to call the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian state illegal. I am afraid it was. You see, the law is the law. It has only a tenuous connection to either morality or justice. A thing can be justified and morally right, but still illegal.
The proof of this is that we have an entire legal structure governing transactions which is designed to achieve massive concentration of wealth. In consequence, the world is predicted to have its first trillionaires inside the next five years, while millions of children go hungry.
That is plainly immoral. It is plainly unjust. But it is not only legal, it is the purpose of the system of law.
I am, however, content that the “Right to Protect” doctrine has not become accepted in international law, because it is in general application neo-imperialist.
It was developed by the Blair government initially to justify NATO bombing of Serbia and the British re-occupation of Sierra Leone, and was used by Hillary Clinton to justify the destruction of Libya on the basis of lies about an imminent massacre in Benghazi. We should be wary of the doctrine.
(That is the major theme of my book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo).
The causes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are plain. Alarm at NATO expansionism and forward positioning of aggressive military assets encircling Russia. The Ukrainian coup of 2014. Exasperation at Ukrainian bad faith and the ignoring of the Minsk accords. The continuing death toll from shelling of Russian speakers in the Donbass.
The suppression of the Russian language, of Russian Orthodox religion and of the main pro-Russian opposition political party in Ukraine are simple facts. These I have always acknowledged: until I saw the positive enthusiasm of leaders of the Western states for massacre in Gaza, I was not convinced they could not have been addressed by diplomacy and negotiation. I now have to reassess that view in the light of new information, and I now think Putin was justified in the invasion.
It is not that any of the arguments are new. It is simply that before I did not believe that the West would sponsor mass ethnic cleansing and genocidal attack on the Donbass by extreme Ukrainian nationalist-led, Western-armed forces. I thought the “West” was more civilised than that. I now have to face the fact that I was wrong about the character of the NATO powers.
The alternative to Putin’s action probably was indeed massacre and ethnic cleansing.
The urgent need now is for negotiation to put an end to the war. On that my position has not changed. The war is a disaster for the people of Europe. The American destruction of Nord Stream has devastated the German economy and resulted in huge energy price increases for consumers all across Europe, including the UK. There was a step jump in food inflation which has not been pulled back.
The continuation of the war will of course prime the pump of the military-industrial complex. Massive defence spending is the most efficient way to ensure kickbacks to the political class who control the flow of state funds, through both legal and illegal forms of corrupt reward to politicians.
As Julian Assange said, the object is not to win wars: the object is forever wars, to keep the funds flowing.
The truth is that the longer the war persists, the less generous Russia will be over returning occupied territory to Ukraine. The deal which was torpedoed by the West nearly two years ago (and in truth the US played more of a role than Boris Johnson – I was actually there in Turkey) ceded only the Crimea to Russia, with a Minsk plus deal for the Donbass which would have remained Ukrainian. That is unthinkable now. The major question is how large a coastal corridor Russia will insist on keeping westward from Crimea, and whether Putin can be persuaded to accept less than the historical dividing line of the Dnieper.
I do not share the Russian triumphalism at the dwindling manpower resources of the Ukraine. With the obscene billions the West is pumping into remote warfare in Ukraine, that is not the factor you might expect. But the political will of the West to continue to pump in these billions is plainly sapping, as it becomes obvious there will be no successful Ukrainian offensive. Put simply, Russia will outlast its opponents.
It has always been the case that the sooner Ukraine and the West settle, the better deal they will get, and that is more true every day. But prolonging the war is an end in itself to those who make money from it.
Putin’s historical disquisition to Tucker Carlson opened some Western eyes to another national perspective, and gave rise to widespread claims by Western media that Putin was factually wrong. In fact almost all of his facts were correct. The interpretation of them, and the position of other facts which were omitted or given less weight, is of course the art of history.
There is no question I find more fascinating in history than the formation and dissolution of national identities.
My own perspective on this – and there is no subject on which it is more important to understand the vantage point of the person writing – is governed by two factors in particular. Firstly, I am a Scot and come from one of Europe’s oldest nation states, which then lost its independence and struggles to regain it after being submerged in a new “British” national identity.
Secondly, as a former diplomat I lived and worked in the political field in a number of countries with differing histories of national identity.
These include Poland, a nation state which the historian Norman Davies brilliantly quipped “Has emerged from time to time through the mists of history – but never in the same place twice”.
It includes Ghana, a state with an extremely strong sense of national identity but which was an entirely artificial colonial creation.
It includes Nigeria, another entirely artificial colonial creation but which has struggled enormously to build national identity against deep and often violent ethnic and cultural differences.
It includes Uzbekistan, a country which also has entirely artificial colonial borders but which the western “left” fail to recognise as an ex-colony because they refuse to acknowledge the Soviet Union was a continuation of the Russian Empire.
These include Poland, a nation state which the historian Norman Davies brilliantly quipped “Has emerged from time to time through the mists of history – but never in the same place twice”.
It includes Ghana, a state with an extremely strong sense of national identity but which was an entirely artificial colonial creation.
It includes Nigeria, another entirely artificial colonial creation but which has struggled enormously to build national identity against deep and often violent ethnic and cultural differences.
It includes Uzbekistan, a country which also has entirely artificial colonial borders but which the western “left” fail to recognise as an ex-colony because they refuse to acknowledge the Soviet Union was a continuation of the Russian Empire.
So I have seen all this, as someone with a training and interest as a historian, who has read a great deal of Eastern European history. I have also lived in Russia and was for a time both a fluent Russian and Polish speaker. I do not write this to claim I am right, but so that you know what has formed my view.
Putin argued at great length that there never was such a country as “Ukraine”. The BBC has run a “fact check” and claimed this is “Nonsense”.
There are several points to make about this. The first is that the BBC did not, as it claimed, go to “independent historians”. It went to Polish, Ukrainian and Armenian historians with their own very distinct agenda.
The second is that these historians did not actually take issue with Putin’s facts. For a fact-check it does not really examine any of Putin’s historical facts at all. What the historians did was put forward other facts they felt deserve more weight, or different interpretations of the facts referenced by Putin. But none argued convincingly for the former existence of a Ukrainian national state or even the long term existence of Ukrainian national identity.
In fact their arguments were largely consistent with Putin. The BBC quote Prof Ronald Suny:
Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks – Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers.
Which is absolutely true: 18th century Russia did not conquer a territory called “Ukraine”. Much of the land of Ukraine was under Muslim rule when conquered by Catherine the Great, and nobody called themselves “Ukrainian”.
The BBC then gives this quote:
But Anita Prazmowska, a professor emerita at the LSE, says that although a national consciousness emerged later among Ukrainians than other central European nations, there were Ukrainians during that period.
“[Vladimir Putin] is using a 20th Century concept of the state based on the protection of a defined nation, as something that goes back. It doesn’t.”
Which is hardly accusing Putin of speaking “nonsense” either. Prazmowska admits the development of Ukrainian national consciousness came “later than other Central European states”, which is very definitely true. Prazmowska herself has a very Central European take – the idea of the nation state in England, Scotland and France, for example, developed well ahead of the period of which she was speaking.
I should address the weakness in Putin’s narrative, around the origins of World War 2. Russian nationalists have great difficulty in accommodating the Stalin/Hitler pact into the narrative of the Great Patriotic War, and while Putin did briefly reference it, his attempt to blame World War 2 essentially on Poland was a low point. But even here, there was a historical truth that the standard Western narrative ignores.
The Rydz-Smigly–led military dictatorship in Poland after the death of Pilsudski was not a pleasant regime. Putin was actually correct about Munich: both the UK and France had asked Poland to allow the Soviet army to march through to bolster Czechoslovakia against Germany, and Poland refused (Ridz-Smigly did not trust Stalin, and frankly I don’t blame him). But this is an example of part of Putin’s narrative that countered the received Western tradition, that most well-informed people in the West have no idea happened, and is perfectly true.
The fusing back then of Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism, and the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists in WW2 against not just Jews but also Poles and other minorities, were also perfectly true.
It is a simple and stark truth there never was a Ukrainian state before 1991. There just was not. Lands currently comprising Ukraine were at various times under the rule of Muslim Khans, of the Ottomans, of Cossack Hetmans (possibly the closest thing to proto-Ukrainians), the Polish-Lithuanian confederation and Russian Tsars.
As I have stated on this blog before, the boundary between Polish/Lithuanian and Russian influence became settled on the Dnieper. I have also published this map before, showing that history resonates through the current conflict. [map at top of page]
There is also the case of third-party recognition of the Ukrainian nationality. I have read, for example, the letters and memoirs, both published and unpublished, of scores of British soldiers and civil servants involved in the Imperial rivalry with Russia in Asia. Many had contact with Russian officers or diplomats. They did clearly recognise different ethnic identities within the Russian Empire. The Russian diplomat Jan Witkiewicz was described repeatedly by British officers as “Polish”, for example. “Cossack” and “Tartar” were frequently used. I cannot recall any of these British sources ever using the description “Ukrainian”.
Nor did British officers who actually passed through Ukraine, like Fred Burnaby and Arthur Connolly, describe it as such in their memoirs. Now I am not claiming that if British imperialists did not notice something, it did not exist. But if there were a centuries-old recognition by the rival Empire of the existence of a Ukrainian national identity, that would definitely mean something. There does not appear to be such.
I should be interested to know where Ukrainian nationalists claim their cultural heritage lies as proof of early national identity. What is the Ukrainian equivalent of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt speech, of Scotland’s Blind Harry, or even of Poland’s Pan Tadeusz? (This is a genuine question. There may be areas of Ukrainian historic identity of which I am unaware).
Putin was not wrong about history (apart from the dodgy bit about origins of the second world war). But the correct question is whether any of this matters.
It is not whether Putin’s historical analysis is broadly correct, it is whether this matters. I am inclined to the view that Putin is correct that there is little evidence that the people living in Ukraine, hundreds of years ago, ever considered themselves a distinct national entity.
But they are all dead, so they don’t get a vote. The only thing that matters is the opinion of those living there now.
It seems to me beyond dispute that there is now a Ukrainian national identity. I know several Ukrainians who consider themselves joyously and patriotically Ukrainian, just as I know patriotic Ghanaians and even patriotic Uzbeks. The question of how this identity was forged and how recently is not the point.
I should add there are undoubtedly a great many Ukrainians whose sense of national identity is not linked to Nazism. There is a historical and a current strain of Nazism in Ukrainian nationalism, and it is far too tolerated by the Ukrainian state; that is certainly true. But to claim all Ukrainian nationalists are Nazis is a nonsense…………………………………………………………………………………………………
I am aware I need to read more on the creation of national identity, because most of my thought is based on simple observation. It is however entirely plain that national identity can appear, and can be genuine, and can do so in a period of merely decades. There is now a Ukrainian national identity, and those who subscribe to it have the right to their state.
That they have a right to the former boundaries of Soviet Ukraine is a different proposition. Given the reality that it is plain a significant minority of the population do not subscribe to Ukrainian national identity, that civil war broke out, and that this relates to historic geographic fracture lines, it seems that division of territory is now not only inevitable but desirable.
All people of good will should therefore wish to see an end to fighting and a peace settlement, of which the territorial elements are somewhere close to the current lines between the forces, with Russia giving back some territory in return for recognition of its gains. The alternative is more death, human misery and economic malaise.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/02/putin-history-and-the-mystery-of-national-identity/
Ten years after Maidan: Why won’t the West admit that the coup was based on a lie?
Felix Livshitz, RT, Sat, 24 Feb 2024, https://www.sott.net/article/489209-Ten-years-after-Maidan-Why-wont-the-West-admit-that-the-coup-was-based-on-a-lie
—
This feature was first published on February 6, 2023. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the events that took place in Kiev on February 22, 2014, we are again posting it on the front page.
Political scientist Ivan Katchanovski – of the University of Ottawa – revealed last year, in a paper, that the February 2014 massacre of Ukrainian protesters by sniper fire, a defining moment of the Western-backed Maidan coup, was not published by an academic journal for “political reasons.”
Evidence that external forces were involved has been suppressed for ‘political reasons’
‘The evidence is solid’
In a lengthy Twitter thread, Katchanovski first laid out the circumstances behind the rejection of his article, and the bombshell evidence included in it. The paper was initially accepted with minor revisions after peer review, and the journal’s editor offered a glowing appraisal of his work, writing:
“There is no doubt that this paper is exceptional in many ways. It offers evidence against the mainstream narrative of the regime change in Ukraine in 2014… It seems to me that the evidence the study produces in favour of its interpretation on who was behind the massacre of the protesters and the police during the ‘Euromaidan’ mass protests on February 18-20, 2014, in Ukraine, is solid. On this there is also consensus among the two reviewers.”
As the editor noted, the massacre was a “politically crucial development,” which led to the “transition of powers in the country” from the freely elected Viktor Yanukovich to the illegitimate and rabidly nationalistic administration of Aleksandr Turchinov, a former security services chief. It was endlessly cited in Western media as a symbol of the brutality of Ukraine’s government and an unprovoked attack on innocent pro-WesternMaidan protesters, who allegedly sought nothing more than democracy and freedom.
Rumors that the killings were a false flag intended to inflame tensions among the vast crowds filling Maidan, and provoke violence against the authorities, began circulating immediately.
No serious investigation into what happened was ever conducted by the Western media, with all claims that the sniper attacks were an inside job dismissed as Kremlin “disinformation.” However, even NATO’s Atlantic Council adjunct admitted in 2020 that the massacre was unsolved and that this “cast a shadow over Ukraine.”
Ask the witnesses
It may not remain unsolved for much longer though, due to an ongoing trial of policemen at the scene on the fateful day. The legal action has been unfolding for well over a year and has received no mainstream news attention at all outside Ukraine. Katchanovski drew heavily on witness testimony and video evidence that has emerged over the course of the trial in his suppressed paper.
For example, 51 protesters wounded during the incident testified at the trial that they were shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings, and/or witnessed snipers there. Many spoke of snipers in buildings controlled by Maidan protesters shooting at police. This is consistent with other evidence collected by Katchanovski, such as 14 separate videos of snipers in protester-controlled buildings, 10 of which clearly feature far-right gunmen in the Hotel Ukraina aiming at crowds below.
In all, 300 witnesses have told much the same story. Synchronized videos show that the specific time and direction of shots fired by the police not only didn’t coincide with the killings of specific Maidan protesters, but that authorities aimed at walls, trees, lampposts, and even the ground, simply to disperse crowds.
Among those targeted by apparently Maidan-aligned snipers were journalists at Germany’s ARD. They weren’t the only Western news station in town at the time – so too were Belgian reporters, who not only filmed Maidan protesters screaming towards Hotel Ukraina for snipers not to shoot them, but also participants being actively lured to the killing zone. This incendiary footage was never broadcast.
CNN likewise filmed far-right elements firing at police from behind Maidan barricades, then hunting for positions to shoot from the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina, minutes before the BBC filmed snipers shooting protesters from a room where a far-right MP was staying. The network opted not to report this at the time.
We needn’t rely purely on video footage. Over the course of the trial, no fewer than 14 self-confessed members of Maidan sniper groups testified they had explicitly received massacre orders, Katchanovski claims. By contrast, no police officer at the scene has said they were directed to kill unarmed protesters, no minister has come forward to blow the whistle on such a scheme, and no evidence Yanukovich approved of the killings has ever emerged.
Separate from the trial, leaders of the far-right Svoboda party have openly stated that Western government representatives expressly told them before the massacre that they would start calling for Yanukovich’s ouster once casualties among protesters reached a certain number. This figure was even actively discussed by both sides – were five enough, or 20? Or even 100? The latter was the final total reported, and indeed led to calls for the Ukrainian government’s abdication.
***
Katchanovski previously published a landmark study on the Maidan massacre in 2021, which has been referenced over 100 times by scholars and experts, already making him one of most cited political scientists specializing in Ukraine, according to Google Scholar.
Whatever the nature and source of the political pressure applied to the journal that led to the censoring of the dynamite paper, the move may well backfire massively, in the spirit of the Streisand Effect. Indeed, it could help the truth of what happened on those deadly days come out, and assist in those responsible for the killings being brought to justice.
It should also prompt a wider reconsideration of the nature of Maidan too, and the government it produced. The banning of opposition parties, attacks on the Orthodox Church, the closure of dissident media outlets, and the war on Russian culture and language are all consequences.
Comment: It is interesting that the West keeps claiming that Ukraine is fighting for European values for as the last paragraph shows, those values contain nothing democratic, just or fair in them. The West might be right though as European values in reality are getting closer and closer to those demonstrated in Ukraine, namely fascism and totalitarianism.
See also:
Pentagon investigating 50 cases of Ukraine military aid fraud
Rt.com 25 Feb 24
In one instance, shipping manifests were mysteriously changed before arms packages reached the country
The Pentagon’s inspector general has opened more than 50 cases into possible “theft, fraud or corruption, and diversion” of military aid to Ukraine. Allegations of graft surfaced almost immediately after the aid began flowing to Kiev and Inspector General Robert Storch has declared that more investigations are likely to follow.
Speaking at a briefing on Thursday, Storch said that though no allegations have been substantiated yet, “that may well change in the future,” according to Bloomberg. Additional investigations will be necessary “given the quantity and speed” of weapons being sent to Ukraine, he noted.
One case highlighted by Storch involved unidentified items arriving in Poland as part of a wider weapons shipment, before disappearing from a shipping manifest when they were sent across the border into Ukraine in June.
While the case of the disappearing equipment was highlighted in a report by Storch’s office last year, the inspector did not say at the time whether the items had been lost or stolen. Instead, his office stated that Pentagon personnel “did not have required visibility and accountability of all types of equipment during the transfer process.”
None of Storch’s reports to date have identified any outright criminality. However, Thursday’s announcement marks the first time he has acknowledged that his office is probing potential cases of “procurement fraud, product substitution, theft, fraud or corruption, and diversion.”
…………………………………………………………….. Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov was dismissed from his post over graft allegations in September. His successor, Rustem Umerov, announced in January that an audit had revealed $262 million in theft-related costs in weapons procurement. https://www.rt.com/news/593080-pentagon-ukraine-aid-fraud/
First 2 years of US proxy war against Russia finds both US and Ukraine in downward spiral
Between 2007, and February 24, 2022, former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden floated NATO membership to Ukraine. This was in violation of George H.W. Bush’s 1991 promise not to expand NATO eastward toward Russia.
Sensible diplomats and historians scolded the US that such a move east was a red line of provocation that would inevitably result in military Russian pushback. They compared it with JFK’s willingness to start nuclear war with Russia to prevent installation of Russian missiles just 90 miles from the US in Cuba.
But the reckless presidents occupying the While House pushed on with their lust to expand NATO till Russia was completely surrounded to the west by US allies, possibly nuclear armed, to both isolate and degrade Russia as a political rival to US European hegemony.
But it was President Biden, after 15 long years of Russian pleading with America to cease NATO expansion, to trigger a violent Russian response. While touting NATO membership for Ukraine, he poured hundreds of millions in weaponry for Ukraine to finish off the Russian leaning Ukrainian dissidents in the Donbas seeking independence from Kyiv. He rebuffed every Russian entreaty to consider Russia’s security concerns. He even told Russia thru his spokesperson that ‘Russia’s security concerns were not up for discussion.’ A first year political science student wouldn’t have made that mistake.
So, after 15 years of pleading, Russia’s military response began 2 years ago today. What has it achieved for Ukraine who lobbied the US hard for NATO membership? Over 400,000 dead soldiers and 10,000 dead civilians. Over 14 million Ukrainians displaced from their homes, with 6 million fleeing as refugees in 11 European countries. Over a third of the prewar Ukraine economy is gone, putting Ukraine on US/NATO life support just to function. The Ukrainian military is near collapse. That is quite a needless decline for the US and Ukraine to provoke a senseless war.
Tho certainly not bloody nor broken economically as Ukraine, the US is also in decline from the war it provoked 2 years ago. Our sanctions against Russia have failed spectacularly. Our call for worldwide support to defeat Russia have been, outside of NATO and a few others, ignored. Dozens of countries, large and small, have abandoned US hegemony to join BRICS AND SCO, two political economic organizations dedicated to a multi polar world of nations not dominated by America. The US has boxed itself into a decline in world influence from which it will likely never recover. That is both good and long overdue.
But rather than face reality and direct Kyiv to negotiate the best resolution possible in a hopeless war, the US slogs on,pledging Ukraine $60 billion more in weapons for which there a few soldiers left to fire.
America’s decline which began 2 years ago today is political, diplomatic and moral, a trifecta of stupidity of which the Big Fools in the Biden administration are too blind or simply unwilling to see.
Ukraine can’t maintain advanced US-supplied weapons – Pentagon
https://www.rt.com/news/592888-pentagon-audit-weapons-ukraine/ 23 Feb 24
The US reportedly rushed vehicles to Kiev without factoring in necessary repairs
The US has no plan in place to maintain, service or repair tanks, armored vehicles and air defense systems Washington has given to the Ukrainian military, Pentagon Inspector-General Robert P. Storch has admitted. The failure to plan “puts at risk Ukraine’s ability to fight effectively using the US-provided equipment, as well as the DoD’s readiness to address other national security threats if needed,” he added.
Storch revealed in two redacted reports released to the public on Tuesday that the US has delivered 186 Bradley and 189 Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), 31 Abrams main battle tanks, and an unspecified number of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine.
Washington’s Department of Defense “had not developed or implemented a plan” to maintain any of them, according to the inspectors cited in the reports, who warned that there is nothing to suggest the weaponry could be sustained past October 2024.
All of the weapons systems were taken from the US military’s own stocks “without limits,” under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, according to the reports. If this practice continued, it “may require the [Department of Defense] to choose between the readiness of [Ukrainian] units or the readiness of US Army units,” one official told the inspectors.
The US military-industrial complex has struggled to replace the weapons systems sent to Ukraine, due to shortage of parts and the lack of production lines or trained personnel. Maintenance was described in the reports as an “afterthought” for the Pentagon, whose main focus was to arm Ukraine “as quickly as possible.”
An official with the US European Command told the inspectors that “the current model would not be sustainable or effective over the longer term.”
“The DoD provided Ukraine with armored vehicles and air defense systems without a plan to ensure their long-term usefulness,” Storch said in a statement. “While the DoD is currently working on developing such a plan, the lack of foresight in this matter is concerning.”
The US military sent “limited spare parts, ammunition, and maintenance support” and “did not coordinate or tailor those efforts into a comprehensive sustainment plan,” according to Storch’s reports.
What was sent included “some” consumables and spare parts for field maintenance, as well as “additional items informed by US experience operating the weapon systems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria,” Storch noted.
While the sustainment is not required under the current congressional authority for sending weapons to Ukraine, “the weapon systems are not likely to remain mission capable” without it, the report said.
At least one US Patriot system has been destroyed by hypersonic missiles, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Last year’s Ukrainian offensive saw multiple Bradley and Stryker vehicles destroyed in attempts to advance against Russian defenses. There have been no public reports of Abrams tanks being used in active combat operations so far.
February 2024: 10th anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine
Russia preferred to maintain the Ukrainian state and did not recognize the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. It strove to find a solution that would protect the rights of Russian speakers (language, administrative autonomy) without removing them from Ukraine. The Minsk I (September 2014) and Minsk II (February 2015) agreements were neutralized by the Western signatories who later admitted having signed them only to give themselves time to arm and train the Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s categorical refusal to the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO since this would be followed by the installation of American missiles on its southern flank.
February 24, 2022, was not the beginning of a war with Ukraine but the last stage of the war that had begun in 2014.
Used as a disposable tool by the United States and NATO against Russia, Ukraine is in ruins and its future is in jeopardy.
22.02.24 – Europe – Samir Saul – Michel Seymour https://www.pressenza.com/2024/02/february-2024-10th-anniversary-of-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
In the coming days, we will surely hear about the so-called second anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Western governments, corporate media broadcasting the official pro-US line all day long, and “experts”-propagandists of this line will deliver their pseudo-analyses. All will be based on the double premise that the conflict in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and that it consists of a Russo-Ukrainian war unilaterally provoked by Russia to satisfy the expansionist ambitions of “dictator” Putin.
According to the US/NATO/Kiev “narrative”, everything was peaceful and normal before February 24. On that day, without the slightest justification and warning, like lightning in a blue sky, a Russian invasion descended on innocent Ukraine. As good Samaritans, the USA and its camp rushed to the aid of the victim by becoming its source of dollars and weapons, not to mention mercenaries and NATO “advisers” to operate these weapons systems. The conflict was supposed to last at most a few weeks, which was all the time that was needed to bleed Russia, while economic “sanctions” would bludgeon it and open the way to a “popular uprising” on the model of the “colored revolutions” (i.e. a putsch sponsored by the Western camp to carry out regime change and install a new leadership which would place Russia under the control of US imperialism).
That is the official “story”, rehashed ad nauseam, by “major” media, with all analysis of what is happening shut out. Only pro-US/NATO/Kiev propaganda is permitted because it would not survive if serious analyses were also allowed. It turns out that censorship, presented as the practice solely of “authoritarian regimes” against which Western “democracies” are leading a worldwide struggle in the name of “values”, is very much at home in the West. It is endorsed, sometimes hypocritically, sometimes proudly.
In propaganda and the now culture, there is no history. Events occur as sudden appearances or random occurrences based on spontaneous impulses. The “good guys” (the US and those who are aligned with them) and the “bad guys” (those who stand up to them) are known in advance, nothing else. With this simplistic and distorting grid, a conflict only begins when the “bad guys” retaliate, and never before, when the “good guys” have taken the initiative to threaten or attack them, leading to the retaliation. These initial actions are simply erased from memory.
Choosing February 24, 2022 as the starting date of the conflict in Ukraine shows bias, myopia and ignorance. It is equivalent to becoming a sounding board for the official “narrative”, the primary aim of which is to conceal the central role of Western governments as initiators of the conflict in Ukraine. Their aim is less Ukraine itself than the utilization of Ukraine, first against the Soviet Union, then against Russia.
A conflict that dates back to 1945
The Ukrainian question went through four phases: from 1945 to 1956, it was a war of sabotage and terrorism; from 1956 to 1990, there was a lull; from 1990 to 2014, a new conflict was brewing; in 2014, the war began.
As early as 1945, well before February 24, 2022, the ancestor of the CIA recruited German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators. Surrendering to the Americans, Reinhard Gehlen put his network of agents in Eastern Europe at the service of the US. Ukrainian ultranationalist collaborator Stepan Bandera joined Gehlen in Germany and, with his organization, waged a bloody war against the USSR in Ukraine, a Soviet territory. The USSR won and the KGB assassinated Bandera in 1959. It was in 1954 that Khrushchev transferred the Crimean peninsula to the Republic of Ukraine, then part of the USSR.
Latent tension since 1991
Continue readingUkraine: how nuclear weapons continue to increase the risks, two years on
nuclear weapons industry has profited shamelessly off the world’s concerns over nuclear war. Since the conflict in Ukraine and the increased nuclear tensions that followed, profits for the companies that produce nuclear weapons drove up, with an $15.7 billion increase in share and bond holding and $57.1 billion increase in loans and underwriting.
https://www.icanw.org/ukraine_two_years_how_nuclear_weapons_increase_the_risks— 24 Feb 24
Two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the risk of nuclear weapons use continues to escalate, while the looming threat of their use protracts this conflict with a high civilian cost. Nuclear-armed states and their allies waver between condemning nuclear threats and engaging in irresponsible practices such as nuclear sharing and championing their own nuclear deterrent. But the rest of the world is pushing back, condemning these behaviors and demanding the total elimination of these weapons of mass destruction through the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Melissa Parke, Executive Director of ICAN, said: “This terrible war with its use of nuclear blackmail and overt threats to use nuclear weapons is a wake up call that the world needs to heed – as long as the nuclear-armed states hang on to their arsenals and cling to the misguided doctrine of deterrence, we face the likelihood these weapons will be used sooner or later. Nuclear weapons should be abolished before it is too late.”
The escalating nuclear risk
Following Vladimir Putin’s initial explicit threats to use nuclear weapons, we have seen nuclear-armed states and their allies continue to erode the decades-long nuclear taboo over the past two years. The escalation in nuclear rhetoric has not just been seen in Russia (Medvedev made explicit threats just this last weekend) but also in Israel and North Korea, and in recent calls by Polish and German politicians and NATO leaders for a European nuclear weapon. Nuclear threats heighten tensions in an already dangerous environment, reduce the threshold for use of nuclear weapons, and greatly increase the risk of nuclear conflict and global catastrophe.
The risk is also increased by the irresponsible practice of nuclear sharing, or stationing nuclear weapons, which seems to be on the rise. In June 2023, Vladimir Putin said Russia delivered its first tactical weapons to Belarus, though it is unclear how many nuclear weapons were transferred. This is a reckless and dangerous escalation that was widely condemned. But for NATO states, and particularly the five states that host US nuclear weapons, simply condemning Russia’s nuclear sharing without taking any action is insufficient and hypocritical. Particularly as the US and the UK also seemingly explore the return of US nuclear weapons to Lakenheath. Any nuclear sharing complicates decision making and increases the risk of miscalculation, miscommunication and potentially catastrophic accidents. It is time to end this practice that threatens peace and security and puts us all at risk.
Deterrence theory and nuclear weapons profiteers at the heart of the problem
The use of nuclear blackmail by Russia in the context of the Ukraine war has demonstrated the flawed nature of nuclear deterrence which, instead of ensuring stability, gave Russia the cover to commense its brutal and devastating invasion. Yet Russia’s nuclear threats have failed to deter the US and European countries from supplying Ukraine with weapons and money to fight Russia.
With current conflicts directly involving two nuclear-armed states, it is clear that nuclear deterrence doesn’t keep the peace. NATO states are playing into Putin’s hands by insisting nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent. It only strengthens Putin’s position to promote his own “deterrent” now, whereas rejecting deterrence and reinforcing the nuclear taboo would limit his options.
Meanwhile, the conflict has also accelerated the global nuclear arms race, with the nine nuclear-armed states increasing spending to $82.9 billion in 2022. As a result, the nuclear weapons industry has profited shamelessly off the world’s concerns over nuclear war. Since the conflict in Ukraine and the increased nuclear tensions that followed, profits for the companies that produce nuclear weapons drove up, with an $15.7 billion increase in share and bond holding and $57.1 billion increase in loans and underwriting.
The global response to nuclear risk: the TPNW
The way to respond to the heightened risk of nuclear war is not to increase nuclear arsenals or threaten nuclear retaliation. The answer is for all countries to condemn nuclear threats, end their reliance on nuclear deterrence and join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW specifically outlaws the threat to use nuclear weapons, as well as the irresponsible practice of nuclear sharing.
All nuclear-armed states need to take urgent steps to de-escalate tensions and to break free from the dangerous doctrine of nuclear deterrence, and nuclear disarmament must be an essential element of a negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine. Multilateral nuclear disarmament is the only guarantee to prevent other nuclear-armed countries from following Russia’s lead and using their nuclear weapons as a shield to commit war crimes and terrorize civilian populations. Joining the TPNW is a crucial step to delegitimize nuclear deterrence and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Over the past two years, the states parties of the TPNW have been central in pushing back against any and all nuclear threats and challenging the false narrative of nuclear deterrence. At the First Meeting of States Parties in 2021, they condemned unequivocally “any and all nuclear threats, whether they be explicit or implicit and irrespective of the circumstances.” At the second meeting in New York,they agreed “to challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing this with the risks and assumptions that are inherent innnuclear deterrence.” It is time for all responsible states to join the TPNW.
Buried trial verdict confirms false-flag Maidan massacre in Ukraine
Oligarchic and far-right leaders and organizations, including neo-Nazis, who were involved in this false-flag mass killing to seize power in Ukraine, were hailed by Western and Ukrainian politicians, media, and even many academics as heroes and defenders of democrac
Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist and professor Ivan Katchanovski on the hidden origins of the Russia-Ukraine war
Ivan Katchanovski / February 20, 2024
A nearly one-million-word verdict from Ukraine’s Maidan massacre trial has recently confirmed that many Maidan activists were shot not by members of Ukraine’s Berkut special police force or other law enforcement personnel but by snipers in the far-right-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations a decade ago today. The verdict, handed down on October 18, 2023, states specifically that this hotel was controlled by Maidan activists and that an armed, far-right-linked Maidan group was in the hotel and fired from it. It also confirms that there was no Russian involvement in the massacre and that no massacre orders were issued by then President Viktor Yanukovych or his ministers. The verdict concludes that the Euromaidan was at the time of this massacre not a peaceful protest but a “rebellion” that involved the killing of Berkut and other police personnel.
This is an important official acknowledgement, not only because the violence represented the most significant case of mass murder, violent crime, and human rights violations in independent Ukraine to that point, but also because of the subsequent conflicts to which it has led or contributed. Notably, the massacre precipitated the violent overthrow of Yanukovych and his government, who were falsely blamed for carrying it out. It then spiralled into the Russian annexation of Crimea, the subsequent civil war and Russian interventions in the Donbas, and the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the Western powers, which Russia dramatically escalated with its illegal invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
There has been, however, a blackout of the verdict’s confirmation of the Maidan snipers in the Ukrainian media and, with a few notable exceptions, the Western mainstream media. Moreover, in an op-ed piece in The Bulwark, an online neoconservative magazine, author Cathy Young misrepresented the verdict, falsely claiming that it had found the Berkut police responsible for the deaths of 40 of the 48 protesters killed. Young also denied and openly whitewashed the existence of Maidan snipers and the far-right’s involvement in the Maidan massacre, labelling it a “conspiracy theory” despite clear and overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the verdict, the trial, and the investigation, as well as in academic studies of the event. Such deliberate omission and misrepresentation has been perpetrated in spite of the fact that the verdict’s Ukrainian text, as well as automatic English translation of the relevant excerpts, are publicly available, and in spite viral tweets describing and quoting from it.
The verdict by the Ukrainian Sviatoshyn District Court in Kyiv, along with the findings of the investigation by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office (GPU), comprise a de facto official admission—on the part of Ukraine’s justice system no less, which cannot be called independent—that on February 20, 2014, at least 10 of the 48 Maidan activists killed, and 115 of the 172 wounded, were shot not by Berkut or other law enforcement personnel firing from government-controlled areas but by Maidan snipers operating in Maidan-controlled locations. The government investigation admitted that one dead protester and 77 wounded Maidan activists were not shot from Berkut-controlled sectors, and therefore did not charge anyone for those crimes. Of course, it stands to reason that if these activists were not shot by government personnel, they must have been shot by the Maidan snipers.
The verdict, issued by the Kyiv court shortly before the tenth anniversary of the Euromaidan, shows that the Maidan massacre narrative that has been propagated by governments, the mainstream media, and a variety of info-warriors in the West and in Ukraine is false. The proponents of this narrative have called the Maidan a peaceful protest and presented the massacre of the Maidan protesters as a crime perpetrated by government snipers on the orders of Yanukovych and his government. The prosecution, the victims’ lawyers, the New York Times and other mainstream media (with some notable exceptions), Wikipedia, self-proclaimed experts, and info-warriors denied the presence of snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings, the shooting of Maidan protesters by these snipers, and the far-right’s involvement in this mass killing, and claimed instead that such ideas comprise a “conspiracy theory” and “Russian disinformation.” The exceptions included reports by ARD, BBC, The Nation, Jacobin, Court House News, Ekathimerini (Greece), Jyllands-Posten (Denmark), Weltwoche (Switzerland), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and El Nacional (Spain)—in addition to Canadian Dimension, which has published some of my other writing on this subject………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Wikipedia editors who deliberately and literally misrepresent and whitewash the false-flag Maidan massacre also systematically misrepresent and whitewash the far-right in Ukraine and its involvement in the Holocaust. These editors include Wise2, also known as Prohoshka, who has also propagated “scientific anti-Semitism” and whitewashed the involvement of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in the 1941 Lviv pogroms during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, justifying it on the basis of “Jewish collaboration.” Another Wikipedia editor, who uses the handle My Very Best Wishes, brazenly whitewashed the fact that monuments in Canada to the Galicia Division and Roman Shukhevych are in fact commemorating a division of the Waffen-SS and a Nazi collaborator. A scholarly article by a noted historian at the University of Ottawa also listed My Very Best Wishes as one of the editors involved in an intentional distortion of Wikipedia’s history of the Holocaust in Poland. This editor also recently wrote, falsely, on Wikipedia’s biographical page on Elon Musk about the latter’s supposed “involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Various publications and websites have identified Wise2/Prohoshka as a far-right Svoboda activist named Svyatoslav Gut, and My Very Best Wishes as Andrei Lomize, a biophysics researcher at the University of Michigan.
Fabricated evidence against Berkut, no massacre order by Yanukovych
The trial verdict also confirms the absence of evidence for any order by Yanukovych or his government to massacre the Maidan protesters. This is a crucial official acknowledgment, since Yanukovych and his government were overthrown on the basis of accusations of having ordered the massacre. Joe Biden, then US vice-president, wrote in his memoirs that during the Maidan massacre, he called Yanukovych and told him that “it was over; time for him to call off his gunmen and walk away,” that he “had lost the confidence of the Ukrainian people … and he was going to be judged harshly by history if he kept killing them.”
In addition to acquitting two Berkut policemen for killing and wounding the Maidan activists, the verdict states that all five accused Berkut officers had been blamed, baselessly, for killing 13 Maidan protesters and wounding another 29. This is further evidence of trumped-up, politically motivated charges.
The decision to convict in absentia three Berkut officers, who had been transferred by Zelensky to the Donbas separatists in a 2019 exchange, is a political one. The charging of these officers for the murders of 31 of 48 Maidan protesters killed, and the attempted murders of another 44 of 80, was based on a single, fabricated forensic examination, not to mention posited on the notion of collective responsibility. This single forensic examination of bullets, undertaken five years after the massacre, reversed the results of some 40 earlier forensic bullet examinations, including a computer-based examination which showed that bullets taken from the bodies of killed Maidan protesters did not match the Berkut Kalashnikov rifles.
The three Berkut policemen were convicted in absentia based on this single, fabricated forensic examination as well as on their presumed collective responsibility for the murders of 31 protesters and the attempted murders of 44 more. On the same basis and contrary to all other evidence, a Berkut commander was also convicted of the manslaughter of four protesters and the wounding of another eight, for supposedly having ordered his officers to fire indiscriminately during the evacuation of internal troops by the Berkut company, and its subsequent retreat after one Berkut officer was killed and another wounded……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The verdict means that a decade since this crucial massacre—one of the most documented cases of mass killing in history—nobody is in prison for the murders and attempted murders of Maidan activists and police officers, or for shooting at foreign journalists. The silence on the part of those who deny the false-flag Maidan massacre, who call these claims a “conspiracy theory” and thereby whitewash the mass murderers of the far-right, is both deafening and revealing.
Media blackout and whitewash
All Ukrainian media reports omitted the verdict’s confirmations of the false-flag massacre. The Western media (with a few notable exceptions) also omitted this information. Moreover, writer Cathy Young, mentioned above, deliberately misrepresented the Maidan massacre trial verdict, branding the revelations about Maidan snipers operating in the Hotel Ukraina a “conspiracy theory” and claiming, falsely, that the verdict did not indicate that Maidan protesters were shot from the hotel or other Maidan-controlled locations, and that it did not disprove involvement by Russian snipers. ………………………………………………………………………………
Oligarchic and far-right leaders and organizations, including neo-Nazis, who were involved in this false-flag mass killing to seize power in Ukraine, were hailed by Western and Ukrainian politicians, media, and even many academics as heroes and defenders of democracy. They were invited for government visits and talks at universities, including in Canada. Government leaders, journalists, investigators, Maidan lawyers, NGO activists, partisan researchers, and info-warriors who branded the reports of the Maidan snipers and their false-flag massacre a conspiracy theory and propaganda were hailed as defenders of justice and human rights, and given grants by Western governments, foundations, and universities, including even a Nobel Peace Prize.
It is doubtful that any of the above parties will suffer any consequences for such fraud and whitewashing of mass murderers, in particular those of the far-right. Ukraine and Ukrainians continue to suffer the consequences of this massacre, which has spiralled into major conflicts, including the ongoing and devastating Russia-Ukraine war, which is also a dangerous, unwinnable proxy war undertaken by the West against Russia.
Ivan Katchanovski teaches at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova and co-author of Historical Dictionary of Ukraine (Second Edition) and The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, But Join Much Less. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/buried-trial-verdict-confirms-false-flag-maidan-massacre-in-ukraine-2024
Macron and Zelensky sign military deal
18 Feb 2024 , https://www.sott.net/article/489024-Sell-out-Macron-and-Zelensky-sign-military-deal
The ten-year pact mirrors defense agreements Kiev recently signed with Berlin and London
France and Ukraine signed a bilateral security pact on Friday during President Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to Paris. While President Emmanuel Macron did not offer Kiev any ironclad military commitments, he promised another €3 billion in aid over the rest of 2024, as well as “cooperation” in the area of artillery.
The agreement states that France views the prospect of Ukraine’s accession to NATO positively, as “a useful contribution to peace and stability in Europe.” The largely symbolic deal is designed to help “pave the way towards Ukraine’s future integration into the EU and NATO,” French media noted, citing officials.
The pact follows a similar agreement struck with Germany earlier in the day, and another signed with the UK last month. All three are set to last ten years.
Last month, Macron announced that France would supply Kiev with 40 more SCALP-EG long-range cruise missiles and “hundreds of bombs,” promising to finalize the bilateral security agreement on an upcoming trip to Kiev. The trip, which was to run from February 13-14, was called off by the French side due to security concerns, according to French media.
Zelensky is set to ask Western sponsors for more financing at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, while the situation on the front lines of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is escalating, with Kiev facing severe personnel and ammo shortages.
Moscow has condemned Western deliveries of long-range weaponry such as French SCALP-EG cruise missiles, which Kiev has used to strike Russian infrastructure in Donbass, causing numerous civilian deaths. Russia maintains that further military aid to Kiev will only delay the end of the conflict without changing the final outcome, and lead to unnecessary deaths.
Comment: The ‘leaders’ of Europe are selling out Europe and the welfare of their countries while submitting to a globalist anti-human agenda.
See also:
Ukraine can’t join NATO while in conflict – Netherlands
16 Feb 24, https://www.rt.com/news/592609-ukraine-cant-join-nato-netherlands/
Accession to the US-led bloc is a “sensitive process” that may require intermediate steps, Dutch caretaker PM Mark Rutte has said
The Netherlands’ caretaker prime minister, Mark Rutte, has refused to say whether he would support Ukraine’s membership of NATO at an upcoming bloc leaders’ meeting, insisting that admitting Ukraine to NATO is not feasible while the conflict with Russia is ongoing. Rutte has been described in the media as a frontrunner to become the next secretary-general of the US-led bloc.
The politician made the comments at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday in response to a question about whether EU prime ministers would “personally support” Ukraine’s membership bid at the next NATO summit in Washington in July.
The bad news is – as long as the war is raging, Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO,” Rutte has said. “The good news is that we can learn from the European Union,” he added referring to the EU approach of implementing “intermediate steps” that countries take on “the way to accession” as opposed to NATO’s process that goes “from nothing to full membership.”
Rutte admitted that the last time the question of Ukraine’s membership arose, Kiev was left “dissatisfied.” As a result, there is a need to “work carefully” to see “what next step is possible” so as not to “overpromise.”
Ukraine applied to integrate with the NATO Membership Action Plan in 2008 and a decade later enshrined in its constitution membership in the US-led bloc as a strategic foreign policy goal.
At last year’s NATO summit in Vilnius, the bloc’s leaders said that Ukraine’s “rightful place is in NATO,” but failed to provide clear commitments or describe a timeline.
While the question of Ukraine’s membership is likely to be discussed at the next NATO summit in July, some Western politicians have warned against expecting a “big leap forward on that.”
Russia views NATO expansion towards its border as a major security threat. President Vladimir Putin has argued that Western powers have used Ukraine to antagonize Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin called the West’s approach to Ukraine a colossal political mistake, pointing to NATO’s 2008 promise to accept the country into the bloc, as well as the Western-supported coup in Kiev in 2014.
Germany and Ukraine sign ‘long term’ security deal
Zelensky said that the details of the agreement “are very specific and involve long-term support,” and that the pact proves that one day “Ukraine will be in NATO.”
https://www.rt.com/news/592570-germany-ukraine-security-deal/ 17 Feb 24
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said the agreement proves his country will join NATO
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky have signed a security pact under which Berlin will supply Kiev with military and economic aid for another ten years.
Inked on Friday, the agreement commits Germany to providing “unwavering support for Ukraine for as long as it takes in order to help Ukraine defend itself” and restore its 1991 borders. In addition to retaking the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, this feat would also involve the seizure of Crimea from Russia, which some American officials and Kiev’s former military chief view as next to impossible.
On top of military aid, the plan binds Germany to training Ukrainian police officers, transferring weapons manufacturing technology, paying for green energy projects, and a range of other efforts to help the Ukrainian government “continue providing services to its people”
Speaking at a ceremony in Berlin, Zelensky said that the details of the agreement “are very specific and involve long-term support,” and that the pact proves that one day “Ukraine will be in NATO.”
Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest Western backer, behind only the US. To date, Berlin has given Kiev €22 billion ($23.7 billion) in assistance, including €17.7 billion in military aid, according to figures compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. When aid transferred via the EU is included, Germany has handed over a total of €28 billion to Ukraine, Scholz said on Friday.
In addition to signing the decade-long pledge to Ukraine, Scholz announced a new package of military aid worth €1.1 billion. It will include 36 self-propelled howitzers, 120,000 artillery shells, and additional ammunition for Ukraine’s German-provided Iris-T air defense systems.
Germany’s outlay has hurt its own military readiness, with the New York Times reporting in November that training exercises are routinely canceled due to ammunition shortages, while German soldiers have yet to fire their latest howitzers, all of which have been sent to Ukraine.
Scholz’s decision to sanction Russian energy imports has also hammered the German economy, with industrial output falling by 2% last year, while the entire economy shrank by 0.3% in the same time period, according to the country’s Federal Statistical Office. One in three German manufacturers is currently considering moving abroad, Federation of German Industries (BDI) chief Siegfried Russwurm told Bild on Saturday, citing persistent inflation and high energy costs.
Ukraine set to lose key Donbass city – White House
https://www.rt.com/russia/592511-key-donbass-city-loss/
With Russia poised to capture Avdeevka, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has called on Congress to give Kiev more ammunition
Russian forces are preparing to capture the Donbass stronghold of Avdeevka after “particularly intense” fighting, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Thursday.
Situated just ten kilometers north of Donetsk, Avdeevka had been used by the Ukrainian military as a staging ground for attacks on the city since 2014, many of which targeted civilians. They constructed deep bunkers there, with Russian military bloggers comparing the town to a “fortress.”
Fighting around Avdeevka is “particularly intense,” Kirby said at a press conference. “We’re getting reports from the Ukrainians that the situation is critical, the Russians continuing to press Ukrainian positions every single day,” he stated, adding that “Avdeevka is at risk of falling into Russian control.”
It is unclear how many troops Kiev has lost attempting to hold Avdeevka. Kirby linked the impending fall of the town to ammunition shortages, a problem well documented by Western media in recent months. The White House spokesman called on Congress to pass a bill that would give Ukraine a $60 billion infusion of military aid, stating that this would “provide Ukraine with the artillery shells that they desperately need to disrupt these Russian assaults.”
While the US Senate passed the bill earlier this week, it remains a non-starter in the House of Representatives, where the slim Republican majority have demanded that it include a major tightening of US immigration law and “real border security provisions,” according to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Ukraine appears determined to hold Avdeevka at all costs, with President Vladimir Zelensky naming Aleksandr Syrsky – a general infamous for tolerating severe losses – as commander-in-chief of his armed forces last week. Syrsky immediately deployed Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade – an elite Western-armed unit made up of the remnants of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment – to Avdeevka, where they relieved the beleaguered and depleted 110th Mechanized Brigade.
While Ukrainian officials have not conceded defeat in Avdeevka, German reporter Julian Roepcke claimed on Thursday that “the Ukrainian army is in the process of pulling out,” while Russian forces are “quickly advancing inside and around the town.” According to Roepcke, the Russian flag is now flying at the entrance to the town, at the same spot where Zelensky took a selfie during a publicity visit in December.
Cut in Half by Russians, Avdiivka is Reinforced by Ukrainian Nazi Azov Battalion – Massive Missile Strike on Reinforcements Causes Some Defenders to Withdraw
The heavily fortified frontline town of Avdiivka, split in two by Russian forces, witnesses some of the Ukrainian defenders begin to retreat of some areas to ‘more favorable positions’.
The supply lines of the AFU in the southern sector are now under extreme pressure.
Besides the multi-pronged ground attack that is overextending the defenses, a reason for the rapid advance of the Russian forces in Avdiivka is the aerial support: a FAB guided munition drops almost immediately on any place where a concentration of Ukrainian military is spotted.
Telegram channel Ukraine Watch reported that in the first third of February alone, the Russian Aerospace Forces dropped about 460 aerial bombs on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This includes FAB-250/500/1500 and ODAB.
his partial folding of the defenses is a bit surprising because up until a couple of days ago, the New Ukrainian commander Syrsky was still rumored to be withdrawing elite units from the Rabotino and Verbove fronts to immediately reinforce Avdiivka.
This reportedly includes more of the 47th as well as the 3rd Assault Brigade, better known as the Nazi ‘Azov’ battalion.
These brigades were thrown directly into the center of battle.
Simplicius the Thinker reported:
“After witnessing the nightmare of Bakhmut, they [Ukrainians] now understand what awaits the soldiers in Avdiivka. But what’s most interesting, is you’ll recall that their narrative was previously that Bakhmut was a ‘successful operation’ because it allegedly grinded down such a disproportionate number of Russian troops, that the city defense served its purpose. But when that truth is put to the test in reality, Ukrainians instead recognize that it’s actually them getting ground down amid desperate calls for withdrawal. If Bakhmut was such a ‘success’, then they would be happy to keep their men in Avdiivka and inflict another such ‘success’ against Russian attackers.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Ukraine Watch reported:
“The current situation can be described as difficult. That is, the enemy is now advancing practically along the entire front line, and we have switched from offensive actions to a defensive operation. And the aim of our defensive operation is to exhaust the enemy’s forces, to inflict maximum losses on him, using our fortifications, our technical advantages in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare and the maintenance of prepared defensive lines. The situation at the front was very tense, with the enemy making offensive movements in several directions, in fact all along the line of sight of my group.”
And finally, today, Intel Slava reported that the Ukrainian army is retreating to ‘more advantageous positions’ in Avdiivka, according to Dmitry Likhovy, speaker of the Tavria Armed Forces of Ukraine group.
“In Avdiivka, a maneuver is taking place where our units are withdrawing to more advantageous positions. Supplies to Avdiivka and evacuation from there are difficult. But a reserve logistics artery, prepared in advance, is being used.” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/cut-half-russians-avdiivka-is-reinforced-ukrainian-nazi/
Putin ‘tried everything possible’ to make peace – Ukrainian diplomat
One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.
Fri, 29 Dec 2023, Rt, https://www.sott.net/article/487425-Putin-tried-everything-possible-to-make-peace-Ukrainian-diplomat—
The possibility of compromise was “very real” in April 2022, a key negotiator from Kiev’s side has said
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sought a peace agreement with Ukraine in April 2022, according to Ambassador Aleksandr Chaly, a senior member of the Ukrainian delegation. Chaly expressed this perspective during an event at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) in early December, where he dissected the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The ex-deputy foreign minister is an associate fellow at the Swiss government-funded foundation. His remarks drew media attention after a video of the event was released on YouTube last week.
Chaly analyzed the roots of the ongoing conflict, which he described as “hard competition” for Ukraine that the US and the EU have with Russia, as well as Kiev’s intention to join the EU and NATO. He stressed that “Russian aggression” was not inevitable since the parties had sufficient tools to resolve their differences.
The diplomat called Putin’s decision to launch the special military operation against Ukraine in February 2022 “a crime” and “a mistake” and claimed that the Russian leader had been misled by “his own propaganda and his intelligence services.”
Approximately a week into hostilities, Chaly believes Putin recognized the unrealistic nature of his expectations and actively pursued a negotiated resolution. He based his analysis on his personal involvement in the peace talks, which were first hosted by Minsk and culminated in Istanbul in late March with a draft truce approved by both sides.
“Putin … tried to do everything possible to conclude [the] agreement with Ukraine,” the diplomat told the audience. The text made concessions to Kiev, compared to Russia’s initial position, and it was Putin’s “personal decision” to accept it, he claimed.
“We’ve managed to find a very real compromise. Putin really wanted to reach some peaceful agreement with Ukraine.”
Chaly mused that “for some reason,” the Istanbul communique did not transform into an actual treaty.
The Ukrainian delegation’s leader, MP David Arakhamia, said in late November that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Ukrainians to “just continue fighting” during his visit to Kiev after the conclusion of the talks.
Remarks made by senior Russian officials, including Putin, partially back Chaly’s account. The president said during his year-end press conference this month that Russia’s stated goals of demilitarization and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine would have been addressed under the pre-approved treaty.
“Options remain to either achieve them through an agreement or by force,” Putin stressed.
Comment: The article adds to the list of articles that document what the Ukrainians and Russians tried to achieve. Putin talks about de-Nazification. Does that translate to de-NATOification, if what Russia wanted most of all, was for Ukraine to stay neutral and give up on NATO membership?
See also:
November 27, 2023 The Jews and Boris Johnson: Zelensky’s top political ally looking for scapegoats as Ukrainian elites begin to accept the war is lost In this article Tarik Cyril Amar writes:
Regarding the peace negotiations that took place in Belarus at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, Arakhamia tells Moseichuk that the Russian delegation had one “key aim”: to make Ukraine accept neutrality and give up on NATO membership. In Arakhamia’s own words, “everything else” Russia talked about, such as demands regarding “denazification, Russian-speaking populations, and blah-blah-blah” was merely “cosmetic political seasoning.”
Let that sink in: Here is a prime negotiator for Ukraine and one of the Zelensky regime’s top men stating explicitly that all that peace really required at that very early stage in the large-scale war was Kiev committing to neutrality and giving up on its NATO ambitions. The war could have stopped in the spring of 2022; that is, one-and-a-half very bloody years ago. And for Kiev, this would have come at the price of giving up on a NATO ambition that is based on a false promise encapsulated in the foul compromise of the 2008 Bucharest summit. A pledge which the West has no intention of keeping, as demonstrated again at the 2023 Vilnius summit.
Arakhamia’s admission proves, once more, that there have always been viable alternatives to war. Western information warriors still denying this empirically established fact simply refuse to face their own terrible responsibility for stonewalling negotiations throughout. Likewise, Arakhamia demonstrates that everyone in Ukraine and the West who insisted that Moscow’s war aims were maximalist (whether to obliterate Ukraine as a state or to march right through it to, at least, Berlin) were flat out wrong, whether by mistake or on purpose. At least, that’s if we believe Arakhamia, who had direct experience with real representatives of Russia and not the fantasy creatures populating the minds of all too many Westerners, from Yale to Berlin. And note: Arakhamia has absolutely no reason to embellish Moscow’s record.
[…]
One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.
After Belarus there were talks in Türkiye:
November 22, 2023 Boris Johnson derailed Ukraine peace deal – key Zelensky ally The article has many links to articles that describe how the peace negotiations were derailed. In the article there is:
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson played a key role in derailing a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, telling Ukraine to “just continue fighting,” top Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia has said. Arakhamia, the head of President Vladimir Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, was the chief negotiator at the botched peace talks in Istanbul, held early into the ongoing conflict.
The MP made the bombshell revelation on Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel. “Russia’s goal was to put pressure on us so that we would take neutrality. This was the main thing for them,” he said. “And that we would give an obligation that we would not join NATO. This was the main thing.”
However, Kiev did not actually trust Moscow to keep its word and did not want to reach such a deal without third-party “security guarantees,” Arakhamia claimed, while revealing the lead role in derailing the agreement was played by Johnson.
When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with [the Russians] at all. And [said] ‘let’s just continue fighting.’
The pivotal role played by Johnson in Ukraine’s decision to scrap the draft agreement with Russia – signed by Arakhamia personally in Istanbul – has long been rumored, with initial reports on the matter emerging in Ukrainian media as early as May 2022. Until now, however, it was neither denied nor confirmed by any of the parties involved.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
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